SeaWorld Orlando's Future Plans

[Donald Razorduck]

Sea world is declining because animal shows are no longer a big draw. This is why circuses are closing. Things like blackish only accelerated the inevitable or brought attention to the decline. Cirque du soleil saw this coming years ago and built a brand off of human acrobatics and technology, which has been a disney staple for years.

Yes and no. I've said it before amimals are as popular as ever. That's the thing aquariums have proliferated. Shark tunnels are a dime a dozen. Zoos have taken new habatats exhibits and gone with it. The animals are part of the SeaWorld Experience. Mako should have had a Shark Tunnel queue and the the coaster could have incorporated a acrylic viewing tube either right before the lift hill or at the final brake run before the station a drop into an open shark mouth somewhere along the run.

I'll say it again and again, a hotel with aquarium view rooms would print money a lobby with a Berlin Blu like aquarium with elevators would be part of it.

 

[MakoMania]

Keeping large mammals (excluding Orcas) in the park isn't really putting off your average visitor, Georgia Aquarium houses Beluga Whales, Dolphins & Sea Lions and is drawing near record attendance.

 

[shiekra38]

Yes and no. I've said it before amimals are as popular as ever. That's the thing aquariums have proliferated. Shark tunnels are a dime a dozen. Zoos have taken new habatats exhibits and gone with it. The animals are part of the SeaWorld Experience. Mako should have had a Shark Tunnel queue and the the coaster could have incorporated a acrylic viewing tube either right before the lift hill or at the final brake run before the station a drop into an open shark mouth somewhere along the run.

I'll say it again and again, a hotel with aquarium view rooms would print money a lobby with a Berlin Blu like aquarium with elevators would be part of it.

Although I would have liked to have seen it happen, I don't think Sea World had/has the funding

 

[SeaWorldRocks]

I would redo all the animal exhibits. I would take the Blue World concept and apply it to all of the animal exhibits. I would make the tanks as big as possible and give each exhibit underwater viewing similar to Shark Encounter. To help offset the costs each exhibit would have its own Sharks Underwater Grill style restaurant and themed gift shop. After this I would redo Wild Arctic and add a couple of high quality dark rides. I also would make sure that I don't take the cheap way out when it comes to Sesame Place. I would also keep the Dolphin Stadium and try to develop a Cirque du Soleil style show for it. My end result would be to make SeaWorld like the National Harbor but with world class rides.

Excellent ideas here. Love these

 

[Andysol]

Yes and no. I've said it before amimals are as popular as ever. That's the thing aquariums have proliferated. Shark tunnels are a dime a dozen. Zoos have taken new habatats exhibits and gone with it. The animals are part of the SeaWorld Experience. Mako should have had a Shark Tunnel queue and the the coaster could have incorporated a acrylic viewing tube either right before the lift hill or at the final brake run before the station a drop into an open shark mouth somewhere along the run.

I'll say it again and again, a hotel with aquarium view rooms would print money a lobby with a Berlin Blu like aquarium with elevators would be part of it.

This, exactly. Their rides all need to incorporate animals. Doesn't the new raft ride have animals or at least birds?
Think the original concept for Kali River- Tiger river rapids.

They actually do this on a few Aquatica attractions. In San Antonio, one family raft goes through a stingray tunnel/exhibit. And their lazy river forks off and you go under a waterfall into their aviary and then waterfall back out. It's brilliant. They just need to incorporate it into all of their attractions.

Keeping large mammals (excluding Orcas) in the park isn't really putting off your average visitor, Georgia Aquarium houses Beluga Whales, Dolphins & Sea Lions and is drawing near record attendance.

And they have a dolphin show as well where they *gasp* perform!
Best aquarium I've ever been to. It's also just as expensive as seaworld. Maybe more.

 

[AlexanderMBush]

From Andrew Hyde..

