Sea World: Orlando: A Trip Report (10/23/25)

Preamble:

I never imagined myself as a Platinum Pass holder for United Parks & Resorts, but the purchase made economic sense as I evaluated the end of the 2025 season going into the 2026 season. I plan on visiting Busch Gardens Tampa toward the end of January to escape the cold and sadness that is winter in Ohio. And I’m going to drag fellow Coasterbuzzer, TylerWS on yet another multi-day coaster adventure that will include one of my favorite parks of 2025, Busch Gardens Williamsburg. But when a friend invited me down to Orlando for her baby shower, I saw an opportunity to visit a park that has never been on my bingo card: SeaWorld Orlando (SWO). Buying a pass that got me into all of these parks multiple times suddenly made a lot of economic sense.

Given that I couldn’t check into my room until 4 p.m., I dropped off my luggage at my hotel, changed clothes, and took a Lyft to SeaWorld, not really knowing what to expect. When you mention SeaWorld, my mind automatically goes to Blackfish, a documentary that I know about but have never watched. Like many, the thought of visiting SeaWorld left a bitter taste in my mouth. But given their commitment to phasing out their breeding program and their new focus on rides, I figured I’d give it a shot.

The Park:

SWO has a pretty unassuming entrance. After the security gates and ticket area, you can go left or right. Go right, and you’ll connect with Pipeline. Go left, and you’ll basically get the rest of the coasters in the park. The great news is, SWO has my favorite kind of park layout...a big ol’ circle. That means picking a direction, for the most part, means seeing everything there is to see. Since the park calls its sections “Seas,” I’ll try to use that when relevant.

Like all Florida parks, SeaWorld was absolutely beautiful. The foliage around the park was dense, except for Sea of Ice. Honestly, I sometimes just took random photos because of how beautiful it all was. All of the Seas were beautifully decorated, but rarely were sections distinct enough to tell when you were going from one area to another.

The park app was down for the first third of my visit, which meant exploring the old-fashioned way. Honestly, this was a lot of fun. I had no idea where some rides were or what the wait times were, so I kind of meandered and discovered things. I was only frustrated when trying to find bathrooms (I pee a lot), but I enjoyed the mystery. Would recommend.

The Staff:

This is the first park where I’ve got to ding the staff a bit. There were two instances where I had pretty basic questions, and the staff were either reluctant to help (“Where is guest services?”) or just didn’t know (“Do I need a second ticket for the haunt, or does my Platinum Pass work?”). Operations were also pretty bad, even though there weren’t very many people in the park. Mako and Kraken both had one-train operations, which… fine. But particularly with Kraken, I was shocked at just how slow the ride operators were. Even if I’d wanted to ride Kraken again, I wouldn’t have. Maybe this reflects how staff are treated, but this was the worst I’ve experienced in my park-going.

The Food:

I got the meal plan, which allowed me to eat every 90 minutes. The food I had wasn’t very good. My chicken bites were over-fried and tough. My burger was just kind of meh. Fries were always great, though. I’d been warned about the food at United Parks but managed to avoid disappointment at BGT because they had a great BBQ place everyone told me to go to and there was a food festival at BGW.

Skip-the-Line:

As I always say, if the Skip-the-Line pass is cheap, it means you don’t need it. I didn’t buy one this time, and I was very correct. I didn’t wait long for any of the coasters.

The Rides:
(Note: Instead of posting wait times, I’m switching it up this time and giving a 1–5 star rating. This is stolen from Touchdown in their recent review of Epic Universe)

