We are here at the Fairfield Inn now, and it is an official partner hotel of Sea World. We have used the shuttle very time, but there are definitely some drawbacks compared to Disney Shuttles.
For one thing, it only runs about every 50 minutes; it could definitely run the short loop much more frequently; we have seen the bus parked across the Sea World lot waiting to pull out at the appointed time to pick up people going back to the hotel. It is a big bus, and has never seemed to be too awfully crammed full, even after the big evening Shamu Show with fireworks. I'm sure the fuel to run such a big bus so often is expensive, but it might be ok to run a smaller van every 20 minutes instead. So you just have to be really aware of the bus times, not just show up and wait knowing one is coming "soon" like at Disney.
Second, the bus only officially takes people out to the parks until 3:20, and then only takes people back from the parks after 12:00. This makes no sense, since they are driving back to the park to get the next load, but we are told that it is up to the driver, and he told us it is only in his contract to run people on the times on the info sheet they provided. Which has caused us problems when park hopping or wanting to just spend part of the day. We got tickets for 14 days unlimited entry, but since we are forced to spend longer days at the parks, we did all the stuff there in about 2-3 days. We wanted to go to Aquatica one day until mid afternoon, and then go to Sea World to close out the day, but we had no way to get to Sea World on that plan (except walk), so we just stayed a little longer at Aquatica, and then ate at the hotel and watched tv. We wanted to do a tour in the morning and eat an early lunch tomorrow before leaving for the airport, but cannot get back from the park in time on the shuttle, so scrapped that idea. One day we didn't spend the day at the park, but had thought we would go back in the evening to dine with Shamu or eat at the shark restaurant. Instead, we took a cab to Downtown Disney.
So I think Sea World is missing out on some opportunities to have people in the park spending money due to the poor bus schedule. However, they do seem to always be on time and the bus is nice.
