Trip Report for Seaworld
6/16/04
Crowds/Weather: Medium/Sunny
Park Rating
Clarisse: 3.75 out of 5
Clarisse’s Park Comments: I got to see a lot of fish in Seaworld, which is what I expected. I’ve mentioned my bitch about animal parks before, and it applies here too. I generally have a problem with housing animals for people to stare at. There’s a quote, by someone whose name I don’t remember anymore (for some reason I’m thinking Edward Albee but I could be very wrong), which I think has some truth to it: “Zoo animals have been known to die from stares.” If animals are being housed for educational purposes then I don’t have so much of a problem with caging them, because with understanding comes compassion.
Seaworld does its best. However it’s still a for-profit organization; so money comes first, not the care of the animals and certainly not park patrons' education on them. That said, I got to see lots of fish and other animals that I wouldn’t have normally seen and I got to learn different stuff about them (not as much as I should have though).
Here is a list of some of the different animal attractions you can see and brief snippets about them:
Stingray Lagoon - here you can see adult and young stingrays. You can feed, and pet the adults (if you buy stingray food). There was a Band-Aid in the baby stingray tank.
Dolphin Cove – it was understandably packed at this attraction. Dolphins are so damn cute! And they’ll actually interact with you, which of course is an added bonus to an animal attraction. You could buy dolphin food, to feed them (which of course encourages them to interact with you). You can also pet pet them. I got to even though they were sold out of dolphin food.
We saw asshole kids teasing the dolphins with the food. The only thing that bothers us more than asshole kids, are the parents who allow them to be that way. I think usually the parents are assholes, too.
Seaworld should encourage their staff to be more forward when they see people disrespecting the animals. People who disrespect animals don’t deserve to be allowed to experience them, even if they paid the $45 admission fee.
It was pretty cute to see a dolphin come up from the water holding in his mouth eyeglass frames with only one. On second thought, why the fuck are there eyeglasses in the tank! Didn’t the person who lost them alert someone!
Obviously, they allow too many people in at once for the happiness and safety of the animals. But restricting the number of people in the attraction at one time wouldn’t be a good business practice… The water seemed shallow and the tank seemed crowded; however, I don’t know what optimal conditions are for dolphins so it could have been fine.
Dolphin Nursery – This was a much chiller version of the dolphin cove. There were significantly fewer people at this attraction, and visitors are not allowed to feed or pet the baby dolphins. It was interesting to note that the babies apparently like people since they tend to stick around where the people are congregated. I wonder though, aren’t they supposed to stay with their mothers for a significant period?
Penguin Encounter - This exhibit was pretty good. They have a huge penguin tank that you can pass by close on a moving sidewalk, or leisurely observe from a distance. While we were there, there was a diver in the tank, cleaning it, and there was other staff in the exhibit, feeding the penguins. They also have a puffin tank. There was this video about hand raiding penguins (I didn’t get to see all of it, nor see if there were more videos).
Tide Pool - In this exhibit there were a bunch of teeny fish in an open shallow pond. The pond is raised for people to easily peer inside. Seaworld gets points for having staff standing by the exhibit to chastise people for molesting the fish.
Flamingoes & Ducks - There were a bunch swimming and standing around (on one foot).
Tropical Reef - This section featured brightly colored fish, seahorses and seadragons in tiny tanks. (I love seahorses. Seadragons are neat too.) I wonder how often the filter sucks up little fishies.
Shark Encounter - Here they house their sharks and other predatory fishies. They have a long tunnel with a movable sidewalk that partially encircles you with a tank that contains many sharks. Among the sharks were little versions of the Jaws shark and a shark with a snout like a chainsaw. (They have another one of these tanks without a movable sidewalk somewhere else in the park; there are pictures of me in it). They also have a tank with barracuda, which rip other living things apart with their teeth. There is tank with lionfish, which poison their prey. In an open air tank, out of the reach of guests, is a manta ray tank. They also have surgeon fish (I don’t remember anything about them except for that they look cool). Though they don’t have Shamu’s brethren, the killer whales, in the exhibit, they have info on them; Killer whales herd around schools of fish and slap at them with their tails for lunch, brunch or just a snack.
Sea lions and harbor seals - I learned that although they look similar (they’re both cute darlings!), they are very different animals who live in different habitats; except they are brought together in the wonderful Seaworld habitat.
You can buy food to feed these guys too, but you can’t pet them (I wonder if they bite people). There are birds that fly into the exhibit expecting to be fed too or to steal food. There are signs all over the place saying: do not feed the wild birds - they can be aggressive. Seaworld is aggressive at trying to get the wild birds out of the attractions. Staff have eagle kites on a pole that they swoop down towards the wild birds to scare them.
