Sea World is one of the classic and oldest theme parks in the Gold coast. Opened on 30th October 1971 and currently operated by Village Roadshow Theme Parks.
A white maritime ferry terminal shaped visitor center greets you are the main entrance, where a customer service booth, gallery seating and food stores line the ground floor of the entrance building just after the ticketing counters.
The park’s main performance lagoon is situated here too, where the regular daily jet ski stunt performance are held at the comfort of patrons, who can enjoy the show from the shade or out on the open grass patches under the sun.
The park is connected by the Sky High Skyway (a small cable car system) and the Sea World Monorail System allowing guests to travel between three stations throughout the park. Sea world is also home to Australia’s first monorail system in the country. It circles the boundaries of the park, riding around the outer perimeter of the theme park, stopping at the front, middle and rear sections of the park where the Sea World resort and water park is located. It even does a loop beyond the park walls over the front main parking lot outside the entrance of the park.
Attractions in Sea World Australia
Notable attractions here include animal shows, such as the Dolphin show, Fish detectives Sea lion and Jet Ski shows, as well as theme park rides such as Storm Coaster.
Storm Coaster is a rather nicely themed roller coaster and wet water flume ride, used to replace the Bermuda triangle wet ride which used to sit in that section of the park. It is a hybrid steel water coaster, the ride trains, themed to a disaster rescue boat.
The closed circuit water roller coaster starts off like a traditional steel roller coaster with a regular chain hill-lift climb, before traversing some high speed corners, elements and dips before plunging into the climax of the ride- a two tiered drop into an indoor splash pool.
The enclosed indoor area is also themed with several traces of destruction, particularly to that of a flooded warehouse area with several water elements flowing and flooding in, creating the buoyancy where the roller coaster car now functions as a boat, bringing riders back into the loading and unloading area, where the ride ends.
Check out an on-ride video of the storm coaster ride here:
Humorously, the entire ride area is themed to the aftermath of a category 5 typhoon, littered all over the ride grounds as theming. I personally found the ride built by Mack Rides too short and lack any real ride storyline unlike the Bermuda triangle ride it replaces, quite a let-down in my opinion.
An old time ride there have to be a reverse engineered Arrow Dynamics Log flume ride called “The Vikings revenge”. It was touted to be designed and by Sea World themselves, it seems to pass the test of time, operating since 1979. Another notable ride will be the Jet Ski rescue ride is an Intamin Launched Motorbike Steel coaster- a fast paced powered coaster which replaces the Vekoma coaster old corkscrew built in 1982.
I personally found it more exciting than the Storm ride despite its simplicity. Sadly, following the demolition of the corkscrew coaster (which is a fantastic Vekoma classic) what is now left is a large void of land with no visible development for a replacement ride.
With the rides aside, of course, the main reason you go to Sea world are for the animals, and much less of the rides. There are a variety of animal exhibits as well, such as Penguins, Sharks, Polar Bear and Rays and not forgetting bottlenose dolphins up and close.
Not too far off from the entrance of the park is the Sea lion performance stage and the penguin polar enclosure. The animals here are housed in cooled room enclosures with an indoor ecosystem for a whole army of penguins and accompanied by their adorable fluffy chick offspring too.
Much of the park grounds are large open pools which are home to the park’s resident Dolphins, who require very large swimming area as part of their captivity habitat. The Blue lagoon houses dolphins who are free to roam through several connecting pools, as well as that connected to the Dolphin performing stage.
Located centrally in the park, adjacent but separate to the Blue lagoon is the park’s Ray Reef sector. It is a nice shaded area where you can interact with various marine animals through a petting zoo. It is very much like a Sting Ray petting zoo area.
The park offers a selection of food as well as ample hand washing areas for patrons looking to get their hands into the petting pool. The Sea world theater is also located here, with the screens opened at fixed show times of the day tied to the current movie attraction. They were showing a Spongebob movie attraction as part of the Park’s Nickelodeon tie-up during my visit.
The SharkBay is a very interesting park sector and an extensive pool area dedicated to housing several pools of Sharks where you can observe from the top or via glass-lined walls in the lower pool floors. Besides introducing several resident shark species, the attraction also aims to educate visitors about the threats facing sharks today, particular from over fishing and inhumane practices to them with an extensive line-up of informatics screens to tell the story through education.
The staple highlight of the park will definitely be the shows. This includes the Affinity Dolphin Show with its large sheltered seating amphitheater located at the Northern-most part of the theme park and Jet Stunt Extreme performances. Definitely must-watch during your visit.
The northern portion of the park sits a waterpark, which is part of the Sea World resort and Water park attraction, it is a separate sector connected to the resort area and access is not included in the regular Sea world ticket and is opened Seasonally depending on the weather.
If you wish to get wet, there is a small sector of the Castaway bay section with a pirate boat ride called “Battle Boats” where you can soak each other from sea on from land using water guns- prepare for pirate water-battles!
Seaworld is good for a full day at the park, with the shows evenly spaced out so you can enjoy a combination of rides and performances good for an afternoon. Disappointingly, Seaworld isn’t as bustling as what it was before, which could be a good thing as you do not have to queue for the ride, though the rides could actually be better.
View more photos in the Seaworld photo gallery here.