 

[bob albert]

Keeping large mammals (excluding Orcas) in the park isn't really putting off your average visitor, Georgia Aquarium houses Beluga Whales, Dolphins & Sea Lions and is drawing near record attendance.

That is the biggest aquarium in the world. Not really a fair comparison.

 

[Donald Razorduck]

That is the biggest aquarium in the world. Not really a fair comparison.

While it may be the biggest, it is not alone on being impressive. How many aquariums have been built in the last 10 to 15 years? Just having them isn't going to cut it, it has to be unique. Like I said, when I was 15 the only place you could walk through a clear tube and there be sharks above you was SeaWorld. Not so these days. You have to have some WOW factor. I can see sharks while I can eat a below average, bland burger at Aquarium restuarants while looking at a shark .And yes SeaWorld needs to incorporate eateries like that.

San Antonio was mentioned. Roa's Aviary being incorporate into the lazy river was great.

San Antonio has incorporated parts of the Discovery Cove concept into it's main parks. There's the newish Dophin encounter area which basically stand alone and it's nice. The Aviary is in the water park along with the mentioned Stingrays. Our kids did the Beluga encounter at San Antonio. We got read at the Dolphins area and they drove us over to the beluga stadium in Seaworld proper. They have done the Sea Lion area up nice as well.

 

[Magic-Man]

Other than Infinity Falls, what else is Seaworld getting in the next couple years? Any rumors?

 

[WAJAS]

Other than Infinity Falls, what else is Seaworld getting in the next couple years? Any rumors?

They seem to have been going around the park fixing the delapitated and unpopular sections of the park, so use that as a reference. I heard they moved up the Sesame Street land though, so that may be next in 2020 after Infinity Falls and the 2019 minor project. I'd guess the 2019 project is a fix up of Wild Arctic or JtA.

 

[SWBGFan]

Rumor is that recent trademark for a water coaster called "Ray Rush" at Aquatica Orlando is set to open in 2018. What gives this credibility is that the rumor also included Adventure Island which just teased a drop slide a few days ago. If this is true it should be a good year for the SWBG Florida parks with water attractions.
As far as any other rumors there is the inevitable Wild Arctic refurb which seems to always seemed to get pushed back, at this point I think that the ride will run until it can't run anymore! I think a rescue themed themed attraction for Orlando is probably the next big investment, perhaps a simulator/dark ride or the Wave Breaker-esque coaster.

 

[WAJAS]

Rumor is that recent trademark for a water coaster called "Ray Rush" at Aquatica Orlando is set to open in 2018. What gives this credibility is that the rumor also included Adventure Island which just teased a drop slide a few days ago. If this is true it should be a good year for the SWBG Florida parks with water attractions.
As far as any other rumors there is the inevitable Wild Arctic refurb which seems to always seemed to get pushed back, at this point I think that the ride will run until it can't run anymore! I think a rescue themed themed attraction for Orlando is probably the next big investment, perhaps a simulator/dark ride or the Wave Breaker-esque coaster.

I could definetely see a complete retheme of Wild Arctic to SeaWorld Rescue. Although I always thought a SeaWorld Rescue dark ride would work well in Key West.

 

[Magic-Man]

Rumor is that recent trademark for a water coaster called "Ray Rush" at Aquatica Orlando is set to open in 2018. What gives this credibility is that the rumor also included Adventure Island which just teased a drop slide a few days ago. If this is true it should be a good year for the SWBG Florida parks with water attractions.
As far as any other rumors there is the inevitable Wild Arctic refurb which seems to always seemed to get pushed back, at this point I think that the ride will run until it can't run anymore! I think a rescue themed themed attraction for Orlando is probably the next big investment, perhaps a simulator/dark ride or the Wave Breaker-esque coaster.

WAIT, hold up. When was this?

Edit: Also, I really hope that their next coaster won't be a Wave Breaker clone. I'll take almost anything else

 

[AlexanderMBush]

Other than Infinity Falls, what else is Seaworld getting in the next couple years? Any rumors?

