Sea World June 2013

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my best wife in the world got us passes to the Big 3 VRTP parks for my birthday. This weekend was our first opportunity to check out Sea World!! There are big things going on at Sea World at the moment, so it's definitely worth a look.

 

For the moment, I'm going to call it Seal World.

 

It was our first opportunity to check out Seal Harbour which opened earlier this year!

 

This multimillion dollar area plays host to 9 Seals and Sea Lions. It includes a centre island with great views into the different pens.

 

Some have been calling it Seagull Harbour, since it can be hard to tell that the seals are there at all, at first glance.

 

But they are! We saw 6 different Seals and Sea Lions swimming in the 10-15 minutes we were there. Most of the time they were enjoying the warm sun. Doesn't he look happy?

 

Just as happy is the bench in the middle of the centre island!!

 

 

The big news of the last 12 months at Sea World is that we were going to see two new attractions in the next two years. A water coaster themed to a great Storm, and the mysterious Wild attraction. It appears we have already see the Wild attraction move from 2014 to 2015, but it will still be interesting to see what this. New attractions can only mean one thing for Sea World....

 

Closures. The park is so small, that construction, particularly in the middle is bound to close a few attractions. Ray Reef was closed.

 

The Viking's flume was closed (and dry). Jet Rescue was also closed when we visited, but I am told it's been open at other points in the operation. Anyway, back to the good news! Guess what is missing from the following photo...

 

That's right! An enormous volcano! What was the Bermuda Triangle has been completely demolished to make space for the new Storm water coaster. You can probably see some of the first uprights are already in place.

 

 

 

And we are starting to see some concrete trenches as well!

 

Work is coming along nicely, both inside and outside the former Bermuda Triangle ride building. To be honest, it's not much of a build anymore. It's more of a roof with a couple of partial walls.

 

 Most of the area really looks like a construction site.

 

 Lots of work left to do.

 

Inside the "building" is also a war zone.

 

 Most exciting, you can see a definite trench for coasting in!

 

And the trench doesn't stop just because the building does. No sir!

 

Let's move over to what is the supposed site for Wild! The story I had heard before going to Sea World is that they are reclaiming land out of the main lagoon for Wild. There is definitely land being reclaimed on the back of (what is currently) Dinosaur Island. It appears that there has been a large push in from both sides of the lagoon. Here is the view from the front of the park.

You can see quite a lot of dirt has already been moved, and also a decent size of dirt to go. Here a couple of views from the back of Dinosaur Island. You can really see that this gap has narrowed significantly already.

 

 

We are yet to hear official word on what wild is. Rumours have included it being called "Congo Island" with live Hippos, Crocodiles and Gorillas. This may be one or multiple attractions, we will just have to wait and see!!

 

 On other interesting Sea World news!

Free refills!! For $10 you can buy a (small) cup, which you can use for free refills of soft drink and (most) frozen drinks at 4 locations within the park. The cup holds 375mL, but has a very cute design. You are given an arm band to signify that you bought that cup that day, and it is fairly seamless getting your cups refilled. I only had one staff member who decided that I wasn't worth speaking to since I was only getting a refill. I'm looking at you Castaway Bay guy! Everyone else was very happy to do it.

 

To be honest, I don't know if it is new, but this is awesome! Crazy coloured M&M's! While a few colours had run out, it was cool to see all the different options. $4 for 100 grams. Buy 200 grams and you get 100 grams of Brown M&M's for free. No one loves Brown M&M's.

 

We also checked out the Spongebob Parade, which has changed since last time I saw it. Gone is the Plankton float, and with it went the whole story. It's now essentially a SpongeBob greatest hits show, which is still entertaining, but not as good as it was.

 

 

And because it is Sea World, here is photo of an inaccessible Pirate Ship being overtaken by a slow monorail!!

 

It will be very interesting to see the changes in Sea World over the next 12 months!!