The only time I have ever been to Texas was in 2003 and at that time I only went to SFOT, when the Superman S&S drop tower was their big new ride. For whatever reason Texas is one of those places I only made it to once, over 20 years ago, and San Antonio are pretty much the only two real parks in the country I hadn’t been to yet. So be prepared for a long TR.
This year I decided to stop being a leech and actually pay for a Sea World/Busch Gardens AP this year instead of pawning one off from people I know that work for the company. The platinum APs are so much cheaper in San Antonio that I decided what the heck, i'm long overdue to make a trip out to Texas so i'll take the family for a spring break vacation and we will buy our platinum APs for SWSA and they are good at all parks in the United Parks umbrella. So I booked the whole thing: plane tix, hotel, etc and had it all paid for.
Then when I went to buy the United Parks Platinum AP the website wouldn’t sell them to me...because...it's not sold to people who live in Florida. It's sold to people who live in almost every state except Florida and its bordering states. You may be thinking, "well obviously if it's double the price in Florida then it makes sense they won’t sell San Antonio APs to Florida residents." Well here’s the problem, it said that NOWHERE on the website until you get
to the checkout screen and it has your address/credit card address. I have double, triple, quadruple checked. Also with other chains as long as you redeem at the park you purchase it doesn’t matter which park you buy it for (except Disney/Universal resident discounts, that are very clearly marked as RESIDENT tickets). Knowing there is an A-Frame sign at BGT that I see every time I go there that says ALL AP REDEMPTIONS REQUIRE PHOTO ID so I knew there was no chance. Thanks a lot for the transparency, United Parks!
So since I had everything paid for I basically had no choice other than to just buy day tickets for SWSA and a silver pass for the Florida Parks. I was hoping to go to SWSA on two days of this trip but now it turned into just one. When I bought my tickets (3 Florida APs and 3 SWSA day tickets) there was a $125 fee tacked on
at the checkout screen that was not in the advertised price. I’m not talking tax, i’m talking unadvertised fee. Unbelievable...wtf?
Side note: I am not necessarily against parks being expensive, I get the supply and demand dynamic, but adding a $125 fee on the checkout screen as opposed to just having the actual price posted is a bait and switch and is obviously a tactic to dupe people. All it does is give people like me the impression that i'm doing business with shady people.
Anyway onto the TR:
If you’re unfamiliar with the history of this place, the guy that built it (Jovanovich - the publishing company that owned Sea World at the time) thought that he was going to turn San Antonio into the next Orlando and built a massive Sea World park. SWSA is Sea Worlds biggest park by land area and is built for huge crowds.
Well...obviously SA did not become the next Orlando and the debt burden and lack of profit from the park led to a situation where he had to sell all of his parks to Busch in what could best be described as an epic fail. So basically what SWSA became was a huge park
with a lots of empty space as making it a major destination park with lots of major attractions (like was intended) would render it unprofitable, and it’s been in that state for pretty much its entire existence.
First impressions driving in there were already two major differences between SWO (one of my home parks) and SWSA. The first being the road that leads into the parking lot is s a long, windy, somewhat scenic road (part of that situation I described above with it being the biggest park). The other being on a weekend during spring break, right at opening, there was no line at all to get in the toll plaza. We drove right up to the toll attendant. This is such a welcome difference from SWO where the experience of actually getting into the parking lot that time of day is one of the worst experiences you will have at any park anywhere. However, one thing was not much different about the parking experience, and that was the price. $38.50. Like I said in the previous topic my AP was not good here. Again i’m usually not one to complain about prices because as
the resident MBA i’ll be the first to say supply and demand and people go anyway, but it seems like SWSA people don’t go anyway as it was spring break and not busy at all.
Driving into the lot we saw that the front half of the lot (preferred) was covered entirely with solar panels. Very odd that parks like this, SFMM, SFGADV have covered their parking with solar panels and the way more successful parks with hotter/more humid urban heat island effect hellscape parking lots here in Florida have not. I’d like to think a park like this is the test dummy for the United chain and it will come to Orlando in the not too distant future. I’m sure this is not the reason...but i’d like to think that.
Anyway there were no parking attendants in the lot other than a separate gated entrance to preferred, personally I like this as you get to park wherever you want and its just quicker than waiting in a line to get directed to a spot. Also they don’t have the one way parking where all cars come in one direction and leave in
another, there is plenty of space between rows to enter/exit in whatever direction you want. Again another thing about having a ton of space and sprawling everything out at this park.
