HydroGuy
A Pirate's Life For Me
- Joined
- Jun 5, 2005
It has been 4-5 years since our last Sea World visit. I am in San Diego right now at a beach house and we just went to SW last Friday. I doubt we would have gone to SW on this trip but my DS17 has his delightful girlfriend along and he pushed for a day at SW or USH (in addition to DLR 
) and we settled on SW.
Once again, after we left SW I had the feeling again that I hope to never return there.
On the previous two SW visits it became clear to me that SW does not know how to do many things including food. They are very strict about what you can bring into the park (more strict than DLR) but then once you get inside they do not provide enough food outlets so you are forced to wait in a 30-45 minute line even at off-peak hours.
On our last visit we delayed lunch for our small kids until 3PM because of the horrendous lines and then finally bit the bullet and just waited it out because the lines never went down. This trip we took sandwiches in a cooler in our car and headed to the parking lot at lunch. When I saw those long food lines all afternoon - which I did - then I knew we got to avoid them.
SW has not fixed that in the last 5 years it would appear.
On the last trip the food issue was huge. Not this trip because of our sandwiches.
On this trip I spent a little time on the SWSD website beforehand. I had three issues this time.
First was they have a special offer going right now. It is an adults at kids price of $55 and with that you get two days at SW. Normal adult price is $65 and we had seven adults in our group if you count our five teens as adults. It was not 100% clear from their website if this special deal was available at the gate. So I called SWSD and they told me it was.
So we show up at the ticket booth and I tell her I need 7 adult tickets and she tells me it will be $65 per ticket. Nowhere did I see it posted on their gate prices the $55 deal. I then told her I had called SWSD and was told I could get the kid's price at the gate. Then she said we could get two day tix for $55. She was totally going to exploit my supposed ignorance on prices to get an extra $70 from me. Wow! So I told her I wanted the two day tix and she happily sold them to me for $55 each.
So I started the day with a bad feeling. Soon I got the second bad feeling.
On our previous SWSD trip they had just opened their new Atlantis ride. On that trip we showed up to the gates early and got in line right away. We got in line but it never moved. After waiting 30 minutes they told us the ride was not working and we would have to come back. We could continue to wait but they had no idea when it might be fixed. No return ticket or anything. So we decided to abandon the line. We did return in the afternoon when the line was over an hour long to try it again. After we waited another 30 minutes everyone decided we were too tired and so we left again without riding even though we invested 60 total minutes.
Now we come to this trip and I want to make sure we get on the Atlantis ride. So I wake up five - count 'em, five - teenagers early so we can get to the gates before opening. Have you tried recently to wake up five sleepy teenagers early? They were good sports but we were working against the laws of nature. Fortunately our beach house was only a five minute drive to SW.
Bottom line is we did manage to get to the park gates about five minutes before the 9AM opening. And we headed straight for Atlantis. But when we got there it became clear that Atlantis was not open. What? We then looked at our park map and it says that Atlantis does not open until 10AM in the summer! What? So we could have let the teens sleep another hour and still been in the same boat. That got me steamed but I had to roll with it as we were all there to have a good time.
I never saw anything about the 10AM opening on the SWSD website and just now re-checked and there was nothing there.
So we lost our early arrival advantage and went to Wild Arctic. Then we came back to Atlantis at 9:50AM. We were maybe the 100th people in line. 10AM comes and goes and the line does not move. At around 10AM they start sending ride vehicles around and around. But the line does not move. Finally at 10:30 the line starts to move and people are let on to ride. We get on the ride at 10:40 but were planning to see the 11AM Shamu show and now we may have a conflict.
We did the ride and everyone agreed that it was worth only a 10 minute wait max - not that great - and we will probably never ride it again. We waited 50 minutes even after our early arrival.
So now we are barely starting our day and I have three sour feelings about SW. The attempted over charge at the gate, the unannounced delayed opening of Atlantis, and then the ride operators appeared to not even try to get the ride going by the 10AM opening.
We get off the ride at 10:55AM and walk like crazy to the Shamu show where we had to sit way up top after arriving two minutes late.
And a bit sour is how I felt all day long. You know, you do not feel good about things but you are with your family and just suck it up. But wouldn't it be better for SW to make you actually feel good about being there? And open their key rides at park opening so you can ride it with a short line and feel like it was worth it to wake up and get there early?
My conclusion is that SW does not know how to do rides or food. They do know how to do good shows and we saw four of them. But the good shows were not enough to erase the sour start. I left SW feeling like I hope to never have to go back there again...
