New Guild and Karazhan Updates

As you may (or may not) know, Kikidas is the Jonah of guilds. The last three guilds she was in self-destructed (or mini-destructed). As such, she was guildless for a little while there.

And may I say, when you are guildless, the game makes SURE YOU KNOW IT! You log in to 10 lines of 'You are not in a guild.'. And it repeats periodically. Like, gee, I didn't know. Thanks for reminding me! Let me go get in a guild, thanks to you!

Anyway, the guild that I was the PuG member of before I left for Florida accepted my application. Yay! So I'm now a member of Resolve. Which I like the name of... resolve. You resolve problems, you resolve difficulties... you resolve the boss with a well timed shadowbolt.

So, we had another Kara run Thursday night (they seem to like to do midnight Kara runs, which I can't do very often) and I convinced (okay, annoyed them into it!) them to let Dhark (my husbands rogue) join in.

It was gorgeous, yet again. Dhark was drooling. We had one tank (paladin) for the entire thing. When "two" tanks were needed, the shaman or healadin would get aggro temporarily while the rest of the group downed the primary target.

Then yesterday, I went into Kara with my hunter, Kiya. Now, Kiya isn't very well geared, mixed greens/blues. Kiya is a beast master with an lynx cub from the beginning of the Blades Edge Mountains (by Sylvanaar), named Bumper.

I was in there with three mages and one warlock for competition in damage. While my overall DPS wasn't the highest, it was consistently in the 400+ range. (One mage was 500, one was 450s, one was on par with me, warlock was 300) And for overall DAMAGE DONE, I was at the top (not counting pet).

We one shotted Attumen. We three shotted Moroes (only one priest and one ice-trap. Bumper did us all proud by being the tank on the adds and I did hunters proud by kiting and trapping my add until it was ready to be killed). We three shotted Maiden (we had a few 'cleanse' issues). We one shotted BBW. All this between the hours of 7pm (we got off to a slightly late start at 7:15) and 10:30pm.

Now, this was a KoU group. This was a SECOND TIER KoU group. Everyone in blues, maybe a few greens and a few purples. Our tanks were well geared and our healers were well geared, which gave us the time the low DPS needed to down the bosses. So, considering that ... WE DID AWESOME. Go Knights of Utopia: Annuu's Group!!

Dungeon Guide: MTe 2: Boss Fights

A Warlock's Overview: Please feel free to add information.

Selin Fireheart:
o Very similar to the end boss in SV. He channels. Kill the crystal before he finishes. When he channels the crystal, he gets mana from it. When he has mana, he uses fel explosion (AoE) until he's out of mana. Thus, the less mana he has, the better off you are. He does a drain life spell that is rather nasty, should be dispelled (paladin only?) or interrupted.
o Overall? Piece of Cake.

Vexallus:
o Similar (sort of) to Curator. He summons little flares that need to be downed. The killer of the flare gets a DoT that can stack up to 30 times. At about 15-20%, Vex enrages and needs to be burned down fast. Apparently, this is a fight that depends on the healer's ability to keep people alive, more so than a DPS fight. I disagree. Kill Vexallus really fast, and you don't have too many of those flares to deal with, do you? Reports in WoWWiki are mixed, one says flares appear with health (in which case, doesn't matter how fast or slow you kill him), another says it's time based, in which case the faster the better.
o Overall? Piece of Cake.

Priestess Delrissa:
o Similar (sort of) to Moroes. You get a random assortment of four additional mobs with the Priestess. Though she looks like a demon, she's listed as humanoid.
o NONE OF HER ADDS ARE SEDUCABLE. This really burns me. It really does. Sheeping and hunter trapping work, but seducing doesn't. So, if you have a group of warlocks, this sucks for you.
o The demons ARE banishable. Stack a CoS on it to make the banish last longer.
o The adds are fearable. Clear the room before Delrissa's completely if you use this method, and try to keep the feared mobs back there.
o Priestess can be hunter trapped. However, we did best when we killed her first.
o Warlock's imp (Fizzle) is one-two shottable, but he'll resummon, so keep an eye out for it.
o Hunter's pet (Sliver) has a fast attack, it needs to be kept off of the healer so he can heal.
o Shadow Word: Pain could/should be left on the dispeller (if only one person can dispel it), to wake them up from any CC effects that may happen to them.
o To my knowledge, her adds can be sheeped, hunter trapped and possibly sapped. Seduce won't work. NOT TAUNTABLE!!

