SeaWorld Reviews

If you enjoy being ripped off at every turn, including but not limited to haggling during admission, finding half of the attractions closed , paying $40 to park your car, paying outrageous , simply outrageous prices for food and drink, this is your place.

Then throw in dirty..... , well, dirty everything and then Sea World having the onions, the huge onions, to charge you additionally for some of the rides. Borders on criminal.

And what doesnt border but barrels right past border and into outright criminal is appalling deceptive "practice" of charging your card a year later as you may not be aware, but you signed up for season passes that, you guessed it, for YOUR CONVENIENCE, auto renews when you've long-forgotten the horrible stech of the experience you had long ago. Yep, when the truly rotten worthless stench of your visit to this Hall of Fame Rip-off Factory, has subsided....they'll remind you with a desperate and most like against-the-law charge twice as much as the initial one you doled out the year prior.

Oh, and watch the movie" BlackFish" after you close your browser. Then tell me how you think of Sea World. SW should be arrested on so many levels for so many crimes and near crimes they will assault you with. Hard pass...trust me...hard pass.

I am not sure WHY anyone would give Seaworld a 1 star review or give the “Dining with the Orca’s” experience a low score. Both experiences are on my family’s “TOP to DO” list when visiting San Diego. As far as theme parks are concerned, San Diego’s Seaworld is not only economical (One day admission ticket turns into an annual season ticket) but the weather is always in the mid 70’s, sunny & beautiful. If you go during the week or off-season weekends —the park has just the right amount of people, not too crowded, not a ghost town, either. Dining with the Orca’s is fun, entertaining and a live in-person, interaction with the whales. The brunch has Prosecco spritzers, GF & vegan options too.

Took the family to Seaworld yesterday, and came away with several observations. First, as SoCal residents we usually go to Disney, and this is NO Disney. The cleanliness, the number and type of employees, and the overall organization all reminded me more of a county fair than a resort. Of course, you can get a discount Seaworld ticket for $68- a fraction of the current Disney price.

As far as the rides and shows go, the new roller coasters are cool, but the rides are very short, and the lines are long. The riders/hour rate is low for these rides so the line moves slow. The shows have declined over the years, since Seaworld began appeasing PETA, and seems to be gradually doing away with most of the animal shows. We used to enjoy the cute, trained dog & cat show... but it's gone. The Orca show no longer includes much interaction with the Orca, (such as the trainers riding them), and the dolphin shows no longer include jumping through hoops or swimming with the dolphins. They are very generic and just include a lot of the animals splashing the audience in the 1st few rows.

The biggest frustration was that the employees were not well trained.
-The Customer Service desk (at park closing time, when there is lot's of traffic) was operated by only one employee (even though 2 others were walking in and out).
-The "swing ride" called "Tentacle Twirl" was operated by only one employee who was very slow and took 10 minutes to set up each ride that lasted 2 minutes. We got in the short line thinking it would be a quick wait and ended up waiting as long as for the roller coaster.
-The ride employees on the PA system were difficult to understand, and made silly statements. It was as if a middle schooler got hold of the microphone and was trying to be cool.

All in all, if you go in with low expectations you'll still enjoy the visit for the price of discount tickets, but I'd put it on par with a typical state fair visit experience.

This was the most fun I have had in YEARS. I went on a not busy day. I got in line for a ride and 30 seconds later I was on it. I saw the seal show and it was AMAZING. The roller coasters were so fun. The only ride closed was Journey to Atalantas. Overall you need to come her.

I lucked out going on a Thursday in January, I never had to wait even a minute for a ride, got any pick of seats for shows, and could get anywhere I wanted to be for viewing animals. Only one ride, Atlantis was down. I enjoyed everything there, except the locker situation. Unlike other theme parks where you can put your itty bitty bag across from the ride, or rent a locker that follows you all day, each ride had a locker you paid three dollars for an hour. But you couldn't get your stuff and use that hour at another locker. So weird to not have that option!

I've gone to Sea World for over 40 years, and visited again with my own kids this past summer 2024. While the animal exhibits are still very interesting and exciting to see it's unfortunate that the park in general is pretty tired and showing its age. I love the research the park contributes to all over the world related to sea life and sea animals, but I wish the park itself was refreshed or just transitioned into an educational exhibit rather than the pseudo-amusement park it tries to be today. Sadly, it's not likely that I'll return in the future.

Unfortunately, not all shows were open! Even though we paid full price! The food was a disaster, just junk food, we were able to find 2 apples for $5, otherwise everything was sugar, fries, fat, hot dogs, ice cream, fries, tacos, burgers, no normal food, just fattening and unhealthy food. I don't know how that fits in with the attitude towards nature and the sea when the food is so bad, you should also pay attention to nature!

Ridiculously over priced for what you get. $320 Canadian for 2 people to see three shows- orca whales, dolphin and sea lion. Most of it has been turned into an amusement park. Even has an arcade.

I am an annual pass holder for San Diego as of 2023. My review is specifically in regards to the FOOD. I love the animals, shows, we have fun and the kids love it. BUT, Sea World San Diego has a *major* problem with their food service. This year, 2023, we have gone at least 6 times and they continually RUN OUT OF FOOD! The staff knows it and several have told us how stressful it has been and that they’ve almost quit. I have personally witnessed entire refrigerators empty, service so slow, condiments empty, and carts of corn and Turkey drumsticks just completely out and unable to be restocked. This is the norm here! They do NOT have a handle on large service volume and clearly need to learn from Disneyland and Legoland. We love the animals but we have to come prepared with snacks. It’s like the K-Mart of food service. Not to mention poor quality, slim variety to chose from. I recommend trying to go to the furthest away shops to try to find snacks near the Shark Exhibit.

SeaWorld is a BIG disappointment after what it used to be. The shows are not fun and the park is in need of repair. Swampy, skinky and need of MANY MANY repairs. Shows are not fun like they used to be and after all the bad press the shows are trying to hard to show the are now “conserving” instead of entertaining. Also they have what felt like hundreds of trinkets they were trying to hawk and overpriced nasty tasting food. If you liked it in years past don’t go back. Horrible experience.

We went to seaworld to do the Penguin up close tour. We have done all the other tours and were looking forward to this one. We are led to a backstage area, up stairs into the penguin building. Inside we were greeted by an employee and were given a tour of the corridor where they talk about the different species of penguin, facts and such. There were 11 of use total in 3 different families. We were told they were to split up us to maximize time with penguins. Once we got in the exhibit, it was a small section where 2 penguins were brought in. The one king penguin was standoffish and always hid with the employyee and the rock hopper went around to everyone. The groups were not split up as we all had to rely on each family to move in the tight area to get pictures with the penguins, escpially having to work around the kids from the other families. All the other encounters had photographers from seaworld. This one does not. You have to sit on the edge, get on the ground to get any kind of decent photos. The whole enounter lasted 1 hr. That included the walking from the tour meetup at the skytower, the tour and the actual enounter with the penguins. Only 15 mins were actually with the penguins themselves as we were told that we had to hurry up and get photos during even though no additional help from the guides and others crowding around the birds. Would i do it again? Maybe. But definitely needs better planning and layouts like the other encounters, where they have photographers, actual individual time with the animals and feel less rushed.

Dated and very badly organised. Only map available is on a phone or at a crowded signboard. Unclear signage and four members of staff we asked directions from had no idea where the different enclosures were. This resulted in missing shows.Food and drink was extremely expensive and most had no price on so you had to queue to find out. Poor conditions for some of the fish, especially the boring Manta Ray pond. Poor value for money.

My friends and I purchased the SeaWorld Fun Pass for about $109, which allows unlimited entry for the year. Since it's almost the price of a regular one-day ticket, it's a great deal. I read some of the negative reviews before I went, so I was a little worried about the park. But the park blew my expectations away with the amount of stuff to do and the mix of attractions. It's important that you are prepared before you go since it's a big park. First, decide which shows at what times you want to do and plan the day around those shows. For the shows that you not doing, plan to do the rides during those show times when people are in the stands (or very early/very late when crowds have thinned). Fill in the remaining time with visits to the animal displays such as petting the bat rays, shark encounter, and belugas/walruses. Make sure that you eat before you go and eat at most once at the park. Food lines are long and food is expensive ($14 turkey leg). Familiarize yourself with the park map so you have a general idea of where things are. Overall, we loved SeaWorld because it has a great mix of animal shows, great thrill rides, and animal viewing. I would definitely recommend doing the following:

Orca Encounter is amazing, so we did that show twice. It's a mix of education (informing you about Orca behavior) and performance as the Orcas demonstrate behaviors such as spy hopping or breaching. The Orcas are so much larger than the dolphins. I thought the show balanced entertainment with respect for the Orcas. Try to sit near the center of the stands to see the Orcas up close when they slide onto the center stage. If you want to get soaked, sit in the first 4 rows. If you want some water to cool you down, sit in rows 4-7. Rows 7-10 are technically in the splash zone, but you don't get much water.

The dolphin shows are more entertainment/less education and the dolphins are very acrobatic- they will jump out of the water and spin multiple things before crashing back in. The dolphins always seem excited and happy. The pilot whales are also very cute. We attended 2 of the dolphin shows and the shows are slightly different from each other.

The Sea Lion/Otter show geared more towards smaller children with more humor/skits. Not quite as entertaining for adults as the dolphin/orca encounters, but cute if you like Sea Lions.

Rides - SeaWorld has 3 great rides that you must do. Since we're adults, we didn't do any of the small kid rides, except for tentacle twirl. Tip: to minimize wait time, do the rides a) early in the day when you arrive b) during shows when a lot of people are in the stadiums or c) during the last part of the day. Wait times are 1/3 during these times.

Emperor is a dive coaster and one of the best roller coasters I've been on. The initial 14 story drop never gets old - do the first row for a fun/terrifying experience as they dangle your legs off the edge of the platform for 3-5 seconds before you drop. It's very smooth ride with a great view of the park from the top. Definitely do this.

Electric eel is also an intense, great ride. The best part is when you are slowly turned upside down at the very top and almost feel like your falling out of your seat. You go forward and backward with a nice drop in the middle part of the ride. Tip: there is a single rider line on Electric Eel that significantly reduces the wait time, so that's a good option if you don't mind riding separately.

Manta is a great ride as well, but not as intense as Emperor/Electric Eel. It's a great family coaster with nice, tight turns that don't go too fast. It reminds me of Big Thunder Mountain railroad at Disney.

Animals - There are several animal exhibits that you should definitely check out. Shark Encounter/Reef is a must-do if you like sharks. They have baby hammerhead sharks that are so cute as they swim around. At the end of the exhibit, there is an underwater viewing platform where sharks swim above your head as you walk to the exit. The bat ray exhibit is also great because you can gently strike the rays with your fingers. The rays are friendly and will come right up to you. I also recommend the Beluga whale/Walrus exhibit. The walruses seem pretty feisty and will press their tusks right up against the glass next to you.

The previous reviews about the food situation are accurate - there are long lines, so try to avoid eating if possible or when you want a break. We ate a good breakfast before we went and each took a couple of sandwiches in our jacket that we munched on for lunch. Lines for rides are long if you go at the wrong time. If you need to use a bathroom, use one near the back of the park where there are less people.

They also let you record the shows, which is nice for remembering the memories. SeaWorld is an awesome place to visit!

This place is decent but needs an upgrade and some love. Many things were closed and the park wasn’t super clean. Food is overpriced and not that good.

The park is getting old
The 3 shows are good and the roller coasters
Everything was so unloving.
The food is overpriced and inedible
The very last food
Bottled water is also totally overpriced

From the day SeaWorld opened in San Diego… I know it well. I went on vacation with my parents. We rode on the Hydrofoil boat & I LOVED it then & I love it still. Celebrating SeaWorld’s #60 Anniversary & Member peek tonight was a trip down memory lane .

This is a poorly run money grab. They don’t bother running the shows , half the park, or providing preferred seating. Took 49 minutes to get the worst burger of my life. Which cost 5x what it should have. Mantas projectors weren’t working. Artic blast has no quick queue the whole experience sucked. I regret wasting a day of vacation here. Plenty to do in the city.

Hubby and I went to Seaworld on a Monday. Due to my husband being a veteran, we were able to get in free which was nice. Upon arrival we were hit with a 30.00 parking fee which we felt was outrageous because the SD Safari Park only charged 15.00. There was a security check which was fairly quick. I hadn’t been to Seaworld in decades but the park seemed old, tired, and dated. Many of the shows and attractions were closed due to maintenance. Food was overpriced and mostly junk. I just felt the only thing Seaworld wanted was my $$$$. Any attraction ended in more opportunities to buy Seaworld themed junk. Will not be returning.

If you’ve ever been to Gold Coast SeaWorld then you will be severely disappointed with SeaWorld San Diego.

There was almost nothing to see or do that wasn’t an extra payment within the park, and even then there were few options.

The list of animal attractions or rides closed was endless. The orca and sea lion shows were ok but you learned next to nothing about the animals. Most animal viewing was by paid for animal encounter only, and this wasn’t clear before you went.

The aquarium was practically non existent. We queued 20 minutes for a teeny tiny room with a couple of octopus in it. The jellyfish were ok but nothing compared to Gold Coast.

There were very few rides and even the gondola ride was $6 per person.

What there was a lot of was endless shops and expensive food outlets, including alcohol stores.

It was like paying to go into a shopping mall.

A very weird bizarre experience, with zero attention to conservation, more like a cruise ship type vibe. Just hideous and very lame, and this comes from massive fans of the Gold Coast SeaWorld.

Excellent 👌 park with lots of rides, exhibits and hands on experiences. Price is reasonable. Had 2 young teen girls and they had a blast and we totally enjoyed the park as well. SeaWorld has down played the animal performances which I personally like. All of the fish n sea life touch tanks are great experience especially for kids and surprise, educational as well

What a disappointment. What used to be a wonderful experience just isn't so any more.
Large percentage of the rides were closed, park was very poorly maintained, restaurants filthy and the food inedible.

SeaWorld is a theme park in Mission Bay Park, San Diego. There are many amazing roller coaster if that's your thing. My 6 year old absolutely enjoyed the different games where you win large stuffed animal. Be ready to learn some cool facts about these exhibits.
I learnt orcas belong to the dolphin family! Has to do with them having teeth like dolphins.
Orca, the killer whale is in fact the largest member of the dolphin family. In short all dolphins are whales, but not all whales are dolphins. Only toothed whales include members of the dolphin family. Baleen whales are a completely different group within the whale classification.

We did the Dolphin encounter with Belle, a 35 year old dolphin. Would highly recommended doing something like that and buying the memorable pictures.
We did the dining with orcas, but that was totally not worth it. Terrible food. The orca encounter which is free and done in the amphitheater is AMAZING.
Their SeaWorld app needs to get better, the times of events can be written more clear (like Disney world app) there is actually a sea lion encounter and dolphin encounter that I'm sure smart planners would get to.
Overall, this is an absolute fun must do experience in San Diego.

I had a great time with my family at all other areas until I came across Eric at Sealions Amphitheater. He was very rude and treated us very badly. We were disgusted by his behaviour. He completely ruined our experience. He has no manners and no respect. He was shouting and screaming.

To start with, the good ... the park experience is great. The core product of zoological shows are fantastic. They've seemingly taken the criticism to heart ... no in tank human / animal interactions ... I'm not a zoologist enough to tell you the rest of the care is sufficient, but if you want kids to get a very close experience with marine mammals, not sure where you'll find better. Adding meaningfully thrilling rides adds an extra layer to the experience. Last time we were here they had a few rides, now they have some .. not enough to fill a whole day but enough to span between the other attractions.

And to the not so good ... if you have real dietary restrictions, your current prospects are bleak. If you have a serious allergy, I'd say bring your own sustenance. Which is a pretty sad state of affairs for a state that in my youth I thought of as cutting edge in nutrition. The information available varies wildly from silence to "everything is good", neither of which are convincing. And I'm as confident as I can be that latter is definitely not true.

Don't want to overweight the review towards those with food allergies, but if you want to have a 5, you're going to need to broaden your vision. Oddly, if SeaWorld had rescued a sea mammal with similar nutrition restrictions to some humans who pass through their gates, something tells me they'd follow them to a "T" and laud their own efforts in the process.

Most exhibits not open old fashioned dungy dark and dank. Food servers acted bored and put out when i asked for a coffee- what I got was cold, when i asked for a fresh cup - he complained he would have to brew a fresh pot. This was the only place in San Deigo like this and with such a poor atitude. Ridiculously expense for what they were offering. When we got there the parking lot had hardly any cars and only one tour bus. This was the red flag i missed! I suggest visitors skip this. The rest of the trip to San Deigo was great as was the people.

Shows were good but the cost of entry and everything in the park make it a very expensive day. Park seemed very tired and in need some refurbishment. Staff at food and beverage and souvenir shops were disinterested and unhelpful across numerous venues.

Sea world was way more fun than we expected! We went as a big extended family and I knew that my kids would enjoy seeing the animals and the animal encounters but it far surpassed our expectations. I remembered enjoying as a kid but now there are rides now too and they aren’t just little kid rides. My teenagers thought the roller coasters were great and they were fast and twirly enough that I couldn’t do them all with them because I was so dizzy from the last one. I also really appreciated the big spotlight on conservation and appreciation of the different animals and their natural habitats. You can’t spend the day there and not come away appreciating the different animals and wanting to protect them.
Our niece who is 9 and in a motorized wheelchair was also with us and she loved it too and her parents found Seaworld to be ADA accessible.
It’s also nice that it’s not as big as Disneyland - you can easily enjoy all of the park in one day. We were there from 10:30am to 6:15pm and felt very satisfied. Definitely worth doing and even doing with teenagers. It’s a great destination for a wide range of ages.

Nice clean park with quite a lot to see and do to keep all ages busy throughout the day! There are a good amount of rides, nice shows and interesting walk through habitats that we really enjoyed! Kids came home talking about sea life and animals. Loved our experience here!

Only buy one dining plan. 3 out of 4 times they didn't even scan our dining pass and we shared the meal when ever we felt peckish. Just don't eat at lunch time, have an early or late lunch as its way to busy.
We wanted to ride shipwreck rapids and Atlantis but they both had 2hr lines all day.
The park is also badly laid out and we ended up going back and forward all day.
There seem to be as many shops as attractions and the pool orcas as still stuck in the same small tanks. I'd much rather see a bigger tank than a new roller coaster being made.
All in all it was a nice day but they parking is way too expensive and there needs to be wait times posted up around the park so you don't have to walk for ages just to find out there's a huge line.