Like I have said numerous times now they really went all out when they built this park and the entrance area is really grand. Its very well laid out (you all know what it looks like since you’ve seen a million pictures so I won’t get into that) but I really loved the logistics of it. Plenty of space, flowed really well, and just made sense. Pretty much the exact opposite of SWO’s entrance area.
However looks wise it is stuck in the 80’s and needs a cosmetic update. Especially since being sold by AB it gives off a very “this probably used to look spectacular but now they have just added lots of ugly signage everywhere” vibes. They did make some upgrades to the area directly after that where the actual park entrance is and that looks nice, however. And they have Aquatica and Discovery Point entrances in the main entrance plaza as well so it has that DLR type convenience factor of everything being right there, although
much better spaced and laid out.
One very odd thing about the entrance plaza is that they have animal exhibits off to the side before you enter the park, exhibits that really should be in the park. So you can go see a bunch of animals without even buying a ticket, which means less things to do once you’re in the park (in a huge park that kind of lacks things to do). It’s such an odd decision to have those there.
Anyway my first impressions of inside the park, other than some obvious “this hasn’t been touched since the 90s as we really don’t care much about this park” type stuff, was that I absolutely loved it. The first lap around the park I thought it was nothing short of a beautiful fantastic park that just needs a few upgrades here and
there but nothing that big of a deal. Although all of the rides opened late (Steel Eel opened on time, Wave Breaker opened like 15 minutes after opening, Texas Stingray opened like 45 minutes after opening, and Great White was closed IDK why...rehab...budget...during spring break? Who knows). The park was dead so I was willing to look past the minor annoyances of the coasters having slight delayed openings (which could easily be fixed by starting employees a little earlier, but I digress). It is just a huge beautiful park and I really liked it. I was definitely getting the “I love this park now but with these ops would probably hate it if it were busy” vibes.
They just opened a new kids area the day before we visited and this was by far the most crowded section of the park (though still not crowded at all until later in the day when it warmed up). This was also by far the most frustrating part of the park, not because of the way its designed or built, or what's in it, but because the operations were godawful. They have this little train (my daughter loves riding the trains so we went on it 3x), which wouldn't have been an issue if the people running it were slightly competent. But i’m talking 15+
MINUTES BETWEEN DISPATCHES. I mean how do you mess up operating a little kids choo cho? But my god these kids running it were the worst mix of lazy and incompetent. You think considering this land had just opened the day before they would want to put good people there...nope. It was the same with the little carousel and the coaster. Both should have been walk on's or max 10 minute wait, but instead both had 20+ minute waits.
There was one other ride in the new kids section that we didn’t get to ride and that was the little mini wave swinger. It was there...looked like it was ready to open...but it was just sitting there with no ride op. Not only no ride op, but no sign out front saying it was closed, no chain across the entrance or anything. It was literally
just sitting there with the entrance wide open but abandoned, and the area got really busy in the afternoon. Another W for the people running this land :rolleyes:.
One last thing about this kids area, the little train they have has a tunnel and it literally has a bunch of Octopus plushies nailed onto the wall as theming. Like the plushies you win at the games..some still have the tags on them. While this isn’t really that big of a deal for little kids it definitely makes you think “wow this place charges destination park prices, and THAT’S what they are doing for their new rides??” When you think about it its pathetic but also pretty damn funny at the same time.
In regards to the major rides I thought while they don’t have many, the rides they do have were good. Steel Eel is an above average Morgan Hyper. Wave Breaker exceeded my expectations, I really enjoyed it for what it was. More parks need coasters like this (although the 48” requirement is kind of a bummer). Texas Stingray
was fantastic and easily the best coaster in the park. Everything was one train except Stingray which was two but it didn’t matter much because there were no lines. The Batman clone was closed but I do love me some Batman and I think it perfectly compliments this collection.
One thing I notice about the coasters was that you can clearly tell Steel Eel and Great White were built to “look good” and Texas Stingray was built during that period where they were just trying to build coasters as quickly and cheaply as possible (IE Pantheon/Emporer/Tigris). Rhe other coasters are extremely photogenic and built in with the paths around it, while you can barely see Texas Stingray from anywhere in the park. But what it lacks in photogenic-cy it makes up for in ride experience.