Priestess' Group Members
* Apoko: Shaman. Will purge effects off of people, including Righteous Fury and Holy Shield.
* Brightblaze: Fury Warrior. Kicks and stuns.
* Duskhallow: Warlock. Fears and SoC's.
* Garaxxas: Demon Hunter. Freezing trap on group and warstomp (stun)
* Nightstrike: Rogue: Cheap Shot, Kidney Shot and Gouge (stuns), vanishes and poison (crippling).
* Salaris: Warrior. Intimidating Shout is the biggest concern group wise, also mortal strike and charge abilities.
* Yazzai: Mage: Polymorph is the biggest concern, all the rest are ice-mage abilities (ie: blizzard, frost nova, etc)
* Zelfan: Engineer: AoE Sheep and frontal flame arc.

o Strategy: Tanks are very little use in this fight to some extent, since they are not tauntable. The tank should hold mobs on them as much as possible, but once the DPS really gets going, it may be hard to hold onto the target. Have a well established kill order, so the healer isn't healing too many DPS at once.
o The priestess does negligible melee damage, killing her first is ususally suggested.
o Keeping the intimidating shout warlord CC'd until last is the best, otherwise OUR CC breaks while we're running. Hard to fear something when you're running in fear yourself.
o Priestess's healing spells have no cooldown. She can spam heal herself and others. Keep her controlled or silenced/kicked.
o Overall: VERY GROUP DEPENDENT, not just your group, but what her group consists of. We had a hard time with it as we had two warlocks in the group and only one demon, so our CC was limited.

Kael'thas Sunstrider:
o Overall, almost anticlimatic. The group pull before him was harder than he was.
o Phoenix: Have someone kite it away from the group until it dies. Once it dies, all DPS need to kill the egg. If you do not kill the egg, the phoenix is reborn stronger. We used a warlock to do this, since DPS could be maintained on both Kael'thas and the phoenix.
o Kael'thas does summon more than one phoenix in the fight. Be ready.
o Flamestrike shows up as three glowy balls swirling around one another. Initial damage is quite severe, so move out of it.
o At 50%, the tank becomes nothing more than an ornament. This is when Gravity Lapse theorhetically starts. (I wasn't watching his % of life)
o Gravity Lapse was really very fun! Though it's "swimming", it's very FAST swimming, so don't overdo it. Avoid the floor and avoid the water balls, and just keep DPSing him. Try to keep health up at this time as during Gravity Lapse, you're taking constant damage from Kael'thas.
o Begin Gravity Lapse by the door out, so the water-balls have to come all the way to you. Then ZIP past them to by Kael'thas and keep DPSing him there, making them have to return to you from across the room.
o In between Gravity Lapses, just DPS to the max on Kael'thas. He doesn't do melee damage, just recovers then does Gravity Lapse again.
o Overall: Anticlimatic.

Dungeon Guide: MTe 1: Trash Mobs

A Warlock's Overview: If you have anything to add, please feel free to leave a comment.

Mage Guard:
o Abilities : AOE Stun, Glaive Throw (interrupts casting and stuns), Bubble Shield: Move mobs out of the bubble shield if possible, it reduces damage by 75%. It also seemed to break hunter trap, but this is not corroborated.
o Seducable? : Yes, but seems to break frequently.
o Nifty WoWWiki Tips: None.

Blood Knight:
o Abilities: Heals themselves and others. CC them or kill them fast.
o Seducable?: Yes.
o Nifty Tips: Mages can spell steal a seal they have on themselves to give their casts additional HOLY damage

Magister:
o Abilities: Casts 10% faster every cast. Can AoE. Need to LoS or silence-pull them.
o Seducable?: No.
o Nifty Tips: The haste buff is stealable.

Warlock:
o Abilities: Imp pet can be one-two shotted easily. Casts immolate.
o Seducable?: Yes.
o Nifty Tips: Mages can spellsteal their fel armor for +250 spell damage.

Physician:
o Abilities: Uses poison on weapons (what type of healer is this?!) and prayer of mending.
o Seducable?: Supposedly.
o Nifty Tips: None (what, did you mages think you could spell steal something ELSE? What more do you want!)

Sister of Torment:
o Abilities: Seduces random target (including tank!)
o Seducable?: No, but can be enslaved!
o Nifty Tips: None

Smuggler:
o Abilities: Teleports and AoE's. Very annoying!
o Seducable?: Not to my knowledge. We tried, but not sure if it kept getting broken or if he was just immune.
o Nifty Tips: None

Witch:
o Abilities: Nothing too special.
o Seducable?: Yes
o Nifty Tips: None.

