Joel Manby out as CEO at SeaWorld Entertainment

Well that didn’t last long. Wonder if we will see an about-face on the no more whales decision?

Are you kidding? I think it should have happened sooner.

Here's the thing... I get the whole don't-make-them-perform thing, but to act like your whales are a footnote I think is a terrible idea. You're not going to get the people who think that captive animals are terrible ever, so why wouldn't you emphasize the encounters with these beautiful animals to everyone else? I've said it a thousand times, no one would give a **** about oceanic conservation if it wasn't for SeaWorld.

Now, stop dicking around with the weak cap ex program and build stuff that people want in Orlando.

Jeff I agree with what you said about the animals. We were at Sea World for a couple days in January and had a blast. My 8yo son was amazed feeding the stingrays and watching the dolphins & orcas. Oh and the coasters were pretty awesome, too. But I don’t know what that park would be without animals...

I hate how they (not just SeaWorld, all companies do this) say they “lost” $20M this quarter and have “lost” $200M over the last year. They make it sound like they are running in the red, bleeding money. They should say they made $20M less this quarter compared to a year ago, and $200M less this year than the prior year. They made less money than last year, they didn’t lose money. You can’t lose something you never had.

They are running in the red. They made $1.26 billion in revenue but had $1.46 billion in expenses so they ended up in the hole for $200 million over the year. That’s the definition of a loss. These numbers don’t include things like loans and new investments so they don’t necessarily indicate the overall health of the company. However, I looked at their most recent financial report, and their cash on hand went from $69 million in 2016 to $33 million in $2017, and their total assets decreased from $2.3 billion to $2 billion. These numbers do not paint a rosy story for the company.

Their revenue dropped from $1.34 billion last year to $1.26 billion this year, so their decrease in “money they never had” was $80 million.

The Washington Post published a news analysis of the SeaWorld press release. The analysis hits the mark and nicely deconstructs this corporate speak and it is brutal:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2018/02/27/seaworld...0041ce0b9f

One of the interesting things to me is that "analysts" get too hung up on the whales, and frankly the San Diego and Orlando markets are very different in size, scope and perception. Most people don't even know the Busch Gardens parks are related. The problem was and is Orlando's ability to be competitive, and I will stand by that assertion forever. The only thing interesting to happen there in the last decade is Mako, while UO and Disney have been on insane cap ex binges. People who go to SeaWorld love it, but even among people who like the park, the amount of mindshare they get in the face of Harry Potter, Avatar, Star Wars and Volcano Bay is shrinking.

^exactly, two years ago I owned a Universal AP and went down for a couple of week long trips throughout the year, every time I spent 1 day at BGT and SWO because I had my fill of Universal. This year I’ve had a Universal AP and it has only been special events that pulled me to the SEAS parks (Howl-O-Scream, Xmas at Sea world.). Universal has so upped their game that I have a hard time leaving. Last year when I had a WDW pass, I never left the World

I think that cap-ex is the way to go at this point, especially on the coaster front. Perhaps it sounds very enthusiast-ish, but with the Dragons gone at IOA, SWO has far and away the best coaster lineup in a single park in Orlando, and I'd like to think that another solid coaster or two could really put them in an unrivaled position for thrills in Orlando. I still think that animals will play a large part of their success going forward (animals smaller than orcas, anyway), but they'll never win on IP or anything like that, so I think that their best bet is to go the way of basic thrilling mechanical rides and offer a very different product than the other big names in town.

SWO may be best positioned for the specific coaster niche, but is it better positioned than Universal/IoA for the thrill ride niche? I haven't been in about 10 years, but my understanding was that Potter World, though coaster-less, was still "better than coasters" to most people.

I went to Uni several years ago with a friend who is a yooooge Harry Potter fan. It was her first time at the Wizarding World. We entered and she was nearly in tears; she said it was like walking into one of the movies.

The Potter ride may not be a coaster, but it's an incredible ride.

I was at Sea World just two weeks ago. It was a medium crowd, I’d say, and whoever showed up that day seemed to have a mild interest in the thrill rides. Most were a walk on or a station wait. The shows were packing them in all day though.

I haven’t done the state side Potters but the Uni Japan one was amazingly done (and I’ve never seen a Potter movie or read a book), so I can assume that the Orlando version, being much bigger, is just as, if not more so, amazing. And very thrilling.

It is. Seriously, it stands as one (two) of the most satisfying themed experiences I’ve ever encountered. The rides, shops, and eats are so authentic. And the train ride is genius. (On a couple of levels)

The wait for the train really takes you out of the moment though. That's kind of annoying. At least on the studio side it feels like a genuine train station, but the IoA side is kind of generic.

True. I was there on a slow-ish day in February and the train was a walkon. But boyhowdy, as I walked past those miles of queue that I’m sure get full use on many days I about died.
I did both trips and the only station I really remember was the Studios side. Maybe it will get some kind of makeover now that Dragons is gone and a new dark ride building will be back there somewhere.