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This page has spoiler information for rides and shows at the various Sea World parks. Remember, it's your choice to be here reading this!
I'll start with the factual description, then give you a review.
The theming for this show is pretty awesome. They did quite a bit of work on this set, whose theme is that you are part of the live studio audience for a taping of the network TV show Tool Tim... er, Fools with Tools. Look very carefully for all the jokes and other little details in the set; they are scattered everywhere.
As they are load the theatre, the background track consists of television show theme songs, including that from Tool Time. Fifteen minutes prior to showtime, the pre-show starts. A production assistant bumbles onto the stage, talking to his/her boss on a cell phone, and realizes that the audience is already seated. He/she goes through some warm up with the audience, as well as several more one-sided phone calls with her boss, and some hollering at the sound booth.
The show itself consists of the trainers attempting to demonstrate several simple repairs around the home, with the help of Clyde and Seamore, a pair of sea lions. Some of the gags work well, while others don't. As with the shows of the past, Asian small-clawed river otters and a walrus also make appearances at different points throughout the show.
Now for the review: This is probably the worst sea lion show I've ever seen. Granted, it is new and they are trying to iron out some of the bugs, but I allowed for that while I was watching it two weeks after it opened and in several viewings since. The pre-show is EXTREMELY annoying, and uses many recycled gags from prior shows, as well as a few stolen from Sea Lions Tonite. The show itself is pretty weak. The animals get far too little stage time, with most of the emphasis placed on the trainers and their attempts to work with a very shallow script. Though I won't tell you to avoid this at all costs, seeing it should not be a priority in your schedule.
Since I first saw the show, it has not gotten any better, though they have yanked some of the gags that weren't working well.
To summarize this ride: Wow. Sea World does a great job of themeing their rides. They come pretty close to Disney's level, sometimes surpassing them. This ride is no exception. I'm not going to go into great detail describing this ride. To be honest, I had a hard time following the exact story because of some audio level problems, and my inability to clearly discern sounds when there's a lot of loud background noise (as there was when I rode). Basically, you are on a visit to the lost continent of Atlantis, when Something Suddenly Goes Wrong(tm), and a nasty being sets out to spoil your day. You spend the rest of the ride trying to get away from her. Just when you think you have, she catches you and plunges you back into peril.
The technology on this ride is simply incredible. It starts out as a boat in a flume, pretty standard stuff with all the drops and splashes and so on. But after you get 'caught' during your escape, your plunge back into peril is effected when your boat climbs back up, and thinking that you get another flume drop, you instead find yourself on a roller coaster track! The coaster portion of the ride is hidden from public view, so it's a real surprise to anyone who hasn't heard about it (or read my spoilers). The changeover is smooth and takes but a few seconds. The coaster portion itself is not really that exciting, but the whole premise is.
Warning: There is no way you can escape getting wet on this ride. It was designed to get everyone on board wet. Those in the front seat get totally, I can't believe how wet I am, soaked to the bone. Keep this in mind when thinking about taking your valuable electronics along or if walking around in squishy shoes for the rest of the day is not your idea of fun.
The premise of this movie is that a young boy is stranded on a desert isle, when suddenly a shipload of pirates arrives. The captain (Leslie Nielsen) had hidden plundered treasure on the island some five years prior and was returning to retrieve it. The young boy was the cabin boy in the former crew and was left on the island to die when the treasure was hidden. (The boy looks to be ten or so in the movie. How did he engineer all those traps and move the really heavy stuff? Why have a five-year-old cabin boy on your crew? Why do I analyze these things so?).
The boy has set up a series of booby-traps that take out the crew (temporarily, nobody dies, this is a family park) one-by-one. As they encounter the traps, 4-D effects are used to make you part of the action, most noticeably for the pigeons flying overhead and a hive of angry bees.
The penultimate moment of the film arrives when the first mate (Eric Idle) learns that the captain had killed off his entire former crew and had planned the same fate for his current crew. A showdown occurs on the beach, the captain loses the battle, and the boy is made the new captain (oh yeah, so believable). The former captain is forced to walk the plank, and makes a big splash. The end. Now go watch Shamu.
I'm thinking this movie is not quite a good fit for a theme park. It has a lot of slapstick and some bawdy toilet humor. I'd expect it to be rated PG were it in a theatre. Someone told me the show came out of England. I don't know if that's true, but it's somewhat believable.
A couple of warnings: Put your valuable electronics equipment away or it may get hurt (they don't stress this enough when you enter the theatre). Also, if you or your children are frightened of bees, spiders, or skeletons, you may wish to wait this one out.
My overall grade for this attraction is B-. It has some good 3D effects (though it uses many of the same tired types of gags as the others in its genre). The enhancements (the 4D part) work pretty well and are not particularly overdone. It's not on my list of must-sees, but neither is it something to avoid. It has poor repeat value.
The latest addition to Sea World San Diego, and the second ride built just for the sake of having a ride (the first was Mission: Bermuda Triangle). The premise of this ride is that you were shipwrecked on a desert island, and you have a chance to escape via a raft. (Note: supposedly a recorded speil tells you this story, but it is lost on most guests, who are there just to get wet.)
There are a few twists and spins. Those who want to pay a quarter can shoot at you with a water cannon (I think other theme parks let you do stuff like this for free). There's a really wicked looking waterfall that does little harm, and then there's one that looks tame and nearly swamps the boat. You did listen when I advised you to use a locker and buy a poncho, non? The end of the story, again lost on most guests, is that no matter how hard you try, you can't escape the island.
Review: All said, it is just another "ride the raft through the flume" that is much shorter than most. The themeing is pretty awesome, but the experience leaves you wondering why you waited so long for such a short ride. (It leaves me wondering why they destroyed so many animal habitats to put in such a lame ride.) The only three hour tour here is the wait in line during the Summer.
The ride portion of Wild Arctic is a motion base flight simulator-type ride that serves as an entry to the Wild Arctic animal exhibit in California and Florida. See those pages for a description of the exhibits.
You need to get to the South Pole, but how? Why, we can get you there in just three minutes in our state of the art jet-powered helicopter, "White Thunder." You have a choice of riding in the 'regular' helicopter, or the 'gyro-stabilized' (non-motion) version. The latter is the only choice you have if travelling with children shorter than 42 inches, or if you prefer to avoid motion sickness.
Once inside, you get to watch a Computer Generated Imagery movie that is somewhat interesting the first time you see it, but gets old quick. I don't want to tell you more because I don't really want to remember. Trust me, what you'll see after it's over is well worth it.
I figured out after riding this the first time how to enter the exhibit without having to ever ride it again. I'm not going to share my dirty little secret, because the ride is used as a means to smooth the traffic flow through the exhibit and keep it from getting overcrowded.
