For years, we have said that we wanted to take a day trip over to SeaWorld to check it out. On paper, it seemed like a good fit for our family:
- Banshee and Little Buster love thrill rides, and SeaWorld has plenty of those.
- Our entire family enjoy animal-themed exhibits (Animal Kingdom is one of our favorites).
- They just opened a Sesame Street Land, and Little Banshee loves her Elmo!
- SeaWorld is a Certified Autism Center, which means it has met or exceed certain standards of accommodation for guests with autism.
Despite all that, SeaWorld will be a one-and-done for our family. Read on for more details of our disappointing side trip.
Note that this review is based upon how SeaWorld worked (or did not work) for our family. That means that this is written based upon OUR opinions, OUR preferences, OUR needs. It is possible that you might love SeaWorld Orlando, and if you do, that’s awesome! Given the number of people who had smiles on their faces while we were there, I’m sure it is a great place depending upon your preferences. If you have a different perspective, then please feel free to leave your point of view in the comments, and tell us what we might have missed. Who knows? You might convince us to give it another chance!
The Good
In order to show that we are fair and balanced, I wanted to talk about aspects that we did like about the park.
Amazing Thrill Rides
While we didn’t get to ride a lot of them, the thrill rides looked absolutely amazing. Overall, they currently boast six high intensity coasters, which appear to be on par with anything that you can find at Six Flags or other thrill ride parts. They just opened Pipeline, which calls itself the first of its kind “surf coaster”. Not only do you ride it in the standing position, but the seats move up and down as the ride operates so you get that feeling of riding the waves.
While I am not a coaster junkie, clearly SeaWorld is doubling down on the adrenaline factor in order to differentiate itself from the other Central Florida theme parks.
Certified Autism Center
SeaWorld tries to go the extra mile for those guests with autism:
- In addition to their normal accessibility guide, they provide a sensory guide for those with Autism Spectrum Disorder or might otherwise have sensory issues. This guide does a great job of providing information on the level of sensory stimulation for each ride. For each ride, it not only provides a numeric rating of the level of sensory stimulation for each of the senses, it provides information on the specifics of each ride. This gives riders an opportunity to understand what to expect.
- They have a Ride Accessibility Program (RAP), which is similar to Disney’s Disability Access Service (DAS). This allows individuals who cannot wait in the normal line to either get a return time or ride with a shorter wait. We did not use this program, however, because we only learned about it near the end of our trip when a team member mentioned it to us.. Information on this program on the website is very sparse – definitely not as well publicized as Disney’s program.
- They have a limited number of noise cancelling headphones that they allow guests to borrow on a first-come-first-serve basis.
- They have a quiet room for those who need a break from stimulation. While I was happy that they have this, it was buried near the back of the park, and it wasn’t properly signed. When we checked it out, there were a couple of young children using it as a playroom. Some signage to educate the public on its purpose would have been very useful.
As you can see, their autism support isn’t perfect, but I do appreciate that they are trying!
The Neutral
I did want to address something that Disney often gets criticized for. Pricing. One of the criticism of Disney is that they raise their prices, they nickel and dime people with upcharges, etc. I’ll be very honest. It is a pet peeve of mine that Disney is the only theme park that gets seems to take heat for this. Meanwhile, pretty much every other theme park, including Sea World, is even worse in this regard. However, nobody says a peep about them.
Personally, the upcharging doesn’t bother me that much. Disney, Sea World, Universal aren’t charities. They are in the business of making money. Therefore, they are free to set their pricing policies however they want. If the additional upcharge is of value to me, I’ll buy it. If not, then I won’t. Nothing is forcing me to pay for these extras.
I also have no problem with date-based pricing. It’s supply and demand. Most theme parks and most other services charge based upon supply and demand. Including SeaWorld. But somehow Disney is the “bad guy”. Double standard anyone?
Ticket Pricing
Let’s start with ticket pricing. Like Disney, SeaWorld has “date based” pricing. Advanced tickets for the day we went were about $90 per person with tax included. This was for a one day ticket and it included a ~40% “summer sale” promotional discount. Looking at other days, I see it ranging from $80-$130 with tax depending upon the time of year. While this is cheaper than Walt Disney World one day tickets, it certainly isn’t cheap by any stretch of the imagination.