We did see most of the shows and i’m not going to write reviews for them because I have seen them all at SWO enough, they were about what you'd expect. Like the other SW parks they went from being "spectacular" type shows to being 20 or so minutes of "we really care about our animals and protecting them, the animal associations approve of us, please don't think we are evil people exploiting these animals" etc. I do like how the theaters have full on roofs that cover all of the seating and the water bowls, it makes it so the sun and rain doesn’t come in at all (or at least not that I experienced). They really should have done this in Orlando but now that the shows are all shells of what they used to be and they are trying to de-emphasize them i’m sure it will never happen.
They have a glow puppet show for kids which was good, but even better was right across from the theaters entrance they have a giant playground. I know playgrounds are not great from a liability and injury standpoint so I assume at some point this is going to go away, but for now it is so nice to be able to let the kids play while they are waiting for the show instead of just waiting in a line outside the theater. Big W for SWSA here.
No Sesame Street presence at all here which was weird as I thought that was a staple of all the United Parks. The new kids area is themed to Sea World, which is fine, but I feel like in such a big market like Texas I don't know why they wouldn't want to pay the licensing there when they do it in Tampa, which is right down the road from another Sesame Street land owned by the same company.
I know a lot of coaster people will knock this park for not making big investments in this space, but that's not really the main thing I think this park needs. Texas Stingray is a great ride that will bring enthusiasts there and the other 3 are good supporting cast for now, and they do have one pretty big kids coaster as well. The main thing this park needs is more family attractions. This park needs something like Penguin Trek and if that new flying theater in Orlando is good they should get that as well. They also need to make some cosmetic improvements around the park so it doesn't look so 90's.
Edit: I forgot to add that I bought tickets that came with 1 meal included with the ticket: entree + drink. When we went to redeem it my daughter really wanted a cupcake so I figured it wasn't included, whatever it will probably be $5 or something. When ringing it up the cashier said the cupcake isn't included and I was like that's ok i'll pay for it...it ran up as $10.50! This was a normal size cupcake, not even big or special in any way.
Anyway to wrap this up I do really like the bones and attractions at this park. However the Sea World scummy business practices were very apparent and frustrating and operations certainly left a lot to be desired (though it was slow so it didn't affect my day much). Other than the kids area the park was pretty much empty, on a weekend during spring break, which left me thinking maybe this park just still doesn't have the market to justify its massive footproint. However the next day I realized why this park was slow
Thanks for the Write up.
Remember way back when Budweiser owned the parks.. And they were much better...
Was there Free Beer samples? I thought SeaWorld And BG was going to bring that perk back...
I do really wonder when folks will start getting sick of United Parks' ruthless policies to the point when it starts to impact their bottom line. It's clear that executives think that tacking on ridiculous fees at the register and online checkout help to pad their revenue (particularly since I believe these fees are not subject to taxes, so they're PURE PROFIT), and until their attendance and/or per-CAP spending starts dropping because guests refuse to pay these fees, they'll continue to double down on them.
FWIW, Sea World San Antonio used to have Sesame Street IP in their kids area, but they stripped it out as part of the recent renovation of that land - I thought when they initially announced that project they were using the internal IP was to supplement the Sesame Street IP, but it was actually a replacement. Frankly, the SS stuff that was at SWSA was not that great, especially when compared to their other parks, so if the park was looking for a quick and easy way to market new kids stuff, it was probably better to strip the Sesame Street IP and add new attractions than trying to lift the existing attractions and area to meet the standard set by the other parks.
I do really like SWSA as an overall park, though I do think SFFT (less than 30 minutes away) is a superior park given how much SFFT strays from a typical SF park. SWSA has a well-rounded lineup with decent theming, though I agree that the shift in shows to being more "edu-tainment" takes some luster away from this park - the old cirque-esque dolphin show from 10+ years ago was by far one of the best theme park shows in the world. I do wish SWSA had a few more smaller aquarium exhibits scattered around the park, but the animal exhibits they do have are really nice. The one thing that I think sets SWSA apart is that Aquatica is literally right next door (similar setup to SFFT, which has a Hurricane Harbor connected to the theme park), and Sea World's water park here is excellent - not quite as good as Orlando, but one of the better regional water parks we've been to, which is pretty much a necessity with Schlitterbahn's original New Braunfels park not far away.
SWSA is a well-rounded park with good theming, though its shift to "edu-tainment" shows has reduced its appeal. The park could benefit from more small aquarium exhibits, but its existing animal attractions are impressive. Aquatica next door enhances the experience, making it a strong regional competitor despite nearby water parks.
Great review. Let's log this in with the other "well intentioned parks ruined by United."