We had a fantastic time at SeaWorld San Diego today, doing everything we had never done before and everything we always do.

We started by parking in a disabled spot and picking up our EV Electric Scooter.

We then began our adventure at the SeaWorld Tower. After that, we split up. I saw Otters and Dolphins, and Gonzalo saw Penguins and Sea Turtles.

We then saw the Orca Show at Noon.

I then took us to Dine with Orcas at 1:00 PM. We've been there several times. We particularly enjoyed it this time. We liked the food, the service, the setting, and watching the ORCAS.

INTERESTINGLY, the Orca in front of us was not in the mood to fully cooperate, AND THE TRAINER WAS COMPLETELY FINE WITH THAT, AND SO WERE WE.

We concluded the day with the Bayside Skyride, RT. It was a beautiful trip across the bay, which we didn't get to last time.

AGAIN, it was a fantastic day!!! DISABLED PARKING, and EV Scooter, then Dine with ORCAS, the SEAWORLD TOWER and MORE!!!

We visited SeaWorld on the 19th of August.

Whilst the shows were good, albeit quite short and the animal attractions were really well presented. The general field of the park is that it is in decline. The only attractions that were open yesterday were electric eel and this was closed most of the day due to technical difficulties and Manta. All of the roads were closed and just running empty carriages, including Emperor and Atlantis as well as the Arctic rescue ride, when you have paid full price of over $200 for a family this was especially disappointing. We visited sea welding Florida back in 2018 and had a average experience, we won’t be returning. Save your money and visit the Zoo.

Paid $110/person for half the shows and attractions. We got there at 11am and pretty much done by 3 pm. Definitely not worth your money. On top of all this, they charge you $6/person for cable car ride and sky tower and separate tickets for each animal interactions. A third of a normal slice of cheese pizza costs $10+taxes.

Save yourself time and money and do not go there! I love theme parks but this was the most unkept and filthiest theme park I have ever been to. I will not go back even if it is free. I went to the Howl-O-Scream show and the whole experience was more than a disappointment. We had to wait about half an hour to enter the parking due to the big lines. The entire place is so poorly marked that it is hard to find the entrance to the park. Once inside, there were just a few prompts for Halloween and the alleys looked shabby and in such poor condition that it made me feel that I am in an undeveloped country. The so called 5 Halloween attractions were just a shoddy, mold smelling display of prompts that could easily win the prize for the worst Halloween display/show in the world. Your time and money would be much better spent by staying home and doing nothing than going there.

So disappointed. Took our 3 year old for his birthday. More education than seeing these beautiful animals. The Penguin Viewing area refrigeration was broken and lights were off. Couldn’t see a thing. Ice was melting. Went on a Sunday the Pirates ship shows aren’t on the schedule because they have a concert on Sunday night there. What a waste. The Mermaid/ Turtle experience is just taking you picture with a mermaid. The Parade was just sad. Some music and a couple floats with non dancers dancing in polka dot dresses. 1 size fits all.
Good point: very empty for a Sunday.

Beware of the annual pass automatic renewal. They will not refund after the charge is made. You have to call customer service and wait on hold 30 to 60 mins to turn off automatic renewals. Also the annual pass starts on the day of purchase, not from the first visit.

Sea World in San Diego is a water theme park in San Diego. Between restaurants, shops and attractions with animals the day goes by quickly. We advise everyone to keep an eye on the events they regularly organize throughout the day!

To the medical team that helped my daughter when she was ill, you are such diamonds! All staff were great,
Fish were also good :)

That's bad! I booked from Italy via website before leaving for our summer trip to California. Since my son had long dreamed of doing all their attractions I had bought directly their fast pass ticket for the sum of 170 euros per person, total 600 euros being us in 4.
Arriving at the fateful day we discover that all the attractions for the boys (all except the roller coaster “Manta”!) that day were closed. The guest service responds that they can't do anything. I write two days later and get their Customer Service email and report the unfortunate situation highlighting that I was not asking for a full refund of the tickets (even if they should have) but only for a refund of the difference paid (90 euros more per person than the basic ticket ... if we want to take off the lunch sandwich Anyway at least they would have at least 50 euros per person) because of their serious disservice having been able to see in fact only the three half-hour shows each for killer whales, dolphins and sea lions, which, with all due respect to those shows still well done were not what my 16 and 14 year old children wanted and expected from the trip to the sea world of San Diego so advertised.
Their response was “we are sorry but you could have seen the site first to see that we had closed the attractions for safety reasons because for us safety comes first”
So be careful because I have only just read that I was absolutely not the only one to whom this thing happened and the concept I repeat is that they even denied a refund of the price difference paid in fact without any justification for having a fast pass that we could not use because in fact unused because of them!
I find this really absurd and shameful!

Such a sad place… and I’m not talking about the captive animals, that they seem to take very good care of. Seaworld is no longer a vibrant and cheerful place. The moment you walk in, you notice the attitude of the employees. The first parking attendant was clearly not having a good day and was down right miserable! (The handicap parking attendant was very cheerful, helpful and informative, this was the only positive employee interaction of the whole day!!!) The bag check was a joke…they just took a quick peek in your bag and sent you through. My husband realize he had is Buck knife on his belt halfway through the day! Most of the “thrill rides” were closed as were most of the theaters/shows. The Orca show was wonderful. We had free entry for Veterans, I would have been very upset if I had to pay for our tickets!!! You have to pay extra for several attractions. The observation tower is raggedy and the windows are so DIRTY it obscures your view. None of the bathrooms we went to had toilet seat covers or hand soap!!! None!!! The food is HORRENDOUS and EXPENSIVE!!! Hardly anybody was eating food because the prices were RIDICULOUS!! We ended up splitting a $9 pretzel which was very good. The best part of the park was all the beautiful gardens and plants. Very well manicured and lots of color!

Corky, the orca at Sea World San Diego, has been held captive in a small cement tank since 1969 — almost 45 years — when she was taken as a youngster. She lived with her family in the waters off British Columbia. One minute she was swimming next to her mother—and the next, she was trapped in a net. She would never see her mother again.
Corky has been forced to endure 54 years in a small tank and seven pregnancies (she was continuously pregnant for almost 10 years from 1977 to 1986); none of her calves survived more than 46 days. Her last stillborn fetus was found at the bottom of her holding tank.
Of the 13 members of her pod who were captured in 1968 and 1969, she is the only one left alive. Orcas in the wild can live to 80 years old. The Grandmothers pass down knowledge through their calls. You can find videos made 20 years ago in which Corky still recognized the calls of her home pod. There is mounting hope that Corky could spend her senior years in an ocean sanctuary where she belongs instead of swimming endless circles in her cement tank. Look up Double Bay Sanctuary in British Columbia to see how you can support their efforts to bring Corky home.
Instead of visiting this sad marine orca at SeaWorld, use your time to urge this park to support Corey’s release back to her home waters near her family.

The all day dining is horrible. It takes one hour at least to wait in line for food. And the food is terrible.

Horrible customer experience. Long lines, poorly trained staff. Trying to get lunch took over an hour. Won’t be back. Spend your money elsewhere.

Seaworls should be avoided at all costs at busy times. The dine all day ticket doesn't allow you use mobile order, as a result you will wait over an hour to order some very poor food. The number of staff taking orders for food are often down to 1, with 100's of people waiting to make an order. A very well planned scheme so you can't really make anybuse of dine all day options. A total rip off.

The wait times for the rides are crazy. They ate obviously desperate for everyone to buy a fast pass for an extra $90 each on top of the ticket price. 2 hour waits with lines barely moving is the norm.

Ride reliability diabolical, they break down literally all the time, throughout the day. The staff don't really care, just teenagers that shrug their shoulders. They also leave plenty of empty seats available on the rides, which makes the wait times even worse. This will be the last visit for us.

A shame as it has always been a decent park. They need to spend some money on the rides, the rapids ride has half the number of boats required, 9 seats every 90 seconds is a joke. Will certainly let everyone we know in UK it is a park to be avoided. Food and ride management total shambles compared to Disney.

The Good:
The orca and dolphin show were the best part of the park. The shark and turtle exhibits were also great. Although the shark tunnel was closed during the afternoon, which my younger kids didn’t get a chance to view. We paid $100 for each ticket including the food pass, which was well worth the $30 considering a soda is $7 by itself. The taco place and the pizza place were the only places my kids actually ate the food.

The Bad:
The food was terrible at most places. Stay away from The Shipwreck cafe, it was terrible. Also, the Chicken Shack was really bad.

The Ugly:
I was soooooooooo disappointed in the SkyTower. We waited 90 mins to pay for a ride that we couldn’t even see out of the windows because they were so dirty. The employee was rude when they heard us talking about the dirty windows and poor view. I don’t recommend at all. Also, my kids waited 90 mins to ride one of the roller coasters because the staff let fast pass riders through at a 20 to 1 ratio. Seemed like Wait time estimates were off due to this.

Recommendations: The park should have outdoor heaters or places to go for people to heat up during the winter season. My kids were freezing but there was no place to warm up except going back out to the car.

Overall the trip was good, highly recommend the animal shows as that was the best part of the park.

First of all - having glacéd on line at prices of admission I was shocked when -after paying $30 for parking - the ticket prices at the gate were over $100 when I seen them in the $60 range. Luckily someone stopped me before wasting money - to purchase online as it was much cheaper. Thank goodness. The shows are fun m; some of the rides and exhibits are dated.

The standout -OMG was the food. We had lunch at their restaurant- Tacos and more - I think it was called. The food was disgusting. Well disgusting and overpriced. $60 for a crap lunch for 2 - with no alcohol. Just pathetic.

They offer food “packages” for the day. The thought of eating 2 meals there is nauseating.

This was a fun park. If you are registered on ID.ME, you can receive great discounts. I highly recommend purchasing the meal pass.

Don’t bother - the SeaLife shows are lacklustre, the food is excessively overpriced for what you get, the staff are obviously over it and the customer service is non-existent. If you’re flying halfway around the world to do California theme parks, don’t waste your time with this one. Much better off using the day to catch up on sleep!

Howl-O-scream was a blast. We're going again! It was a little crowded because we were there on a Saturday night but next time we're going on a weekday,

Its taken me a long time to write my review of seaworld. Its devisive as the title suggests, there are people worldwide who have a opinion on this place and the animals that live here. Its expensive for what it is, dirty and crowded with lots of kids so if its a quite day relaxing with Shamu that you want this isnt it. Some of the tanks seemed far to small for inhabitants wich is strange when you consider the space avaliable.
The park is set up for the younger generation and there are a number of opportunities for them to learn about and meet some of the animals here.
The shows are excellent and show off the talents of the animals on show, for instance they have trained a otter to perform wich is something to see. The stars of the parc are the Orcas and this is where it becomes a issue, no matter how you dress it up u have a animal as intelligent and as large as a killer whale in essentially a super large fishtank admittedly you could argue that they captive Oracs may not know any diffrent, but the parks oldest whale is 52. 52 years sentenced its a long time to never return to its natural habitat. Yet the Shamu show itself is amazing the whales actually seem to enjoy themselves this may be an illusion but its hard not to think it. The park may not be for everyone but you can see what does attract so many visitors every year. We had a good time but felt guilty afterward strange feeling for the experience.

strongly recommend checking the show times on the park's website before arriving and planning your entertainment accordingly.

A visit is recommended to save a whole day for a visit here.

I recently found this in my phone and I wanted to post it. I can’t believe as a San Diego native. Seaworld treated me this way. Don’t ever go on a busy day. They do not hire extra people for the rush and extra traffic.

To whom it may concern:
My visit to Seaworld July 30, 2023 was more than awful. I almost did not even want to take the time to inform Seaworld customer service how awful. I just thought to make it easy,I will never renew Seaworld passes. I was responsible for six passes being bought this year and 2 summer camps. I arrived July 30 at 1:28 as you can see on the parking receipt I was told that because I had a bad experience from before that I could get three free meals (which I was counting on ) because of the poor service from Seaworld the last time I visited. July 30 was the worst crowded day I’ve ever seen and I had already promised a little girl friend of my granddaughter that I would take them. I had no opportunity whatsoever to pick up the three passes for the three free dinners that were offered I would have had to stand in line at least an hour and a half at the customer service to pick them up. So we went forward and I think I used one of my dining passes (I did not plan on) and I bought a kids dining pass to quickly be able to buy food. We were starving going directly to Calypso Bay smokehouse, which is about a five minute walk from the front The line was so long because of so few employees we did not get our order in until 3:16 PM! There were not enough employees, and Calypso Bay looked a mess. all of the problem’s I am sure were due to the free ticket day. Seaworld needs to establish that when there is a free ticket day, more employees are going to be necessary. Because we could not get any more food due to the unbelievable long lines and not standing in them with 2 seven year olds and no availability for a line less than 45 minutes which I videotaped we opted to go to the whale shop and buy ice cream. We tried to get on the manta. The line was so long and then when we decided to take turns standing in it for an hour and a half it closed because it broke down.
I believe Seaworld did not have the adequate amount of employees for this day. My days and time with my grandchildren is precious and this was one of the most horrible days ever. The only one thing we did is to see the orca show which is fantastic. Again, my first thought was to just not go back to sea world ever again but we just went on Monday the 20th and had a fabulous time. I think it’s unfortunate, that we actually had to talk ourselves into giving it one more try,of course I could not take my granddaughter’s friend or my other daughter. The extra tickets that are given with the silver passes are a huge disappointment to be able to use . I have supported Seaworld since 1970’s and have been going to Seaworld since I was a child with my mother when it first opened. Don’t bother to offer me a small token because this time I will not except it. If seaworld can reestablish a relationship for me and my family let me know.

We saw 3 of their fabulous shows.....the seals and otter, the dolphins, and orcas. Since we went midweek, there were no lines, per say, at the roller coasters. The unpleasant experience we had was at the chicken shack where we waited 23 minutes to receive food, and we were second in line. With 5 people working behind the counter, I would expect better service. The other park staff members were helpful and courteous when we asked for directions. Except for food, we had an excellent experience!!

Seaworld was amazing we loved all the shows we loved getting splashed by the dolphins the seals were beautiful the gorgeous orca had my great grandchildren totally mesmerized. What I did not like was the motorized scooter that I rented. It kept stopping all by itself and it was a little difficult to restart. Please don’t say operator error because I rented one the day before at the Safari Park and it worked just fine. When my daughter and I told the people at the rental station we were told “well you should have brought it back” we were at the other end of the park and wanted to see as much as possible and had no intentions on wasting over an hour to bring it back and then wind up back where we were. We did ask for a refund or partial refund and we were told quite rudely “we don’t allow that.” The park itself was awesome but they really should do some serious maintenance on their scooters. Also the price it was quite high I only spent $60 the day before and this was $100+ tax

We had a wonderful day at SeaWorld. Enjoyed the shows and educational events at the park. There were many educational activities, and there were also fun rides at the park

I bought tickets in advance for three of us which included the Dolphin Interaction. We had to reschedule because we had covid. The cashier at the dolphin interaction couldn’t read the ‘reschedule' notes properly and said there was an outstanding balance of $597. I paid it on my credit card as we had already spent money on a hotel for us to be in San Diego and this was our chance. Unfortunately I assumed SW would be professional and work with me to resolve the issue. Not the case. It’s been over a month and no one has bothered to respond to my email.

Marc Swanson, you are the CEO of this company. It’s a horrible way to treat your customers. Besides the fact it was filthy. Bathrooms were disgusting! Only one stall had toilet paper ! Pend your money where you need it and not in your pocket

I last visited Florida at the end of the 00s and Seaworld back then was in the top three of my favourite places to visit in Orlando. It was a unique experience to see so many animals and the rides and shows were excellent. This is in stark contrast to what it has become.

I'd argue that Seaworld possesses some of the best rollercoasters in Florida - with Mako retaining the record for highest and fastest and the new pipeline surf coaster being very unique.

This is where the positives end.

The shows that made Seaworld what it was in the 00s are now awful. The Sealion and Otter show which used to be a pirate show has turned cringey and weak with a strong "feminist vibe". I looked at some of the other families when jokes were delivered to blank faces (even the kids didn’t find humour)although the introductory mime remains the only funny thing from this show. The show of the 00s retained its "dad jokes" whilst remaining funny (just watch a YouTube video and compare). The show felt shorter and just less impressive than it used to be - noting of course that Seymore and Clyde are still the casted sealions since the beginning of the millennia (they don’t seem to do as much as they did – granted this could be due to age). Don't get me wrong, when face to face with the trainers (we paid extra to have one of the experiences), they seemed nice enough, but it felt like they did not possess the charisma and acting charm put on a good show. It felt forced.

The dolphin and orca shows were again, very much female trainer focused. Perhaps it was a coincidence on this day for so many females to be leading - but it felt this was a heavily pushed agenda.

Considering it was the end of September, and with reduced crowds, the food service was appallingly slow. On two occasions I started queuing for food and gave up after there was no movement in the que after 5 minutes (literally had 2 people in front of me). The staff did not seem motivated (compare to the Disney parks that we had just been to) - I ended up just not bothering buying food and waited until we left the park. The prices were also very high.

We also paid for the experiences with dolphins and sealions. Included with this was a photographer (so you could enjoy the experience and not worry about capturing the moment in a photograph) - however, you have to pay for your own photos after (again, crazy prices).
Photo quality was terrible. The photo with the sealion is basically a shadow outline of ourselves and the sealion. Considering we were unable to take phones close to the water for photos with the dolphins, photo quality here is also not great. Ironically, those not paying for an experience were able to stand next to the same pool without any phone restrictions a few meters away. I get the safety implications, but it seemed excessive.
Considering the price of these experiences and with this being a one off special, you would expect this memory to be captured well by a "professional photographer"- only to be told that the person taking the photographs was "new" which was the reason for the poor quality (not a single photo at Disney was of this level of quality). We did buy the photographs as it's the only real proof that we actually had the experience.

The penguin exhibit was also poor. It required a que to observe the penguins - granted, the park is undergoing renovation and improvements, but it’s no excuse for having guests que with no protection from the sun. The park could have provided more protection or fans to shield guests from the baking sun, instead, they were left out in the open with minimal protection for around an hour. It was poorly organised (random batches let into the room of penguins at any one time).

