Sea World, San Diego Zoo & Wild Animal Park Help

[Mary Popppins]

Hello -- my family will be traveling to San Diego during our Disneyland trip, and plan to hit Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, and the San Diego Wild Animal Park while we are there beforehand.

Does anyone have any tips on the best way to work those other parks? (Not Disneyland -- we've been there.) Is there a best route to get the most done, and wait in the shortest lines? Is there a link you can send us to with tips?

We are planning trips during the week to avoid the weekend crowd. And we are so excited -- all the parks are open at NIGHT now!

Thanks for any advice you can share.

 

[Sue & Co.]

We are also going to San Diego for the first time next year so would be very interested in any tips.

Sue

 

[RADOPT]

Sea World - Can't really help here. We have been once but did not do the
rides, just saw some of the shows. The horses are beautiful!

San Diego Zoo - the panda's are very popular so you may want to do that when they open - this was the only exibit we had a line at and it gets LONG. Check the times because it don't always open at zoo opening. There is a tour you can take which is a nice overview. Definately use the bus - lots of hills! If you want something different to eat, there is a restaurant and cafe in the treehouse at gorilla tropics. If you go to http://www.sandiegozoo.org/zoo/dining.html you can see the dining options. They also have an interactive map - it is good to plan as you can see where the bus drops you off, etc. It is a large zoo, plenty of hills - some steep, and walking. The smaller cats were active in the late afternoon/early evening.


San Diego Wild Animal Park - This park gets hot. Do the rail way in the morning or early evening. Standing in that line was long and hot - and we were there in MAY!

Sorry I can help any more. The park websites with there interactive maps and scheduals are a big help.

 

[Zoemakes5]

i have to ditto the walking and the heat! I'd take the shuttles any day. The tram ride at the Animal park, I'd suggest either first thing in the AM or as close as you can get to before the park closes. That way it's not so hot and the animals move more.
The only "tips" I can think of off hand for Sea World is that when you get there, go to the attractions at the "back" of the park and then work your way around. Typically, people go to the activities at the front first. Also, sit down for a few minutes and figure out what attractions you REALLY want to see (usually Shamu is a big one) and make sure you plan which show you want to see and get there early. We did S.W. in San Antonio last year for two days, and we were so glad we had that second day because we were able to see all the shows we wanted to, and there was no way we'd have been able to do that in just one day. Something very memorable to my kiddos was feeding/petting the dolphins and sea lions/seals. They still talk about it. Oh, the penguin exhibit gets a little smelly!

 

[HydroGuy]

Hello -- my family will be traveling to San Diego during our Disneyland trip, and plan to hit Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, and the San Diego Wild Animal Park while we are there beforehand.

Does anyone have any tips on the best way to work those other parks? (Not Disneyland -- we've been there.) Is there a best route to get the most done, and wait in the shortest lines? Is there a link you can send us to with tips?

We are planning trips during the week to avoid the weekend crowd. And we are so excited -- all the parks are open at NIGHT now!

Thanks for any advice you can share.

Went to Sea World last summer and have been numerous times in the past (used to live in SD). We went on a Saturday in July with four kids (ages 12, 11, 9, 8 at the time) and stayed until about 6PM. Here is my data dump.

1. Sea World does a VERY poor job on providing food. You should plan on waiting in a line 30-60 minutes to get lunch. To try to avoid the lines we snacked and put off lunch until after 3PM, and still the lines were 30 minutes long. I'm not sure what their rules are, but I would recommend you TAKE FOOD WITH YOU for lunch.

2. We got there early so we could go on the new Journey to Atlantic water ride. We would have been on in the first 15 minutes, but the ride broke down. We came back later in the day, but the line was over an hour long and we never did get to go. No Fastpasses either! I would recommend doing this early.

3. The Shamu show is very worthwhile. We went to the first or second show and got really good seats by getting there 30 minutes early.

4. The dolphin show was good and worthwhile, as was the "fools with tools" sea lion show.

5. There is an arctic tour motion simulator along the lines of DL's Star Tours. If you like Star Tours, you will like this one.

6. You should have time to see everything else at a liesurely pace. This includes the sharks, polar bears/baluga(?) whales in the arctic area, penguins, dolphins, sea lions, sting rays, manatees, etc.

7. Didn't go last summer, but in the past I went up in the tower. I think this costs extra. If you haven't done it before, it is worth doing.

8. We didn't stay into the evening, but if you stay late there are fireworks. While shorts and t-shirts are usually fine during the day, it can get a little chilly at night.

 

[YoHo]

At the Wild Animal park, the Tram line seems to always be long, so earlier the better and don't miss out on the new Lion Camp.

 

[abby]

Depending on the age of your kids the wild animal park is possibly not necessary. We went last year and my dd 4 thought it was ok (but she loved lego land better0 the tram ride was ok, but many of the animals were really too far away for her to see them easily. If you do go the elephant show is a must do. As for sea world, we love it. Lots to see and do. have a great trip.

 

[Mary Popppins]

Thanks to all of you -- great tips.

My kids are ages 15 (boy) and 11 (girl.)

Any tips on what these teens/tweens would like best?

 

[LuvTigger]

I'm a little late in posting my personal tips, but here I go anyway:

Sea World
When you arrive, you should get a map that has the show times listed. I like to take a few minutes before we begin to decide which shows we want to see, and I'll check off next to the times (make sure the shows you choose don't overlap). After I've decided that, I'll just fit everything else in between the shows. The caveat to this is Journey to Atlantis -- you might want to do this several times! I agree that this should be done early.

San Diego Zoo
Keep in mind that there are different ticket options for the Zoo. We get the deluxe admission, which includes the bus tour and the aerial tram. I always like to start with the bus tour because it gives you a good idea of the layout of the zoo, which could be otherwise confusing. On my very first visit to the zoo, our bus driver gave us excellent advice: "ride up, walk down." There are escalators throughout the park...use them! After the initial bus tour, we personally never caught the bus again to get around, but we did use the escalators to get up the hills (which are very steep), and you might want to consider the bus. Then, when we were going downhill, we walked. Take a good look at the map when you get there, and try to plan a strategy so that you don't end up doing a lot of double-backing.

You should be able to do the aerial tram any time of the day. Last year we ate at a counter-service place that was in the trees, I thought it was a great, relaxing setting.

Wild Animal Park
I don't really have any suggestions for the Animal Park -- I do recommend the animal show though. I agree with the above poster who said the animals can be hard to see. I remember our entire tram was struggling to see lions, which were hidden in some really tall grass. Keep in mind that the Animal Park is not actually in San Diego, it's about an hour drive north.

Have a great time!