I just got back from a pleasant day at SeaWorld. Most of their rides and many of their restaurants were open (aside from a lack of pizza, they weren’t anywhere near as bad as Disney on the lack-of-food front), though most of their shows were scaled down considerably: “Dolphin Days” was 3x daily, now just one at 11am (and when it ends, that entire section of the park closes with it).
Yeah, closing a third of your park at noon is good for crowd control, but if your kid is a fan of dolphins, sting rays or turtles and you arrive at 1pm? Tough luck. Oh, and forget seeing their famous Sesame Street parade or their show in the Seaport Theatre as both are on hold due to COVID (though character M&Gs were still happening on the stoop in front of Bert/Ernie’s apartment building). “Pet’s Ahoy,” which usually takes over the afternoon slot at Seaport, is also dropped from the schedule.
Anyway, I spent the morning taking photos at the Turtle habitat (the viewing area was open, the ride was not, a trait it shared with their Artic and Antarctic exhibits – the latter having its food court closed as well, so no Asian food either!) before getting a quick lunch at the Seafire Grill. After that, I was there for the surprisingly crowded – and not socially distancing – rope drop for the rest of the park!
I’ve already seen their sea otter show and walked through their shark exhibit (it’s similar to SeaLife Aquarium on I-Drive), so the bulk of my time was spent trying to find a restroom in Sesame Street Land (I know there’s one there, I just don’t know where). You would think an “Autism Certified” park would make Sesame’s sole Autistic neighbor slightly easier to find, but, noooo, she was relegated to half of ONE shelf in a dark corner in the verrrrrrry back of their gift shop. I mean I really had to search to find her.
(her stuffed toy, Fluffster, got more shelf space than she did)
That being said, their “Kooky and Spooky Halloween Maze” was kinda cute (and not at all “spooky,” lol), but the REAL maze was trekking through their Wild Artic queue on the way to the animal enclosures. I tried getting pictures of the walruses, seals and beluga whales… but none of them seemed willing to cooperate with my camera phone. They had some nice t-shirts and board shorts in the “sale” rack in the artic gift shop though.
The main path back to the exit was closed (as they are using it for their weekend “Trick-or-Treat Trail”), so I had to backtrack a bit to get back to the main shopping hub, but from there I could take the shortcut back to the entrance area. I grabbed a medium Starbucks coffee and a large cookie and made my way out the gate – all before my watch chimed 2pm.
Life in the Uncanny Valley 