I know there isn't a Sea World site that matches the detail for Disneyland, and I found myself with more questions about it than most places we went. I thought I'd post some of my thoughts from a visit about a week ago. We arrived there semi-late (after lunch - we left Anaheim that morning after sleeping a bit late, and drove in, getting lunch just beforehand). Some of these might apply to the summer (which is almost over) more than the rest of the year, so keep that in mind.
1) You need to plan to get to shows well before they start. They will close off some entrances (always the most convenient ones it seemed...) several minutes before the show, then it takes a couple more minutes to walk around to another spot. Even though we arrived at every show at least a couple of minutes "early", it took us a while to get into them, including being held up for a while at one while they waited to see if there was enough room (there was enough room every time we went, but it seemed some people were being blocked out). If one show ends 15 minutes before another one starts, don't assume you will have time to get from one to the other. It's not a matter of just a good vs. bad seat (like at many other places I've been) - it's a matter of seeing the show at all, or at least saving several extra minutes of walking.
2) The playground area for kids is very extensive there. It's not just a climbing area: there is a bounce house, a room of punching bags, some small rides, etc. My younger daughter spent almost an hour there, and still didn't do much of it - she could have spent another hour easily. It's not organized toward a single-entry point, though - I felt I had to move around to keep an eye on her, as opposed to many other parks where kids areas have a chokepoint that a parent can more or less stand at to catch their kid entering/leaving.
3) The park is decptive. There aren't that many rides, and there aren't that many shows. But, it will take a while to see it all. If it makes any sense, it reminds me of Disney Hollywood Studios in that regard. Our time there was really not enough, and we hardly did any rides (by choice, but still, we couldn't have if we'd wanted to). It's easily a full-day park if you want to see most of it.
4) Dine with Shamu was very cool. Really good if you want to know lots of information (not what you get in a normal show). Good views of the whales (they brought out three of them). The food was good. We were at a really good table, but didn't get wet (not sure anyone did during our dinner, other than some small splashes - certainly nothing like in the wet zone of the show). It's tough to say if it's "worth" the extra money, but we did feel it was a really well-done experience. Early reservations for a good table will pay off. I don't know that I would have enjoyed the second tier as much as we did the waterside table we had.
5) The exiting after fireworks was absolutely horrendous. You basically had the entire Shamu stadium exiting at once. They funneled everyone out one exit (there were others that could have been opened), and it was a huge crowd pressing in on everyone. I can't believe it's not seen as a safety hazard. I know they were trying to move people by the gift shop on the way out, but it really seemed dangerous - if there were ever a panic, I would expect some serious injuries. As it was, we were just trying not to get separated from our kids as we were pushed along to the exit. Left us with a bad taste.
6) SLIGHT SPOILER ALERT: The Sea Lions Tonight show makes references to many of the shows/rides in other parts of the park that they assume you've seen that day. So, if you haven't seen those shows, you might miss some of the references. We knew most of them, but there were a couple we didn't understand as well, since we had skipped one ride and one show. You certainly don't want to see this show first or something.
7) The parking situaiton could use better management. We were just set loose in the lot, with no idea where the entrance was, how far away, etc. We saw where lots of people were parking, then noticed a whole area that seemed (and indeed turned out to be) much closer that we went to. Lots of people were giving themselves minutes of extra walking time from their parking place, mainly due to no good directions. On the other hand, we found it was surprisingly easy to exit once we were in our car at night.
8) We were there right after Disneyland, and earlier had been to Universal, so it was tough for us to not compare between them. Overall, we thought Disney did a significantly better job at crowd management in just about every way possible (I'm not just talking about the exiting, I mean the entire flow of the park, the shows, etc.). SeaWorld had some really nice things, and we did enjoy our visit quite a bit, but we kept finidng ourselves thinking "why did they do X instead of Y" throughout the day. We found the parking setup confusing, park layout kind of haphazard, the "best" path to take from one place to another unclear, the ability to plan out what we wanted to do (how early to get places, how long exhibits/rides would take) tougher, etc.
1) You need to plan to get to shows well before they start. They will close off some entrances (always the most convenient ones it seemed...) several minutes before the show, then it takes a couple more minutes to walk around to another spot. Even though we arrived at every show at least a couple of minutes "early", it took us a while to get into them, including being held up for a while at one while they waited to see if there was enough room (there was enough room every time we went, but it seemed some people were being blocked out). If one show ends 15 minutes before another one starts, don't assume you will have time to get from one to the other. It's not a matter of just a good vs. bad seat (like at many other places I've been) - it's a matter of seeing the show at all, or at least saving several extra minutes of walking.
2) The playground area for kids is very extensive there. It's not just a climbing area: there is a bounce house, a room of punching bags, some small rides, etc. My younger daughter spent almost an hour there, and still didn't do much of it - she could have spent another hour easily. It's not organized toward a single-entry point, though - I felt I had to move around to keep an eye on her, as opposed to many other parks where kids areas have a chokepoint that a parent can more or less stand at to catch their kid entering/leaving.
3) The park is decptive. There aren't that many rides, and there aren't that many shows. But, it will take a while to see it all. If it makes any sense, it reminds me of Disney Hollywood Studios in that regard. Our time there was really not enough, and we hardly did any rides (by choice, but still, we couldn't have if we'd wanted to). It's easily a full-day park if you want to see most of it.
4) Dine with Shamu was very cool. Really good if you want to know lots of information (not what you get in a normal show). Good views of the whales (they brought out three of them). The food was good. We were at a really good table, but didn't get wet (not sure anyone did during our dinner, other than some small splashes - certainly nothing like in the wet zone of the show). It's tough to say if it's "worth" the extra money, but we did feel it was a really well-done experience. Early reservations for a good table will pay off. I don't know that I would have enjoyed the second tier as much as we did the waterside table we had.
5) The exiting after fireworks was absolutely horrendous. You basically had the entire Shamu stadium exiting at once. They funneled everyone out one exit (there were others that could have been opened), and it was a huge crowd pressing in on everyone. I can't believe it's not seen as a safety hazard. I know they were trying to move people by the gift shop on the way out, but it really seemed dangerous - if there were ever a panic, I would expect some serious injuries. As it was, we were just trying not to get separated from our kids as we were pushed along to the exit. Left us with a bad taste.
6) SLIGHT SPOILER ALERT: The Sea Lions Tonight show makes references to many of the shows/rides in other parts of the park that they assume you've seen that day. So, if you haven't seen those shows, you might miss some of the references. We knew most of them, but there were a couple we didn't understand as well, since we had skipped one ride and one show. You certainly don't want to see this show first or something.
7) The parking situaiton could use better management. We were just set loose in the lot, with no idea where the entrance was, how far away, etc. We saw where lots of people were parking, then noticed a whole area that seemed (and indeed turned out to be) much closer that we went to. Lots of people were giving themselves minutes of extra walking time from their parking place, mainly due to no good directions. On the other hand, we found it was surprisingly easy to exit once we were in our car at night.
8) We were there right after Disneyland, and earlier had been to Universal, so it was tough for us to not compare between them. Overall, we thought Disney did a significantly better job at crowd management in just about every way possible (I'm not just talking about the exiting, I mean the entire flow of the park, the shows, etc.). SeaWorld had some really nice things, and we did enjoy our visit quite a bit, but we kept finidng ourselves thinking "why did they do X instead of Y" throughout the day. We found the parking setup confusing, park layout kind of haphazard, the "best" path to take from one place to another unclear, the ability to plan out what we wanted to do (how early to get places, how long exhibits/rides would take) tougher, etc.
