Sea World - Orlando

I was a bit disappointed in Seaworld, I had great hopes for our visit there, but it all fell a bit flat.

Attractions

Firstly the rides, there are three rides, but unfortunately we only got to go on one, because my daughter isn’t all enough for the other two. So we went on Journey to Atlantis a couple of times, which is a log flume style ride, with a couple of decent drops, the kids enjoyed it too, so it gets a thumbs up.

The other two rides look great, so it was very disappointing to miss out.

Other attractions include Shamu’s Happy Harbour, which is dominated by a big play area with climbing apparatus. There are a couple of kiddie rides here, but they’re only really suitable for under 5’s, old children can fit on them, but when my kids went on they came back virtually yawning because at 9 and 11 the rides were just too sedate for them.

In the lagoon you can hire a Flamingo Boat, which annoyingly costs extra on top of the high entrance fee, and even more annoying you have to wear a life vest, which are unwieldy, and very hot. So basically once you’re in the boat you can’t turn or move your arms because you’ll burn yourself on the life vest.

There’s the Sky Tower, this again is another additional cost, and all it does is go straight up, lets you see the area from a height, then comes back down again.

Wild Arctic is a ride simulator which takes you on a helicopter ride to the Arctic. Despite going on all the simulation rides at Universal, this one made me feel really sick and I didn’t enjoy it at all. And once we got off the simulator there wasn’t really much to see, there’s a polar bear tank, but they were sleeping at the back and barely visible, so that attraction certainly wasn’t a success.

Exhibits

Of course Seaworld isn’t about rides and attractions as much as the sealife. And here there are exhibits for penguins, seals and otters, sharks, stingray, dolphins, manatees, turtles, alligators, Clydesdale horses and whales.

As well as just having exhibits the seals and otters, dolphins and the whales also do shows during the day. This isn’t something everyone agrees with, but I believe that the animals won’t perform if they’re not happy to do so, and in fact the vulture that was supposed to appear in the dolphin show decided not to bother and it was allowed to do so.

Even though Shamu is probably the most famous resident of Seaworld, but I actually thought the dolphin show was far better. It was well thought out and far more entertaining. Luckily even though we were sitting in the splash zone for both the dolphin show and the Shamu show, we managed to stay dry, which pleased me immensely but disappointed the kids.

Shops and Cafe

There are several souvenir shops in the park, all selling various Seaworld souvenirs at rather high prices.

There are also plenty of places to eat and drink, whether it’s a snack you’re after or a more substantial meal. As with all the parks in the area, it works out much cheaper to buy a souvenir drinks cup and buy the refills, although compared to Universal the refills are expensive at $1.80 (at Universal the same amount only costs 92c).

Overall

As I said at the beginning I was quite disappointed, the park was okay, but it wasn’t great. If I’d been paying for each park separately, rather than in bulk using the Orlando Flexticket, I would have been upset at the price I’d paid, especially when a lot of the things in the park had to be paid for separately.