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Looks great, but it's still kind of weird not seeing lighting in the middle. They missed an opportunity to have the largest LED sign in Vegas! Rumored pricing is $25-$35 depending on when you ride.

The difference between a flat ride and a coaster is, as Tim Burkhart said, return on investment. Coasters more easily allow a park to sell merch, on-ride photos, and develop entire lands around than a flat ride would. Flats are great complimentary attractions, but aside from using kiddie coasters to cheaply maintain their "most coaster" records, it's obvious SFMM isn't in the business of "complimentary" attractions.

http://seaworldparks.com/en/seaworld-sandiego/pages/sweepstakesrules/ Check it out…if you have kids, you can make a video for a chance to win a trip to Sea World for the opening of their new Explorers Reef!

As someone who spent time working some of the flats at SFMM (Spin Out, Gearworks, Atom Smasher)…I can tell you no one cares about flat rides at SFMM. I rarely saw more than a 2 or 3 cycle wait for any of those rides. Only Sandblasters got long lines, if you consider bumper cars a flat ride. Tim Burkhart was right when he said they are hard to market and get ROI on.

With the way the legal system is now, no park in their right mind would go against manufacturer recommendation. States with laws that regulate ride safety wouldn't even allow them to open if they were not following the manufacturers recommendations.

^I agree. Ultimately, I think the whole Blackfish "controversy" is going to end up benefiting Sea World in the long run, as it really forces them to increase the awareness of all the good they do! One of the staff members on the panel said it best, "We don't care if you are anti-captivity, that's your choice and we respect it. We only wish they'd see the good we do as well."

Totally agree! Also agree that only 4 lanes seems odd.

I agree. Disney can do much better with animatronic streetmosphere!

I was under the impression Vekoma built space mountain. WED (now WDI) always lists themselves as the manufacturer, even if the subcontract the work out.

^I think we need an answer to our first question before we start talking about anything else. IIRC, The American Dream project is still stuck waiting for approvals AND being sued by the Jets and Giants?

The changes to the slide look just as fun! Glad you were able to keep something unique with the racing slide.

^It was a ton of fun! I'm glad Sea World is getting the word out they do so much good (that I think people either don't realize or take for granted) for the animals and the environment!