• Manta (1 star): If you saw my review of Superman: Ultimate Flight at SFGA, you know I didn’t enjoy that experience at all. But I wanted to see if riding in the front helped. Well, based on my rating, you can see that’s a no. Riding in the front made the pretzel loop a bit less aggressive, but you’re still left with being in an uncomfortable flying position. And unlike Superman, we did end up stacking on the brake run, which meant more time in that position. I’m hesitant to say flying coasters are universally bad because I haven’t tried Vekoma’s newest model, but I think I prefer traditional seated coasters.
• Penguin Trek (2 stars): When riding family coasters, I try to judge them based on what they aim to accomplish and my overall enjoyment. Penguin Trek is a mild family coaster with two pretty chill launches (the second one seemed to have slightly more punch). While the layout is decent, it’s a great example of an actual “forceless” coaster. It was smooth, well-themed, and covered a lot of ground, but about halfway through, I realized it wasn’t very fun — especially when comparing it to other family coasters like the new Big Bad Wolf (BGW) and Dragonflier (Dollywood). There was never a real moment of excitement or thrill outside the launch.
• Journey to Atlantis (2 stars): I’m not a huge water ride person, but I’ve wanted to ride a water coaster for quite some time. From the ground, it looked like a flume ride, but RCDB listed it as a coaster, so I wondered if there were coaster elements I couldn’t see. In my opinion, this is barely a coaster and far more of a water ride. Theming was decent, and I did get wet, but the one coaster element in the second half was extremely brief. So when I give it 2 stars, it’s based on being a coaster, not a water ride. I still wouldn’t skip this one; the theming alone is worth it.
• Kraken (3 stars): A pretty standard floorless coaster that was thrilling but nothing you haven’t seen from B&M. That’s the tough thing about rating B&M coasters: they rarely surprise you, but they’re always good. I didn’t feel the need to ride this one twice, but I likely would have if the ops weren’t so slow.
• Mako (4 stars): It’s not a great sign when your typical B&M airtime machine is the best coaster in the park (more on that in a sec). Mako was thrilling, and having it right off the water was a great addition. The airtime never let up, and the ride was never uncomfortable. Knowing B&M airtime machines, I knew the back row was the best spot.
• Ice Breaker (2 stars): Someone needs to have an intervention with Premier Rides when it comes to their trains and restraints. I’m 6 ft, 230 lbs, and have a muscular frame. It is so ****ing hard to get into their coaster cars. And let’s not forget how ****ing over-engineered their restraints are. Like… TT2 has less restrictive restraints. RM-****ING-C has less restrictive restraints. Even if ops were great at their job, there’s no way the ride could be loaded before the last train returns to the station. The ride itself was super mid. It’s fun, but I wouldn’t wait more than 20 minutes for it (which would likely be a station wait, the ops are so slow).
• Pipeline: The Surf Coaster (???): My final frustration with SeaWorld came toward the end of the day. I took some time to watch the orca show, and when we got out, there were about 30 minutes before the park closed. So you can imagine my confusion when we exited and park employees had signs directing us to the exit. I looked at my watch to double-check, and sure enough, it was only 5:35 p.m. My goal was to do two spins on Pipeline before I left, but **** me, right? I asked employees if I could get back in since I had a Platinum Pass, and they said no — I needed a separate ticket (the SeaWorld website said otherwise). So if Pipeline is a better coaster than Mako, I’ll never know.

Overall:

First, I’ll admit that I messed up. I should have approached SWO as both an amusement and zoological park. Focusing just on rides and coasters will give anyone an underwhelming experience because the park can’t just focus on that area alone. And SWO has done a lot to reposition itself as a thrill park, adding more coasters post-Blackfish.

But here’s the thing: Busch Gardens Tampa is also a zoological park, and while they lack flat rides, their coasters are more than enough if animals aren’t your thing. The quality of SWO’s coasters is just not on par with its Busch Gardens cousins. But maybe, unlike BGT, they want to be more of a family park.

Either way, it’s unlikely that I’ll return to SWO any time soon. If I carry the United Parks Platinum Pass an additional year and I’m in Orlando with a car, I’ll go grab Pipeline (I am honestly curious about it as a stand-up model). Or maybe I’ll spend more time with the animal exhibits.

Your visit sounds very similar to my Thanksgiving weekend trip in 2024. Disinterested employees (the animal ambassadors being the exception), food was overpriced and bland, and the operations are so, so bad. The worst I've seen in any park. And that's before even considering the late ride openings and constant ride breakdowns.

There's a lot to offer here, but the negatives are so bad I have no desire to ever return. It was the first time I've left a park early (left around 6:00pm on a 10:00pm close day) because I had enough. Such a frustrating park to visit.

It's too bad you couldn't get on Pipeline. IMO that's the best coaster in the park! I could see how some would put Mako above it though. YMMV and all that.

Sadly operations at both SWO and BGT have gotten worse in the past year, even more so than they already were. During my most recent visit last month, Kraken was running 1 train with 4 - 5 minute dispatches. Journey To Atlantis no longer uses the unload station. It's worse at BGT, they used to be more likely to add a second train on a ride when lines get bad but now even with over an hour wait, they still leave rides like Sheikra running 1 train, even on a weekend.

The way they close half of the park early for Howl O Scream can be confusing with only the side with Kraken, Journey To Atlantis, Manta and Penguin Trek open until the regular closing time. It's even worse on Saturday's where the park is open until 8 pm for day guests but they don't have access to the other rides for the last 2 1/2 hours of the day.

