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This weekend I had a chance to stop into SeaWorld Orlando for the first time in a while, both to experience this year's SeaWorld Spooktacular fun with my family but also to ride Penguin Trek for the first time. SeaWorld Spooktacular is the park's daytime Halloween event, offering trick or treating, characters and some light entertainment offerings to supplement the normal day at the park before it closes to turn over the operation to Howl-O-Scream Orlando, which is a more mature, separately ticketed event. Penguin Trek took over the former Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin dark ride, but also manages to take up a significant portion of the land outside of the former ride's show building. It is hard to understand just how creative they got with plugging this coaster into the building until you're walking through it all... Sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. The queue is improved for its (expanded) of the former interior space--it makes you wonder just how much space the short, short-lived dark ride actually took up inside. The path to the station has you going upstairs and downstairs, at levels that the previous attraction never utilized, making you realize how tall these buildings were for no prior experiential reason. Where it gets a little wonky is the exit path from the ride, which ultimately leads you back to the existing penguin exhibit, crossing through the ride's entrance queue and stopping at the exit of the exhibit which now has a SeaWorld team member pulsing guests between doors that must be opened and closed in order to minimize the loss of cold air in the exhibit. This wasn't a challenge in the space before (as the exit used a revolving door) so I'm not sure why this change was made but it makes for a strange bottleneck in a space where Guests may not want to be stuck for an extended time due to the cold. On to the photos! This cute billboard marks the start of the SeaWorld Spooktacular treat trail. That's about as spooky at this gets. You can meet a mermaid here... The trick or treating starts at 11:00 AM and the initial rush can be a little surprising but it dies down later in the afternoon. Keep in mind, to participate in the trick or treating (at least to the full extent) you must buy a SeaWorld bucket or bag from the park. I've seen other people use other bags and in some cases be turned away, in others, be given less candy than those with one of the park-sold bags. I love Haribo candies, so this was right up my alley. Portions of the park are decorated for the event. A look at all of this year's sponsors/candy providers. Some more character meet and greets along the way. Behind the dogfish and catfish is a space where story time takes place during scheduled portions of the day. For the parents there are drinks and bites to get you through the Halloween day. You bring your bag up to a station and the SeaWorld team member drops the candy through the chute. My son's favorite part of the event... Is it even a Halloween event if you don't walk through a giant pumpkin head? New this year is the Harvest Maze, a cute little maze that is backstage near Journey to Atlantis. A cute little diversion. This was my candy haul at the end of one lap. We could go back as many times as we wanted to but with the heat being what it was, this was plenty for us. There is a DJ booth over by Journey to Atlantis which marks the end of the treat trail. Why I really was here today... Portions of the former Antartica queue are still intact but the building was definitely updated to accommodate the new coaster. I went through the Quick Queue line so I didn't have the chance to experience the standby queue during this visit. I had no where in the existing building I was at this point of the queue. This does feel radically different than what was here before. The train does look pretty sleek. I was pleased to find that despite this being a two-train operation with two-across seats, the operation moved abnormally fast (by SeaWorld standards). The coaster exits from the same station as you load, but dumps you out to an expanded window which used to be where the Antarctica ride vehicle would look into the exhibit before returning to the station. Perhaps the reason it is called Penguin Trek is because of the hike you have to make back to the exit. My sense of where this was in the former attraction is so lost. Next thing you know you're walking through the old interior queue--this was where the "mild" or "wild" experience used to be split up. And then you end up back in one of the pods that led to the exhibit. You're dumped out into the exhibit but walking along a path created by having walled off the former Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin ride exit station. You can still see the penguins up close. But now you have to wait to be pulsed between exit doors... Not sure what went into this decision making process but I'd argue that it is the one misstep I spotted with Penguin Trek over its predecessor. After leading you back out into the existing two-story viewing area of the exhibit, you finally exit into the newly-built, enclosed gift shop. Queue logistics aside, Penguin Trek is a really solid coaster. The launches aren't as aggressive as you'll find on other launch coasters but the track is B&M smooth and the maneuvers are fun to experience. Plus it is a pretty fun coaster to watch from the ground! My favorite elements of the coaster are these two twisty hills. Just a really solid addition to the park. Over at Wild Arctic, work continues on whatever is replacing the former simulators. Here's hoping we'll find out more soon. And obviously the most important update of the day is the addition of a new boba bar at The Waterfront.