Catherine
Water bottle fillers are desperately needed
They should provide water bottle fillers throughout the park. Seaworld constantly talks about saving the planet, but they expect people to buy bottled water or use their paper water cups. POV - you are literally at a water park, but can’t find water. Plan your day in advance. Choose your day on the website and look at the schedule for that day - it changes daily. A lot of shows are all over the park at specific times and you will be running all over the place if you don’t plan it in advance. Use the map. Have a Plan A and Plan B, in case of weather delay. Buy your tickets online. It’s actually best to plan for two days so you can do half of the park one day and half of it and another day. There are packages you can buy if you get Discovery Cove you can add on multiple days at SeaWorld and Aquatica for the days surrounding your Discovery Cove visit. That’s what we did and it worked really well. Or you can buy a single day to Seaworld and when you get in, you can add on a season pass for around $30 so then you can come back as many times as you want. We brought a backpack with bottled water and our favorite healthy snacks. There are plenty of food options at SeaWorld. We do a half-and-half situation - bring a couple snacks and fast food throughout the park. A lot of the food places do not serve water cups at SeaWorld so it’s good to bring bottled water and refill it if you can find water. There are no water bottle fillers. You must stand in a retailer line or food stand line to get water, so plan in advance so to stay hydrated. At the entrance they checked our bags for explosives and firearms. My food and water were under other supplies and weren’t noted. Since we had multi day tickets, we started our day when it was comfortable for us, no stress in getting there early. We had a Plan A to get to our first show by 11am. We arrived by Uber at 10:30 and made it through the gates and to the Seal and Otter Stadium by 10:45. When we arrived today, it was around 10:30 AM and there were a lot of people in line to buy tickets at the ticket booth and also at the electronic ticket station. It looked hot and miserable to stand in line and buy tickets when they could just buy tickets on their phone or from home before they arrived. I bet they were paying full price too. There are deals online. Our tickets are on our phone and we just walked right up to the entrance and then quickly through the ticket scanners. There were several short lines that moved quickly. Bring: Sunscreen, small towel, ponchos, extra charger for phone, bandaids, printed map, Plan A and Plan B schedules. I also took photos of my plans. The SeaWorld app has a wonky map that helps by showing your current location. SeaWorld area hotels will give you a water resistant map at their activities desk. You don’t have to be a guest to get the map in advance of your visit. When we were First Timers, we paid in advance for the meal plan at the restaurants - it was a disaster. Long slow lines - literally over an hour wait. Do not do the meal plan. Instead pay the high prices for snacks, pizza, hot dogs, at the fast food stands. The lines are a million times shorter than the meal plan lines. By planning in advance we saw so much more than when we were first timers. Sea Lions, seals, otters, penguins, manatee, sea turtles, walrus, beluga whales, sharks. Seems like our first time, we only saw dolphins, stingrays, and orcas. Definitely plan in advance. The parade is not worth planning your day around - it is cute, but quick. The Cirque shows are wonderful and about 20 minutes long. Ride lines are an hour long.