To summarise, it’s all gone a bit downhill at Seaworld - the focus is now on quantity, not quality and Seaworld has lost the special edge it used to have. The focus seems to be on the ride experience, not the sea animals. The shows are short, less impressive and have lost their educational and comedic touch. The experiences were poor quality for the price paid. These are all aspects that could be easily improved by better management (rewrite a few shows, better training/ faster service) - but looking at other reviews, this seems to be a trend. With this being a separate package to Disney and universal, I probably wouldn't purchase this as an extra package if I were to visit Orlando again - despite the excellent roller coasters on site. I’d easily put this at the bottom of the list of the top 8 theme parks in Florida.

I realize that this is a slower season, but to charge full price when literally 1/2 the park is down...rides, shows, food and more, is a rip off, not to mention $40 to park. Poor signage, lots of construction barriers and very little staff made the day a bust. We left after 4 hours...nothing to do.

The Good:
-The park is pretty. If you’re not there to partake in every attraction and you just want to walk around and chill for a couple hours, it’s a relaxing place to be. The relatively new Waterfront area is an especially nice place to rest.
-The rides are pretty good. Manta, Emperor, Atlantis, and the new Arctic Rescue are fun. Shipwreck Rapids is alright. Electric Eel is lame. Smaller rides won’t be fun for most except for young children.
-They take excellent care of annual pass holders. Sea World is constantly throwing free guest passes, free food, discounts, and other offers at us. Disney, Knott’s, and the SD ZOO do little or nothing special for pass members other than the standard discounts. Great job here!
-The price for a season pass. Considering all the benefits they give you, the price for an annual pass is more than reasonable.
-They do a good job of decorating for Christmas.

The Bad:
-Where are the fish? You won’t see many here. The three aquariums they used to have are permanently closed. You’re mostly limited now to dolphins, whales, otters, turtles, rays, penguins (who live on land), eels, crabs, and a handful of starfish. Apparently there’s an octopus, but I can never find it.
-The shows. Boring.
-The customer service. It’s so bad. This is the first job for most of their workers and you will be reminded of that at most employee interactions. It’s clear their model is to hire seasonally warm bodies and provide little to no training. This is a quickly noticeable problem that SW doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to address. It will impact your impression of the park.
-The efficiency. This comment is mostly about the rides. The load time for many rides is painfully slow. They have some single rider lines, but they don’t pull from those lines to load empty seats? There’s this lack of basic common sense that is frustrating.
-The lines for food. It’s a long wait for standard amusement park food.
-The Halloween event is weak. Much better at Knott’s or Universal.
-The customer service, again. There are occasional exceptions, but overall it’s really, really bad.

Sort of confusing. Sure there’s things if the sea but it’s more geared to a theme park than the sea. Dolphins show was free & shark petting was probably the highlights. Aquarium was small & disappointing. Again it’ll take an entire day or two to do everything here.

Loved the dolphin and sea lion shows! Only complaint with those is the speakers were way too loud. The sun was intense so bring sunscreen or a hat that covers your neck, I didn't and got burned. We got free admission so decided to purchase tickets to the Dine with Orcas lunch and that was amazing. You sit tankside while the trainers work with the orcas and you get to see the whales up close. The food is good too which exceeded my expectations since it's a buffet. Afterwards we went to the Orca Encounter show which was the most disappointing show of the day but still worth seeing if you're there. It's nothing like the old shows with Shamu but if you've never seen that, you won't know what you're missing. Personally, I don't see how this is better for the orcas than the old shows, the whales do some tricks but mostly just swim around. Why not give the orcas something to do other than be bored in their tanks??? We sat in row 5 at the orca show and got soaked from head to toe, my 3 year old daughter loved it so if you don't want to get really wet, sit higher up. The artic exhibits with the walrus and beluga whales is worth seeing but if you're worried about COVID, do that first thing in the morning or not at all. It's indoors and gets very crowded later in the day. The turtle and shark exhibits are fairly open to outside air. The roller coasters looked real fun but neither the wife or I wanted to ride alone. I wish they had at least a couple kids rides.

While SeaWorld may be a great place for older children, we felt it was not a good fit for our younger 1 and 3 year olds. They could barely ride some of the attractions due to their age and size which felt unfair as 3 year olds still have to pay for entry but can't take part in much. Their "Eat all day" offer was also disappointing. For $49.9 per person, we expected quality food and service, but were served dry burgers and greeted by nonchalant staff. Overall the experience of the staff was subpar and not very engaged. I recommend thinking through the visit if you have very young children.

I just renewed my SeaWorld Silver pass. Unlimited visits & free parking. I have loved SeaWorld since I was 12 years old… now I’m in the HIGH 60’s😂🤣. SeaWorld does a GREAT job in animal rescue🙏🏻🙏🏻🐬. More rides & adventures now too!

It was ok. I think our kids had a good time but it is a bit run down, also seemed a little unorganized and understaffed. Long lines for food and snacks. Also, we went in July and somehow there is no shade anywhere. Odd. Anyway the animal shows were our favorite part and it was an nice family day but probably won't return.

Watch your wallets closely. They are out to get every penny they can. Charging 5 percent additional to all cc purchases to cover their cc discount rates. Oh, and, no cash allowed inside the park. Scam city USA!

We normally love SeaWorld, but this time we were pickpocketed in the park. We came to
check out the 60th stuff and group of girls approached us and tried to give us flower petals (yes, it was weird). One wouldn’t leave us alone and we discovered my husbands wallet was missing from his pocket a few minutes after they ran off. We went to customer service who told us “there’s not much we can do”. We asked for security, who took a report but didn’t seem too interested. Our credit card was being used in the park as we were filling out our report. We haven’t heard anything from the park. I emailed corporate as well. It’s been almost a week and we’ve heard nothing. Clearly it was a scam. We lost our credit cards, cash and drivers license. SeaWorld could not have been less helpful. Pretty disappointed to feel unsafe and uncared for at a park we normally love.

This was a fun thing to do while in San Diego and my 3 year old really enjoyed it, however, it is so expensive that it's outrageous. After paying $110 per ticket (even for a 3 year old) they charge you $30 to park (if you want to park closer its $40 - $50). Then when you are inside it costs money to play the games ($5 - $10) and to eat. If you want to see any of the shows, those are $39. It's just too much. The day cost us ~$600 and we only spent 3 hours there. I am far from cheap - but it iritates me that they would charge so much for a family to enjoy themselves for the day.

I remember when Sea World San Diego used to thank local veterans at the Shamu Show, and the Clyde and Seamore show, which had been the same since the 1960s, used classic Navy charcters as a nod to its positive presence in the San Diego area. Sad to see this has been replaced by a "green" (and not as funny) show. I guess when the country is canceling Jefferson and Lincoln, Clyde and Seamore need to change too. Bye bye, Sea World... We have not forgotten.

Also, the park desparately needs to be cleaned and fixed up. Maybe folks in the military could help on this, lol.

Even though we had already paid the
Expensive ticket, we also took the skip what.
Unbelievable: you couldn't bring or put down your backpacks on each ride and you had to leave them at the lockers of the ride itself FOR A PAYMENT!

Each ride had its own “bag lockers” and every time you had to pay to leave your backpack, at each ride!!!
After paying for the park, fast pass with crazy costs, we also had to pay for the locker at every single ride, otherwise you just couldn't get on.

In other parks (Universal studios) you can leave it for free at the lockers or take it to the ride and leave it on the ground for the staff, and then retrieve it once the ride is over.

Furthermore, queue-jumping is not so controlled and, in some rides where there was little queue,
they didn't even let us move forward,
I did not expect.
Shows with beautiful marine animals!

I LOVE the Halloween season here. Hallo Scream for me… trick or treating for kids. REALLY a GREAT job🎃! I have attended SeaWorld since it first opened. Now I’m a Grandma who comes with me… WHENEVER!🥰

Glad we went, it was an experience. The dolphin show was fun. The teenager loved the thrill rides.

BUT….the app stinks. The show times were WRONG. We missed one show and then showed up too early for another because the app was wrong. Then we hustled to go halfway across the park to the market to get wraps because the app showed that is what they served. When we arrived we were told they hadn’t had wraps in weeks. So we had to run back hungry to see the penguin feeding which the app showed at 2:30, but which was well underway (if not almost done) by 2:15. This was extremely frustrating.

The food prices were ridiculous. Most rides and attractions exit to a gift shop. There was hardly any staff around to ask for directions. And the map on the app was difficult to navigate. It was only helpful in showing directions- if you can find what your looking for.

Fortunately we got great discount tickets through AAA and did not buy the quick queue add on. A nice woman at the front entrance recommended waiting because the park was not expected to be that busy and the add on could be purchased at any time and at each ride. Good advice - it would’ve been a waste for us because we didn’t wait for more than 5 minutes on any line. But I could see the benefit had the park been more crowded.

The roller coasters were very good…which is not the first thing one should say about an aquatic park. Nevertheless, that is my main impression. The shows are a MUST if you want to actually see the animals.

The food was very good *except* the pizza place—it was terrible, and the wait was very long. Instead, walk a few more steps to the Mexican restaurant—it is excellent! We bought the all day food & drink pass, and it was definitely worth it! Be sure to buy it when you get your tickets to get a discounted price.

place was empty which was great, the staff in the animal exhibits had the same great energy every other busy week had, the rides were amazing. on the down part, the food was subpar, i mean even for a place like this you expect ok-ish food but it was not the case, my daugther had fruit flies in her salad, the chicken tenders were literally dripping oil, i did like the fries, their pizza... meh and the prices insanely expensive for what you are getting.

after seeing what Disney do, you fall low when you get there, they nickel & dime everything from having to pay for parking.... to having to pay 6$ to dry yourself avec a wet ride....

if you have enough lube this place is great, if not its painful

Park ready to do anything to extract any dollars from its visitors! Three attractions in annual maintenance at the same time (too many considering the low number of rides that are only 16). Several areas of the park closed for work. Two additional attractions each paying $6 per person. The pizza part is $19! Coke for $9! Let’s not even talk about the fact that they force us to pay 3$ for a locker and if you don’t pay, forbidden to ride the roller coaster because even a cap must be put in these paid lockers!!!! Add to that employees of a nonchalance that borders on rudeness... parking at $35 and an entrance ticket at minimum $55 you will have the perfect cocktail for a day of pure racketeering! Park to escape there is so much better in California it is sad. Light years away from my visit to Sea World Orlando in 2018!

Fun trip. We enjoyed it. The rides were great. The shoes were awesome. The food is good. We will return.

If you are considering a VIP pass - DONT! I want you to know what a truly disappointing experience this was.

We brought our two grandkids, ages 6 and 4. The VIP tour may be appropriate for older kids, but it was not good for our grandkids.

The tour guide was very nice - but we wandered aimlessly through the park this morning for hours with what seemed like a complete lack of direction or agenda. The first hour - identified as rides, contained none. We finally happened upon some rides for kids their age, clearly not a deliberate move. We walked back and forth past the same spots repeatedly. That is precisely what I had expected to avoid by hiring a guide.

The "reserved seats" are pretty much the worst seat in every stadium.

There is a play area for the kids - but we only got there when I stumbled upon it - and honestly, by the time that happened the littlest was exhausted - and most of it was closed - the bounce house and the nets were both unavailable. The guide never even suggested the area as an option

We never got to the Sea Lion show - again, by 4:00 we felt like we had endured a death march.

My grandson has a dairy allergy and they had no "kid friendly" dairy-free options at your Orca lunch. When I took him out to find food he could eat, the lines were 45 minutes long. I placed a mobile order for a plain taco at 1:20 and was told (by text and email) it would be ready at 2:15. That is way too late for a 4 year old to have lunch after having walked for three straight hours.

I spent over $2,500 on your VIP tour and admission tickets. I feel especially cheated.

I have purchased similar packages at Legoland and it was spectacular. If you have young kids - go there instead......

Me and my son went on electric eel roller coaster. Attendant told everyone to put valuables such as cell phones and any items that may fall off into plastic container he was holding. I put my sunglasses with prescription lenses inside my cap and cap inside container. After ride was over and we went to collect our items my sunglasses were missing. Ride attendant just said sorry maybe other riders took them by mistake and told me to go to guest services see if anyone turn them in. Ride was almost empty only few people. How can someone take someone else’s sunglasses by mistake. That’s ridiculous. More likely attendant took them and hid them somewhere. This was the only ride out of all other rides that attendant go around with plastic container and tell riders to put their valuables inside for safe keeping. Guest services just told me to file missing item report on website and wait if it turns up. Makes my visit very unpleasant. Nobody can even use those sunglasses because of prescription.

What is going on with Sea World San Diego?! The park is super dirty, trash all over the place, dry food left overs everywhere, it stinks, the seats for the shows are the most dirty areas. I don’t even want to talk about restrooms. I always loved Sea World and I am so disappointed of lack of maintenance. The shows quality decrease so much that seems like they don’t care about the park anymore. They used to have a pet show that my kids absolutely love it, the Sea Otter show used to be hilarious, the Dolphin show used to have amazing Acrobatics. None of those available anymore. It is sad, but do not recommend Sea World to anyone. 😩 I hope they make changes and improve the park cleaness, maintenance and quality of shows.

Sea World was by far the worst experience of our entire vacation in San Diego / Anaheim. We visited on Feb 9, 2023. With a very large portion of the Park shut down or not functioning, patrons are still being charged full price admission? We had 6 adults & 1 child attending. Ticket sellers made no mention of ways to possibly save in admission costs - they charged full price of $109.99 each to the 1st group of 3 in our party. The 2nd and 3rd groups asked about discounts and were reluctantly told about the Silver Pass - saving $58 US for 2 people, plus parking refund. It was explained very poorly to us but when I asked which admission was cheaper, the attendant said "The Silver Pass" *. Once entering we discovered many rides, including all the water rides they advertise, were not running. An entire section of the Park was closed - restaurants, shops, display buildings, ice cream shops, cafes. Only thing in this section of the Park was a flamboyance of flamingos with hardly any water available to them and much noise coming from them! No outside food is allowed but it's hard to find anything to purchase. Two hot dogs and 2 soft drinks came to $35 US from the kiosk we managed to find. Many activities have an additional charge above the crazy high admission price. Sea World did not respond to my email about our visit. Sadly, I cannot imagine any of us returning to or recommending Sea World. So many better ways to spend your time and money.
*Update: From reading other reviews, I have discovered the Silver Pass is an annual pass that renews automatically on your credit card! THIS was never mentioned by our attendant at all!! Sadly, Sea World seams to be a total scam and one to avoid.

$35 parking fee
I have been to both Orlando and San Diego SeaWorld. San Diego has more animals but the shows are setup so you spend the whole day at the park waiting on the next show. The food is expensive $111.74 for pizza and soda for 4. More gift shops than rides. San Diego is more about the money than family fun. That was a major downer for us compared to Orlando SeaWorld.

It was a unique experience. Many aquatic animals. The shows are very nice.
Ideal for spending a whole day. There are activities like riding a rotary boat.
You have to go early in the morning. Reservations are made online. It's worth it.

Sea World will NOT refund your admission tickets if your airline flight gets cancelled (which happened to us) or you get covid. Even though their website says "refund within 24 hours of visit." They only refund the "amenities" such as quick cue, animal experiences and parking express pass. They only offer to reschedule your admission date (within one year). So, if you live out of state, you have to pay the cost of additional airline tickets and hotel fees to return to California, to be able to redeem the cost of your admission tickets! Sea World will absolutely NOT REFUND your admission tickets. READ THE FINE PRINT!

Maybe I just bought into what was being told to me, and I need to do some fact checking, but I found the entire experience at Seaworld excellent. Now, we were lucky and went on a weekday so it wasn't as busy which made things pleasant, and we found all the shows informative and the aquariums in good shape. Now, I have watched all the documentaries and was appalled at some of the treatment and how some animals were cared for in the past, but my understanding is that the only big Orca's and dolphins/whales coming in now are rescues......maybe I am just being naive but it would seem that they have had a huge policy shift in the past and have made some genuinely positive changes.

We watched the Orca and dolphin shows, thought they were amazing, checked out all the turtles, rays, sharks, fish exhibits and enjoyed it all.

Food was lackluster and overpriced but I was expecting that.

We ubered here so didn't pay for parking and would recommend.

There were good parts and disappointing parts.
We enjoyed the artic exhibit and several rides.
Our family has visited many amusement parks but seem to land on Disneyland the most. With that in mind- SeaWorld is very expensive! Parking and food well exceeded Disney, yet you are forced to purchase their food. For example, 3 pretzels and 2 sodas were $50.
Also, each ride did not allow backpacks and required a locker for $3 per hr.
It is also the only park I’ve ever gone to where it felt like having toilet paper in a stall was a luxury. Seriously- women were trying to find a stall with tp and get some before going in an available stall.
Over all it wasn’t our favorite theme park but we are glad we got to see it once

Most of the activities are for children. There are only three main shows for adults. The food is very expensive for mediocre quality. It’s worse when things malfunction and the supervisor doesn’t respond by asking for help. Waiting over an hour for food was false advertising about their online ordering process. It literally took over two hours to send the message that the food was ready, but I had already received a refund.

I started noticing the increased tension amongst some of the visitors, it’s similar to the way hate groups from Orange County instigate problems.
But walking to the entrance only to find three police vehicles and some searching the perimeter was the deciding factor to call it a day.

Maybe it’s because of ongoing deportations of undocumented Europeans, but being at an amusement park that’s surrounded by police and unruly Europeans was not the kind of memorable experience I expected.

The animals are amazing. It was a fun day watching the entertaining shows including the sea lions, dolphins and whales. The stadiums are not shaded, so be sure to bring a hat and suntan lotion. There are roller coasters and other rides as well. Food is very expensive. 2 hot dogs, 1 bag of chips and a coke (no refills) was $36. They sell a food package add on to the admission tickets and that might be a good value for those who are spending the whole day. We were there on a June Wednesday and it was not very crowded.

To 3. Sometimes overall, most recently in 2006, it was just disappointing. A reduction in admission fees lured visitors. The two shows offered with whales and dolphins were still nice. The animals also nice to look at, the tracks were mostly out of order or cost a surcharge. Nobody cares about feedback, even a complaint, right in the park about this. A visit to the San Diego Zoo is certainly much more exciting at the same price. Conclusion: Ageing park, the former glory completely fades, visit not recommended!

If you come here to understand the reported "conservation" then you will leave frustrated, angry and conned out of the $95 entry fee. From the minute you enter this false world you are "encouraged" to spend spend spend on the material crap that is at every step of the way! You can even spray the log floor ride with water via a debit card machine *wtf!!). The emphasis is firmly on eating more rubbish convenience food and buying plastic and furry toys (which most people did????). Considering our oceans are littered with this is such a contradiction. The "shows" are based upon getting a "whoop" from the crowd where the animals are trained to get the public wet. I saw all the shows and left with such a sinking feeling of remorse that I should have given my money to the WWF or the homeless of San Diego instead!! If you are a responsible family who believes in conservation and education but come here then expect to be "robbed blind" but come away with a cuddly penguin and candy. This place should close or totally rethink its ethics!!

