Sea World Parks & Entertainment hires CEO Joel Manby away from Herschend

That seems like a pretty good score. I'm interested to see what his first changes are on John Young Parkway, and where it goes from there. I think he needs to inject a lot of fresh thinking into the company.

I think his first move will be to help/show the employee's he is with them.

I think they made a bad move letting long term employee's go.

(from the closed show) it show's employee's loyalty to the company

will be repaid by you getting fired /let go at the whim of the company

I am not a CEO but at least they are finally replying to the bad PR

from PETA and Blackfish.

Other moves must include getting more families thru the gate.

Offer free multi day tickets with another paid admission (one per family)

will get them 2 or 3 paid admissions for people who were not planning on coming to Seaworld .

I know several parks in California offer annual passes at the cost of one day tickets.

One of the first things I would consider is to put a couple of people on the Board who are well known in animal care circles. Manby obviously comes with strong amusement industry credentials but Sea World is being attached for it's core mission...which is no doubt the animals. A Jane Goodall type might help to change the course of public opinion.

I just watched his Undercover Boss earlier this week!

I am one of those people who has actively not visited SeaWorld or Busch Gardens parks in recent years due to the public perception of their parks.

This seems like the kind of guy who could turn my view of the company around, especially given how well respected parks like Dollywood and Silver Dollar City are. I'm already planning on visiting Dollywood for the first time in 2016, and I may have to add Busch Gardens Williamsburg to the "southernly" tour if he does well.

Some might say he switched horses in midstream - that he jumped off a thoroughbred and climbed aboard a nag headed to the glue factory.

Hard to believe he made this decision on porpoise, he's got a whale of a task ahead, because it looks like Sea World's fate might already be sealed. But Manby has the kind of rep that makes me want to ummm, Believe...

Happy Friday everyone!

I was impressed with the path Herschend had Darien Lake on. I was sorry to see them go. Hopefully Manby can bring some of that ideology to the SeaWorld family of parks.

I also like the idea of bringing an animal person on board. Manby may have a good track record when it comes to parks but animal care and conservation efforts are a different matter entirely.

Wow I am actually sad to see him leaving HFEC. He did quite a bit for our parks including my secondary home park of Silver Dollar City. HFEC already has animal exhibits with their ownership of various aquariums and Wild Adventures, so he already has experience there.

I hope he can turn Sea World around from their decline. I believe he can do that.

SeaWorld has seen a decline in attendance and revenue, but despite all of the gloom and doom, it's still profitable. I'm not sure why people are so intent to poo-poo it and expect the end of days. And I know I'm a broken record, but how do you expect to maintain the numbers when you don't build anything new?

Adding attractions at the San Diego park is difficult at best. Operating on land leased from the city, and having to deal with the machinations of city council that has a multitude of agendas is like eternally banging your head against the wall. Then there is the California Coastal Commission that has it's nose stuck in the soup all the time. In the past they have threatened to pull up stakes and move elsewhere although the CCC has jurisdiction over all coastal property in the state. With the water issues in CA now going inland is not in the cards.

I was referring mostly to the larger properties.

Is San Diego that much smaller than Orlando or San Antonio (or maybe my real question is, is San Antonio really on par with Orlando)? I always kinda viewed Orlando as the flagship while San Diego & San Antonio are the smaller parks.

San Diego is the birthplace of SeaWorld, but it's now the smallest park in the chain . With management now in Orlando the corporation not only includes the aquatic parks but the rest of the former Busch properties

http://seaworldparks.com/

In terms of land area, I think the San Antonio park is actually the largest of the three SeaWorlds, but it definitely comes across as the stripped-down version in terms of investment. It's a very nice park, don't get me wrong, but you won't see Manta-esque levels of detail going into its attractions.

That being said, Steel Eel and Great White make for a great duo. ;)

Ditto Dutchman's comments. The park really wanted to invest and got shot down. It was a total bummer dude.

That being said, anecdotally, I know a lot of families with young kids here who get season passes. But I'm sure the lego park up the freeway have dipped into that crowd.

We've never bought passes. For animals, nothing beats the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park.