Sentinel:
o Abilities: AoE damage, don't stand by it if you're ranged!
o Seducable?: I wish. Drain Life and Siphon Life also don't work (damn mechs)
o Nifty Tips: None.

Wyrms:
o Abilities: Nuttin special when they're alive. When dead, they give you a 1% boost to damage per wyrm. So best to keep moving when you down a pack of them to get the best bang for your buck!
o Seducable?: C'mon. They're wyrms.
o Nifty Tips: AoE is very pretty. And apparently, WoWWiki recommends that if you have a poor computer, do not look at them while they die. EXTREME GRAPHICS!

Keeper:
o Abilities: Detonates something that causes all the wyrm packs to act as one pack.
o Seducable?: Dunno. Killed her too fast.
o Nifty Tips: Nothing.

Wretched Dudes:
o Abilities: Nothing to worry about overall, bruisers do a type of mortal strike (reduces healing done to target), Skulkers are dual-wield melee and Husks are mages.
o Seducable?: Yes.
o Nifty Tips: Nothing special.

Magister's Terrace

I, along with 99.799% of all WoW players, went into the new 5-man dungeon last night.

Yay for new content!

In deference to the patch and the new zone, I took my "A Team" character, ie: Kikidas, along with the two members of my triangle, Owaru and Boon, to the new instance. Now, it's a 5-man, not a 3-man, so we took along two "A Team Groupies", namely Owaru's lovely and talented wife, Neshura the Beast Master Hunter and Absitively, a short-masculine version of Kikidas with a higher pitched voice (also known as a gnome warlock).

We stepped into Magister's Terrace and started to have fun! A bit of muddling around as we figured out that Mage Guard bubbles will break traps and that Mage Guards, though seducable, broke it really really easily.

We discovered that Magisters need to die fast and are not seducable. We discovered that Blood Knights seem to go from 5% health to 85% health with no warning (Who healed them, damnit!). I discovered I can 1-shot the non-elite imps (woot woot!).

The first boss we started without any warning (our hunter says "Oops." in ventrilo!) and downed him without any problem (well, he managed to channel his first gem all the way through.) and had a fun chuckle at the silly silly hunter.

The second boss hallway was really fun. Two warlocks make for pretty pretty AOE. The second boss, dead swiftly! Woot woot.

We get to the third boss and suddenly our delightful run turns into hell-fest. According to what WE knew, "seduce should work" on the mobs. Yeah well, they didn't. I mean, what the hell. SHEEP works but not SEDUCE? Seduce is about the most easily broken of all CC. A small, almost unnoticed, animation alerts people to the seduction. It lasts only 12-15 seconds if not resisted or broken early. It depends on the relatively small mana pool of the succubus, who also isn't exactly robust in the health department either. And they're IMMUNE?

So, whomever wrote that all CC works on the humanoids by the priestess needs to be shot. For our group makeup, we had a cruddy cruddy grouping. We had the naga warlord, the blood elf warlock, the blood elf fury warrior and the satyr hunter. The only CC we could do was banishing the hunter and having OUR hunter chain trap someone and possibly fearing one (though that did backfire on us a little bit, as one of our wipes was due to a feared Sliver running into friends.)

We tried multiple multiple multiple frustrating times. The warlord, though we tried to trap him, would get off an intimidating shout and there goes everyone! The warrior, though no one did anything to him at all, invariably came and pummeled me to death, while I was running in fear. (This happened twice.) The satyr did manage to stay banished. The imp was one or two shotted adequately. The priestess ran amok. We kept dying before we could get the warrior feared.

Unfortunately, our hunter had to go, it was getting late for her. So we called in a good guild friend, a mage named Gaaron. And lo and behold, they can be SHEEPED (I hate you, Blizzard). After Gaaron joined, we one-shotted the group. Satyr stayed banished, warlord stayed sheeped and warrior stayed feared. Priestess died. Warlock died. Warrior died. Warlord died. Satyr died. We lived!

As an aside, the boss fight is resettable if you run far enough. :) We learned this.

Then a brief jaunt to a big ass pull that we handled decently once we figured out how to pull 'em. (Our pally's consecrate was right where we were trying to seduce) With one wipe on them, we downed them the second time.

Then to Kael'thas. Ah, Kael'thas. This was a very fun fight! We wiped once on it, in part due to me starting on Kael'thas too early, and though I didn't do more than dot him up and turn my attention to the phoenix, he still decided to eat me. The second attempt was... humerous!