Very expensive - got charged $55 for 4 hot dog and $10 for a bag of chips. To pet a dolphin will be $100 (use to be free years ago), chipset parking$30 and we had to walk 15 minutes to the gate.

Also, the little pools have very little fish and the orca show is not what it use to be. The dolphin needed to be watched from a distance since they fenced the parameter of the pool so they could accommodate paying (crazy) customers who paid $100 to pet a dolphin.

We had to wait over an hour for our food (which we ordered online), too wait in the que would have been longer. The place was very crowded to the point it was hard to enjoy anything.

I would NEVER come to this place again!!!

Has completely gone down hill!

Let’s start with bathrooms -Gross! From the moment the park open they reeked of urine. They also have taken down all of their toilet seat cover Dispensers. The only places I’ve ever seen in California that does not have them.

Staff- Do they have any? Because I certainly couldn’t find them anywhere in the park!!

Dare the wait times they are completely inaccurate. It takes forever to get on and off the rides, They are completely inefficient in getting guests on and off rides so it takes forever.

Food- oh why did we get the food pass?!?? At 11am it started pretty well when we walked right in ordered and immediately got our food. It wasn’t great but fine.

At 3:30, we went to Calypso Smokehouse and it took 45 minutes just to get through the line. Are the meat was so fatty we couldn’t even eat it.

Was kind of sad seeing the Orcas with their bent over dorsal tails.

No available lost and found. You have to fill out a form to be contacted later so forget picking it up the same day!!

The pirate show was good. The turtle aquarium was good.

Yikes! If you go on a weekend, you need to get there before 11 or be prepared to wait around 45 minutes to get in the park. And at the disabilities line, they only had two people working there so that was another half an hour to get a disabilities pass. Only 2 people were working at guest services. Very difficult for a child with disabilities.

Unfortunately it’s overpriced, under staffed and should be so much better.

I’ll start with the positives:
1. Orca and dolphin shows good. Fantastic new screen at Orca show.
2. Pirate show great.
3. The coasters are decent particularly Atlantis.

Negatives:
1. Parking $30 rip off.
2. Food a disgrace. Grossly overpriced. Massive queues with understaffed counters and chaos. Don’t even think about ‘All Day Dining’ it can take an hour to get served.
3. Upcharges all over. Even $6 each to ride the cable car ride.
4. I’ve seen bigger sharks in the U.K. which is saying something.
5. Not enough rides.
6. Multiple breakdowns- we never got to ride the new coaster.
7. Despite the food and drink priced at rip off prices, they added a 5% upcharge on to ‘account for increased operational costs’. They really are adding insult to injury with that one.

The tacos and pizzas were laughably bad at half price charged.

We are used to Disney and Universal parks which are by no means perfect but a huge difference to Seaworld.

We travel from the U.K. to USA twice a year and remember when Seaworld was a quality set up but now we will be avoiding it from this point on.

The day was lovely, but a little chilly, so I limited how wet I wanted to get. However, my husband and daughter sat front row at the Orca show and got soaked, so it wasn't too bad.
We kept reading online that backpacks weren't allowed on the rides, so we limited what we brought with us and didn't have anything extra. Any ride that doesn't allow backpacks seems to have some cubby's, or a place where you can leave your bag. However, this is out in the open and fully exposed. If that makes you nervous there are lockers you can rent and I overheard someone say it's $6 USD for 3 hours. Which isn't too bad, but can add up if you plan to spend the whole day in the park, or if you only wanted a locker for the duration of one or two rides.
Because we went in April on a school day it wasn't very crowded for us, so I can't speak to the line situation at all, but most rides come with the cost of admission. There are a few that cost extra and we just skipped those.
Like any theme park, this one tries to nickel and dime you every chance they get. If you're the type that succumbs to pressure, I suggest having a spending limit for your day at the park since even the food is overpriced.
There is beer and wine in the park, and I think I saw margaritas too. But we were there during a food festival, so I'm not sure if all that is a regular occurrence or if we got lucky. Food selections were pretty varied, but if you have a strict diet I would still bring my own food to the park.
Overall, a fun way to spend a day in San Diego.

Sea world website is very misleading on website it says for platinum membership it provides 6 free guest passes. But it is lying they do not allow you to use all of that at any given visit even though you are paying for 6 guest passes. If you buy any of the memberships before knowing they refuse to refund your money. This is extremely dishonest and misleading. If you are paying to have 6 guests passes you should be able to use them all or one at a time when you wish. The workers refused to work with me and honor the website. Its only on a separate page it says you can only use 6 in whole year but only 2 at a time.

This young lady (Brueanna? she worked on 12/26/22 at a crepe restaurant ) was so happy to help You could see if she just loves her job at Seaworld. She deserved a special call-out. When people would stop and ask for directions somewhere, she knew where everything was and exactly how to get there, and was eager to help.

We were somewhat disheartened by the duration of the wait for our meal. It seemed that they might have been short-handed, and the staff appeared to be working at a slower pace. The extended wait for the food did detract from our enjoyment of the park's other attractions.

I love marine animals, so coming here was a real treat. Mary got us the orca up close encounter for about an extra $45. It was a great experience being up close to the orcas and giving them commands. Also enjoyed the shark encounter, sea turtles and walruses. The sea lion, dolphin and orca shows were a blast too. This was another seven hour day, well worth it

Good shows, if you love sea animals, suggest to see the shows, beautiful view with amazing performances will bring you happiness

More rides are closed now than 3 years ago, spent 2 hours and saw how SEAWORLD refuses to fix or maintain any part of the park, 70? percent of the park was closed.

DO NOT GO it is truly awful.

guest services would not issue a refund of the annual pass or fun pass, they said WELL IF YOU KNEW HOW BAD IT WAS THEN WHY DID YOU BUY PASSES AGAIN? after I stated that the same stuff is closed after 3 YEARS have passed. Absolutely insane.....

grifters, do not give my review your same copy paste response. disgusting business practice.

first time I've ever hard to initiate a CHARGEBACK process beyond frustrated.

This was a bit of a disappointment. Family group included kids, 7 and 9, parents and grandparents with ages up to mid-70's. The youngest was disappointed any time adults went on rides since he wasn't tall enough and there weren't many alternatives for him. Customer service was horrendous. Waited in line to ask a question at Guest Relations for over 10 minutes...line never moved. Since it was near the entrance, I went and asked the ticket takers-they didn't know the answer either but at least they were available and open to helping. Finally got the answer from a food service employee pushing a cart-God bless him! Even service at the food kiosks was slow. However, on a better note, EVERYONE loved the animal shows and petting the sharks was a big hit with the kids. Overall, disappointed for the price.

I went here 15 years ago and had a wonderful time, what the hell happened..... Now I have a 6 and 8 year old so why not do it again. What an absolute waste of time and money.
We went to San Diego for a week long trip and this will be a standing joke with my family until the end of time.It was like going to a side show out in the middle of no where. Expensive crappy rides, food and carney games. We want to laugh about it but we spent so much money we are pissed about it.

Lego land and the zoo were fantastic so thumbs up to vacation in San Diego

Pretty much what you see in photos/videos etc.. Came here for the Orcas which were great. Kids enjoyed the dolphin show and feeding the seals. Spent about 3.5 hours at the park which was plenty. For those in Australia its pretty much like Sea World on the Gold Coast but with the addition of the Orcas.

Today my husband, sister and six year old daughter went to Sea World.

We arrived around opening time on a Thursday and it was so quiet. There were some overseas tourists, some locals and school groups. There were no queues. It almost had an eerie feeling to it.

The park resembles a theme park on the verge of liquidation. Lots of the park was closed off including toilets so make sure you don't wait till your busting to find an open toilet.

The park was overgrown and didn't seem very clean.

The staff didn't seem to want to be there.

We did enjoy the Sea Lion and the Dolphin shows. They had enthusiastic staff and were entertaining.

We booked a Penguin encounter and it was a waste of money. The tour guide was nice, but it just resembled a lecture and we got to briefly pat a penguin.

Lunch was almost like a before episode in a Gordon Ramsay Kitchen Nightmares Show. We went to a Smoke House cafe. It was lunchtime, but there was only one family ahead of us. Despite having a lot of staff on, the simple act of serving us a buffet style lunch was ridiculously slow. They seemed confused that we would want items on the menu, went out the back while we were just standing there wondering what on earth was going on and then putting our orders through the cash register.

If you go to a cafe where the food is served to you and there is no queue, allow 20 minutes to observe a convention of incompetent lunch servers. The food tasted ok once we were able to eat it.

The rides here were ok and there were no queues so our fast passes were a bit redundant.

Our daughter enjoyed her time and so did we, but I definitely got the very run down vibe from this place. Go to San Diego zoo instead.

I totally agree with the previous review word for word. We also visited yesterday and enjoyed very short queues apart from.Atlantis which said it was a 5 minute queue but turned out to be 30 minutes (very slow and haphazard queueing system). The dolphin and Orca shows were brilliant and the rides were good but we felt totally ripped off in all other ways!! It is SO cheeky to charge for parking when we've already paid an.extortionate amount for entry into the park. Where else shall we park? All merchandise is overpriced. Food, drinks and ice creams are ridiculously over-priced. The best food we found was the Hibiscus Mexican. We had paid up-front for the inclusive food and drinks deal which seemed expensive at the time but so glad we did as it would have cost us $60 for 3 sodas and 2 snack lunches!! (1 salad bowl, 1 burrito).We then found out the ice-creams were extra to this!! Another $8 each.

Also when we were queueing for the Manta ride when the park.opened we queued for 10-15 minutes before a member of staff arrived to let us into the ride. Not before he'd barked at us all "no bags or loose items on the ride". My son wasnt going on this ride so was going to look after our bags etc but this wasnt allowed. The cynical side of me thinks this is just to charge more money for lockers!!

Why is there this need to rip everyone off and provide poor quality food just because its a theme park. Unfortunately this tainted what could be a fantastic day out for us and am sure we are not alone.

Interesting that no representative from SeaWorld has responded to any of the reviews 😕

I haven't been to sea world in quite some time. A lot has changed. There are now a number of rides. I did not go on any of them as I am not a ride person. I did go to several of the shows and enjoyed many of the exhibits. The location of Seaworld is beautiful. April is a great time to go as the crowds are thinner. Be sure to look online and purchase your ticket there for a reduced price over a purchase at the box office. You can even purchase on your smart phone before entry and then just show the barcode on the email you get back. This will give you a savings of $22 dollars.

The animals were not treated well. Yes the orcas and dolphins and the animals that do shows were but not the other animals. The beluga whales are in a small tank. There’s one macaw in a cage with dirty water and no toys. A bunch of penguins are forced into a crowded indoor area with no light and no space. It’s sad to see animals being treated this way just because they’re not in a show.

The sea animal presentations were great, but they were so few and far between throughout the day that we spent a lot of time walking back and forth across the park to get to them; we were there for 8 hours but didn't have time to see all of the animal exhibits as a result. For some of the larger roller coasters, wait times were up to an hour even though the signs indicated 5-10 minutes. The long wait times were either due to understaffing (one worker at the attraction, so they could only fill half the cars) or broken signage. The refreshment/drink refill stations also lacked ice all day on one of the hottest days of the year. Food was pricey, but portion sizes were large. Other reviews talk about how delicious Hibisco is, but it's basically bland Chipotle. If you'll be eating at least 2x in the park, the all-day meal plan is probably worth it.

Most of the animals were great, and the staff who worked with the animals were great, too. We saw the dolphin show and the orca show and those were very cool. It was fun to see so many penguins, and animals like beluga whales, orcas, pilot whales, and walruses. That said, SeaWorld really goes to great lengths to nickel and dime their customers, and I was really disappointed with the quality of the rest of the park for the prices we paid.

We were told we couldn't bring in snacks for our 2.5 year old- I emailed and called to confirm and was told I could not even bring in a bag of Cheerios. The assured me I could purchase fresh fruit as a snack there. After all that, my bag wasn't searched, so we definitely could and should have brought in more snacks for him. I didn't see a single piece of fruit for sale.

The food was sub-par for the prices, and the food service staff were, too. I paid too much money for a soft pretzel that I grabbed myself from employees who couldn't even be bothered to smile at me or say hello. We got lunch at Hibisco and the kids taco was literally a soft corn tortilla with a handful of meat. No lettuce, no cheese- nothing. I had to go back in and point out the pathetic taco to get them to give me some shredded cheese for it.

We paid for reserved seating at all the shows, and they didn't check any tickets at the dolphin show at all. The orca show they did. The reserved seating isn't particularly special or worth while- at least on a weekday in October. Maybe in the summer or on a weekend.

The maps aren't accurate. We struggled to find things several times, and some of the paths were blocked and exhibits on them didn't exist. The ray aquarium is on the map and we couldn't find it- I asked an employee and the said they didn't know if they still had one, but said the one on the map didn't exist anymore.

The shark experience is nothing to write home about. Underwater World at the Mall of America is 100x nicer than what the have here.

Cool to see a lot of these animals, and the staff who work directly with the animals were really great. For the prices you pay everywhere in the park, I expect Disney-level service and far better quality food. The park itself felt like a scam. I'm glad we did it, but I can't imagine we'd return. It feels like the park is dying and they're trying to get every penny they can out of the people who visit without actually caring about quality service or products.

We had a great time. We had so much fun. The park was clean the staff was very friendly.
It was the perfect day for Sea World.
We arrived about 19:00 am we left at 3 pm. We had plenty of time to enjoy the entire park. A few attractions were closed disappointed but there was plenty to see and do

The footnote to this review is that my visit was on December 26th; however, nothing in this review is related to the crowd size, which was to be expected at this time of year.

There are Pro and Con parts of this review that I urge potential visitors to read. I will start with the pros and follow with cons. The cons ensure that I will never visit this park again.

PRO
- Large park with lots to do
- Beautiful landscaping
- Lots of hands-on interactions throughout the park with marine animals.
- Animal exhibits were very good, e.g. Walruses, Beluga Whales, Penguins, Orcas, Flamingos, Seals, Otters.
- I paid for a behind the scenes encounter with otters that was fantastic.
- Good shows
- Decent dining options
- We chose to reserve seats at the Orca encounter restaurant at $50 per person. A bit steep, but one of our best experience there. They served an excellent buffet with good food and it included free soft drinks. The tables are located around half the perimeter of the Orca tank and the Orcas were close enough to look in their eyes. Three trainers had them perform, but, even before and after the performance, they still swam by the tables, vocalized, and played. I highly recommend this dining option.

CON
- The prices were outrageous. Tickets for a family of four will cost $460. This is basic admission.
- Parking is $60 for “up close” parking, i.e. close enough to walk to the park entrance. There is also $30 parking which requires a tram to get to the park entrance. This is too far from the entrance for even the most fit and motivated to walk.
- We had a person with limited walking mobility, so we bought the Quick Queue passes at $70 each, not realizing we could have received a Handicapped Pass for free. They would not give a refund for the Quick Queue passes purchased.
- The park nickels and dimes you from the moment you enter.
- Thrill rides have signs that say you absolutely cannot bring any items on the ride like hats, bags, backpacks, and in some cases eye / sunglasses. They require you to put them in a locker at a cost of $2 an hour. A family of four will need at least two of these small lockers. The size and spread of the park makes renting a locker for the day impractical, because you would be walking rather long distances between rides to retrieve what you need. If you are going on the rollercoasters add $2 to $4 per ride.
- Although the rides posted restrictions on personal items and required you to use a locker, some rides allowed guests to bring them and leave them in the station, although they did not have the typical bins used by other parks at coaster stations. I tried to do it on Manta only to be sent off the line and to the lockers. The rule seemed arbitrary and based on the mood of the station operators.
- Ride loading was very slow. Without a Quick Queue pass, most lines were over 1 hours.
- THE PARK IS A NIGHTMARE TO NAVIGATE. The layout of the park is lousy. There were paths everywhere with very limited directional signs that pointed in a direction that might or might not lead to your destination. The maps posted in the park were lousy as there were simply too many paths to find a direct route. The SeaWorld app was more about advertisements and upselling. It allowed you to enter a park destination and even highlighted a route, but there was nothing to indicate if you were actually on the right path. You might think that I am just lousy with following direction, but again there are so many paths it was a challenge to figure it out. We went to ride the Arctic Express, which is located in / around a large building. We walked around the building, through the building, and followed the park signs, which turned us around a few times. We had a friendly talk with an attendant at the start of the queue, and he said directions in the park and navigating through it is a nightmare and they get complaints all day. He laughed when we said we were trying to use the SeaWorld app and said, “good luck with that”. You might wave off this issue, but you have been warned. It is a particular challenge if you are there with children.
- A basic lunch for four at a
taco restaurant came to $100 (this is separate from the meal noted in Pros.
- The park definitely reinforces an economic “class system”, which is frustrating to see.
- My family loves amusement parks. We have ridden over 430 rollercoasters, which means we have spent time in a lot of parks nationwide. This was the first park where we skipped a coaster because the kids wanted to leave.

On the one hand, we are glad we checked off SeaWorld San Diego from our list of parks to visit. At the same time (and with our vast amusement park experience), it was definitely one of the most poorly laid out parks and the excitement and motivation turned into frustration and exhaustion.

I would never go to this park again and would not recommend it. We were as excited to leave as we were initially excited to go to the park. Considering the $1000 it cost us for the day we were appalled by the actual value. Whatever you spend on tickets, expect to spend that much or more once you are in the park.

Mainly for the kids is the opinion I got - and it was full of them! Pricey entrance fees and poor food on offer. I was disturbed to see them stroking the dolphins - thought that was a definite no-no?

Literally nothing to do, multiple rides closed. We payed the black friday rate of 50$ to get into the park, ubered there, stayed 2 hrs, and ubered back. Barely any animals to see, and had to pay more for the shows. A total bait and switch park. If you spend all day there with kids, you will be paying hundreds of $. Looks like a park from the 80's. What a dump

We spent a Thursday at the park on a very quiet day. The park is very large yet doesn't have much to do. They have a limited number of kids rids and only have shows running in 3 of the 7 theaters. The Ski Show, Indoor Theater and 2 other outdoor theaters are closed. The roller coasters are decent but not amazing. We were most turned off by the overpriced food, they charged me $21 for 2 Churros.... If you have kids under 10 Legoland is much better. They really need to invest in this park.

