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2019 flat rides and turtle habitat for SeaWorld San Antonio

Matt N

CF Legend
Hi guys. Sorry if this already has its own thread, but construction walls have apparently appeared at SeaWorld San Antonio. They are between Rio Loco and the Shamu Stadium according to people who have visited recently. The park has also filed a permit, and rumours have been swirling that these construction walls and the permit could potentially be for a new attraction for 2019. Now, according to Screamscape, a couple of options have apparently been looked at for San Antonio's next project. Here's what Lance has to say about it:
Screamscape said:
2019 - Unknown New Attraction - (7/27/18) A few new pictures of the construction wall just put up at SeaWorld San Antonio this week were sent in by a reader. As for what's going on... a reader came across a building permit just filed for the park describes the project as "SITE WORK ONLY INCLUDING UTILITY, DRAINAGE AND GRADING FOR FUTURE AQUATIC ANIMAL EXHIBIT POOL, RIDES AND PLAZA". Interesting... more than one ride and a new animal exhibit of some kind.
Also digging through the rumor mill... I'm hearing the park had been looking at a couple of new ride options for their next project... either a new flume ride (as guests are still disappointed they removed the old log ride) or said to have been talking about installing another wooden coaster from GCI like InvadR at Busch Gardens Williamsburg.
Both of those would be a very good fit for SeaWorld San Antonio, although I've never really seen a wooden coaster as fitting with SeaWorld's recent aesthetic style, for some reason.

However, I also read that this may be for a replica of the Orlando park's Turtle Trek ride, which would be interesting. What do you guys think this construction could mean?
P.S. Here's the Screamscape link: http://www.screamscape.com/html/seaworld_texas.htm
 
"Exhibit pool, RideS, and a plaza"

Maybe it's just me, but I couldn't see SWSA getting multiple major new rides in a new themed land in a single year, and with Seaworld's big push for families, I could easily see this being a submarine quest land style expansion. It has rides, it has exhibits (that were actually pretty nice), it had a plaza, and most importantly, it'd give them a chance to build a fully indoors AC filled attraction. Imma put $50 on it
 
Either of those would be good for the park to be honest, though I’d lean towards the GCI not just as an enthusiast but because SFFT has a log flume but no GCI.

It’s the only SeaWorld I’ve done and while the experience isn’t exactly offensive per se, it could certainly be improved. They’re clearly going into full rides mode with their image, all of the pamphlets, billboards, and hotel displays all featured Wave Breaker when I was in the area last month. A wooden coaster with a shipwreck graveyard theme like Mako would be an amazing way to fill out the long stretches of nothing around the property, it’s something Fiesta doesn’t have, and a little wooden coaster weaving around those scruffy tropical-looking forests would be amazing. However it needs to be done just right from a marketing perspective, as I was told Wave Breaker didn’t do anything to boost their attendance.

I think the main issues for this suffering park are lack of things to do for the price, competition with Fiesta, and public image with animals. Now the first two sort of go hand in hand. $69 gets you into sparse SeaWorld while $79 gets you into Six Flags with a ton of stuff, and you can tell considering how on a day when we did both, Fiesta Texas was rocking all day while SeaWorld literally had a band playing to an empty stadium. Now I personally didn’t drink the Blackfish Koolaid but I know a lot of people did and that really hurt their image with the animals, so they have to go the rides route. But the issue with this SeaWorld in particular is that if you want rides, there’s a much more stacked park just down the road that doesn’t cost that much more to get in, one that’ll be really hard for them to compete with in their current situation. So if they want to fix anything, they need to not only get more into the rides side of what they offer, but they also need to do it much differently than Fiesta. A GCI or theming/immersion focused flume like Infinity Falls sounds like an awesome way to do that in their current dismal financial state. They should probably also focus on making the park run more efficiently to cut down on that ghastly gate price.

It’s not a bad park for something you’d expect to find as a small city property. It looks nice, it’s wooded, and it was a nice relaxing afternoon for both of us. But for a big corporate brand like SeaWorld, they can’t go charging prices like that for that kind of product.

Tl;dr this seems like a good choice for the park with the direction they want to go in, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg for saving this sinking ship.
 
Sorry to bump the thread, but according to Screamscape, permits have today revealed that SeaWorld San Antonio will be receiving a Huss Airboat and a Zamperla Midi Discovery in 2019 alongside a new turtle exhibit! Should be good additions for the park, in my opinion!
P.S. Here's the Screamscape link: http://www.screamscape.com/html/seaworld_texas.htm
 
How will Seaworld market these rides when there's a boatload of awesome (including a massive discovery ride) less than 30 mins away?!
 
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