SeaWorld San Antonio Discussion Thread

[beyondthepalaceDonkeys give me orgiastic scream!]

Smart move for SWSA, as its stepping up its game against schlitterbahn. I love both parks, but ive noticed "The Bahn" hasnt dont any major improvements for quite awhile..

I do believe Schlitterbahn has opened Dragon's Revenge, Congo River Expedition over the past few years and The Falls will be opening this summer.

[RastusoA zonkey is a cross between a zebra and a donkey.]

True, but DR and CRE were just theming overlays to existing rides. They are cool, and probably had a good return on investment for the park, but were not huge additions. The last one was the entire Blastenhoff complex in the late 90s.

The Falls is a head scratcher until I see it. The best I can tell from photos and the new maps, it just doesn't connect to the existing parks at a good location. It looks to essentially be a stand alone, really long, lazy river that you can ride as you go between Blastenhoff and Surfenburg. I had hoped it was going to be a nice way to travel between those parks. As it is, I would assume it will actually make the trek to Surfenburg a bigger hassle, and will save a few steps, but greatly increase the time needed, to travel to Blastenhoff. I see it becoming a sort of overflow area during busy days where people that throw in the towel regarding long lines go, and just float around all afternoon. An alternative, for sure, but not a great one, imho.

I do think this appears to be the first step in a much larger expansion to Blastenhoff, which could then make The Falls a bit more useful, but unless they are adding a new extrance near the Boogie Board, The Falls doesn't look to be very convenient for Surfenburg.

I'll have a much better idea after Schlittercon this weekend, although I doubt it's operational.

-RO

[jedimaster1227Open Up Happiness]

http://www.seaworldsanantonioblog.com/aquatica-texas-where-south-texas-meets-south-seas

I’ve been biting my tongue for a LONG, LONG TIME, and can finally shout it out…AQUATICA IS COMING! Planning for any project at our parks takes years to complete, so you can imagine how long we have been working on building a new waterpark! Lost Lagoon has been a staple of SeaWorld for almost 20 years; however it never offered guest a completely original experience. Now we are proud to announce that we are bringing Aquatica to Texas.

Aquatica is a waterpark that only SeaWorld could build. Our new waterpark will feature exciting rides, amazing landscape, wide open white sand beaches and of course sea life – all in a beachfront resort setting. This is a waterpark like no other. It will incorporate thrill rides and tons for the family to do together. It truly represents the serene to the extreme!

Planning this waterpark was a lot of hard work…and of course a lot of fun. We talked to guests from all over in focus groups to see just what our visitors really wished they had in a SeaWorld waterpark and now we are giving it to you. We will be keeping many of our most popular attractions, but they will have a very different look. We are most excited about the new attractions and ambiance we are bringing to our waterpark. It was very important to us to create attractions the family can do together as making connections is at our core.

Our new signature ride will be called Stingray Falls. This family raft ride will take you on a downward journey through open and closed slide and into a slow moving river. This river will literally go underwater through our stingray reef. The reef will feature several species of rays and tropical fish. The underwater viewing will amaze you and make you want to ride over and over again to see something new. There is nothing like this in the world!

The reef will offer guest the opportunity to experience the rays in several ways. There will be a “touch wall” where you can actually feel these amazing creatures. We will have food available that you can feed to the rays. You will even be able to wade into the water with rays for an encounter like no other.

We created several terraced resort pools named Whanau Waters and Slippity Dippity. This area features beatiful rock work, waterfalls, in pool ledge seating for your lounge chairs, slides and play elements for kids both big and small as well as big beach entries. This area will be perfect to relax or play. In this area of the park be sure to take advantage of cabanas, in water lounging, beach side service and an all new culinary location.

Landscape and ambiance will be a featured aspect at Aquatica Texas. Our team has been hard at work creating plant lists, testing sand and designing our waterpark to “take you away” once you arrive. There will be plenty of tropical foliage, expansive beaches and amazing splashes of color. Big and small kids are going to love our large beaches. They will offer a nice place to relax and just hang out as if you were on a tropical vacation.

For those a little more adventurous we will be putting in what we call a “zero gravity wall slide.” This slide will be called Wahalla Wave. Guest will ride a four-person tube down a flume, then be dropped down the slide and up a wall on the other side. Guests will feel the sensation of weightlessness as they ascend the far wall before riding over some large humps to the splash pool. I have a feeling this will be a favorite of mine, and it’s the first of its kind in North America.

I will have a lot more blogs coming out about the process we have gone through, where we are today and what is coming up on Aquatica – so stay tuned. We are excited and anxious to show off our all-new waterpark…Aquatica Texas!

[jedimaster1227Open Up Happiness]

http://www.seaworldsanantonioblog.com/aquatica-texas-key-visual

Designing and building a new waterpark is a little, no a lot, like making a Christmas list. As we planned Aquatica we looked at attractions at all of our sister parks, but especially Aquatica Florida. We met with ride manufacturers to see what new ideas they were working on and we even created our own ideas using SeaWorld experience with animals. Once we had all the components to make this amazing new waterpark we knew right away we were going to need an image for our guest to convey this great concept.

This image has a lot of things happening and you can look at it dozens of times and still find something new….hidden message perhaps? What we loved about Aquatica right away was the vibrant colors. These colors are carried through architecture, landscape and even the animals. You can see from the image that colors are a very important part of the feel of Aquatica.