We visited today and spent from opening to closing time here with a 6 & 9 year old.

Firstly, the absolute knock out part of the day were the flippers, facts and fun show with the Sea Lions and also the Orcas which was incredible to see, absolutely amazing. The rides were also very good for our kids at their ages and the queues were no more than 5 mins so they went on multiple times and enjoyed them, so did we! Emperor and Atlantis were our favorites, and the 6 year old loved the Arctic rescue ride.

We did the all day dining add on which worked well for lunch but by the time we wanted to have dinner the place we chose was closed at 4pm which was a shame.

I was disappointed by the overall park, lots of areas closed which wasn't signposted to us before booking, no sharks to see and the rapids ride was closed although this wasn't mentioned on the website or app. The proper dolphin arena was also closed. We couldn't see the turtles as this part was also closed. Lots of things cost extra on top of the ticket - parking $35, sky ride and tower lookout $6 extra each per person so the kids were disappointed that we couldn't go on them. There were also lots of arcade areas and fair ground type rides that you had to pay for and the kids kept asking for us to go into them, all quite money making.

I felt the staff weren't happy and motivated at all, a very different experience from employees we've encountered in our week in the states so far. I feel like some energy needs to be put back into the overall look, feel and running of the park and tickets should reflect all rides and parking inclusively.

Seaworld was just ok. I think I just expected alot more sea animals and bigger animal habitats. Penguins area was kind of small, turtles was cool but again small. The orca show was good but we left half way bc our little one got to hot in the sun. It has no covering or shade. The touch the sharks exhibit in the front was cool. There were a few rides but lines were long. We ended up only staying a few hours that we got lunch afterwards.

It wasn't worth the cost for a family with kids.

We pay too much for what it is. The park is very boring, the only thing we liked was the show with the dolphins and orca. The rest is definitely not worth it. It's a fiasco! It was a wasted day in San Diego. Really don't go, it's the worst amusement park we've ever been to.

The park is really nice; however, the staffs are really rude and unprofessional. There is no such skip lines tickets. It is just a scam and a waste of your money (Do not buy the Ultimate bundle). They will make you wait in line as same the regular tickets. Our family went here once. Good bye. We will not come back to this park again.

Please don't visit this park it's so sad to see these whales and dolphins swimming in circles and dying in huge numbers for our entertainment kids are upset

SeaWorld has evolved into a huge rip-off. $110/person for admission, $35 for cheapest parking (over $80 for close-in), grossly overpriced concessions and merchandise, understaffed and mediocre exhibits (ie: killer whales in a shallow pool with a concrete bottom, etc). Want to feed one of the animals-extra charge, get seating for any of the shows-extra charge, list goes on...). Need assistance from one of the staff-good luck finding one.
Your money will be better spent going to Birch Aquarium at UC La Jolla. Outstanding and informative displays, beautiful ocean views, courteous and helpful staff, abundance of marine life on display in natural settings, a fraction of the cost of SeaWorld.

Seaworld SD has really gone down hills since I came here many years ago. It needs some serious update and better management. The restrooms had no hand soap, the restaurants had crappy food, and a lot aquariums need cleaning…this park is ran by lot of laziness and need to lot to catch up from the rest of world.

Expensive dumb, most local zoos are better. The exhibits are disgusting in animal waste and smell, and really dingy. The food is borderline inedible and such low quality. The tables were dirty, the staff super apathetic, filthy bathrooms. Some of the roller coasters looked cool if you want to wait in line 90 minutes. The orca show was packed and initially seemed ok but what a small shallow tank for four huge whales. Then they charge $30 for parking after you bought a ticket. It has not been updated in years and wonder if it’s a Ponzi scheme with how much they charge for things as they obviously are not investing in animal care, cleaning, or modern amenities. Not wirth the time or money at all, very disappointing.

We won’t be back until they give their whales and dolphins the room they need to live strong and healthy lives. The tanks they have are small for such large animals. The rides and shows are good… but I can’t go in good conscience knowing the whales and dolphins should have more room.

The main issue is there is very little sealife here and what was there was underwhelming
To top the experience it was $32 to park for part of the day we were here
Probably ok if want to go to someplace that has more rides and snack shops and restaurants than actual sea life
Not worth the stop !

We had a great day at SeaWorld despite negative reviews, I read recently. We were at the main gate 10 minutes before open and were able to do Emperor, Journey to Atlantis and Electric Eel without any lineup. I recommend to start from that side of the park and get those very popular rides done before it gets too busy
We were supposed to go on the weekend and changed plans to Tuesday as per crowd calender . Sea world app was very convenient and easy to use, highly recommend to download it before your trip.
.I also recommend all day dining plam as ot was the cheaper option as food was way overpriced at every restaurant.
I shared mine with my son and portions were big enough for both of us
The only ride we waited longest about 40 minutes was shipwreck rapids , I noticed the line up was much shorter after 5.30 p.m you may want to keep it for later of the day. All shows were great snd informative our favorite was sea lions snd otter show
The park was clean, bathrooms were reasonably clean. Staff were helpful we stayed until close and got to cover pretty much everything
The Mssion Bay gondola ride didn't worth paying extra $6. If you plan your day accordingly it's an amazing experience with sea creatures.

We had an amazing day at SEAWORLD SAN DIEGO this weekend!!!

TO BEGIN WITH, we are PLATINUM MEMBERS, that's the way to go!!!

FIRST, you can get up close and personal, parking privileges. If you have disabled plates like us, you'll get the same thing. SECOND, you'll be able to feed one group of animals. We fed the SEA LIONS.

NEXT, you can ride the SKYTOWER for free. If you walk in, do that first. Get a 360 Degree, PANORAMIC GLIMPSE of the whole park!!! It's absolutely worth the time.

We then walked to the DOLPHIN ADVENTURE. If you're in a scooter, you go up a back ramp to the top. It's a great show with dolphins and pilot whales.

After that, we went to the CHICKEN SHACK. We each had a chicken sandwich with fries, and a drink and dessert.

WE GOT THE ALL DAY DINING PASS, it was the first time that we ever had this experience. It was well worth it, if you want to eat at a restaurant. The pass is about $50, and each restaurant meal is about $35.

We ate at 3 RESTAURANTS!!!

It was then off to the SEA LION AND OTTER SHOW. It started with a great performance by a staff member. Make sure to get there 20 Minutes EARLY!!!

Before the show, we used the restroom near the stadium. My partner went in the regular restroom, but I was able to use a separate disabled restroom in the same building.

This was a really nice restroom for disabled persons, LIKE MYSELF. Thanks.

We then fed the SEA LIONS, two fish each!!! I had one stolen by a seagull flying by while I was trying to feed them. WATCH OUT for them!!!

After that, we had tacos and burritos at HIBISCUS!!! Definitely delicious.

We then went RT on the SKYFARI!!! Wow. It's almost better than the SKYTOWER, but both are great.

NEXT, it was the ORCA SHOW AT 2:00 PM. Definitely the best show, and the best time to go. Don't sit in the first 10 Rows, unless you want to get wet.

We then crossed over to the other side of the park for the PENGUINS, and then back to the SHIPWRECK CAFE, for chicken and salmon.

NOW, that was a FUN DAY!!! We got lost a couple of times, and SEAWORLD STAFF were always willing to give us directions.

Great park with amazing coasters (Manta; Emperor, Electric el) and shows. You cannot get bored. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Never seen a water park like this, it's all there! Attractions, rides, shows and an aquatic zoo!
I witnessed the orca and dolphin shows...spectacular!
Everything was very well organised, clean and the staff were very kind!
I definitely recommend it

If anyone is visiting San Diego, I'd say that you must go the Zoo. If you really want to go to Sea World, that's there too. We went and were a bit underwhelmed. It felt a bit like a ghost town (we were there in early November) with music blasting almost everywhere. We did enjoy the whale and dolphin shows, and there are some challenging rides, if you seek out that sort of thing. Overall, however, it did feel like the place is on the decline, or at least it didn't live up to my childhood memories of the place.

Loved National Anthem at park opening. Food good and lots of things to do for all the family. Dolphin and Orca shows excellent and educational. Could use a little more shade in the food venues.

SeaWorld San Diego is an unforgettable ocean adventure! The park is spaciously planned, starting from the marine animal touch area of the entrance, you can feel the charm of creatures such as sea stars, seaweed from close distance. The Orca Encounter is an exciting combination of education and entertainment, allowing me to better understand the wisdom and ecology of the tiger whale; the sea lion show, dolphin show, seafood feeding shows are also unique and are perfect for the whole family to watch. Facilities such as Arctic Rescue, White Whale House, Sea Turtle House and Mermaid House in the park are highly interactive, showcasing fine and fun, Mermaid House is especially fantastic, and LED lights create a wonderful atmosphere. While the dining section tastes ordinary, it is convenient to have unlimited snacks and free carbohydrate drinks at the bar. Overall, SeaWorld San Diego is not only a great place to see marine life, but also an educational and entertaining destination that is worth a day to explore!

First time the wife and I have come here to do their Halloween event called Howl O Scream. They have five mazes and some scare zones. It's pretty good smaller children would be able to go through these haunts. This is their third year and they're trying to make it a better thing.

Horribly run, terribly understaffed and money hungry amusement park under the guise of animal conservation. All day dining passes had very limited options and only allows you to wait and 45 minute to 60 minute lines at the few restaurants that accept them. Half the quick queue lines were ineffective due to lack of staffing. Terrible layout and poor directional signs. Much of the marketing is false, and there is no flexibility. A far cry from the wonderful San Diego Zoo experience we had three days earlier. Trust me, avoid!

Got annual passes for my wife and I this time last year. We went a few times and it was nice, but we did not want to continue this year.
Got a renewal reminder 11/12 which I appreciated. To cancel you have to jump through some hoops and webpages but it seemed to work.
Until it did not.
Was billed this morning for full renewal. Tried calling. On hold for 30 min and disconnect.
Tried chat. 10 min wait for tech (Moses) to tell me they can cancel my 2024 renewal but they could not refund me per the terms and services, and implied it was my fault I was billed because I did not cancel via chat or call.
I will have to put a stop payment at the bank and prepare to fight for it.
It will be a long time before I consider going back.

We took our granddaughter for the first time to SeaWorld! What an experience we had. She picked the seats out for the Dolphin show and of course we were down in the wet zone! What a show! We all loved it so much! Then the Orca show and again our granddaughter picked the seats! Soak zone! She giggled more and more the wetter we got! I love that sound!
Thank you!

I hadn't been to Sea World in 30 years. After visiting on November 29, I can say I never need to go again. Sea World is a one-and-done, never-again destination. This place is expensive and has the vibe of a state fair or amusement park, with a few animal exhibits thrown in for flavor. Every five feet, there is either a gift shop, or something else to spend money on. The map of the park is confusing and is only available online. They posted showtimes near the entrance, but not where the shows were. It takes forever to get any food (we ate at the Cafe and the Taco place). A 20-minute wait and a 30-minute wait just to order food because they only had two people taking orders - on a holiday weekend! No one looks very happy to work there, except maybe the dolphin attendants. We paid for the one-time food option at $30 and that was worth it - because all prices are high for mediocre quality.

On the positive, it was nice to visit during the holidays with all the holiday lights up. There were lots of photo op opportunities (e.g. backdrops) which can cut down on lines. We found out too late that there was a parade - it was never posted and we got blocked off from it - it looked cute from a distance. And there was a fun holiday show with song and dance - I don't know if this is year-round or not. But we couldn't find the amphitheater in time and got there late. Several rides were closed, but that didn't affect us.

We visited as four adults. I'm so grateful this is not the Sea World I took my kids to when they were young. Then it was about the animals and nature. Today it is about the rides and spending money. And spending more money. I would have liked to ride the skyride up high - but the line was long and is was an additional $6/person. Thankfully, I looked online for ticket prices at the Sea World website and found an online half-price special for Black Friday. So plan ahead and look for discounts if you decide to go at all.

Overall, do your homework before going, look for online deals, plan for crowds, and take a healthy dose of patience.

We had a great time at Sea World on Thursday. We read some reviews that it was better to go mid-week if you need to use a stroller or a wagon. Great advice because we were able to get around with ease. Not too crowded and we were able to see all of the shows and sea life.

One of the worst park, I've ever seen. I bought the ticket by Groupon. It was not worth at all. It must be really free. One of the worst park, I've ever seen

I'm definitely do the dolphin experience although it is a little overpriced it's definitely worth it definitely more for the kids

The first time I EVER visited SeaWorld…. I was in 6th grade? Now I’m a senior citizen & find the ABSOLUTE AMAZEMENT here🪼🐙🐟🐬! The new Jellies exhibit is SO BEAUTIFUL🪼& educational. Who knew jellies do not have a brain🤪?!?! SeaWorld has saved SO MANY animals thru their rescue program!🥰

The bathrooms in every other park we attended were very clean and well maintained. People were in there cleaning at all times of the day. Sea World's bathrooms were disgusting. No cleaners in sight. Women's feminine products and garbage were all over the floors. The staff were generally not helpful or well informed about the park. There was only ONE ride available for small children in the park! Lego Land, the Zoo and Safari Park excelled in all of the above areas.

I went with my husband and we are huge animal lovers so we were amazed by the s animal shows. I literally almost cried during the dolphin show because it was so cute and think a life high was being splashed by the orca. That being said… the park is very crowded and very expensive. Lines for the rides were 2 hours plus in some places (on a Thursday).. my burger and fries without a drink was $17’and the line took forever. I would say if you love animals it is worth it, but would not be fun if you just came here for rides (well not at the price we went)

Writing this review from the very LONG line for the water ride. First sea world visit today and brought our 5 year old twins.

The first disappointment was waiting in traffic on “Sea World Drive” for 45 minutes only to get to a handful of ticket booths where you had to buy a $30 - $75 parking pass from a very slow and inefficient person. I cannot believe that with all of todays technology this is not done more efficiently.

Getting through security and the ticket gates was also chaos and not well organized. There was no real signage so mobs of people just funneled together.

The only reason I did not give the park 0 or 1 stars is because the Orca Show was enjoyable (we barely made it in time for the noon show).

We have not been waiting in the ride like for 1.5 hours (with 2 kids who are melting down), despite the sign saying there would be a “10 minute wait” — what a lie. I just saw a special “quick queue” line but it took forever to find out how to purchase this on their app (no WiFi in line)! In hindsight, I would have gladly spend the $40pp for this.

Based upon the other reviews we will not be experimenting with the food. Instead we will go elsewhere.

I really regret not better researching this place in advance. They could really learn something from the likes of Royal Caribbean, Disney, Lego Land, etc. Park feels old and run down but it packed due to the longtime name and branding of Sea World.

I accompanied friends with kids and grandkids here after not having visited for almost 25 years. What a sad place. They have more places to sell you stuff than actual activities. The lines are terrible (expected that, but still not fun), and much was off-limits for the littler kids. Some bathrooms were smelly and dirty.

The worst part was seeing that orcas and dolphins are still used in shows and have horribly small enclosures. These are echolocating mammals that are used to navigating 100's of miles in open sea and interacting with their lifelong family pods. I had assumed Sea Worlds had stopped this cruel practice. I see why TripAdvisor won't sell tickets to this place on the grounds that Sea World does not adhere to accepted animal welfare practices. I will not have any more of my San Diego visitors waste their money at this despicable place.

If like me you've visited SeaWorld Orlando and are expecting something like that, save your money go to the zoo! There are very little shows and the ones that there are are really not worth it, there is no shadow anywhere and there are a lot of attractions closed and they don't tell your that when you buy your tickets or if you check it online.

Beluga Whale encounter was remarkable! Trainer was amazing! The whales are beautiful and fun to interact with. A must do!

I have been to Sea World 8x and have always been amazed! We watched all the shows and they were incredible. All the staff was really friendly and enjoyed the rides that were open. And to Sea World I want to give a big shout out for honoring and supporting our military/veterans. We had a wonderful day!!!

SeaWorld was definitely not what I was expecting. Thought it was just a massive aquarium but it’s more an amusement park dotted with little aquariums around the park. Still a pretty good experience and fun for the family. Lots of things to do and see. Would definitely recommend seeing the shows they put on. The Dolphin show is by far the best. If you’re going as a family and plan to be there ALL day, get the pass that allows you to get food every hour. It’s worth it for the price their food is.

A World Sea more like any other of those we have visited elsewhere in the world, in my review I liked less than Orlando's in terms of attractions being somewhat softer. The worst thing about the park is the nefarious organization and the lack of efficiency on the part of the staff to organize lines. Lots of waiting time and attractions went with gaps. Little single rider and malfunctioning, I wonder if they hire people with low IQ on purpose or if they bet on accumulating people so that there are more people in the lines and so people buy more fast pass.
Too bad they're so ineffective.

The line of cars waiting to get in is too long. We paid extra to park closer to entrance. Once we got in, 2 seniors, 4 adults, 4 children, 2 toddlers, we had a great time especially because the weather wasn’t too hot. The Manta ride was perfect for the 4 boys ages 7-10yrs. They loved all the exhibits, especially feeding the stingrays. Enjoyed the dolphin show, the sea turtles, and many others. The food situation is not good. Expensive and long lines.

Didn't go on the rides but more to explore, watch the shows and see all the different sea life and animals.

Overall, throughly enjoyed it. Learned plenty and saw many things & different animals that I wouldn't normally.

Easy to get to from the city on the public bus, but hard to get to if you are going elsewhere.

Food was ridiculously overpriced so I advise you eat a good meal before getting there and only snacking if you need something from there.

Overall, food price aside (and taking to account I didn't go on any rides) I personally had a great day out and found it very enjoyable

We used to love coming to Sea Wold SanDiego. Beautiful gardens, laid back vibe, etc. What has happened to you! And please, turn on the damn AC...Its 100 degrees, and no AC!!! We came for the day after not visiting fir a while. The place is filthy dirty. Weeds are growing everywhere, the workers are slow and don't seem to care. I even Goofled to see if maybe they were bought out since last time I came. Nope. We even ate at one place that I almost called the state on because it was so dirty and the kitchen was visibly in total disarray. What a mess. Thousands of people were there yet they had only one car or raft being loaded at a time. SO frustrating. I've never seen anything like it. I man I would go to ANY theme park before this one if I had to choose again. We won't be back for a very, very long time, if ever. Don't waste you time and money.

Spent half a day and made it to 3 shows. All fun and informative. Park was clean and people were friendly. If you haven’t been before give it a try.

