Sea World Orlando - A Review by Principal Powers

The SeaWorld Orlando Photo Op Sign.

We visited Sea World Orlando recently in 2022. As a regular visitor to Florida, I had visited the specialty theme park on multiple occasions over the years. While I knew to expect changes from over the previous, various visits, I was stunned and saddened by the overall, general decline, in multiple ways, of this once beloved tourist attraction.

Our visit to Sea World Orlando started off on a sour note due to how Sea World is now raking visitors over the coals when it comes to how they are charging tourists. As we frequent Florida, we were only interested in a one day pass to the park. To shop for these passes, you are able to go online to their site and buy the tickets needed there. They advertise a $89 per ticket, "on sale" price for entry for one day. Once this ticket was in my cart, the price became $94.99.

Adding more stuffing to this soon to be "sucker" turkey, is the fact that suggestive selling follows hard and fast after you start the initial ticket purchase process on the Sea World website. After your main ticket purchase, you are asked if you'd like to go ahead and pay for your parking cause they claim it will save you time at the entrance gate once you get there. The impression given is that if you pay parking in advance on line, then you'll pass through the gate easily upon arrival. This is absolutely NOT the case (more on that later). You are also offered the chance to pay even more for priority parking instead of just regular parking. The tickets were already so pricey for our family of five that regular parking was our choice at $30.00. But wait, there's more.

As you attempt to check out, there is absolutely no end to the up selling. You are offered to pay more and more and more for your one day outing at Sea World. The offerings include everything from dining with Orcas, to an all day dining pass (more on that later), to skipping to the front of lines with something they call the "Quick Queue" pass. Yes, gone are the days of the old Disney "Fast Pass" model at these large theme parks. Remember the Fast Pass, where you paid one price for your entry ticket into the park for the day and everyone, EQUALLY received a limited number of "Fast Passes" to use throughout their day. This allowed everyone to have their fair turn at jumping the line a few times within the course of their day and then also their fair turn waiting in the long lines at other times. No more of this. This now RETRO model doesn't attach the mega theme park's vacuum to your wallet sufficiently enough. Now the new model being used by these tourist traps (Disney included) is this; whoever has the money honey will be the one to have the "cut in front of everybody in line" time! The rules of waiting your turn in line won't apply to you. If you pay the up charge, then you get the privilege and you will go directly to the front of the line. (More on the problem with this later).

A performer interacts with a sea lion during their show.

While we certainly did not want to fork over any more loot than what was already being extracted, I decided to buy the "Quick Queue Unlimited" pass as the park was only offering pitiful hours the day we would be attending, staying open just until 6:00 pm. Really? At those prices? We also were taking a blind stab and made the assumption that everyone would be purchasing these Quick Queue passes due to the shortened day of park hours offered. After all, we figured others would not be willing to wait in long lines and would be purchasing them also. So we bit the bullet and paid the extra for all in our party to have the Quick Queue Unlimited pass.

That was not all, though, before the final cart checkout on their website. Out of the other numerous up sale options offered, we also added the Dolphin Encounter. This only 15 minute hurrah prices out at the "amazingly low price" of $25 per person. This we did opt for cause time with the dolphins, even though limited, has always been a highlight and a special treat for the kiddos.

By the time we checked out the items in our cart (the entry ticket, Quick Que Unlimited pass, parking and the Dolphin Encounter) for our ONE day - I repeat just ONE day at Sea World, we were cha-chinging out at $966.49!!! Unbelievable!!! This was before we even entered the park!!!

