Aquatica water park to open at SeaWorld San Antonio in 2012

May 24, 2011, 9:56 AM · SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment yesterday announced that it will open a second Aquatica water park, this time at SeaWorld San Antonio.

Concept art for Aquatica Texas

The water park will replace the Lost Lagoon at the Texas theme park. With a scheduled opening in just one year, May 2012, I'm wondering how much of Aquatica will be new construction and how much will be a retheme of the existing water park. Anyway, here's the promotional video that SeaWorld released:

If I could rant for a moment, are there any Theme Park Insider readers in the San Diego area who could manage to finagle their way on to the Coastal Commission, so that Southern Californians could get an Aquatica at SeaWorld San Diego, too?

Replies (3)

May 24, 2011 at 10:45 AM · Very cool. I recall going to L.A.'s Marineland back in the 70's when they had opened an attraction to snorkel with the fishes. I wished more places would do this, specifically Sea World. Looks like they have ( kind of ) and I just didn't know it. Very, very cool.

As a San Diego resident I know what we want and I know what they'll give. The Coastal Commission is rather stringent for reasons that don't sound as professional as they do personal. Take for example the hand-written comments on page 2 of this document from 2003 by the Coastal Commission. ( http://documents.coastal.ca.gov/reports/2008/4/Th4e-4-2008.pdf ) For those who don't want to click it says "Enough already, just say no to Budweiser." All they see is beer and trouble, they miss the fact that taxpaying voters want it and will bring income to the region. The decisions feel akin to an HOA run by a board of retirees.

San Diego only has one major waterslide park ( Knotts ) and I don't mind saying it's pretty uninteresting, not to mention well off the beaten path. The few municipal ones owned/operated out here seem to have the theme of "grey concrete" which is cool if your waterslide park's theme is East Germany.

May 24, 2011 at 11:55 AM · California already has two other amusement parks located on the beach - the Santa Monica Pier and the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Neither are as well-themed and presented as SeaWorld San Diego. Nor are they in the same league for revenue.

Mission Bay could be an epic tourist attraction for San Diego, but I suspect that the powers-that-be in San Diego would rather reserve it as a yacht club for themselves and their rich buddies, and continue making life difficult for we riff-raff theme park fans.

May 24, 2011 at 8:27 PM · I stand corrected. LegoLand has a waterslide park as well. It doesn't impact the previous points made by either of us.

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