I certainly enjoyed my experience at SeaWorld. The staff were very friendly and the shows were really enjoyable. The food was also really good and not too expensive. Overall, I think all of your tricks that the dolphins and all animals performed. We’re very impressive and well trained. Overall, I recommend visiting pretty often as you can see new animals and new stunts. However, I do hope that the dog returned back to Seaworld as it was very enjoyable the last time and visited. Thank you.

We visited on a Tuesday in May and the park was so empty it was amazing!

We booked a sea lion encounter which is usually around 15 people and ended up being the only people in it. It was amazing and the trainers were so wonderful. You can really tell how connected they are to the animals they work with.

We also did the “dine with Orcas” experience. It was great. The food was good and it was so cool to see these amazing creatures up close.

Our 3 year old LOVED the kids ride. She rode the octorock and the tower over and over because there was no lines. My husband was also able to ride the roller coaster without waiting in line.

Both our 3 year old and 1 year old enjoyed the touch pools. We spent a lot of time in that area. We also enjoyed feeding the Bat rays and touching them.

The stores had great merchandise but it was very pricy. That didn’t stop us from shopping, it just hurt a little bit.

The orca show was also fantastic and super educational!

We can’t wait to go back.

We visited on Halloween weekend and expected it to be packed. It was pretty busy, but not horrific. We got the special passes that let you jump the line and that really sped things up. The rides are fairly short (but fun and exciting) so the lines move along. Some observations:
1) they let you bring in stuff, people were hauling whole wagonfuls of snacks, water, etc.
2) don't sit in the Orca Splash Zone if you wouldn't enjoy having several gallons of icy salt water dumped over you (or the elderly, infants, etc.). Some people had brought food, which was ruined. I would guess the first 15 rows got wet and the first 10 got DRENCHED, the whale swims on its side along the side and heaves water onto the audience
3) if you want good pictures, don't sit in the center, it seemed like the whales mostly jumped off to the sides and never in the center

It's a theme park and an animal park: informative, crowded, expensive, but fun. I found it clean and well-staffed.

Last time we will ever visit. We are a family of 4, with two kids ages 16+. This park had all roller coasters but one closed...the whole day. The Rapids and Bayside Sky Ride were also closed. Only 1 ride was listed as being under renovation during the time of our visit, on their website, at the time I bought the tickets May 1. Suddenly all the roller coasters went down mid-June. What the heck? We walked by all the closed rides, twice or more each during the day, and nobody was refurbishing them, nobody was building or adding to them, none of them were fenced off. We could see the entire tracks of most of the coasters and it was like a ghost town. Some were simply closed. Some were listed as "temporarily closed" on the website since mid-June and they are still listed that way today. Some are listed on the app as closed and some are not, very inconsistent, so their care for their guests sucks.
They seemed to have plenty of employees providing $20 hamburger & fries meals, or trying you get you spend more money playing carnival games. But not enough to open the rides that most people come to experience along with the orcas.
You have to pay $6 extra per person each time you wish to ride the Sky Ride or the Sky Cabin now. That's called a SeaWorld Cash Grab. Shameless.
At the park we were told by one employee to check back on the rides throughout the day as they may open. But that was not the case... they did NOT open... a waste of time and money, especially on the quick lane access we bought. My wife kept me calm and we tried to make the best of it.
A guest services employee went to get a "supervisor" for me to speak with and she would not come over to talk with me. I could see her, and she would not make eye contact. She told the employee to tell me we could have some free popcorn or cotton candy here and there from the kiosks. That was the extent of anyone there caring at all about the situation. Absolutely deplorable. I wasn't upset, I just wanted to talk to hopefully come to an agreement about making it right. We are from out of state so it wasn't like we could come back and hope the rides were open another day.
We rode the one roller coaster that was open, Manta, because it was literally the only open adult ride that didn't cost extra. We had to pay $3 for a locker (another SeaWorld Cash Grab) to put our 1 backpack in. SeaWorld doesn't believe in providing a place on the ride loading platform like the Disney or Knotts Berry Farm. Or like most other non-SeaWorld and non-Six Flags parks.
Basically we bent over to buy tickets and upgraded line access and the cost of hundreds of dollars, and SeaWorld showed their appreciation by kicking us in the butt.

We just went to Sea World San Diego April 2025. Disappointing day as most rides were not open. The shows (dolphin, orca and sea lion were good but quite short. Food and drink prices were just ridiculous

This is the first time i've seen annual passes having an auto renewal forced upon you with no option at the intial time of payment to opt out of it. Not everyone wants to have to deal with the hassle of cancelling it when all they want to do is buy a ticket and not have to worry about a recurring charge later on. I understand to an extent if the ticket was chosen to be paid over time but I purchased mine and paid the entire amount.. the only time I was informed about the auto renewal was after all my information was already entered. Then I had to go through the laborious time to find out how to cancel the auto renewal which is the last thing I want to have to worry about since I had to wait for a minimum of an hour to talk to someone about the auto renewal.. The websites instructions are vague. Its been years since I was last at Sea World.. im hoping the actual experience in the park wont be as distasteful as the buying tickets online.

A really cool place for the whole family! Shows, slides and marine animals. Beautiful day, not boring! There are questions about food, of course. The food is all monotonous. Better to bring water too

This experience was amazing. They have up close parking disabled. We got there 15 minutes before the gate opened something we highly recommend. There was a lot of people in the park within a couple of hours, but it didn't matter. There was lots of room on the pathways, and nothing was crowded. We super enjoyed the shows. We made sure we downloaded a map. Because a paper copy is not available. And we made sure we knew where the shows were, and when so we didn't miss anything, we went to all the shows it was absolutely amazing. Especially the orca, show the best show we've ever seen, same with the dolphins. The park isn't super huge, so it's manageable. For walking, because we're from canada, we couldn't believe a cup of coffee was ten dollars Canadian and a beer was twenty five dollars Canadian. to rent a wheelchair it was 40 US. They said they had not updated their website but they do allow plastic bottles and as much water as you want to bring in and your allowed food as well.We packed a picnic lunch. we did end up buying souvenirs. They were fairly expensive when you do the exchange

If you are staying like we were in Oceanside, you have to allow double the time to get here. There are major traffic gluts on the freeway that can slow you down incredibly.

This was a well worth attraction. Parking was reasonably priced.I believe it was twenty dollars US

The park is definitely pass its glory days, it is starting to show signs of going down hill. The orca and dolphin shows were good, everything else was mediocre, especially the food and the food pass. The lines for the food and rides are long and the roller coasters are ok. there just seems to be no customer service, I got a quick queue pass for my little ones and when we got there they said they weren't using them (what?). we have two children with food restrictions and there was hardly anything for them to eat when they indicated they accommodate. After dark the crowd changes, I saw lots of teenagers who were obviously doing something before they got on roller coasters. my kids loved the shows and the few rides they got on but we will not be going back.

We last visited in 2002 so we were looking forward to the visit . Did a bit of research in UK before hol and noticed a lot of rides on site can't remember if these were here last time but also seen tickets half price so booked for new years day at just over 50 dollars each which seemed fair as we wouldn't use the rides . The park wasn't too busy but Just had the feeling the better days were over and it was becoming a theme park .food seemed near on impossible to get due to most being closed. We caught the local bus out from old town which is a great service shame it drops off .picks up so far from the entrance. It started to rain by 4pm so that was enough for us sorry to say if in san diego again we would pass on another visit.

First the good: The 3 shows we went to were outstanding. The orca show ( I prefer that term to killer whale as they mostly referred to them), the dolphin show, and the sea lion & otter show were very entertaining.
Now the bad: The EXTREMELY loud, annoying music blaring everywhere was awful. If I wanted to go to a concert or club I would have. I wanted an animal experience. It was blasting the minute we arrived & was unrelenting for the 5 hours we stayed. I feel sorry for the animals & employees that have to listen to this all day long.
The signage was confusing, so it was hard to get around, although the app helped with that. There is no bus or tram. For example, Dolphin Point is all the way across the park from the dolphin show. There is a lack of areas to sit & take a break in the shade.
I would recommend anyone going to visit to check the times for the shows & make a plan to see them & skip the rest,

The short park hours and long wait to use daily food pass such a waste of money. Limited shows and events. Not this grandma’s money again…

What a complete waste of money! Have come from the Uk and certainly wished we'd never bothered coming to this park. Loads of rides closed and long queues for food as many eating places closed. Very poor value for money

The orca and dolphin shows were amazing; if you go, both of these are must sees.

We waited for over an hour to ride Arctic Rescure despite the initial wait time being 45 minutes. At one point, the line didn't seem to move at all so I went and asked an employee if they ride was out of service, the employe answered me by saying they were in the process of bringing a second train into service and that should help move the line. After a little longer while, we eventually made it on. An unexpected and unpleasant surpise was while the ride does not permit loose items (reasonable), you had to PAY for a locker to store them (others chose to stash their items in nearby bushes {I obviously do not reccomend this}). With the available space that I saw for this ride, I think a few shelves would've been reasonable for temporary loose item storage like I've seen in other amusement parks.

If you believe in Seaworld's mission of conservation and education, then you should go and support it. If you do go, decide what you want to see/experience in advance, when you want to do it, and plan your time accordingly. The app can be of some use; however, it's not as user friendly as other apps that other locations developed.

Everything is expensive and so is parking. Came here with grandson, his parents and our daughter and son-in-law. Enjoyed the dolphin and orca shows. Also saw the sharks experience as well as the sea turtles. There was a concession that sold out on Starbucks frappacino and refreshers so had an iced coffee. We also fed the sea lions but you get 4 small fish for $10

We went to SeaWorld in February, entry was included in the City pass but it would have cost $115 each. I emphasize the cost of the ticket because it is a steal, especially if the attractions, roller coasters, etc. they are all closed. The shows with cute dolphins and orcas, other tanks disappointing.

Bought tickets online in advance of our visit. From the moment we got the confirmation email the website to get your digital tickets wasn't working. Still waiting in line to get the tickets at the park. Wasting the day waiting to even get in. Disappointing experience. Southern California residents. Got two small children who were ecstatic to come. Will go to the SD Zoo or other parks in the area next time instead.

The park was filthy. The bathrooms were disgusting. Many stalls didn’t have toilet paper and one stall I used didn’t even have a toilet paper dispenser. We bought the food pass. Total waste of money. The food we had at the Calypso smoke house was awful. We did purchase front of the line passes and that was very worth it. My grandsons loved the roller coasters and had to wait short times to ride because of the passes.

We have been to the Orlando Sea World which was excellent. The San Diego Sea World was the opposite. There were major attractions closed such as the Shark Encounter, Dolphin Encounter, Bayside, etc. There were very few interactive experiences with our standard day pass... we would have to pay more on top of the $200+ we already paid. ~50% of the food & drink kiosks were closed so there was not much variety offered for refreshments. We did notice all the stores were open to spend more money on over priced souvenirs. We paid $35 for parking and another $37 for a broken stroller.
The entire experience was disappointing & felt the primary purpose of the park was to grab money versus create a great experience. We will never return & will comment on Trip Advisor so others do not get suckered in. Shame on Sea World.

Over priced and poor service. Many rides and service outlets were closed. Got in line twice for a new ride and it shut down twice before we could ride it. Clearly not properly tested before being advertised as ready to go.

We went to the Orca dining experience. The service was slow and incomplete. The hostess gave her talk to half of our party rather than wait for the rest of the group that was 30 seconds behind due to older customers that were not as swift. We had to make requests for cutlery and condiments rather than being placed on the table after we picked up our food. The service provider was inexperienced and did not speak directly to her customers. She would look away rather than looking at you while speaking.

Other staff were friendly and helpful.

We got an electric scooter for a disabled member of our group. It was twice the price that we paid at the San Diego Zoo. It’s shameful to take advantage of disabled customers.

NUMEROUS people were jumping the line for Manta. At one point, a coupe of us tried to stop 2 teens. One of them began shoving me. I screamed “HELP” and “SECURITY” multiple times. Screamed. There were no employees anywhere. My son got injured when the girl pushed me. There was no one to help. It was frustrating, scary, and ultimately disgusting. There was zero reason for people to stay in line. I am extremely disappointed in Sea World and the lack of security.

We're writing this after waiting on Sea World to respond to a letter we wrote back in July concerning tickets. They have not had the courtesy to respond in two months! Prior to our leaving for California, we went to the website to purchase tickets. We had noticed that they had a promotion for Veterans with free tickets and discounted ones for the family of veterans. However, the dates for this were not when we would be there, so we purchased regular tickets for our family. But, after making the purchases we noticed they had once again offered this veteran ticket plan with the dates we would be at Sea World, so we called them, (difficult to reach someone), to inquire about a refund of our tickets and repurchase them under the 'Veteran Plan'. They were absolutely rude and said NO they could not help us out. Once again, they had reopened their promotion prior our leaving for California, yet they simply would not honor their own promotion when we in good faith bought them early not knowing they would establish another veteran ticket plan, even prior to our going.

Our letter was very kind as we enjoy Sea World and their shows and their efforts for all marine life and mentioned that. However, this situation has left us feeling they do not care about the veteran as much as they would like us to believe. And, then not to respond to our letter in just another example of their offices not willing to help us on their own ticket special for Veterans. It's a Sad Day when this park does not accommodate a situation we have described. We did work to try to enjoy our day at the park and thrilled they still have the Orca Show

Pass holders beware! Sea world is getting desperate for $$$ and is now taking advantage of annual pass holders. They will renew your annual passes at a much higher amount without any email or notifications. Even if you look online in their member portal it will not show a pending charge until too late. It will be very hard to find except on your credit card bill. They will not issue a refund or reimbursement. I bought 2 passes last year for a total of $262, this year they charged me $418 for the same passes. Shady AF.

Visited the first few days of the festive season. Despite advertising promises that included Santa and Mrs Clause roaming the park, this didn’t happen. Many areas and attractions were closed including one of the rollercoasters, the pets show and the cirque show. Who knows if and when they’ll return. Your $100 plus entrance fee does not include the sky tower ride and that’s $6 pp extra. We didn’t see if the cable car was operational but that is also an extra $6 pp. The animal shows have all moved away from the entertainment story favouring a more educational option. I am guessing this is in response to the negative press. I understand the reasons but I preferred the previous shows. In particular the seal/otter experience was boring compared to the previous shows. My 3 year old did not connect with this show. The orca stadium is very impressive. There was only one Orca show which reflects the lower volumes of guests.
Get the all day dining pass. The food here is insanely expensive, so the only way around that is to get the pass allowing 1 entree, 1 soda fountain drink and 1 side or dessert every hour. Not all restaurants were open so options were limited but still nice choices. All in all we had a fun day and my toddler loved seeing the Beluga Whale, Walruses and Orcas. As an adult be prepared for the constant reinforcement that SeaWorld is doing an amazing conservation job and that by you being here, helps. Feels a bit like preaching to the choir, but again I guess they trying to offset the critics.

We found Sea World to be quite a nice park, however there were a few things that detracted from our experience.

Overall Sea world is struggling with its identity, is it a thrill ride park or a park where you can meet and learn about sea animals? It's a little of both and doesn't do either good enough at the moment. If you haven't seen Orcas, dolphins, sea lions, etc before, it's a good place to enjoy it.

The Manta ride was great for our entire family. Try it! Very smooth ride and enjoyable.

Also, arrive at the sea lion show early. The guy who's keeping the audience entertained is hilarious! Same concept as in Orlando.

At the time for our visit there was a jellyfish exhibit, it was quite nice, and you can get some cool photos of them if you give it a little time. Don't skip it.

However, some things could be done better:
* Several key attractions that we were looking forward to were closed.
* Some attractions don't open at the same time as the park, and emperor opened 30 minutes after the advertised opening time. Some others closed before the park closed.
* They can learn a bit from Disney and Universal when it comes to queue management. All too often rides go with empty seats despite a lone line waiting, where they didn't check for single or doubles to fill up. No single rider lanes.
* Restaurants and snack places are apparently managed by separate companies, and the all-day dine only work in the restaurants, bummer.
* Meal plan planning got even more difficult when they frequently ran out of things at the different restaurants, everything from ice cream to other deserts and main courses. On the day of our visit the park was less than 30% filled, I can't imagine how it's like when it's full.

We enjoyed our day at Sea World. The dolphin and whale shows seem to get the most attention, but the sea lion show was hilarious! There are quite a few rides at Sea World as well. We got the all day dining, which I would probably not do again. The food is very poor quality and zero variety (all deep fried).

We had a great time at SeaWorld with our family. Prior to the trip I spent a lot of time researching the all day meal pass. I couldn't find a lot of info so thought I'd share for the next person.

Bottom line, don't buy it. Meals at SeaWorld average about $17 for adults and $10 for kids. The problem is that dining options are limited and very slow. We grabbed lunch at 1:30 and waited for an hour. We never passed a restaurant that didn't have a line out the door all day and it was not super crowded at the park. You can not use your pass for snacks. Next time we go we will just throw sandwiches in the bottom of the diaper bag to avoid the food lines.

Aside from that we had a great time. They need to hire a second person to help make the loading and unload process on rides go smoother to reduce the wait time, but it wasn't too bad on the kiddy lines.

The park was very quiet, we managed to go to all the attractions several times.
There are many rescued animals. Children love it.

Parking is $32 US, web site quotes $64 one day single admission ticket. Told after long line to purchase ticket that only season passes were available for $114 US ea. So visiting from out of country I now have a one year pass I will never use again. Needless to say I never purchased a $17 turkey leg or a $14 plastic cup of draught beer while there as my travel budget was exhausted on the parking and admission. In my opinion, everything about SeaWorld is way overpriced.

Nice aquarium, definitely more crowded than years ago, but still great to visit. Not many food options. We arrived early and had time to see all the animals and shows.

We decided to feed the sea lions and we payed $16 for 2 boats of fish they gave us 4 fish in total, terrible. Keep in mind the fish are no longer than 2 inches

Orca and dolphins shows were good and ended up watching them twice. The penguin feeding was very interesting watching them eat an entire fish. Our son was too tall to ride some of the rides so was able to only ride 2 rides. Kids said waiting times were inaccurate.

Understaffed, crowded and very disappointing day for our family’s post Christmas adventure. There were limited shows and we struggled to be able to find seating if we were even able to get into the shows. The food situation was completely unacceptable. Limited staff at each restaurant which caused lines to be very long and service to be slow. The areas were not well maintained. Parking was total chaos. Do better SeaWorld!