Now it was time for our adventure to begin. When we arrived at the gate, we were hoping to see a line where cars that had the prepaid parking, were moving quickly through the entrance gate. After all they had advertised to save time at the gate by paying for the parking ticket in advance, online. However, once arriving at the gate, there was no such specialty line for the on the ball parking payers. We were funneled right into the regular lines with everybody else. And these lines moved at a snail's pace. There was no distinction made whatsoever at the gate between the people who had paid in advance on line in order to save time and people who were waiting to pay in real time at the gate. We, who had prepaid, were being herded like cattle just like everybody else. After a significant wait, it was finally our turn to pull up to the parking attendant's booth and show our prepaid pass. Now, finally at the window with the attendant, we quickly saw the cause of the parking line delay. POOR MANAGEMENT. Which, sad to say, would become the theme for the day. There was only one attendant in each booth and they were serving visitors in both the right lane of their booth and on the left lane of their booth. Therefore, while the guy on the left was paying for parking and interacting with the attendant, cars on the right were in a holding pattern and just sitting there, waiting for the attendant to finish with the customer in the other lane. The customers that had not paid and needed to give cash and have change made, were in the same lines with the prepaid pass folks. If you had the prepaid pass, you still had to wait on all the folks who were paying in real time. How was there any advantage to purchasing your parking to save time as Sea World had said? We all had to wait in the "pay for parking" lines anyway, whether we had paid in advance or not. Poor management Sea World. Why wasn't there a dedicated lane for prepaid folks?

Sadly, this was only the beginning of the amazing decline we witnessed of Sea World's general operations.

The Orcas amaze the crowds with their flipping extravaganza.

We were also taken back to see "NO FOOD OR DRINK ALLOWED TO BE BROUGHT INTO THE PARK" signs posted at the parking attendant's booth at the parking lot entrance. Say what??? Funny, when I was in the process of paying your company almost a THOUSAND dollars for the day, I didn't remember seeing on any of the main screens on your website that you were not going to allow visitors to bring food or drink in the park. Once again, gone are the days of reasonableness. SEA WORLD, AFTER HAPPILY CHARGING US A GRAND TO GET INTO THEIR PARK, WAS NOT EMBARRASSED TO BOLDLY DECLARE THEIR DEMAND THAT YOU BUY EVERY BITE OF FOOD AND DRINK FROM THEM THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE DAY! Have they no shame? This was quite the newsflash to us as we had packed a nice lunch of sandwiches and plenty of water as is our custom in attending any of these theme parks. How could they make this demand, especially the "no drinks allowed" in 80+ degree Florida heat ? There are so many people with allergies, as well as ones who are on special diets. What about the moms of the world who don't mind if their child has a treat or two inside the park, but for health reasons don't want their kids eating an overload of processed food? This news flash was a hit below the belt for families. After deliberation, we decided we didn't care what the sign said, we were still taking our food and water in with us. Then the nagging questions in the back of our mind began. Would they not let our lunch bag past the gate? Would they make us take it back to our car? This was irritating to even have to worry about such a ridiculous modus operandi. What about the cost? Feeding a group of any size in the park would be cost prohibitive. Now we understood why they aggressively suggested the "All Day Dining" add on when purchasing tickets on their website. However, as we heard from many in the park, the "All Day Dining" add on is a huge rip off. They are so poorly staffed that it takes absolutely AGES to get any of the food or drink in the extremely long lines. Therefore, many were skipping getting the food they had paid for in order to continue their park experience and not waste more and more time in the almost stagnant concession lines.

We are happy to report that Sea World did not enforce their "no bringing food or drink into the park" rule with us. As we passed through the security check point where they look through your bags prior to entering the park gate, they saw the lunch and water we had brought along and said nothing about it.

Visitors enjoy individualized time with animals at the Dolphin Encounter experience. This specialty item only lasts for 15 minutes and will cost you extra.

Once in the gate with our water and sandwiches in tow, we were ready to enjoy a wonderful day. We hustled around the park to prioritize seeing the shows the best we could with the limited time we had. A park closure at 6:00 PM makes the day's schedule quite tight. The advantage of going on a day with the reduced hours, however, is that you don't have the crowds like you do at peak times when the park is open later into the evening. We made it to the dolphin show, the sea lion/walrus/otter show and the Orca Encounter. Children and adults alike, loved seeing these amazing, beloved creatures do magnificent and funny things and all that I could see thoroughly enjoyed their time at these events.