SWSD has such a beautiful setting and if they would go an extra mile here and there people like me who see how theme parks should be run (like DLR) would be more likely to return. Oh well. I will go elsewhere next time. Last time we were at USH it was clear they were trying really hard to improve their weak areas.
) and we settled on SW.Once again, after we left SW I had the feeling again that I hope to never return there.
On the previous two SW visits it became clear to me that SW does not know how to do many things including food. They are very strict about what you can bring into the park (more strict than DLR) but then once you get inside they do not provide enough food outlets so you are forced to wait in a 30-45 minute line even at off-peak hours.
On our last visit we delayed lunch for our small kids until 3PM because of the horrendous lines and then finally bit the bullet and just waited it out because the lines never went down. This trip we took sandwiches in a cooler in our car and headed to the parking lot at lunch. When I saw those long food lines all afternoon - which I did - then I knew we got to avoid them.
SW has not fixed that in the last 5 years it would appear. On the last trip the food issue was huge. Not this trip because of our sandwiches.
On this trip I spent a little time on the SWSD website beforehand. I had three issues this time.
First was they have a special offer going right now. It is an adults at kids price of $55 and with that you get two days at SW. Normal adult price is $65 and we had seven adults in our group if you count our five teens as adults. It was not 100% clear from their website if this special deal was available at the gate. So I called SWSD and they told me it was.
So we show up at the ticket booth and I tell her I need 7 adult tickets and she tells me it will be $65 per ticket. Nowhere did I see it posted on their gate prices the $55 deal. I then told her I had called SWSD and was told I could get the kid's price at the gate. Then she said we could get two day tix for $55. She was totally going to exploit my supposed ignorance on prices to get an extra $70 from me. Wow! So I told her I wanted the two day tix and she happily sold them to me for $55 each.
So I started the day with a bad feeling. Soon I got the second bad feeling.
On our previous SWSD trip they had just opened their new Atlantis ride. On that trip we showed up to the gates early and got in line right away. We got in line but it never moved. After waiting 30 minutes they told us the ride was not working and we would have to come back. We could continue to wait but they had no idea when it might be fixed. No return ticket or anything. So we decided to abandon the line. We did return in the afternoon when the line was over an hour long to try it again. After we waited another 30 minutes everyone decided we were too tired and so we left again without riding even though we invested 60 total minutes.
Now we come to this trip and I want to make sure we get on the Atlantis ride. So I wake up five - count 'em, five - teenagers early so we can get to the gates before opening. Have you tried recently to wake up five sleepy teenagers early? They were good sports but we were working against the laws of nature. Fortunately our beach house was only a five minute drive to SW.
Bottom line is we did manage to get to the park gates about five minutes before the 9AM opening. And we headed straight for Atlantis. But when we got there it became clear that Atlantis was not open. What? We then looked at our park map and it says that Atlantis does not open until 10AM in the summer! What? So we could have let the teens sleep another hour and still been in the same boat. That got me steamed but I had to roll with it as we were all there to have a good time.
I never saw anything about the 10AM opening on the SWSD website and just now re-checked and there was nothing there.
So we lost our early arrival advantage and went to Wild Arctic. Then we came back to Atlantis at 9:50AM. We were maybe the 100th people in line. 10AM comes and goes and the line does not move. At around 10AM they start sending ride vehicles around and around. But the line does not move. Finally at 10:30 the line starts to move and people are let on to ride. We get on the ride at 10:40 but were planning to see the 11AM Shamu show and now we may have a conflict.
We did the ride and everyone agreed that it was worth only a 10 minute wait max - not that great - and we will probably never ride it again. We waited 50 minutes even after our early arrival.
So now we are barely starting our day and I have three sour feelings about SW. The attempted over charge at the gate, the unannounced delayed opening of Atlantis, and then the ride operators appeared to not even try to get the ride going by the 10AM opening.
We get off the ride at 10:55AM and walk like crazy to the Shamu show where we had to sit way up top after arriving two minutes late.
And a bit sour is how I felt all day long. You know, you do not feel good about things but you are with your family and just suck it up. But wouldn't it be better for SW to make you actually feel good about being there? And open their key rides at park opening so you can ride it with a short line and feel like it was worth it to wake up and get there early?
My conclusion is that SW does not know how to do rides or food. They do know how to do good shows and we saw four of them. But the good shows were not enough to erase the sour start. I left SW feeling like I hope to never have to go back there again...
SWSD has such a beautiful setting and if they would go an extra mile here and there people like me who see how theme parks should be run (like DLR) would be more likely to return. Oh well. I will go elsewhere next time. Last time we were at USH it was clear they were trying really hard to improve their weak areas.
They put you directly through a waterfall so there is no way to avoid it.