So, we decide to have Absitively kite the phoenix (not DPS it, just kite it until it died), then we turned and killed the egg. Otherwise, we all kept on Kael'thas. Unfortunately, we didn't take into account that the phoenix has that little aoe thing going on, and Absitively dragged it over a few of us before we learned to move out of the way! Heehee. You should have heard Boon, "How the hell am I supposed to heal EVERYONE?!" he would shout.

Then the reverse-gravity thing. NEAT-O! Like swimming, only much faster! We keep at it, swimming around. I almost got eaten by an orb because I wasn't paying attention (and in fact, my health dropped down too low!). At 10% or so, everyone but Absitively and myself are dead. I die at 4% (like I said, health was too low to survive the periodic damage) and then Absitively, brave little Absitively... killed Kael'thas. All by his lonesome! It was a brave sight. This little gnome standing toe to toe with Kael'thas and shooting him with a shadowbolt. All of us holding our breath that we wouldn't have to fight him again! And down he goes! Woot woot! WARLOCK POWER!

All in all, a fun evening, if a little frustrating (Seduce should work, damnit!) at times.

Dungeon Guide: Hellfire Ramparts

I'm stealing a page from Bremm's book. I'm going to start writing brief guides on the dungeons. Sure, they have this all listed at WoWWiki... but WoWWiki isn't me. I'm going to talk about pulls, tricks, bosses and all of it done with my typical style and flair. You can't wait to continue, can you?

So to begin... the first instance you likely encounter upon hitting Outlands... Hellfire Ramparts.

There are several quests involved with this instance, although you'll probably go in here enough at the beginning that if you do it the first time without the quest, don't worry, you'll be back.

(What, you want me to link the quests for you too? What do I look like, your personal guide to Outland dungeons?... oh wait, that's what I'm doing, isn't it? Tough luck. Click the link above.)

As soon as you zone in you're confronted with the 'if you take one step too far forward, you start a fight' scenario. A GREAT way to start your first instance!

Two fellows guarding a bridge, with a patrol. Fun fun, no? Typically, a first time tank will tank too far from the entrance, and the pat will aggro and try to eat your healer. Or, a DPS-Melee (I'm looking at you, rogues!) will be behind the mob and grab aggro (and it will go try to eat the healer. You know.. healing is a very dangerous job. Go ahead and respec to feral/balance elemental/enhancement tankadin/dpsadin or shadow ... it's safer.) ... (I jest. Without you darling healers, we wouldn't be able to do anything!)

You make it across that pesky bridge and associated mobs and right around the corner is a group of three (with archers, Blizzard loves us) and a doggy patrol. Here's where mistake #2 usually happens -- people fight right at the bridge! And then the patrol aggros and then the healer dies.

By this time, the healer is getting pissed. He's already died twice (or three times!) and the instance has barely started!

Crowd control, unless you've got a few 70's running with you, is the name of the game. The dogs can see through stealth, so rogues are limited in their use in this instance at times. The nice thing is the dogs are non-elite, though they put out some nasty damage. They don't NEED to be crowd controlled, just tank-controlled long enough for the DPS to kill them. If you want to CC them, go ahead and do that to. Whatever floats your boat. Just keep them off of your cloth healers, or you'll have to start looking for another healer. Mark one dog to die first, the second dog to die second, so your DPS focus-fires them.

This instance is riddled with caster/ranged type mobs. The archers are no big deal, we've all learned how to pull archers. People seem to forget the rules for casters. They get impatient and don't let them finish their aborted spell casts (they try to cast, then can't, then run up and try to cast, and can't, then run up... and so forth) and start trying to kill them before they're pulled.. which pisses off the melee DPS and the tank, just sayin... Healers are notorious for getting caster aggro that someone is trying to kite by staying in the line of sight of said mob.

The big first group of casters you encounter is 7 pulls in. (2 at head of bridge, 1 patrol, 2 at foot of bridge, 3 group stationary, 3 group patrol, 3 group stationary, 4 dog group stationary...) You see a group of three casters and one melee class. That melee person is a nasty customer. He isn't CCable and does a fair bit of damage. The casters are cake, with one exception -- they do short burst fears.