As we progressed through our day, however, we encountered more and more hallmarks of decline in management of the park. There were vacant stadium areas not being used for anything, a huge, formerly featured water ride attraction that was non-operational and just left in eye sore style with no billboard notice of anything new coming (Disney tends to block off/cover up any areas being revamped or that are under construction and post notice signs of the new features that are being constructed), the Shark Encounter moving walkway was broken and was completely stopped, causing a major bottle neck and crowd build up as people waited to pass through the overhead aquarium area on this walkway (and no workers anywhere in any part of the whole exhibit to help with crowd control), the ride Infinity Falls breaking down temporarily and many of the kiosks/stands completely shut down even with many patrons around.

Also worth noting was the HOGGISHNESS of the vending. While theme parks have always been notorious for high prices, things have now gone to a WHOLE OTHER LEVEL! The price of everything was absolutely INSANE! They do things like say you aren't allowed to have your camera on you at the dolphin encounter and use the excuse that it is because of the animals. They then have workers taking photos of you during the encounter and offer for you to buy them at the end (cause after all, if you don't, you won't have any memory of your Dolphin Encounter experience for which you paid extra). You are offered the choice to buy an actual print(s) for high prices, or buy a very expensive digital type photo pass item for all your Sea World pictures for the whole day (over $70! - Don't do it! We never received the way to access these photos via email like they said and it was difficult to use their system for it throughout the rest of the day for additional photos, unlike what they promised).

Another example of their pricing piggery was all the food items. For instance, they had concession workers coming around the stadiums selling drinks and snacks before the shows. We asked one concession worker how much the cotton candy they were selling cost. Almost $9.00 (and it was the junky, pre-made kind too)!!! I said that was outrageous. The worker said, "I know. I'm kind of embarrassed to tell people the price of it when they ask me". While I could give more examples of these budget busting costs Sea World was extracting at every turn, suffice it to say, whatever the item you were looking to buy, the prices were EXTREME!

The impressive orcas strut their stuff at Sea World Orlando.

All in all, while the time with the beautiful animals remains magical for kids, I feel sad to say that I cannot recommend a trip to Sea World Orlando at this time. It has changed, and it has changed for the worse. Rides not operating properly, broken attractions, many closed service facilities (including bathrooms at the end of the night where workers wouldn't let you use them because they had already cleaned them with no other near bathrooms in sight), the "NO OUTSIDE FOOD OR DRINKS ALLOWED" policy, the poor and limited souvenir inventory at the only stores open at close of the day and the OUTRAGEOUS prices of absolutely everything (even for a theme park)all contribute to a negative review.

Principal's Tips:

1. Never go to any theme park without your own stroller. Sea World does rent some out, but they had precious few. Even if you don't have children that are "stroller" age, it's still great to have one to carry your food, drinks, jackets, sunscreen, change of clothes and shoes (should you get soaked), souvenir purchases, etc.

2. Other places in Florida offer dolphin shows (the Keys) and sea lion attractions (saw a great one once at the Tampa Zoo). The orcas are the main attraction.

3. I always advocate choosing the "off the beaten path" places to visit in Florida as opposed to the swamped, well known theme parks. Florida offers many great alternatives for families that don't cost $1,000 a day just for entry. They are worth your time and will save you loads of bucks.

4. The "Quick Queue" pass thing really needs to be reevaluated by Sea World. We only had the opportunity to use the ones we bought once while in the park. We went to the front of the line of the "Infinity Falls" ride. When we got to the worker, we told him we had the "Quick Queue" pass. As he let us pass through ahead of everyone else who had been waiting in line, you could see the anger on other patrons' faces and hear their rude comments. This letting people skip to the front of the line in a "pay to play" fashion is a recipe for disaster and is going to cause altercations between guests that could get ugly. The resentment towards us when we went straight to the front of the line, even though we had the proper passes, was tangible.