Quick Queue
SeaWorld has a Lightning Lane equivalent called “Quick Queue”. By purchasing this, you get the ability to use the quick queue line instead of the standby line. You can also pay extra to get priority seating at shows and a one-time quick queue for their new roll coaster Pipeline (think of this as an Individual Lightning Lane).
As with Genie+, the pricing varies by day. On the most popular days, just the Quick Queue alone can cost you $90 per person with tax. If you add in Reserved Seating and the one-time Pipeline Quick Queue, you might have to shell out as much as $150 per person with tax!
Now SeaWorld’s program gives you unlimited “skip the lines” without having to deal with reservations. So even though Quick Queue is more expensive, one can argue that you are getting more value from it. Still it is amazing how much hate Disney gets for the Genie+ upcharge when SeaWorld (and Universal for that matter) has the exact same concept!
My point with all this isn’t that I am against these upcharges. In a capitalistic society, private companies are going to charge based upon supply and demand. However, if people are going to criticize them, they need to be consistent in when and where they level their criticism.
The Bad
Now we get to the negative part of the review.
The Park Is Not As Well Run As to Disney
This may not be a fair comparison, since Disney sets the bar in terms of guest experience. However, after spending five park days at Walt Disney World prior to our SeaWorld side trip, it is hard not to notice the difference.
By and large, Disney does a great job running the logistics of the park…. parking, the entrance/security experience, line management, park layout. They do it so well that most people take it for granted and don’t give them the credit that they deserve. It only becomes apparent when you visit a park, like SeaWorld, that is less than stellar in this area.
Arrival Experience
First impressions are important for any business. How a theme park handles the parking and the main entrance experience sets the tone for how you view that park. SeaWorld definitely got off on the wrong foot with their entrance experience.
First, the parking experience with very chaotic. They didn’t have enough toll booths opened to handle the traffic, and once you were past the booths, there wasn’t any clear direction on where to go. There was a split between general parking and preferred/medical parking, but until you got right to where the split was, you had no idea. That led to cars trying to move over one way or the other, gumming up the works.
They also didn’t have enough handicapped parking. By the time we got there, the handicapped parking was already filled, so we had to park in the regular parking section. We’ve rarely had this issue at Disney parks, and when we did, we were allowed to park in the preferred parking area.
Next, SeaWorld has a stated policy of not allowing outside food or beverages. Honestly, this itself is a very bad policy, especially in Florida in the summer time. However, their park… their rules. Being good citizens, we groused but planned on not bringing anything in. However, security was clearly not enforcing this posted rule. This penalized rule followers like us, and rewarded those who ignored rules. There was one person ahead of us with a plastic bag filled with canned soda that security basically ignored. And it wasn’t that the security guard didn’t see it. The guest was subjected to a bag search so it was definitely not hidden. We entered the park with a very bad taste in our mouths.
PS: If Walt Disney World instituted a “no outside food or beverage policy”, the Internet would go absolutely nuts. Not customer friendly…. money grab to get you to buy $10 sodas… etc. But because it’s SeaWorld, nobody seems to care.
Navigating the Park
Unlike Disney parks which have clear geographic markers and a defined layout, SeaWorld felt more like a random collection of walkways that made no sense. This made getting around the park to be very confusing. It seems like the paths just sort of wind around in random directions. Plus, there wasn’t any obvious landmarks that you could use to orient yourself. The sight lines didn’t allow for that.
At Epcot, for instance, you know that the World Showcase is just one big loop with easily identifiable landmarks that can be seen from most areas of the park. Once you realize that, it makes negotiating the park very simple. You normally don’t need a map. However, at SeaWorld, we were constantly going the wrong way, needing to refer to a map every 100 feet, just to make sure that we were keeping on track.
Perhaps if we had been SeaWorld regulars, the layout would have made more sense. However, it just felt like the park wasn’t very intuitive for first timers like us.
