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In January 2001, Busch Entertainment Corporation (BEC) announced the sale of Sea World Ohio to Six Flags Inc. The whales, dolphins, and penguins were moved to other Sea World parks, including Discovery Cove. Six Flags kept all the other marine mammals, fish, birds, etc. and all the shows and buildings, but not the Sea World name.
The park reopened in Spring 2001 and was made part of the nearby Six Flags Lake Geauga theme park. The new combined park was known as Six Flags Worlds of Adventure. Six Flags brought in dolphins from one of their other parks so they would have a dolphin show. The second season saw the addition of a killer whale to their collection, an attempt no doubt to bring back most of the shows and exhibits familiar to visitors of the old Sea World park.
Unfortunately, Six Flags couldn't make the venture work as well as they planned. Eventually, Six Flags sold out to Cedar Fair, who renamed the park Geauga Lake, ditched the animal park concept and turned that area into a waterpark. After a couple of underperforming seasons, at the end of 2007 Cedar Fair gave up on the concept of having a ride park and a waterpark in one and shut down the ride portion of the park. It is being redeveloped as a mega waterpark.
This section wouldn't exist at all if I didn't get so many emails regarding the fate and the history of the Ohio park, plus many of you are keeping the search engines busy looking for any information. Amazingly, most people looking for information are doing so to plan a trip to Sea World (perhaps trying to introduce their children to one of their favorite early memories). It's sad that the Ohio park had to go.