The usual tactic is to have the tank thwack the melee and go high tailing it around the corner. CC pick up their targets as applicable. So, they're casters. So if you're pulling them to your CC (hello, hunters, I'm looking at you now!) be ready with some form of spell interrupt/silencing shot or have a friendly mage or shaman stop their casting. Now, the other nasty thing they do, as I mentioned above, is short burst fear. This is why we don't fight them where they are, that and there's a dog patrol that walks to their position.

So, CC what you can, if you can't CC it, assign a DPS to kill it. They usually can die pretty quick with good DPS and a good healer who can keep the DPS and the tank alive. All other DPS should focus on the melee, since it does quite a bit of damage and has a decent chunk of hit points.

Fun, no? Whether you pull the dog patrol or not depends on whether it's on it's way up to you or not. The next pull is a beastmaster and two archer types. This part is really important... KILL THE BEASTMASTER FIRST AND FAST. All out DPS. Don't worry about aggro. Just hose the fellow. If you don't, he'll call in three dogs. Which, in a good group, probably nothing to worry about but in a new group, a wipable issue. Ideally, the two archers were CC'd just as the tank was engaging the beastmaster, so the DPS can just focus on the beastmaster and not worry about CCing.

Snag the doggy patrol after this group. Next is a group of four - two casters, two melee. Nothing special. Then you approach the hallway of the first boss. Here my memory is a bit fuzzy on the pulls, so forgive me if I leave one out.

There's a group (usually by a chest) under a pavilian. It has two dogs and at least two orcs (sometimes 3, not sure if it's a heroic vs. non-heroic difference). Cake.

There's a group next to them, two dogs, one melee. Cake.

On your left, half hidden by a wagon, is a group of one melee and two casters. This is right in the boss patrol zone, so you HAVE to pull them back. If I'm dps, I'll instant something on them and run away. Rogues and kitties can sprint, hunters can cheetah. Just run around the corner, then the tank can pick up the pieces.

One thing to be cautious of here... okay, a few things!

1: The boss. Try not to aggro him at this stage.

2: a lone patrol. He patrols in such a way that if you try to yank him before you clear the dog-3-pull, you'll usually grab them too. An experienced puller can get him first without clearing. However, to be on the safe side, I usually clear one group first. I usually kill that group and when he pats into their position, grab him. Alternatively, you can grab him with the wagon-group.

Once you've cleared the patrol and the wagon, now you have the boss. He has two healers who are CCable (or killable!) and ... obviously big ugly himself. You have a few options - kill the healers first, then the boss... OR kill the boss first while CCing the healers. The healers DO heal him, so you don't want to leave them loose. If you have a mage(s), sheep healers are usually left til last, otherwise, other forms of CC are considered relatively unreliable for this and usually the healers are killed first. The tank should stay on the boss at all times.

The boss charges and knockbacks his charge target. So don't fight him with your ranged DPS having their backs to mobs. This is what's known as a Bad Idea. Thankfully, it also doesn't happen often anyway.

Boss down. Yay! Skirt the wagon by hugging the left, then run along the diagonal crack in the floor to the opposite wall. You skip two or three groups on the right this way. There's a two pull in front of the door.

Up the stairs is a 5-pull of casters. The same method works if you want to use it. Another method I've seen used, if you have good AOE... is LOS pull them around so they are clumped in the doorway, then AOE the hell out of the casters. The tank needs to keep the melee on himself and off the healer/dps. You do NOT want to fight them in their hallway, there is a two-pull that you can be feared into.

Nab the two pull by the door. Do not go out the door. Repeat, DO NOT go out the door!

To your left is a five-pull (2 dogs, 3 orcs), to your immediate right is a 3 pull (melee and two archers) and patrolling around in a circle is a patrol (2 dogs, 1 orc). DO NOT pull the patrol first.

The order is right THEN left or patrol, then patrol or left. I typically nab the patrol after the right group.. pull the patrol when it is on the right side of the door. The 5-pull can be a wipe-fest if you aren't careful. Usually you have one caster in the group and two melee. CC as best you can. Remember, dogs can smell stinky rogues.

The 5-group is usually standing on a chest. Yay! Chest!

Now you have the other half of the room. A 3-pull of two archers and one melee is usually next, because the other pull is tricksy.

The last pull in the circle is a group of two casters, one melee and two dogs. The melee is a minor patrol around a box in the corner. HE CAN BE SAPPED without aggroing the dogs. The rogue needs to sneak onto the hall by him and sap him at his furthest pat from the dogs. This is the tricksy part. 1: sneaking around him and 2: the hall by him has a two pat of it's own you have to avoid.

Otherwise, cake!