Crowd Management
Because of narrow walkways, the park definitely felt more crowded than it was. This was evident not only on the outdoor walking paths, but in some of the walk through attractions themselves. The aquarium attraction, for instance, was super packed and tough to navigate, especially with a wheelchair. There were many bottlenecks which blocked foot traffic. Clearly, the capacity of the attraction had been exceeded. However, there was nobody regulating the flow of people into the aquarium. I can’t imagine what would happen if there was an emergency that required evacuating the area.
Another example is in some of the shows. One of SeaWorld’s selling point are the animal shows, which are set in arena-like bowls (think Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular). If this were Disney, they would have cast members directing people, sending them to open sections, asking people to move to the center, making sure handicapped seating was used appropriately, etc. SeaWorld had NONE of that, leading to chaos as people climbed over each other to find available seating.
It was made worse by the fact that there was a reserved section that wasn’t clearly marked when entering the bowl. Thus, people would see free seating, head to it, realize that it is reserved, and then head back up the bowl. One strategically placed team member could have prevented this from happening.
If I had to sum it up, it was a poop show!
There Were Educational Opportunities Missed
One of the missions of SeaWorld is to provide the public with the opportunity to learn about the animals that populate the seas. However, there were times when they fell short in this regard.
One example would be the penguin attraction. There were several holding areas that you went through before you got into the penguin enclosure itself. This was done to limit the number of people in there at a time and to maintain the proper temperature… no complaint there.
My complaint was there these rooms were just plain, sterile rooms where they could have added some video screens with information about penguins, or they could have had a person engaging with the guests, or even just some educational signage. This would have allowed the time to pass quicker while you were waiting while further educating the public.
When you go through a Disney, or even Universal queue, there are things to help you pass the time, to help you get immersed in the theme of the ride, to help you get excited! This attraction had none of that. They didn’t even try.
This theme was carried over once we got into the enclosure itself. Basically, you were in a room with penguins, some educational posters, and that’s it. It would have been great to have someone there to talk about the penguins… pointing out the different varieties, answering questions…. something to make the experience more educational and interactive. I am going to compare it to Animal Kingdom. At Animal Kingdom, you’d have cast members there to spew fun facts, answer guest questions, and generally act as an ambassador. Without that, you just have your average zoo.
Opportunities for Better Wheelchair Inclusion
This is mainly with respect to the otter show. The show entrance is at the top of very long hill. Pushing Little Banshee up this hill was quite a workout for me, and I consider myself in generally good shape. I can’t see how this can be considered to be ADA compliant, to be honest. An ADA compliant ramp would have a certain maximum pitch, flat areas to rest, and so forth. They appeared to have none of that.
Then once we got to the entrance, there were nobody to help guide guests with mobility devices to their seats. You had to wander around and seek out a free one on your own as they weren’t well marked. We got lucky and found one of the last remaining ones. However, there definitely weren’t enough. I saw probably about a dozen people in ECV’s or wheelchairs congregated along the back of the show pavilion watching from there because they had no other choice. They probably could have doubled the number of handicap accessible seating if they wanted to, so it wasn’t a matter of not having enough room. It was a matter of not having the will to be more inclusive.
Sesame Street Land was a Bust
Little Banshee enjoys her Elmo, so we were happy to see a Sesame Street Land that we thought could appeal to her. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much for her to do there. They had a little train ride (both in terms of size and length). There were some carnival-style attractions that were Sesame Street themed. They had a character meet and greet. But that’s about it. The whole thing felt like an after thought with very little creativity. The fact that it was tucked into the back of the park also added to the “after thought” feeling.
Sesame Street is a great IP for the young and young at heart. SeaWorld should have honored it better. I guarantee that if this had been a Disney IP, this land would have been 100 times better!
Conclusion
Overall, I am glad we made the side trip to visit SeaWorld to check it out. However, I don’t think we will be back there anytime soon. It is clearly playing “third-fiddle” to Universal Orlando and Walt Disney World in terms of the overall experience and value.
On the other hand, if you love high intensity roller coasters, then maybe you can make a day of it there. The coasters did look pretty cool (said as someone who isn’t a thrill ride person). However, don’t expect the level of service and overall experience that you get from Walt Disney World. Expect to be disappointed.
Have you been to SeaWorld? If so, let us know what you think. Perhaps you had a better experience than we did!
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