Our family of four went to Sea World San Diego last Saturday, Oct 1st. We went without tickets and planned to purchase them near the front gate. While looking at all of the options, two different ticket scalpers/scammers approached us, offering to sell us tickets at half the cost, but only if we pay for them in cash. It screamed of a fraud scheme. We blew them off and purchased our tickets from Sea World. Already a bad experience and we haven't made it into the park yet!

Shortly after walking into the park, we quickly noticed it must have been "Los Angeles Gang Member Day". These guys dressed the part, acted the part, and talked the part. T-shirts claiming their gang, weapons, and drugs. Graffiti is written in bathroom stalls, railings, and walls around the park. One decorative rock near the Dolphin Experience even had a specific gang written on it! What makes this family attraction into a place where gang members can't check their allegiances to crime at the door? My guess is that money brought into the park can turn Sea World's cheek to the decline of its appearance and experience.

My recommendation: Save your money and do not go to Sea World San Diego. I hope the other Sea Worlds are a much better experience and actually make it about creating a safe, wholesome family outing.

Seaworld appears to not give a rats patoot about the environment. It’s fireworks pollute Mission Bay with trash and heavy metals. The near constant nightly shows upset migratory birds nesting, upset the surroundings neighborhoods and animals with noise and chemical laden smoke pollution. They have several lawsuits pending.
Bad stewards of the environment. Will not support.

I see potential, but management is poor. 3 of the 5 roller coasters were closed. One of them was listed as closed on the website before, but not the others. Other non roller coasters rides were also closed. I visited on a weekend in June, rides should be open. I understand things happen, but this too much and clearly reflects terrible management. Also, the posted wait times, for the few rides open, were extremely inaccurate causing me to miss other events. DO NOT waste your day, San Diego has so much more to offer. Wasted my time and money .

Parking is $30 or $50 or $70 depending on how close. Wait in line or pay to skip. What a scam. Enough with the class separation. Just charge a fee and let everyone do the same thing. Nothing is more irritating that waiting for 45min then seeing a bunch of people cut in front of you because they were able to pay to do so.

Other than that, it’s a good park. Up close animal shows and good rides. The Atlantis ride seems to be constantly broken. No idea the issue with that thing. Also they should bring back the Jet Ski show.

Trying to buy tickets was almost impossible. The staff are rude and unhelpful. The cost of food is ridiculous. More cost for sky tower. They want to charge for
Locker by stopping you taking a bag upto the ride. Other parks just let you put you bag on the other side. Will never be back.

I was expecting more of an actual aquarium but this is just a theme park with sone sea life and shows. The orca show was impressive. Dolphin show was just ok. I was expecting more of the arctic exhibit - I was so excited to see beluga whales, but the exhibit was small. We didn’t t do rides. So it was a lot to pay for a few shows. Food very expensive. Parking expensive.

There were thrilling rides, like Manta and Arctic Rescue. There were also great shows like Orca Encounter and pirates ahoy: the battle of Mermaid Cove. At SeaWorld San Diego, there's something for everyone.

Terrible park. Nice shows, but everything around this is terribly expensive and disproportionate to what you get. It's a shame.

Sea World is a great park for the whole family. Orca, dolphin and sea lion/otter shows were really great and educational. ‘BIFF’ was the best and super funny! Park is very huge and would have liked more directional signage for the shops, food places, etc. signage for attractions were good. The App with the map was a lifesaver! Food and drink items were very expensive/overpriced….a hotdog, churro and drink were over $25 which is too much.

I hadn't looked into SeaWorld at all before our trip to San Diego because I thought my husband didn't want to go but it turned out he did. So I arrived there without any preconceptions or expectations and absolutely loved it!

We went on a Wednesday in mid August. I'm not sure how busy it normally is but it felt OK to me, not too bad and in fact some parts felt pretty quiet. We got there for opening and went straight to the Alpine Racers. This turned out to be a pretty good move as we got on with a 10 minute queue, later in the day it was at least 30 minutes. There was also only a 20 minute queue at midday for the Manta coaster (which we loved!). Having been to Disney the previous week we were pretty impressed with both the queue times and the rides themselves. We're not into huge coasters so didn't go on the two big ones here although I think the queue times were OK for those too. We were disappointed that the river rapids ride was down all day, but we went on a number of smaller rides too. We didn't have a fast pass and didn't feel that we needed one really.

But the main draw is the animals. We saw both the Dophin and Orca shows and absolutely loved them! We liked that there is something to entertain people whilst you're waiting for the show to start, it keeps everyone interested and passes the time quicker. The animals were just spectacular and it was good to learn about them from their trainers. You can see that the trainers just love them. We also went to the Pirate show later in the day and that was great fun too. My teenagers loved being able to touch the rays and the small sharks, even though this is aimed at younger kids! We also liked watching the penguins and flamingos.

The park was clean and had enough shaded areas (much more than at Disney) which was good. The food was expensive but good. What was great was we were staying at a hotel in Mission Bay only a 5 minute drive away so we left the park at dinner time, went back to the hotel and returned to SeaWorld at about 7.30 to do a couple of smaller rides and watch the fireworks.

We had a fabulous time and my 16 year old son much preferred it to Disney.

My wife and I loved this park! It has a great collection of roller coasters with some very good theming! Lines were not too long on the day we visited (a Friday) which gave us multiple rides on stuff. We saw the orca encounter show and the fire spinning show which were both great! We also did the Beluga whale encounter, which was a really neat experience where we got to get up close to, interact with, and feed beluga whales! The reason I am giving this park 4 stars instead of 5 is because of being charged $1 for an envelope to put my already expensive photo I bought from Photo Key at the end of the day. That may seem silly, but it's the principle of the matter. Other than that, everything about this park is fantastic.

DECEPTIVE BUSINESS PRACTICES: I purchased 7 annual passes from sea world on March 25th 2023 these were purchased using their 12 month payment plan. I thought I had bought an annual pass that lasts a year. I just realized that my credit card is being charged monthly for the last 6 months since March 2024. I was put under autorenewal without my knowledge. To access the information about automated autorenewal on the website, you must go through several steps prior to the EZ payment being forced on you at the very end of the fine print. They are forcing you to sign up for something that is hidden from view and you will only realize it when you see it on your bank account statement which many people, such as myself, don't review regularly. This is a shady and deceptive business practice. The information must be clearly and conspicuously noted per CBPC Section 17602(a)(1) and it is not in this case. At the least, the consumer should be given the option to opt out of autorenewal at the time of purchase rather than deceptively being forced into it. SeaWorld never sent me an email or notification that the autorenew would occur or a receipt for payment. I want the business to reimburse me for all the money they conned me into paying (6 months @ $84). When I contacted them via email, they just closed the account and said they wouldn't reimburse me because it's written on their website, I asked if they would at least extend the use of the pass but no one responded. I called and the so called supervisor, Milagros, was rude and very aggressive hanging up the phone on me when I told her I would file a complaint. It's an appalling practice that must be stopped. I filed complaints with the BBB and the CA Attorney General so more people are not conned by this horrific business.

I use to have a Seaworld Annual pass. When I look at my online Seaworld account, I don't see any "active passes." I called once to cancel my old account, which is probably why I have "No Active Passes" showing in my account. I check my bank and charges have been deducted from my account. I call customer service and they say that "I should have cancelled the account." BUT I have NO ACTIVE PASSES to cancel. Really Seaworld, you could do better than that.

We wanted some snacks, but $11 for just a simple hot dog? I got a $8 (!) soft drink with $2 refills. When I went to get a refill, I was told that my paper cup didn't apply. What? That was the only cup they sold. And why not take my $2 for 10 cents of soda? The food is outrageously priced- far above Disney prices. No wonder the place was a morgue on a beautiful sunny and warm day. SeaWorld's greediness spoiled our day.

My husband and I made a day of it here while visiting San Diego. We are mature adults (over 50) but still found we had a great day. We took advantage of a special offer they had and got our daily ticket along with the meal package for $99 each (I think normal pricing is more like $169). I was so glad we got the meal package! We ate twice in the park (once at the BBQ place and once and the Mexican place) and the total price just for food would have been around $110 for the day. We paid out of pocket for a funnel cake at $10.

We enjoyed the shows very much, and only did two rides (what we would call the scrambler). It was little boats you got in (4 on an arm) that spun around and went in and out. Can’t remember what it is called. Also did the tall observation tower that takes you way up in the air and turns as it goes up.

Just doing the shows, seeing the animals at different exhibits, eating and the two rides we were still there from 10am when they opened until 5:30pm. The Dolphin show as a bit of a let down and unorganized. The Killer whale show was great and we enjoyed the Feathers and Rescue Animal show where they brought out several different kinds of rescue animals and talked about them. The best show was the Pirate/Mermaid show. Don’t want to ruin it with any specific details but it was great!

Note: They do not accept cash in the park (went to pay for our funnel cake and also the observation tower ride – which is an extra $6 and not included – they advised no cash is accepted, only credit cards). Even watching people playing games while waiting in line for a show it was pay by credit card only.

Would certainly recommend this for anyone of any age, but try to snag that discount for sure. And honestly I believe the meal add on price is normally $50, if you plan to eat more then once it would be worth it even at that (each meal ends up being around $25 per person).

It is interesting to see animals that you rarely see otherwise. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the way the animals are kept is not proper.

My wife and I got SeaWorld passes last year at the price of $139 a person. We were told those prices were locked in for life. Our SeaWorld passes just came up for renewal and my wife noticed that they were adding $15 a month to the charges. She called SeaWorld and they told her we can't walk in prices at $139 the price for it you're going to pay is now $154. So it's a classic case of bait and switch. They promised us one thing and they revoked on it the next year. I will never ever do business with a SeaWorld Resort again. The same thing happened to us with Disneyland and I haven't been back in 18 years. Believe me I can hold a grudge.

Overall a good experience but only rate 3 star due to price and distinct lack of gluten free options (staff also unaware of what it meant!)
Arrived and paid for car parking and given we arrived early ended up along way away from park entrance. (We got there for the rope drop)
Rides are good and our kids really enjoyed them, whilst the show again were okay and standard if you’ve been to similar.
Food is very expensive and lack of training and choice in respect of gluten free options ( your staff should know what they are selling!) Food we had was standard and would recommend you take a picnic.
Overall good experience but when you sell expensive food at least cater for people with allergies!

We really enjoyed our visit to Sea World San Diego. Significantly cleaner and better maintained than its Orlando counterpart even with a more limited list of attraction offerings. Food prices are high as with most Sea World parks and quality isn’t great so it’s probably a good idea to eat before or afterwards. We really enjoyed the Wild Arctic area - the Shamu show is in an uncovered stadium so be prepared to roast on a sunny day.

You can't bring your own food in but we were still charged $70 (Shipwreck cafe) for cold and overcooked food. Really unacceptable.

Refund for the food SW (I still have the receipt)?

The absolute filthiest amusement park my family and I have ever visited. Hadn't been to San Diego Sea World in three years -- the decline in the maintenance of the park is frightening. All bathrooms we used during our 10 hour visit were unbelievably dirty, the tile was awful and the smell in each of them was horrible. The restaurants were also atrocious. The entire park looks as though no one is maintaining the cleanliness and overall ambiance of the place.

There were far too many people in attendance. When we asked a couple of workers what the problem was, we were told there weren't enough people to fill the positions that were open. If that's the case then, perhaps, less people should be admitted.

The windows in the Penguin Exhibit were so bad you could barely see the animals. We had purchased the meal pay before, which we used in 4 different restaurants and each one of them was horribly maintained. The staff were, quite obviously, not aware of what their individual responsibilities were, if they had any at all.

For the price Sea World is charging, the place should be shut down for an overhaul. I plan on telling EVERYONE I know, not to go. . . it is absolutely not worth the money. The shows are short and not entertaining as before and the "rides" for the kids in Sesame Street lasted 45 seconds each -- it took longer strapping them in and getting approval from the "attendant".

I cannot say enough about the decline of this iconic park. I have visited it in San Diego my entire life and was ashamed to have taken out of town visitors.

It's an excellent place to enjoy as a family, my 3-year-old loves it.
It's very interactive, it has lots of shows and activities.

We had a great time with our passes. We ate at the bbq restaurant. It was a little high priced but well worth it! Great portion size and everything was delicious! All staff were nice and everyone had a great time

From the time of entry the staff was not very well versed on the property. I had purchased some extras (entry + food, fast pass). I ask the person scanning out tickets if we needed to go and get braces or something for the fast pass and food. He said no but looked doubtful. So we went to the guest center and it turns out that they do provide bracelets for the food. After I left the guest center I realized I didn’t have a map of the property and noticed that all the little racks where the maps would go were empty. I ask one of the photographers at the entrance and she snarled at me and told me to check with guest services 🤦🏻‍♂️. There were no employees stationed that can assist in directing you. The park itself can be somewhat confusing to navigate and other things like the sky lift cost extra ($6 per person) but they don’t tell you that you need to buy a ticket from a kiosk prior to getting in the other line to get on the lift. Several of the rides were down as well, on that particular day. Not sure that it was worth the cost of admission. The food was average at best.

- the animals are kept in too large numbers in very small aquariums (they even write that a turtle travels more than 5000 km in the wild, the aquarium is about 10cm2 big!!)
- the park is very old and showing its age
- the food and drinks are overpriced
- the entrance fee is far too expensive!!!
- many shows did not take place at all and many shops/food stands were closed

Overall we had a great visit. We really enjoyed the shows and the sesame Street kids zone. We payed extra for the dolphin encounter and it was amazing! It was worth the extra money for the kids to be able to learn so much hands on information about dolphins and they were able to feed and touch the dolphins. The shows were tons of fun too. We only did a few rides and came mostly for the animals. We felt sad for the orcas because they are just so huge and seem to need a bigger area but the other animals seemed very well cared for and loved. We learned tons at each area too.

The downside…. the food! I wouldn’t waist your money on the food plan (especially for adults) the food is all just ok and you can only use it at the sit down restaurants. The time you spend in lines is just awful. I felt like it was somewhat worth while for the kids but no way was it worth $50 for adults. We tried to go back and get a snack but the lines were so crazy long we would have missed a show or two. You’re better off packing snacks and grabbing food from the side vendors which was way faster and looked better! Plus my kids wanted ice cream and other food that you couldn’t get at the restaurants.

Awesome seeing the Orcas and the dolphins!! The rides were amazing and no lines on a day when It was a little cold, and minor rain. The food was decent had a quick pizza for $14

Appreciate the mission of animal rescuing but this is far from Orlando’s brother quality, shows and exhibitions are not adequate level.

David at the Coral market was absolutely wonderful. He had the best customer service and made the start to our adventure here so great! He also was a very hard worker and kept the lines short with his swiftness, while remaining fun and so polite. Great job sea world for having David apart of your staff.

Kids loved Spooktackular & I enjoyed SeaWorld Member behind the scenes Halloween. Third year for event & SeaWorld did a great job! I like that I could buy the NO BOO necklace & CREATURES don’t jump out at you. It works

On the surface it very much seems like you are buying an annual pass. In reality, you are committing to 12 months of paying Seaworld for not just that years annual pass but they slip in having to pay for a second years annual pass as well. Surprise! On top of that it seems like you are going to get all these guest passes to bring friends and family. Not exactly... You get a date range to use passes in, use it or lose it and although there was supposed to be an extra guest pass, I still can't figure out where that "extra" pass is or how I use it. I'm actually on hold now with seaworld (8777937935), hoping I can mitigate the damage. As I understood it I would only be paying $160 but now I'm realizing it is going to cost $330+. Hopefully I can at least cut my losses and cancel future charges.
This is my experience for SeaWorld San Diego, maybe others are different but I imagine it's all the same.

Honestly I wouldn't spend a day here again.

Used to go all the time when we were living in SD. Sad to see how it is now. NOT the animals but everything else.

My kids loved the animals and the animal exhibits.

I was disappointed in the amount of trash when we were walking from the parking lot. Also, the trash left in the splash pad....a dirty diaper. The bathrooms were not attended to through out the day.

Lastly, some of the places that sold food were understaffed. Lines were long and when you are there with kids makes it challenging. I felt bad for the workers trying to handle the long lines.

Would skip this on our next trip.

Don't waste your time money. First, they con you on line with a "discount" Parke entry ticket, then force you to buy an additional $20 coupon for in-park purchases, but do NOT clearly explain the bar coded coupon has to be printed out in order to use it. Once we learned this, the park employees told us to go to Guest services and maybe they can print these out, but the lines for guest services were ridiculously long so they were not used but se world got their extra money. Then inside, there were several exhibits closed and many concession stands either overwhelmed with long lines or many others closed. They have open air stadium shows, but on a typical hot sunny day, the metal benches are red hot and there is NO shaded areas making it impossible to watch the show in any level of comfort. I may be only catching the surface of the waste of time this park is, but I hope you get the just of it. DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY.

Sea world San Diego stands in start contrast to any of its rivals for family vacations by its by its quite remarkable focus on squeezing every penny from visitors. It's starts with its refusal to allow guests to not only bring in lunches, but also snacks. The premise is to force visitors to pay the exorbitant prices on site ($11 hot dogs or churros for example ). Both Disneyland and Legoland by the way allow this.
The park has two quite good rollercoaster-type rides (the third a Splash Mountain copy was closed for repairs every time we walked by). The handful of kiddie rides are underwhelming. The ride to the top of the tower has an extra charge, as does walking into the drying booths. Good thing the splash ride was not working.
We encountered two employees unable to give guidance or assistance as it was their "first day on the job", which made us wonder where were the experienced employees?
The aquarium themselves were interesting, but hardly worth Disney, or Lego prices. A very low value experience for our group, made worse by the feeling of being gouged.

Filthy bathrooms.
Mediocre food costing much more than it deserved.
Parking was a shambles- took 1.5 hours to try to get out to a main road - and I am still not out of the car park(see photo).

We came to San Diego for my son's Make a Wish trip. We used a free day to visit Sea World. My son is in a wheel chair and once there we were encouraged to get an ADA pass so we could skip long lines. We did this but realized once we tried to use it that he wasn't allowed to ride the majority of the rides. We asked if we could just remove the ADA pass and go through the normal line and were told no. We were told because he had surgery in the last six months he couldn't ride the rides. No question on whether the surgery was related to his disability. We asked for a refund so we could go somewhere else and told since we checked into the park they couldn't do a refund. Said they could transfer to another day or time but we said we didn't live close to a park. Definitely do not recommend.

