Seaworld Orlando opened Aquatica last week with a great opening ceremony and a large group of guests in attendance. I wasn’t able to attend the ceremony but LaughingPlace.com did. Check out their typical great coverage with video and photos.
LaughingPlace owner Doobie send me these impressions from the event:
First off, I liked Aquatica a lot. Now that said, here’s why I was disappointed. I expected Aquatica to redefine water parks – at least in Central Florida. I expected it to clearly be the superior water park in the area. I don’t believe that’s what it was. I think the best water park in Central Florida needed to do at least one of three things
1) Deliver amazing animal encounters – this is what I expected from a Sea World park
2) Create a lush, immersive, highly themed environment
3) Have amazing slides either being extreme slides or something like Crushin’ GusherAquatica doesn’t deliver any of these three. Even #1, the area where it should be the most successful, I think it falls short of Typhoon Lagoon with its Shark Reef attraction.
All that said, Aquatica is a very good park. It’s very easy to get around with lots of fun bridges (I love bridges!). While everyone I heard get off Dolphin Plunge said they couldn’t see the dolphins (we stood there for a while as people exited), they also said they enjoyed it a lot. The lines were pretty long but everyone seemed to be having a great time.
I like the layout of the park. The fast moving rapids looked so much fun. The food we had was very good. I definitely recommend people give it a visit. They should just go in with proper expectations which I did not. But I look forward to going back and actually doing stuff.
Thanks Doobie, I look forward to my first visit to Aquatica too.
I was on the fence, thinking about adding Aquatica to my Sea World/Busch Gardens AP when I renew in May. I too was hoping for something revolutionary from Aquatica, because that would encourage growth and new attractions from both of the Disney Water Parks and Wet and Wild. Competition is good for the industry. However every review of Aquatica basically says the same thing: It’s a typical water park with a couple dolphins swimming in the middle.
I suppose Discovery Cove raised the bar too high for an AB park. Everyone was hoping for Aquatica to be “Discovery Cove Lite”. I know I was. I just wasn’t expecting it to be “Wet and Wild Plus”. So in May I’ll be renewing my AP without Aquatica. Perhaps I can score some tix from a few of my SW friends. :)
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