You want to go to your right (from entrance) first. Kill the two pull patrol. At the end of the hall are two casters. You can fight them where they are.

Now you're on boss #2. Yay! Boss! Here's another trick. He doesn't move. Really, he doesn't. Some strategies are to have a ranged DPS "tank" him by holding the most aggro. Melee DPS and the tank can go in and whackitywhack on him, as long as they don't steal aggro. He summons felhounds, which the melee can then pick up and kill. The boss does a levitate-kick ability. Don't worry, you won't fall off, it's a tether ability. He also curses people -- if you don't have a good decurser, you want to make sure you aren't standing near to other people when you're cursed... it's a good way to get your party pissed at you. Melee are at a disadvantage for that, but ranged should be spread out anyway.

Now, after he dies, you do have to deal with the felhounds. (FYI: Heroic Mode: Tankadin, Healadin, Warlock, Mage and Some-Other-Mana-DPS-With-No-Melee-Abilities (ie: it wasn't a hunter, but I don't recall what it was)... NOT a good group for this. The felhounds eat your mana. And then we died. Because we couldn't kill the damn non-elite felhounds. It was pathetic.)

Yay! Boss 2 down. The last ramp has a group of two patrolling, then two stationary.

As soon as the stationary mobs are dead, the dragon will land and drop off his rider, so don't go nuts on the stationary mobs. Conserve mana. (By the way, if you wipe on the boss, these stationary mobs respawn.)

The tank needs to pick up the rider and we all start to have fun. The dragon, while in the air, spits fireballs on the ground. Now, you'd think this is common sense... but...

MOVE OUT OF THE FIRE.

Usually when the rider is close to dead, but not quite dead, Nazan will descend. The tank NEEDS to pick up the dragon. It usually bee-lines for the healer.

This means the tank has the rider AND the dragon hitting him. If he's a good tank, the rider will stay on him until dead. His main concern is the dragon at this point. ALL DPS STAY ON THE RIDER until he's dead, then switch to the dragon.

An alternative strategy is to have some ranged DPS on the dragon while it's in the air.

Nazan does frontal arc fire bursts while on the ground. The tank needs to move, either in a circle to stay out of the fire, or pull back or something along those lines. Again...

MOVE OUT OF THE FIRE.

There are multiple strategies on this fight listed on WoWWiki.

IMNSHO, unless you have a good group of DPS and healers, a NEW tank to Outlands can't tank the dragon. They just don't have the hit points or armor to do it. This doesn't mean they really can't, I just haven't seen it done without a good party behind them. With your brand spankin new group... well, at least your repair bill at this point in time isn't bad.

Once Nazan is dead, a chest will spawn. If you kill Nazan on top of the chest, don't miss it, he'll cover it with his body.

To get out, go to the entrance of Nazan's platform and the instance door is down and to your right. You can jump down and right on outside.

And you have just completed Hellfire Ramparts. Congratulations!

N.B. The melee classes in HR hit very hard. If you are cloth DPS, be VERY CAREFUL not to draw aggro from the tank because you will probably get 2-shotted (level/mode appropriate).

(Fun in the Sun, Day 4) aka (SHAMU)

Today we went to Sea World! That's right, an overpriced theme park where they exploit poor innocent sea creatures. I had a blast!

We saw Shamu first and the orca exhibit. It was ... well, it didn't go according to plan. They were maybe 3 minutes into the show with non-Shamu orca's when they just decided that they weren't going to play today. The instigator literally DROPPED its trainer in the water (the trainer was doing the stand on the nose while they propel themselves through the water) and swam away. The second orca followed suit. Finally, one of the orcas decided to come back and play.

As the trainer's said... when a killer whale decides it doesn't want to perform today, there isn't much they can do about it!

Finally, Shamu came out! He was HUGE. He also didn't have any trainer in the water near him at all.. probably due to his size and that he almost drowned someone once? Anyway... it was great.

We saw the dolphin and whale show, which was also spectacular. We rode the Kraken, which was an amazing roller coaster. Saw some sharks and beluga whales, a few puffins and penguins.

A good day all around, especially since it contained almost my entire family.

Tomorrow I return home, I can't wait for that. I miss my husband and my doggies and my kitties.

(Fun in the Sun, Day 3)

I slept.

No, really. I slept almost all day. It was thrilling.

Tomorrow is Sea World... with Chloe, brother, sister-in-law, uncle, aunt, 10-year-old twin boy cousins, grandma, grandpa and mom and dad.

That should be interesting.