As far as anything concrete; Sesame Street should be coming to SWO in some form (and from what @GAcoaster seemed to hint, that got moved up to possibly 2019). After that, who knows; but I don't think it would be wise to count in anything yet for anything after 2019.

I think SWPE is at a greater chance than ever to be owned by a new party by the end of the year to maybe early next year, especially if Hill Path Capital keeps buying a lot of stock for Seaworld. It could eventually lead them to a hostile takeover almost like what was done for Ubisoft and the company of Vivendi.

It's a guess, but I think we need to watch over what Hill Path Capital does over the next few months.

 

[GAcoaster]

Yeah, as far as I know the only plans right now after Infinity Falls is Sesame Street which Manby is supposed to have said has become a priority to help balance the mix zof attractions and boost attendance.

 

[SWBGFan]

WAIT, hold up. When was this?

WildGravityTravels reported this on their website.


As for where a new SeaRescue ride would go, I think one of the only undeveloped areas is behind Turtle Trek. It would seem to be the most likely area as it's where most of the area where the species of animals SW typically save have habitats (dolphins,manatees,turtles,birds) I personally would like to see some kind Simpsons-esque ride where riders embark on a boat onto an animal rescue and then exit to the manatee exhibit.

I don't think SW knows what to do with Wild Arctic honestly. They could just upgrade the simulator or change the entire ride system to something like Soarin'. If they could do something ala Star Tours to the ride, that would be a welcomed upgrade but I think they'd need to do more than just upgrade the simulator to make it seem like a new attraction. The whole exterior of the ride is one of the few areas left in the park that feels very out of date.

 

[MakoMania]

In the next 10 years I would expect SeaWorld Orlando to add 1 to 2 new thrill coasters, a new dark ride themed to Sea Rescue, an upgraded Dolphin Theater with a more tropical Key West feel as it used to be and of course the new Sesame Street area.

If the Sea Rescue dark ride doesn't replace Wild Arctic, I'd expect a large overhaul of this attraction.

I definitely agree that the future of SeaWorld is to integrate animal and ride experiences into a single attraction as we've seen at Manta, Turtle Trek and even Infinity Falls to an extent. Obviously it won't be practical everywhere, certain sharks are too sensitive to vibrations to be housed in a roller coaster queue line which may have played a factor in why this didn't happen for Mako. There will always be times where you have a stand alone ride or stand alone animal exhibit, but the two should be combined wherever possible so that SeaWorld can continue to differentiate themselves from other theme parks and also other aquariums as well.

 

[Andy]

Oh you can stop this Sea Rescue dark ride talk now. That entire project was scrapped in favor of Infinity Falls. Of the dark ride projects they had on the plate at the time they chose the submarine to no where ride in Cali. Yes they chose that abomination in favor of Sea Rescue, thats how terrible the planned attraction was. SeaWorld going forward has been in talks with a highly respected firm in the biz but nothing concrete has happened yet and to be frank at this point not sure it ever will. Its a large scale project and hopefully it happens cause SeaWorlds dark rides are lets face it crap...

 

[WAJAS]

Oh you can stop this Sea Rescue dark ride talk now. That entire project was scrapped in favor of Infinity Falls. Of the dark ride projects they had on the plate at the time they chose the submarine to no where ride in Cali. Yes they chose that abomination in favor of Sea Rescue, thats how terrible the planned attraction was. SeaWorld going forward has been in talks with a highly respected firm in the biz but nothing concrete has happened yet and to be frank at this point not sure it ever will. Its a large scale project and hopefully it happens cause SeaWorlds dark rides are lets face it crap...

I wasn't referring to the old concept, but I thought they'd introduce the brand to SWO at some point. That last point is the very very true though!!!

 

[MakoMania]

Just because a project has been shelved or scrapped doesn't mean it can't reappear later on down the line in some altered form.