I can relate to your closing story. My wife and I decided to go and experience their Rudolph event. Well we waited until it got dark enough to do it as our last thing and it turned out that it either never opened or closed early. That was after they advertised a food festival spanning the park that only had 3 booths open on the weekday we were there. We got a refund for the food festival but seeing the Rudolph scenes blocked off felt terrible. I don’t think we’ve gone back since then, 3 coasters later…

There's a reason I didn't renew my BGT/SWO pass two years ago despite living 30 minutes from SWO. And until there are improvements made to ride operations I have no plans to return to either park.

If operations are this bad with lower crowds, I can't imagine what it's like during the season. Then again, maybe people aren't really going for the coasters and more for the animals.

I have a BGT trip planned prior to the holiday week, for the first time in years. I’m already regretting it. BGW ops were actually good last year for the super frozen week before the holidays, so maybe the shockingly low crowds saved me the pain that is United parks.

I have no such expectation for Tampa this year.

Here’s how you beat Sea World ride op issues: you rope drop. People seem to not show up for the first two hours. I did when I went a week and a half ago and did Manta, Penguin Trek, Mako, Ice Breaker, Journey to Atlantis (this isn’t my first trip, these are my favorites.) I then went on animal mode and saw the three big shows (Dolphin, Sea Lions, Orcas) and other then riding the new Soarin Wild Arctic Ride (very nice) I didn’t do another ride after that and was done by 3pm. As for food, every United Parks has a BBQ place, the one in Orlando is Voyagers. Stick to that. My one disappointment was Infinity Falls not running (per staff, the lift is broke and waiting on a part.) HOS hasn’t had the best reviews, and I had a Frequent Fear HHN pass so I chose to do another night there instead of pay more for an inferior event. My SWSD Platinum Pass is extremely cheap hard not to continue it because I still go to BGW every year, as well as a few days at SWO.

The recommendation on rope dropping seems to track. I posted this review on r/rollercoasters (with photos) and someone said they rode everything and saw the orca show by like 2pm. I arrived around noon, but likely could have done the same had I known about the early closure. Hell, I would have skipped the orca show to ride Pipeline.

I'm sure I'll end up at SeaWorld again, despite my review. I'm curious if mixing coasters with animal shows and experiences will make the overall trip worth it. I'm going to try this when I visit BGT too since I plan to visit that park twice during the trip.

Sadly operations at both SWO and BGT have gotten worse in the past year, even more so than they already were.

Worse? I mean I guess anything could get worse. But as bad as they were on my last visit... I can't imagine. You'd have to put forth effort to be even worse.

As for rope dropping to "beat operations"... maybe that works some days but it sure wouldn't have worked the day we visited. On a 9:00am open on the day after Thanksgiving, NOTHING was open at rope drop. In fact, it was 45 minutes before anything started to open up. We made our way over to Manta when we saw it running at 9:45am, with a posted wait of 20 minutes. Despite that, it took over 30 with Quick Queue in a line that absolutely crawled. Penguin Trek never opened, Pipeline didn't open until 11:00 and was down more than it was up all day, Journey to Atlantis didn't open until 4:00, and Infinity Falls didn't open until after 12:00. Nevermind the dolphin show that advertised a 20 minute run time and wrapped up in less than 10. Just abysmal.

It's a shame too, because on paper, this park has so much going for it.

The last time I went to BGT every coaster (including Iron Gwazi) was on one train. The most brutal ride on one train ops is usually Sheikra due to the lower capacity train and long ride time.

Yes it’s not uncommon for Sheikra to get a 30-40 minute wait on days the park is almost empty.

Here are some other ways operations got worse:

Now rides open later and close early more than they used to. With a 6 pm closing Wild Oasis and the rapids closed at 4 pm. That left the train, bumper cars and Serengeti Flyer as the only non coaster rides open the last 2 hours the park was open with the Skyride, carousel on annual maintenance and Falcon’s Fury closed at the time.

They cut hours, 5 pm closings on Monday - Thursday. Christmas Town used to be on weekdays starting mid November with 8 pm closings, now that doesn’t start until a month later. Weekends are still normal hours.

A metal detector and mandatory lockers on Iron Gwazi are coming, they tested it for a few days earlier this month but didn’t have enough lockers and are adding more soon. $4 for a 2 hour locker, $12 for an all day moveable one basically making it an up charge ride.

Maybe technically not operations but even if you have an annual photo key, Kumba digital prints now are an extra $5 each.