- Everything you need to know
to visit SeaWorld in San Diego.
I'm Chris.
This is Yellow Productions and in this video
I'm gonna tell you about the rides, the shows,
what to eat, what to see, what to do, and even where to stay
if you're coming to SeaWorld in San Diego.
All right, let's go.
The first thing to know
is just a little bit of background about SeaWorld.
If you take a zoo, cross it with an aquarium,
actually like 17 of them and cross it with a theme park,
more and more thrill rides every year, you get SeaWorld.
Founded in the 1960s
this is the original SeaWorld theme park
and is one of San Diego's most popular attractions
with over 4 million visitors annually
and is open 365 days a year whenever you want to come.
The second thing to know is about tickets.
You can get tickets for as cheap as $55 for a single day
if you buy it online.
$110 on the busy days or at the gate.
So definitely for the cheapest tickets, buy them online.
They sell annual passes.
There's thing called a fun card,
which does have a lot of blockout dates
or the annual annual pass, $150, no blockout dates.
And you know what that comes with free parking,
which is a pretty good deal
'cause we're gonna talk about
how expensive parking is up here in the next section.
The third thing to know is about getting into SeaWorld.
It's very centrally located in San Diego,
just a 10 minute drive from San Diego Airport
and downtown San Diego.
If you're driving a car parking is expensive.
$30 for self-parking.
You can also buy closer parking for even more money
but the parking lot isn't that big
so I don't think it's that worth it to pay more
for that premium parking.
But if you've got the annual pass, then it's free
so that's a pretty good deal.
The fourth thing to know is about the shows
and the shows are one of the reasons
you should come to SeaWorld.
There are three main shows.
The Dolphin Show right back here.
They've got 14 dolphins.
The Orca Show, which you might know
is the Killer Whale Show.
They have seven of those.
And then there's a really neat Sea Lion Show too.
You should plan your day around these shows
because they often fill up.
If you're here on a busy day,
you get to see the show 15 minutes before showtime.
This funky princess wants to point out
that if you don't wanna get wet definitely avoid the seating
that says wet zone or soak zone,
'cause you do get really wet.
And if you are here on a busy day
and you want some of the best seating,
you can pay a little bit more for your ticket
to get some reserved seating
that's reserved just for you paying a little bit more
right in the center.
Now if you're with little ones
and they really do wanna get wet,
then by all means sit in the soak zone
but you might wanna bring a plastic poncho with you
because you can get really soaked.
And bring a change of clothes for the little ones
because walking around SeaWorld all day with smelly seawater
isn't that great.
Now if you're not sure if you'll like the show
sit in the back because all the shows
have easy exits from the back.
And in addition to these three main shows
they've also got more shows that they add in seasonally.
Now, in addition to shows,
SeaWorld has a lot of really great animal attractions,
aquariums and my favorite aquarium is this one,
the shark encounter where you're actually
in this glass tunnel inside the aquarium
looking at the baby shark and oh,
our spunky princess here, she sees the baby sharks.
Look at the baby shark.
Now my second favorite is probably the penguin encounter.
It's home to a colony of over 300 penguins,
including tall emperor penguins.
Great in here when it's really hot outside.
Now right next to the shark encounter
is another really cool aquarium.
This one's called Turtle Reef
and it has a whole bunch of really big sea turtles in there.
These things I've seen in pictures
but I've never seen up close and personal in this same way.
Really neat to watch these huge animals swim on by.
In addition to the aquarium style exhibits
there's also a number of touch and feel style exhibits.
The tide pools are open for kids to touch and feel
starfish, sea urchins and sea snails in here.
Ever popular manta ray petting pool is open.
These are known as stingrays, but these will not sting you.
Now the smelliest and noisiest animal exhibit
is definitely the sea lion feeding area.
Now, in addition to just looking at the animals
you can feed them, $7 here at the sea lions
will get you four fish.
Are you ready to feed them?
There we go.
Closed hand. There's a fish right here.
Now, also noisy, but slightly less noisy
than the sea lions are the flamingos.
A little bit smelly too.
I always love coming to see the flamingos.
Something about seeing these colorful animals
just makes me feel like
everything's gonna be all right with life.
And of course like any good theme parks
all the major attractions have gift shops.
The coolest thing in the gift shop here I thought
were these shark slippers.
That's right, they are shark slippers
and they even say SeaWorld on the bottom.
