Inside Look and Sesame Street Construction – SeaWorld Orlando – January 19, 2019

Sean: This weekend was the second weekend of SeaWorld Orlando’s Inside Look. After the success at the San Diego park, SeaWorld Orlando brought the event to their park and it’s been a hit! We’ve been so fortunate to check out 5/6 Inside Look stations, which we’ll give a short recap of in this update. Also in this update you’ll find Sesame Street construction and several additional notes!


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Let’s fly straight into this update with a Manta picture!


 

Inside Look

The first stop we made when entering the park was the Wild Arctic exhibit to take a look at the Beluga whale housing! The tour took you through the back pools and holding facilities!

These adorable harbor seals made for a great start to our day.

The very informative tour also took us to the facility’s fish house, where all fish for the Wild Arctic exhibit, as well as Aquatica is prepared!

That is one complex system, and this is just for a very few of the park’s 35,000 animals!

Our second tour took us to the Sea Lion Stadium, home to amazing otters and sea lions that call the park their home. The tour showed us some of their favorite enrichments (toys).

The social sea lions were having the best time of their lives and seemed to love all the interaction they were getting.

Another exhibit/stadium, another fish facility. SeaWorld’s Inside Look really allows you to take a good look at all that goes into running the park, it’s very impressive.

A proper and stylish goodbye from our pinniped friend! 

And one of 12 ADORABLE otters! Let’s go check out the next station!

Next up was a Manta facility tour! Manta is not only a world-class flying coaster but is also home to a large aquarium that is integrated with the queue. This must have been one of our favorite tours! 

Just as we were admiring the hydrodynamic acrobatics of the manta rays it was time for the aquarists to feed the animals! 

Besides the smaller fish most sharks and manta rays are target trained, which helps with monitoring their health and assists with feeding each ray.

It’s hard to get a good understanding of how large the Manta aquarium facilities are ’til you stand above them. The integration with the ride queue and ride support system is even more impressive.

The tour continued below the Manta station, which is home to several obvious Manta supports but also a network of water systems regulating salt, calcium, temperature, etc.

Our next tour took us to the park’s main Fish House where crews begin their day at 3 am with dozens of thousands of tons of fish to be redistributed among the park’s 35,000 animals! The operation is quite impressive and though the tour was quite quick and only in one spot, the staff did a phenomenal job explaining the fishing practices and sustainability they pay so much attention to.

The final tour that we did was certainly the most impressive. The Rescue Facility tour takes a good half hour (if not longer) and goes by several stations with lots of information not just on rescues, but also on how they operate on animals and run the park’s water systems.

Ever wondered how large mammals are transported for rescue or between parks? Wonder no more!

How does SeaWorld filter and recycle over 3,000,000 gallons of water in 3.5 hours in their original 70s main water facility? That you will learn as well!

Of course SeaWorld Orlando is famous for their efforts of rescuing and re-releasing manatees, in 2018 SeaWorld rescued over 70 manatees, a record. Currently there are quite a few in rehab, which was wonderful to get to see up close.

They’re not only cute, they’re also easily hurt. Thanks to SeaWorld for all their rescue efforts! For 2019 alone SeaWorld has already rescued a new manatee and 11 birds!

Every animal that comes in goes through a quarantine first (smaller animals), to make sure they’re at the right health to live with other animals. You get to see that facility as well!

After a few more stops you make your way back to the park and pass by the baby turtle nursing facility, the cutest little turtles swim around in here! Make sure to check out this wonderful free-of-charge event!


Sesame Street

Next up is Sesame Street construction! We posted a park update last week showing off the new repaint for the Super Grover’s Box Car Derby coaster, formally known as Shamu Express.

The exterior of the large newly constructed multi-purpose building is starting to receive lots of texture such as brick walls and window frames, putting the “street” in Sesame Street.

In the last few days the midways have started to go in at Sesame Street, using the same kind of pavement as we see around most of the park.

We look forward to providing a much closer look in the near future.


Coasters!

Journey to Atlantis remains closed with very little change noticeable off-ride, though it does seem like the stairs accompanying the lift may have seen some painting or cleaning. Journey to Atlantis is down through February 11th, though may reopen sooner.

Kraken was running phenomenally well today, and much like Mako had some stellar operations due to very efficient staffing. We got the great opportunity to take some pictures of the ride during one of our Inside Look tours!

We’ll throw in another Kraken picture, just for you!

And of course the kick-ass Mako that manages to amaze me over and over again.

We had a stellar day at the park, as usual. We thank you for reading and hope you join us for our next report, coming soon!


While you’re here, check out some of our other new reports such as:

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