While Disneyland has featured subs in its park since 1959, SeaWorld San Diego will be introducing its new submarine ride next year. But, unlike Disney's submarines, which now repackage characters from Pixar's Finding Nemo and even before the Nemo overlay at included several fictional elements, SeaWorld's new ride will offer a more realistic view of life beneath the ocean's surface.
The new Ocean Explorer attraction will include the submarine ride as part of a new pavilion including additional rides and multiple aquariums, where visitors can learn more about ocean habitats.
"Embarking on these mini subs, visitors will become researchers on a mission to collect data and learn how they can help animals," the park announced in a statement today. "This three-minute experience will include an onboard digital navigation dashboard, as well as a few other surprises along their journey, enhancing the riders' understanding of the ocean ecosystem."
During their time in the attraction, "park guests will trek through sea-base stations, make special connections with incredible animals and discover how they too can take action to protect the oceans," Brian Morrow, SeaWorld's vice president of theme park experience design, said.
In addition to the submarine ride and the aquarium exhibits, Ocean Explorer will include three other family rides, include a wave swinger ride where visitors will ride in chairs "suspended from the tentacles of a giant jelly."
Construction begins this summer for a 2017 opening. The Ocean Explorer pavilion will be built on a three-acre site now occupied by the Circle of Flags and the Animal Connections exhibit.
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I guess this means the new Shamu holding tank is not going to happen. Way into the future, the killer whale and the dolphin shows will be deemphasized and maybe gone forever. They'll need more traditional theme park attractions to take their place.
No complaints here if they want to make their own "Living Seas". It worked for EPCOT, it will work for them!
SFMM and Knott's have opened some of their best stuff in years recently, at least in part to combat the Potter effect. When was the last major addition at Sea World? Manta in 2012? If Sea World thinks this is going help them stay afloat in this competitive market I believe they are in for a rude awakening.
Knott's is only in proximity to the San Diego park. SeaWorld also really only directly competes with Disney and Universal in the Orlando market.
If a Los Angeles or Orange County local is considering SeaWorld they're probably going to go there since Disney and Universal offer no equivalent experience. Having grown up in Los Angeles my family only visited SeaWorld as part of a vacation to San Diego. It was never considered for a day trip. It's just too far. Some areas of South Orange County areas are within a day trip, but most of Los Angeles, especially considering traffic, are not.
bobcat let's get the facts straight. SeaWorld's attendance was not decimated by Harry Potter. It was down and then rebounded slightly the following year (2011). But the fact remains that even after the media bashing, all of the new additions by Disney and Universal, and the complete lack of investment in new attractions for them self they are still one of top 10 parks for attendance in North America. That's a position that any theme park operator would love to be in. It's comical how some define 4.6 million in attendance as failing.
The fact is SeaWorld is not Disney, and they don't need to be like Disney to run a successful operation.
As for the length of the dark ride, while it is on the short side it isn't unusually short. SeaWorld is really a regional park and most regional park dark rides are 3-4 minutes long. It is rare to find a 5+ minute dark ride outside of the destination parks.
And yeah, I'd say "decimated" is a pretty good word to describe a 20% drop in attendance at Sea World Orlando, particularly when everybody else in the theme park industry has been doing gangbusters.
San Diego is the 8th largest city in the United States. If you don't think that is adequate population to support that park then I don't know what to say. Furthermore, the park isn't relying solely on the local market. San Diego is a large convention and tourism market, drawing millions to the city annually, which greatly benefit the local attractions like SeaWorld.
Trust me, thousands of folks from Los Angeles are not piling into their cars to make a day trip to SeaWorld. Most of those who come from are staying for more than just a day. Without any traffic SeaWorld is a two hour drive from downtown Los Angeles.
Also, I don't know how you calculate your attendance, but in the year 2010 attendance was off 12.1%, but in the following year it was up 2% and the year thereafter up 3%. Attendance fell again in the two latest years, but not 20% in any one year or even two combined.
The fact is Harry Potter and Universal are not the exclusive reason for the decline. Much of that can be blamed on SeaWorld them self for the lack of reinvestment in new attractions and infrastructure that keeps guests on property. It's the old industry adage… if you don't build something new you're not going to give them a reason to keep coming back.
Sorry but if you look at the numbers, San Diego really shouldn't be able to support its theme parks. Sea World, Legoland, and the SD Zoo/Safari Park together draw in excess of 7 million guests annually. If you look around the country there are larger metropolitan areas (Miami and Houston, for example) that don't even have a single major theme park. Why aren't the big theme park operators racing to get into these markets? Because they are already adequately served by existing parks in San Antonio and Central Florida. And the distances between Houston and SA, and Miami and Orlando, are considerably larger than the distance between SD and LA.
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