Other animals include alligators and giant turtles.
Mike: 2.75 out of 5
Mike’s Park Comments: I enjoyed Seaworld much more then I expected. Like Universal Studios, as a thrill seeker and ride enthusiast I’m not Seaworld’s target audience. However, I found what they offered (essentially a large zoo) more entertaining and rewarding then the very dated movie presentations at Universal.
As a zoo, Seaworld is pretty good. This makes sense, considering the $45 ticket price. The park is pretty, clean, well run, and the food is halfway decent if not value.
Seaworld is the kind of park I would put up with because I know my parents would like it – it’s very well run and the attractions are solid but it’s just not my kind of thing.
Shamu
Clarisse: 3.9 out of 5
Comments: Shamu is the big mama of animal attractions. As Mike points out, all of the whales are named Shamu…maybe they cloned him…or maybe not and they’re robbing the whales of their individuality. They have Shamu jump in the air, push the trainers on their noses, say yes and no and do other absurd things. The show has a video screen where they show pictures of the audience while giving a quiz about whales. And of course, Shamu splashes people in the first couple of rows. Despite being in those rows, we didn’t get splashed.
Mike: N/A out of 5
Comments: A bunch of whales that jump in the air, apparently all named Shamu. A must visit attraction if you are excited by really big airborne whales.
Pets Ahoy!
Clarisse: 4 out of 5
Comments: As you probably can tell by now, I really like animals, which is probably why I rated this show so highly. This show’s stars are all shelter animals who were adopted by Seaworld and trained. There are a myriad of different animals in the show including dogs, cats, pigeons, a hedgehog, a mouse, a skunk and a pig. They trained a mouse to run around the stage and they also trained a cat along the same route as though it is chasing the mouse. They have cats tripping all sorts of gimmicks (like flaps that reveal images), running all sorts of places in the set, and climbing ropes. It was exceptionally cute to see cats walking on a high wire and leaping from podium to podium.
The plot behind the show is hokey but they had dogs following it: dog calling his girl on the phone, taking money out of the ATM, buying flowers, and driving to his girlies house to take her out.
I loved it. Kids and animal suckers (like me) will love it too. You too can adopt a cute & smart companion at a shelter today!
Mike: N/A out of 5
Comments: Well, if you’re at Seaworld anyway, then certainly check out this show, which in spite of it’s hokiness also manages to be entertaining and preaches a decent and sweet message (adopt abandoned animals).
Journey to Atlantis
Mike: 4 out of 5
Comments: Certainly more fun then your average dark or water ride while being less fun then an above average coaster. Maybe it’s not a destination attraction for a thrill seeker like me, but it’s certainly a must ride if you are at Seaworld for some reason already.
Clarisse: 3.6 out of 5
Comments: Journey to Atlantis is park dark ride, part water ride and part coaster. The theming is magnificent; there are twinkling lights that help evoke the feeling of magical land, fairies and jumping fountains. There are multiple lift hills, that trick you into thinking the ride is over when it isn’t. Riders stay dry for most of the ride; but don’t kid yourself, you will get wet.
Kraken
Mike: 4.8 out of 5
Comments: The non-stop action, number of inversions and multiple underground sections give this fantastic floorless an edge over Great Adventure’s Medusa. The lack of forces and general lack of intensity leave it short of perfect.
Clarisse: 4.4 out of 5
Comments: Suspended multilooper coasters ROCK! This one had many of the same features that Batman the Ride but its not as intense because the components are more spread out along the track. Kraken has a long ride time, which is sweet!
Wild Arctic
Mike: 2.6 out of 5
Comments: The best motion simulator ride yet at simulating motion. The animal attraction after is also cool, but the overall experience is hurt by the general chintzyness of the surrounding themeing, including a video glitch running along the bottom of the simulator video.
Clarisse: 2.5 out of 5
Comments: This motion simulator attraction moves following a movie of a flying artic tour. This crappy ride treated our eyes to arctic landscape and artic animals. I understand that motion simulators are supposed to throw you around, but this one moves you around a lot for no reason. The movie creates ‘reasons’ for the motion, but anyone who is over 8 or has an IQ above 85 will realize that these reasons are totally contrived and trite.
Another objective of the ride is to show the riders images of lots of different animals; the cuts between the shots of different animals are ridiculously artificial.
I liked seeing the animals though, they’re cute and the scenery is amazing. I just felt like my intelligence was being insulted.
At the outside of the ride, there are exhibits with animals who live in 45 degree F water such as beluga whales, walruses and polar bears.