SeaWorld Orlando is a theme park and marine zoological park located in Orlando, Florida. Although separately gated, it is often promoted with neighboring parks Discovery Cove and Aquatica as well as Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, all of which are owned and operated by SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment.
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Took my 16 year old son here for the first time. I haven't been here in years and thought that SeaWorld would be a good introduction to theme parks.
First, the good stuff!
Expedition Quest, such an awesome ride!! It was so much fun and was the highlight of our trip. Hit this one early in the morning. We came back in the afternoon, and the wait was like 65 minutes. NOTE: If you have a bag of ANY KIND, you must rent a locker, you cannot bring it on with you! Also, SeaWorld mentions a lot about height for the ride but not weight. The seats are narrow, and the seat belt only goes so far. I would say, if you are 300lbs + double check before riding.
Arctic Experience, so much fun stuff to see! Can really get up close to see Beluga Whales, Walruses (in the morning, trainers do tricks with them), penguins, and so much more! Plus, in the heat of the day, it's the best place to cool off!
Shark Encounter, since my son loves sharks, this was a highlight for him! He loved going through the tunnel, seeing hammerhead sharks, sand sharks, etc. He even saw Shark teeth, which he thought was super cool!
We didn't go on any roller-coaster rides since that is not what we are into. If you are, you have plenty of choices to choose from. If you go in the heat of the day, cool off on one of two water rides - Journey to Atlantis, for example.
I have to say, though, I love seeing the sea life here, SeaWorld seems to have gone the way of Disney and Universal. It is a cashless park now and the price of everything is expensive. The tickets were a fair price, better than the other two parks for sure! But there were things that really didn't make me a happy customer:
Park Hours, SeaWorld opens at 9am, everything else, 10am
Paper Maps, you must get one at the entrance if you want one. Other than that, SeaWorld is pushing to use the map on their app, and mine had moments it did not want to cooperate, and we circled a bit trying to find things. I prefer old school, some like the new, it's up to each individual.
Refillable Souvenir Cup, this seemed like an awesome deal, even though the cup was $20.00. When I went to pay, the price showed $28.00 and change. I asked the employee, "Hey, why is the price up to almost $29.00?" He stated that was tax and a surcharge for using a credit card. Since SeaWorld is cashless, I had no choice but to use my credit card. Normally, I would have handed the cup back and left, but my son was really excited about the cup. Needless to say, that was his souvenir.
Shark Dining Experience, my son LOVES sharks, and I knew he would love the experience. The employees were great, Greg, our waiter was awesome, and the sharks did not disappoint! What did disappoint, though, was the food, especially for the price!! We went with the cheapest we could - I got the Guacamole Turkey Burger Sliders (see pic included), and my son got the Cajun Chicken Tacos. My son liked his tacos, only three for a teenager, but they came with fries and cost $30.00. My sliders were beyond bland, and so was the guacamole. For $30.00, I got 2, yes, 2, bland sliders with fries. I ordered water, and my son got sweet tea, and that was $4.19, and it wasn't even fresh made! Our total bill today, with the tip, came to $82.00!! I am all about the experience, and my son loved it, but in the future, we will avoid this place. Just was not worth the money.
Locker Rental, I didn't appreciate having to spend $4.00 to tent a locker for less than 2 hours to spend less than 3 minutes on a ride to hold my small cross bag. Especially when I see other ladies going on that didn't have to and instead placed their items in small cubby holes.
Gift Shops, everything is just flat-out expensive, no other way to say it.
All in all, if you save up money for this trip and love sea life, you will enjoy it! There are plenty of things to see, rides to experience, and food places to enjoy. When you budget for your trip, whatever amount you come up with, double it. Especially to ensure the kiddos have an awesome time and walk away with the...
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WARNING: Contrary to what the app says, Kraken and Journey To Atlantis CLOSE TWO HOURS EARLY EVERY DAY. The only way to know this of course, is by walking across half the park to get to do Journey To Atlantis (because it was 93 degrees, feels like 104, and it would've been nice to be able to do the water ride at the HOTTEST PART OF THE DAY).
Of course, I know they're not evil or anything, they're just trying to make money. It's a subtle but highly unethical, dishonest business model; knowing the water rides will be most popular later on, they close one of the two. This forces those who aren't aware of this closure (hence the reason why they don't show it on the app or the website), to:
have to walk to the other water ride on the OPPOSITE SIDE of the park to be able to cool off (keeping in mind they don't let you bring food into the park and they only sell water for $7+),
now that you're at the other water ride (called Infinity Falls), you're quite exhausted by the heat, humidity and exertion, and now have to wait in the longest line that you've waited in all day due to the amount of people caravaning to it from the closed water ride.
Have a suspicion that they are doing it to get people to buy the Quick Queue out of feeling exhausted, maybe desperate to cool off, and desperate to get to the rides you want to do afterwards. Again, they're not evil. But they do seem to love their manufactured inconveniences. If that's not their motive, they would inform via their app about specific ride closing times. If y'all at SeaWorld are reading this, PLEASE tell whoever's in charge of communications that they need to do better with communicating things like this with guests with transparency so people can see there's nothing shady going on and so they can plan their day around such inconveniences rather than stumbling into them.
That said, the park was good and the rides were fun. A lot of good thrillers. Had relatively short lines (all I really have to compare is Disneyworld so don't quote me on that). On that front, 5 stars.
Guest-employee relationship: mid. There was a good mix. Some went out of their way to give you a good experience. Others could care less. Some seemed like they would rather be anywhere else. No encounters with any particularly rude employees, so that's a plus. 3-3.5 stars on that front.
Again, the whole communication fiasco about the early ride-closing deserves 0 stars.
Prices are typical for theme parks but it seemed like that was hurting the business. I never saw a single line in front of any of the food stands. That's a sign that you might want to maybe lower prices purely from a business standpoint. Doesn't seem like they're making any more profits by having prices that high. On prices, I'd say that gets 1 star.
Also they turned the dolphin show into an advertisement and I was not impressed by that. Loved seeing the dolphin show and that part of it was fully worth it because I'm not too bothered by the fact that they used bringing up a kid to interact with the dolphins as a way to advertise something rather than doing the advertising at the end of the show and not smack in the middle of it. But I would go again to see that show, it was epic. The trainers and dolphins both were amazing. 4 stars on that front.
Overall rating: 2.5 stars. I hesitate to round that up to 3 because of the communication thing, but I still had a relatively good experience here. My favorite part was getting to spend time with my toddler brother in Sesame Street; there were literal stars in his eyes, and that made it beyond worth it. Was satisfied to a good extent, but gave it 2 stars because I want to give y'all at SeaWorld the motivation to make improvement, because I want to pay it forward to future guests who might want to know in advance which rides close earlier.
Thank you SeaWorld and employees for the experience! God bless!
Post-Script: The picture below exhibits where an employee turning guests away from Kraken, standing beside a sign that advertised that the ride was...
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