The newest attractions are very unique. Top left features Wahalla Wave. This is a first of its kind in North America and sends guests soaring up a wall in a clover leaf inner tube giving you a feeling of weightlessness after dropping down the slide from the tower.

The center piece of the image features Stingray Falls. This attraction takes family rafts of 4 down twists and turns to an underwater grotto. The slide then turns into a river and goes under water through the reef which you can see at the front of the image. This slow moving river will give you a great view of the rays and tropical fish. This slide is a one of a kind and can be found nowhere else in the world.

The reef also features the ability for groups to enter the water and feed and touch these amazing graceful rays. For those who want to simply touch or offer the rays food from the side we have that covered too! A long wall along the pool will give guest this opportunity. The bowl slides represent Tassie’s Twisters. We built these slides in 2010 using bright vivid colors in anticipation of them becoming part of Aquatica. Guests can ride this in single or double tubes. Both of the bowls send riders spinning inside of a large bowl before the final decent!

The far slides represent Kiwi Curl and Whanau Way. This is a Lost Lagoon original that we are keeping due to it’s popularity. You won’t even recognize it when it is done!
Of course one of my favorite aspects of Aquatica is the beaches! I am already scouting locations for hammocks! We will be adding some large beach areas and even bringing back beach to our wavepool which will be called Big Surf Shores as you can see on the top right of the picture!

There is so much going on in our new waterpark it would be impossible to show it all in one image. I think you are just going to have to come see it for yourself in 2012!

[coastercrazy216Don't let this donkey melt you with its laser eyes!]

Do we know who the slide maker is yet?

Look Great, cant wait to visit it next year!!

[David Hthe ghost seems to think there is a "Donkey Fairy"]

It figures that they're doing this the year AFTER I'm visiting (in three weeks). Note to all Texans: you can expect lots of big things in the next 2-3 years, and you can thank me. They always add the big things the years AFTER I visit parks!

At least I'll get on NTaG (assuming nothing goes wrong with it, obviously!)

As to the new Aquatica, it sounds like they're basically taking half the old water park -- which was FREE with admission. Then adding a few new slides, which admittedly look pretty cool. And adding a bunch of upcharge stuff, particularly those very expensive cabanas that the parks LOVE to promote. (Note that they listed them first as one of the things the park will be known for!) And now it will all be an upcharge add-on. Depending on how much they are upcharging for it, I could see a lot of regulars -- who have been getting the waterpark for free all these years -- being pretty pissed. Especially if they get to the park with swimsuits and towels and stuff, ready to hit some slides, and didn't already know about it. "Wait, we have to PAY for the water park this year?!?" Sure, they'll make like it's a brand new park, but a lot of people will be pissed. It will be interesting to see if the upgrades attract enough upcharge business to counter any loss in attendance from angry regulars. I imagine so, but it will be interesting to see the affect. I mean, sure, none of the other Sea World parks have free water parks. But they also didn't have them included with admission and then later start upcharging for them. What are the odds that they'll lower the regular admission to accommodate for losing the water park with regular admission? Unlikely, I'd imagine, but it might be a good PR move to make a slight decrease to appease some people and keep some good will.

As to the new slide that travels up a wall, with airtime, it sounds like basically the same thing we've already seen with the half-pipe and tornado slides. You'll come down a steep, fast hill, then go up a wall. Nothing terribly revolutionary there, unless I'm missing something. Presumably, you'll go higher up the wall than you do on those slides, since they're making such a big deal out of it, but it will have to make up for the several turns back and forth you get on the half-pipe and tornado slides.

[PALDonkeys are my way of life!]

By request, a few crappy cell phone pics of the defunct Texas Splashdown log flume at Sea World San Antonio. There's very little left. For the best view of the devastation, the Steel Eel is the deal. These photos, of course, are over the fence shots from the former entry plaza.

There was a second construction wall up near the park's main entry plaza, presumably for their Aquatica expansion.

Since photo trip reports are not my thing, I might as well take this opportunity to rate the rides. We live in San Diego, we sure as heck didn't bother with the shows.

Steel Eel: 7/10. Delicious air in 1-3. Just a row back to 2-1 took much of the fun out of the ride. Smoooth, surprisingly so.

Great White: 8/10. A G monster! Relentless, intense, fun, one of the better inverts out there. Definitely from the earlier B&M era, this thing isn't tall but it has sharp fangs.

These two would be welcome assets at any park, typical Busch / Sea World quality. Bravo! The rest, not so much.

Journey to Atlantis: 3/10. That low score is as a coaster. It has one short up and down backwards slide and that's it. As a water flume, 7/10. Wetter in the back. No story or theming to speak of.

Rio Loco raft ride: 1/10. Dullest rapids ride I've encountered. Flat, level flume, no water features... it's 105 out, it's ok, you can splash us. Nope - got off dry. ZZZZzzzzz. For goodness sake, add a couple of water squirters!

Shamu Express: DNR.

[khowe22I Guess Donkeys Are Okay]

Holy crap! That's a long wait for JTA!

[jedimaster1227Open Up Happiness]

SeaWorld San Antonio has posted several new images on their Facebook giving a sneak peek at the newest progress in the construction phase of Aquatica Texas.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.145459855468656.27514.140696205945021&type=1