I happened to be there yesterday too, representing TPR for a "Blogger Symposium" the park hosted to give a nice overview of what the park does for its animals and guests. It was a fantastic day that featured a frank Q&A session, a sampling of some of their backstage educational programs, delicious food, and even a dolphin encounter! At the end of the day, the biggest takeaway was that everyone who works at the park is very passionate about what they do and love their jobs. Thank you to Sea World and their fantastic team for hosting! Now onto the photos... The morning started at Sea World's Camp & Education Center, which hosts all sorts of programs ranging from day camps to week long work experience programs for High School kids (there's dorms on site!) They had representatives from many different departments giving an overview of what they did and telling their story of how they ended up at Sea World (common thread: they all fell in love with animals at some point) Here's some fun facts on Sea World for you! The mammal department is responsible for all the mammals that are not in shows and handles rescues. The 439 animals rescued last year was a new record and required them to get all hands on deck: help was flown in from all the other Sea World/Busch parks and directors from every department pitched in too. Sea World will never turn away an animal in need! Sea World is very proud of the fact they have been recognized as the San Diego recycler of the year 16 times! They take great care and limiting the amount of waste: everything they can recycle (even food!), they will! The water quality department is responsible for keeping all the tanks filled to the right temperatures and sanitized 24/7. They test ALL the water every 3 hours, and are proud of the fact they are the only Sea World that actually is on an Ocean and pumps water from the ocean, treats it for their use, then returns it even cleaner than it came in! The Avian department has its own rescue branch, where they rescue (among others) 100-300 pelicans a year. Aquariums department also has their own rescue arm, responsible for (amongst other) rescuing Sea Turtles, which due to tides is at least a year long commitment. As mentioned, the education and conversation department creates all those fun programs and works very closely with the state to ensure their curriculums actually meet the science teaching standard. Education & Conservation are still the key values that drive Sea World! Once the introductions were done, our first stop was the "Shark Lab", where kids got to pet sharks. Personally, I think they are just breeding an army of Sharks with laser beams... They also had a Shark incubator, so you can see baby sharks coming to life! Creepy, but cool! Then it was off to the backstage Humboldt penguin enclosure. They are one of the few warm weather penguin species, and their poop apparently makes such great fertilizer, Sea World had to work with agencies in Peru to ensure the harvesting of their poop didn't destroy their habitat! We also got an overview of their rescue program. This one of the two rescue trucks in their fleet and some of the equipment they use in transporting rescues. Shark rescuing equipment. Look at all the crap they find inside their rescued animals. During the Q&A, their team raised a great point: "captivity or wild…there's no right or wrong, they're just different." All the crap we put into the wild certainly makes this a great argument! The adorable pup was hanging out in one of their rescue tanks, being like "I'm so cute, thanks for saving me Sea World!" He had an eye problem from getting caught in a fishing net if I remember right. This guy was so malnourished, he is pooping rocks he ate because he was so hungry. Sea World will get him back to health, but did you know it is actually a government agency that makes the final call about releasing into the wild? Sea World only offers recommendations that the agency was either approve or deny. Sea World has some general use pools backstage that can be used for medical, rescues, or anything else. Here's some Dolphin's chilling back there. Not pictured is a separate area just for oiled animals that is not connected to sea worlds normal water circulation system in order to avoid contamination. That is where larger rescued animals go as well. After those tours, it was time for lunch. Pro tip: Sea World's food is delicious! Here is some Brisket (which is smoked for 10 hours before being served) and Pulled Pork. The rolls are also freshly made each day and never reused. They also had marinated chicken and shrimp tacos, along with all the freshly made sides! I spoke to the director of their foods department, and you can tell he is VERY proud of all of Sea World's offerings. They have everything from the BBQ, freshly made calzones, freshly made burgers (with a good selection of beer in the old brewery tour building), and even a stir fry! I seriously didn't realize how much good food Sea World had until yesterday…I'd rank it right up there with the best! Here is said beer taps! After lunch, we got to experience the Dolphin Encounter (an upcharge experience, but well worth it IMO), which started with a Q&A with a trainer …and then went to a section of the pool separated from the normal exhibit, for an up close experience with the dolphins! Don't mind me, just holding my hand out in the water as a way of telling the dolphin to stay in place. They normally do this so they can perform medical checks. The experience was seriously very cool! All the kids in the group (children of the invited bloggers) loved it. The tour concluded with a visit to Shamu Stadium, to get an up close view of the Orca's and a Q&A with trainers. Kids in the group even got a chance to feed them snowballs! This, IMO, will do WAY more for animal/environment conservation than any protest ever could. The kids will all remember this forever. BTW, the one getting fed is one of Tillikum's offspring---certainly isn't the menacing, evil, whale that a certain movie would want you to believe!

My day (well night) has been made!!! I see S:EFK has panels for each side. I figured it would use one single panel like B&M Flyers with a dual station. So my next question is does one operator control both panels or are there 2 ops? Thanks for the photos BTW!!! One for each side.

I'm not sure why this got bumped, but thank you.

YOLOCoaster is fun.

^^For the record, I have provided the photos for the last two updates Robb has posted, with the most recent being this past Sunday. I am not looking for bad, but SFMM makes it easy to find. It's easy to spot a dirty, old, beat up trash can because it stands out in an empty midway that otherwise looks pretty good. Same thing for dusty signs. Don't even get me started about how cheap/tacky it is to still be giving out 2013 maps and having the "main street" lined with signs that are outdated up selling a product...

It's authentic!

It is absurd how many recruiting websites there are now. I prefer 247sports, but man…it's out of control! I somewhat enjoy all these HS kids messing around and having fun with their recruitment process, since it is a little creepy so many grown men are trying to follow their every move just to know where they are going to college. As for me? I'm stoked about USC's class. Filled every need on the team. AND UCLA got shutout big time on signing day.

^I think the difference is Cedar Fair leased the space to a 3rd party operator in their parks.

This is why I am of the opinion olympic games should only go to cities where there is already lots of existing infrastructure. It never turns out well when a country has to throw a ton of money at building venues/transportation that will serve no real purpose after the games. There's always lots of waste, corruption, and shoddy construction!

I guess it is just because I have a higher standard and more critical eye, but to me it only looked good by SFMM standards. The higher level of detail (like clean trash cans, signs that have visible dust, bathrooms that were 'clean', but still obviously not taken care of as much as they should be, etc.) is still not there.

^Agreed. Anything with Patron XO is OK in my book!

The land is more valuable as space for future attractions now. Go Karts seem to be a thing of the past for theme parks.

Today the new season officially starts…Signing day time!