As SeaWorld Entertainment prepares to reopen, fans step up criticism of board chair

How has this guy not been voted off the board?

His firm owns a third of the company.

Ross's record has been terrible in many ways, but objectively this article doesn't give the appearance of being substantially credible. I'm surprised this story made the cut for Coasterbuzz.

I know some people at SeaWorld, and while I couldn't get anyone to go on record, they reliably say the guy is a micromanager. That shouldn't be a surprise with the revolving door of executives. Orlando Weekly seems to have a good nose for this stuff.

Orlando Sentinel Live Updates on SeaWorld Orlando Reopening Day

"Around 11 a.m., Mako’s wait time was about 50 minutes with one train running, according to an attractions worker who added they were planning to add another train."

Looks like SeaWorld is still gonna SeaWorld...

edit: And for those of you stuck behind the paywall, they are doing the full disinfect the lapbars and seats sanitation theater after each cycle.

SeaWorld doesn't seem to get it right today

Is anyone shocked? That place had horrible operations before Covid, adding new steps to the process was only going to make things worse for them.

No, but as the article states, I don't want the lack of effort on the part of terrible SeaWorld/Busch operations (that always seems to exclude BGW) to have a negative effect on the industry and all the other players doing it right.

The front gate is a mess under the best conditions. It's literally shaped like a funnel.

The company has very capable people in other departments, including culinary, entertainment and especially zoological, so I don't understand why operations is so poor by comparison. I mean, I give Universal crap about a lot of things, but they at least seem to have intent to work toward efficient operations. I've never seen it at SeaWorld. BGT is a little better, so I wonder if it's a local problem.

My ride operations experiences at BGT over the years have been as subpar as SeaWorld. You can get away with that at a second or third tier Six Flags in a smaller market or a smaller regional park with a primary audience that doesn't know any better. But it's inexcusable in the Central Florida market. And that was before the pandemic.

I've always wondered the same thing in regards to who they hire to run operations over there. For the most part a lot of people at the parks in Orlando started at the competition or have worked at all three parks at some point gaining knowledge of how everyone does things. It's rare to meet someone who has only ever worked at one park over the course of their time in Orlando. It's almost as if Sea World wants to ignore what the other two parks do and do the complete opposite as if they have figured it all out.

Universal has made great strides in efficiency in recent years, no doubt because they have grown to a size and have attendance where it's not an option. It's still not as seemingly smooth and effortless like Disney, and they still have some odd quirks like the metal detectors and lockers to ride Hulk or Rip Ride Rockit. But it's better.

I am very curious to see how Disney holds onto any sense of ride efficiency through this. Their attractions are created to move people at a faster pace than any other, and to see the way they get trains dispatched on Rock N Roller Coaster and Expedition Everest should be a master class for all park operators. As for modified operations, rides like Tower of Terror or Test Track, although they aren't coasters, weren't designed to have vehicles "stack". If they are stopping to clean vehicles, I feel like there will just be block stops mid ride for some of these attractions. I'm very curious to see how it's done.

Im not sure if this is possible on ToT but I would assume at least on test track if a ride vehicle was removed it would help with the stacking. To ease the process I hope Disney decides to just have ample hand sanitizer available as you board instead of cleaning seats between each cycle.

Thinking about the attractions that aren't coasters, Sorin for example, the cleaning can start as soon as guests step away from their seats. Rides like Sorin usually don't exit quickly so if cleaning started right away, the amount of time needed before the next set of guests come in wouldn't be much as opposed to waiting for the entire ride to clear the "floor" first. On coasters like Space Mountain, having a separate Load/Unload can also help in cleaning. While they are fast, most of the coasters still have a small amount of time they are sitting on the unload/transition to load area before advancing. Add another 45 seconds and I'm sure that would be long enough to spray down each lapbar/seat without impacting the wait that much. Especially since we are to assume park capacity will be much lower than a standard day.

"Car wash" between stations. Problem solved!

Brilliant!!

BrettV said:

SeaWorld doesn't seem to get it right today

Yeesh, the comments on that article had me fleeing back to Coasterbuzz.

The just stay home people annoy me, because you know they're the ones not taking any of the mitigation precautions. Look, I'm willing to accept that it's possible to make it safer, but "those people" are like folks visiting a sex worker conference in a clap outbreak trying for the high score. It won't end well, and antibiotics won't help.

They also annoy me because they're almost certainly going to be ringing me up at the grocery store or coming in contact with the person who will at some point. It just doesn't make sense, when masks are such an incredible value in terms of protection vs. inconvenience. But then again, when did anything on the internet or in America make sense.

BrettV said:

SeaWorld doesn't seem to get it right today

One thing that blows my mind from this article and from other posts I've seen about Sea World is this expectation for the park to enforce social distancing amongst guests. At some point, some personal responsibility has to take over. I work at a facility that's around 60 acres. We have signs everywhere and pavement markings encouraging social distancing, but it is not financial viable to have employees spread out facility wide to tell people, "stop standing so close to each other!" Sea World is no different and they're in a 200 acre park.

The property where I work doesn't require customers to wear masks, but we encourage it on our website and on signage. Upon opening, usage was probably at or around 10% and, two weeks in, I would say it's dwindled down well below 1%.