I went yesterday with the family to check it all out. The park opened was supposed to open at 9am but when we got back there right at 9am it was posted as a 2.5 hour wait. The line went down to the sea lions area. Well since we are fairly tired of most of Sea World and just wanted to see the new Antarctica we decided to wait it out. We ended up only waiting an hour and 10 minutes until we hit the first preshow, so overall not as bad.
I thought the attraction was ok. The theming is outstanding but the ride is really short. We ate there and I agree the rice was nasty but I actually liked the orange chicken. We also had the breadsticks and spaghetti and meatballs, both decent for a theme park. We were there around noon also and it wasnt' crowded in there at all.
The actual penguin exhibit I thought was great. It seems larger to me than the old one was and it was cold, but maybe being an original NE Ohio guy it didn't bother me. I can see how the penguins could jump out, you can literally reach right in and pet the penguins, which is going to keep the team members very busy trying to stop. I saw one ignorant family trying to do just that so I actually told them to stop that penguins bite very hard, lol. The huge underwater viewing wall is nice. Once the hype dies out this will be an enjoyable area to check out on a hot day with out all the congestion.
To me it is what is it is, it's the penguin encounter with more flash and a short ride. It's better than the old penguin encounter of course but down the road here will probably deliver about the same amount of traffic. IMO Sea World should have/could have done so much more, especially with the trackless tech. As mentioned previously by others the trackless ride system was totally wasted on some video screens! Might as well just do a Wild Arctic 2.0 motion simulator and use the money for another coaster. The biggest problem I see though is Sea World marketing. They have been running commercials like crazy, preview videos, the hype machine went friggin nuts for this major groundbreaking attraction. And true the tech is great the major attraction part not so much. The majority of the guests in line with us were passholders I imagine doing the same thing. I imagine most guests who have gone through the attraction would never wait more than 5 minutes in the future, I sure wouldn't. I wonder if Sea World will actually feel any backlash as far as attendance goes with this? All these guests coming in to check out this huge new great attraction are going to end up saying, "meh." Will they be back? Will they buy SW's hype machine for their next new attraction? Time will tell.