The sixth thing to know is about food.
SeaWorld does not allow in any outside food.
Like theme parks, it's all pretty expensive.
What we've got here, $36 for these sliders, poke bowl
and some cheesecake.
You can bring in outside bottled water. They allow that.
Pro tip, freeze it and then halfway through your day
it'll be still cold for you.
If you have a baby like we do, our traveling princess,
they also allow you to bring in baby food from the outside.
Bottled water, baby food.
Other than that, I would say plan
to just probably have lunch in the park and then dinner,
maybe have that when you leave outside.
The seventh thing to know is about when to go
and the summertime is definitely gonna be the busiest.
So if you wanna spend the most money
and be here with the most people, come in the summer.
I mean, the good thing about summer though
is the park is open the longest,
they have the longest hours.
But for the least amount of crowds come in the winter.
January and February, pretty slow months.
We're here in December and the park is themed
all for the holidays, which is pretty nice too.
And you know what?
San Diego has great weather all year round.
You can eat ice cream just about any day.
SeaWorld has a ton of great rides
for big kids and little kids alike.
The little kids rides they're in the Ocean Explorer Land
right by the front gate
and even the princess here can go on this ride.
They've got a thing right at the front
that you can see the height
that all of your kids can go on the rides.
Are you having fun?
- Yeah.
- And of course we had to go on
the yellow flying submarine.
- [Daughter] Wee!
- Most of the rides are included in your admission price
but there are two that aren't
and interestingly enough, they aren't the thrill rides.
One of the ones you have to pay extra for is this one,
the Bayside Sky Ride that takes you from SeaWorld proper
to this other part that used to be the Atlantis restaurant.
No longer a restaurant.
Now it just comes back.
This'll cost you $6 per adult.
Kids under three are free.
The other one that's gonna cost you money is the big tower,
the big viewing tower.
That one's also six bucks.
When we were here, it wasn't running
but it does a 360 view up on top.
I will say the Sky Ride,
although you might think it's lame
compared to the thrill rides,
it's a pretty nice view of Mission Bay from up here.
Now the real kiddie activities
are in the Sesame Street Bay of Play
where it's kind of like an interactive
children's playground.
Lots of climbing.
My favorite thing from when I was a kid coming here
and is still here today, is the Air Bounce.
Boy, it's like a really big bouncy, bouncy, bounce house.
It turns out there's no age maximum for this.
I seem to remember this being easier when I was a kid.
Now onto the thrill rides.
The Manta rollercoaster,
it's right above the manta rays.
It goes 43 miles per hour and includes a drop
that goes 54 feet underground.
Electric Eel, this is a much taller rollercoaster.
It goes up to 150 feet, multiple loops,
twists, and inversions.
Emperor is California's first flawless dive coaster
that drops 90 degrees and there's a new coaster
opening in 2023, Arctic Rescue.
It's gonna be the fastest and longest straddle coaster
on the West Coast.
And if you're here in the summer and you wanna cool down
without that yucky salt water from the marine mammals,
then check out Ship Wreck Rapids.
It's the raft ride here.
A lot of fun but you will get really soaked.
If you're here in a day when the lines are too long
you can buy quick queue, which starts at $20
which lets you skip the line and basically go in the exit
instead of the long line at the entrance.
And the ninth thing to know
is that if you're trying to figure out
how to get around the park
you should definitely download the SeaWorld app.
You can get it for your iPhone or your Android device.
It'll tell you all the things you can see.
And one of the great things you can see
is the shark right here.
Friendly shark for kids.
Thank you very much, friendly shark.
And the tenth thing to know is about where to stay
if you wanna be close to SeaWorld.
The closest hotel is The Dana
and you can walk from that hotel
to the front gate of SeaWorld in about 15 minutes.
Also nearby is the Hyatt Regency.
It's about a five minute further walk than The Dana.
The next two closest hotels, these are a drive
but they're a short five minute drive.
The Bahia in Mission Beach and Paradise Point
on one of those islands in Mission Bay.
And the last thing to know is we've got more videos.
If you're planning a trip to San Diego
you might enjoy checking out our San Diego travel guide.
Or if you're a true animal lover
then you'll also wanna check out the San Diego Zoo.
Isn't that rights,
Monkey Princess? - Yeah.
- Yeah, well, as usual, we won't say goodbye
'cause we're gonna see you in one of those videos.
Links are also in the description below.