Seaworld used to be focused on sea animals, like an aquarium, with the bonus of shows and a couple of theme park elements. Now it has become a 2nd rate amusement park with a sea animal theme. The shows are still there, but with other animals almost nowhere to be found they feel like an afterthought.
Seaworld has devolved into amusement park food stalls and gift shops with rides that are OK but don't really compete with other area parks. . . Oh, and there are some sea animals in mangy enclosures that you might see if you show up at the right time.
There is lots of talk about helping and rescuing animals, but if you want to see any hint of that be prepared to pay more than the entrance fee per person per activity.

The shows were good. Lots of information.
The rides were fun, we only went on a couple of them. There was hardly anyone there.

We visited in May 2023 as part of our first visit to San Diego. We've been to the Orlando Seaworld and had a lot of fun there. We got here at open. There were several busses of kids doing field trips too. Even with this the park was not terribly crowded. We followed the flow of watching the sea lion and otter encounter, then the orca encounter, and lastly the dolphin encounter. The flow of the shows and traveling between them and looking at other things in between takes you from 10:00 AM to about 2:00 PM. There is not a lot to eat here for lunch. What is available has minimal staff and long lines. We concluded our day with the new rescue tour where we got to go back behind the scenes and see the animal hospital and recovery pools. We were the only two on this tour. No pictures are allowed on this, but we got to see two geriatric pacific bottlenose dolphins up close, some rescue California sea lions, and a baby critically endangered Galápagos sea lion. This tour honestly made the whole visit worth the while. Of the other encounters, the sea lion and otter encounter was the most entertaining. Overall, we feel there is more to see and do at the Orlando park. The flow is better there too.

Honestly based on reviews here, I was nervous about taking my family (2 kids under 10). But we did everything I felt we needed to do on OUR end to make this a great visit. If you control what you can control, you can do the same. Yes, the food prices are laughably outrageous. Yes, the ride staff is inefficient, disinterested, and understaffed. Yes, it could be hot and crowded in mid-summer. We avoided all of this headache by having a plan and it resulted in a great day! Here are some tips...

1. Check crowd calendars online and go during off season. We were there Friday before Labor Day weekend and this is historically a low attendance day. It was this time as well. If you go on a mid-summer Saturday, then yes it will be crowded...and hot.

2. Don't go in mid-summer. Again, I can't imagine anything worse than a crowded and hot amusement park. Early Sept. was a perfect 70 degrees.

3. Be there for park open. We arrived at 9:40, parked and were inside the park for "rope drop" at 10am along with about 25-30 other folks which guaranteed little to no wait times for rides.

4. Go straight to big rides first and ride all you can 10-12. We went right to Arctic Rescue and rode 4 times in a row, no wait. The $5 locker rental was annoying but we rented it for 2 hours and rolled. We then rode Emperor 3 times, Electric Eel 2 times and Manta 3 times and Journey to Atlantis. All of this in under 2 hours. Be done with rides around noon or so. That is when we noticed more people and you could see the slow and inefficient ride staff start to rear its ugly head. It is clear that the staff in place that day was going to be an annoyance as it got busier. So avoid it and go early.

5. Bring water bottles and small snacks in side pockets. I REFUSED to pay their prices to eat lunch for 4 people. We bought a giant pretzel for $10 and snacked and that was it. We ate a big breakfast, went to park 10-3:30 and ate after. Avoid what will frustrate you.

6. From 12-1, go to any animal exhibits...Arctic is awesome with the walruses, penguins and Beluga whales.

7. At 1, we went to Dolphin show followed by Orca show at 2 and then rode Shipwreck Rapids. We went on Manta one last time but waited 20 minutes and could clearly see the staff inefficiency at this point. It was past 3 and time to go. Both shows were incredible and worth the time.

That's it...from 9:45 to 3:15 on a low crowd, non heat day...we rolled with a plan. If you decide to show up here on July 4th weekend, stroll in at noon not having eaten...then good luck, that's on you. This place has faults for SURE (signage is terrible and staff with the exception of a young man named Noah was blah), but it can be a fantastic day.

This was a disappointing visit. I went here 4 years ago and it was great. The staff on this visit were unresponsive and not so helpful in the eating places. The food was expensive and horrible. The bathrooms need updates and lots of stuff needs repair. I took my 5 year old grandson to the bathroom a couple of times and the hand dryers were too high up for him to reach and the ones that were lower didn't work. Most of the soap dispensers didn't work and the bathrooms weren't very clean. The place was very crowded and we waited over 1 hour for shipwreck rapids and the road broke and closed down. This park is not repaired or clean and the food is sub standard.
The dolphin show was also a disappointment with too much talking and not enough action for the kids - they were bored.
What a disappointing visit - not sure I will return.

We arrived right at open and went straight to the big rollercoasters. We walked right into the rides and got them out of the way. Highlight for my kids was seeing the beluga and walruses in Wild Arctic. As others have said, things are pricy. There are a lot of “pay to play” experiences. We stuck to the open exhibits and shows after lunch. Dolphin and orca shows can’t be missed. Although SeaWorld is clearly past its glory days of my childhood experiences, it was still a fun day with my kids.

Seaworld was open from 10:30am to 5:00 pm- just 6.5 hours. There was no indication of these reduced opening hours at the time of booking. With the hefty ticket price, Seaworld needs to open for at least 8 hours so that guests are not unnecessarily rushed. In general the facilities are showing signs of aging. Moss developing near orca tanks need to be removed.

The good: very low crowds on a Monday in late August, lines were only a few minutes long on almost all of the rides.
The bad: rip-off pricing on everything. $30.00 parking, more if you want to park closer. $10.00 for one slice of pizza. We got the unlimited refills drink for $20.00 and shared it among four people - they added a involuntary 5% service fee on top of the advertised price - I am pretty sure California has consumer protection laws against this sort of thing. After the rides where you get wet, you can dry off in a large electric fan/dryer device for $9.00 You can't bring anything on the rides, so to lock up a purse in a locker cost us $15.00 Some of the bathrooms were fairly clean but some of the women's bathrooms were dirty and either had no toilet paper or toilet paper all over the place in the stalls. It is hard to enjoy yourself when they rip you off every chance they get.

I was so excited to to take my daughter to Seaworld during our recent vacation to California. I'd only ever been to the one in Florida, and that was more than 20 years ago. However, I was disappointed to find how commercialized it has become. The admission was covered by my GoCity pass, but we still had to pay $30 for parking. We were given no instructions on where to park, even though there was general parking (what we paid for) as well as preferred parking. We couldn't see where the entrance was from the parking lot, so it was hard to tell where we should park. The layout was confusing. When we got in (we went later in the afternoon) I was stunned to see how crowded it still was considering it was later in the day. There was no signage on the animal exhibits we saw - nothing to educate you on them. The layout of the park was confusing, and again it was very crowded. We had hoped to get something to eat there, but lines were verylong, so I tried using their app to order food. The wait would have been over 30 minutes, and though I knew food would be expensive, it was beyond what I expected. A soda was $8! We ended up just watching the orca show and leaving. We couldn't even find other animal exhibits. The park itself had poor signage for directions, and I didn't see employees around to help. We'd been at San Diego Zoo earlier in the week, and there were employees and volunteers everywhere to help if you had questions. I guess maybe people just go to Seaworld for rides now...but we went to see animals, and were disappointed. It seems the animals have taken a back seat to the commercial agenda Seaworld has.

It’s a very disappointing place. We spent almost $400 (admission, parking) for this place for 2.5 hours, and we decided to leave because we didn’t want to waste our time here. The whole park is under low maintenance, it looked old, it looked out of date.

In park spending, back packs were not allowed to be on roller coasters, understandable, but they do require people use their paid deposit box. This can be dealt with by a on side shelf, but they do want to earn some extra.

The restaurants, 2/3 of the restaurants were not running, yes, only a couple of those were open, I guess because of the slow traffic. We tried one of those couple, called smoky house, we got a UNDERCOOKED roasted chicken, for 21 dollars. The cooked part is tasteless, fries were soggy, the fountain drink tasted like water.

The gift shop, they sell a bubble gun for 30 dollars, which cost about 2,3 dollars in Walmart, it’s pure rip off, and plus nothing had price tags, when we try to ask for price, we got the face from the sale like “who else asks prices here?”

Welcome the San Diego.

Don't ever go to this place with a child who is over 3 but not over 4 feet tall. My kid is probably 44 and 3 quarter inches and I paid full price for him to be denied of rides. If they are going to do this go by height. Biggest scam ever. @seaworldsandiego I want a refund.

Orka whale show , sea lion and dolphins shows were amazing. There are lot of rides to take. New ride Arctic is best and fast

This year was the 3rd time we have bought the annual passes for SeaWorld San Diego. My family recently grew to a family of five and even with a two year old we had an enjoyable time. The new addition of the rescue Jr. splash pad really helped us on our July day. I recommend the food passes, the prices may seem high at first but what you get is worth the money not to be hangry. If you buy annual passes you can get free visitors or visitors that pay way lower prices to get in. if you do your research you can really have an affordable time!

This park has great rides and animal shows. However, the administration is terrible. We bought all you can eat tickets with line skipping. Instructions said that the food ticket can be exchanged to wrist bands at the Customer Service counter. This is not true. You have to find one of the two restaurants to do it. Also, you can only get food in two restaurants with this ticket. Excluded are all the other interesting food outlets. Signage in the park is horrible. There were no signs for how exit the park

The dolphin and orca shows were epic, really amazing.
Park was clean and rides were good.
The new arctic ride kept having issues so had to abandon going on that sadly.

Beautiful park, clean, organized and with excellent varied attractions!!!
We spent the day in peace, even though the park was quite full, and we were able to watch all the attractions we proposed.
Great for all ages!!!

There was so much to do! I recommend 2 days there because there are so many options for so little time. Not only are there spectacular rides and roller coasters, there are also unique, one-of-a-kind shows. The three shows we watched were the Dolphin Show, Orca Whale Show, and the Sea Lion Show. All three were AMAZING, especially the Orca Whale show. The Dolphin Show I think has the most people, so you should do that first probably.

All in all we had a fun family day at Sea World in Mid-August 2025. However, we were surprised at the condition of the general condition of the park. For what you pay, many things were old, worn out, closed and/or understaffed. Food options were pretty bad and super expensive. However, there were plenty of places for us dads to grab an adult beverage and - importantly - the most prominent shows / animal exhibits seemed to be well kept and were exciting to be a part of.

We bought the "unlimited quick queue w/show reservations" which really helped make the day work as we were there from open to close (10:00 am - 6:00 pm). At first, it seemed like the QQU pass was not worth it for the rides as the park was not that crowded but as the day went along we were happy that we could skip ahead on the lines as often as we liked (especially for Manta and the Ship Wreck Rapids). Having the reserved seating for the shows was especially clutch as well (The fine print says to show up 30 minutes beforehand to get your reserved seat. This may be needed on the most crowded days but when we were there we walked in a few minutes before each show and there was plenty of reserved seating while each arena, as a whole, was at or close to capacity).

If you are a roller coaster buff like us, the rides at SW SD probably won't blow you away BUT they are COOL and add to the experience of the day! ... MANTA (48 inch) is a top notch ride in every way! EMPEROR (52 inch) was fun, but way too short of a ride. And ELECTRIC EEL (54 inch) is pretty intense. Unfortunately, several other rides were closed but I think we got on the best 3.

The kids had a great time, as did the adults. Happy we went but the park needs some TLC.

Like so many other recent reviewers, our vacation day here was a bust. Not much for teens to do, long lines, overpriced, and terrible, terrible customer service. The Orca experience was the one highlight.

Enjoyed the shows, but it is obscene to charge $100+ for a mobility scooter for 6 hours. That is double what my car rental was for a day! How many days does it take to pay for that scooter? 25? This takes advantage of those with difficulty walking. I won't be visiting again.

On the other hand, the shows and park in general were highly accessible via the ECV.

There is a lot of good that SeaWorld does, both inside and outside of the park. First, if you are anti-seaworld because of the Blackfish documentary, understand that the orcas that are still there have to live out the rest of their lives in captivity--they cannot be returned to the wild. After these orcas die there will never be any more. SW does SO much for marine conservation and animal rescue, much of which you can learn about in the park, but even more behind the scenes.

Back to the park.

The Great:

- the animal shows were really thrilling and exciting, top tier all around.
- the variety of animals that you can find here rivals even some of the best aquaria: moray eels, sea turtles, sand tiger sharks, and more.
- the rides were (in my opinion) AMAZING, at least some of them. the queue for the Arctic rescue was so well done! even real ice wall in one section.

The Mid:

- food quality was meh, nothing felt worth its price.
- we went on a busy day and if we didn't have quick queue we would have been waiting hours more than we already were.

The Bad:

- Food wait and prices were really, really bad. if you got the all day dining pass you had to wait in line, no mobile ordering possible. sometimes the wait was 45 mins for a crappy little cup of fruit and some fries, and a $15 beer. do NOT get the dining pass, just stick with mobile ordering.

- the rides were all dangerously understaffed, pretty surprising given it was a holiday weekend and guaranteed to be packed. I saw one poor guy working the swings by himself and he looked like he was going to have a breakdown--parents were being rude and mean to him, kids were constantly sneaking past him...it was really awful. I also repeatedly saw line jumpers throughout the park, the worst I've seen anywhere. You could never find a worker to ask any question of, the few who were out and about were obviously overwhelmed. SW needs to hire more and pay better.

- the app is actually hot garbage, but you have to use it to do all sorts of things in the park. on Android it crashed nearly every time i opened the map, and rarely ever displayed everything on the map. take pictures of your tickets and whatever else you need so you can access it through your camera app. forget about using it for wayfinding, that was guaranteed to crash it.

- signage is really bad in the park, and again there will never be a person around you can ask for help or directions. for some reason they don't put any signage up for any restaurants or rides, just animal exhibits.

SW is in an identity crisis right now and they aren't doing any of their things particularly well... except animal shows, which are the most problematic. I don't think I'd go back until I saw they had their staffing situation improved.

I have fond memories of going here sixty years ago when it first opened. Still enjoyed the shows but wasn't as wowed as a mature adult. Went on a couple of rides but the waits were long. Glad we had gotten discounted tickets.

The best park for adults and children.
So many species and amazing performances not only by the performers but the trainers as well.
My grandchildren just loved it.

Went with family but quite uncomfortable watching Orca show…these beautiful and intelligent creatures performing for food…
SeaWorld has the feel of a 1960s Florida roadside attraction…would choose to not visit if on my own…

We had an overall enjoyable visit to Seaworld - a few niggles but generally it was a good family day out.

Park arrival experience
It took us a while to get in both with the queue for the car park being very long and slow and then the queue for security and main gate.
The website said if you come on your birthday collect a badge from guest services to make it extra special. We queued for 20 minutes as it was a birthday for one of our party, only to be told they no longer do this and it shouldn’t be on the website anymore. They suggested we go and buy her a present from their gift shop instead.

Navigating around
No park maps were available and although there were signs they only vaguely sent you in an approximate direction. The interactive map on the app didn’t work as the park wi-fi kept dropping out. Eventually though we got a rough idea of what was in which direction and figured it out.

Rides
Teenagers adored the roller coasters with Emperor definitely coming out on top. Some disappointment about the Manta as it is NOT the same as Manta at Seaworld in Orlando - the ride in San Diego is ok but maybe they should have different names.
Electric Eel was a long wait of over an hour for a very short ride. Lots and lots of queue jumpers on this as there was no fixed barrier to wait in. Customers would have benefitted from some shade to queue in or coolers.
Shipwreck rapids was also very good although would recommend going early on when it’s still warm and sunny so you can dry off as you do come off it absolutely drenched.

Shows
We saw the Flippers, Dolphins and Orca shows - all were absolutely fantastic full of education and facts as well as fun.
The Orca show was deemed the favourite by our teenagers but only just as they liked them all.
As with queueing for the rides though it would have helped to be under an awning or to have some outdoor coolers as the sun was very high and very fierce.

Animal exhibits
The Shark encounter and tunnel is fantastic- so good we did it twice and were not disappointed either time. Great too that the moving carpet keeps the queue moving efficiently. The keeper was very knowledgeable about sharks and answered lots of questions very confidently.
The ray pool was also a big hit and again staff were on hand who clearly knew about their subject.
We had hoped the jellyfish experience would be open as it was advertised as opening in spring 2024 but was still under construction in July which was a shame.

Food and drnk
The food was expensive and portions huge. It took over an hour to get served but there were lots of available tables to eat at.
Plenty of drink and snack carts around, yes it was pricey but we didn’t mind that.

Overall despite a couple of disappointments we did have a great day and felt there was enough to see and do so we got value for money.

I really liked the Manta and the water rides. I think that the food there is good, although I do not remember what we ate. We saw the orcas show and dolphins. In the dolphins show we sat in the splash zone and I got splashed. Would go here again.

This place is awesome - it has everything: animals to see, animal encounters and shows, and thrilling rides which were scarier and more fun than anything I rode at the Disneyland parks!

A couple draw backs: it was only open 10am - 5pm when we went last week, which made it difficult to experience very much. I see the hours have changed for summer and are open till 10 - I wish it'd been open that long while we were there. By the time you get in, watch a couple of shows, it's already after 2. We saw the otter & sea lion show which was very cute, and the orca show which was breathtaking to see these animals up close. Tried to see the dolphin show and only found it for the last few minutes of the show. Asked many workers where it was and got different answers, or they simply didn't know which was frustrating trying to find things. App and signage were frustrating as well and not clear - many points in the park the sign wasn't near where the path turned or it turned in a couple places off the path and wasn't clear which one we were supposed to take. Ran into several other families having difficulties finding things as well. Teamed up with one family also trying to find the dolphin show - asked 5 different Sea World employees and as I said couldn't find it till it was practically over. Tried finding the Emperor coaster, and only when you find it can you see it, even though it's very large. But paths & signage & app kept circling me around and by the time I got over there, it was 5:02 and they wouldn't let me on. Sad that I never got to ride it, but many of the other rides I did ride were AWESOME! Fast & fun and had a blast - originally I wasn't going to ride rides as I wanted to see the animals, but I couldn't resist and so glad I did. Again, more time is needed to enjoy everything here including the rides.

Lastly, we did opt for some animal encounters. We did the up close orca tour which was fun - we got pictures with them up against the glass, they splashed us, and we go to do the commands for them. In Orlando when we went several years ago, they let us feed them - we did not get to do that here, but all agreed this was still worthwhile. Side note - there was no sign where to meet, and when I asked a worker who was talking about the orcas at the underwater viewing, she told us to wait up by the dining with orcas sign, which was incorrect and we were almost late, if I hadn't decided to ask someone else. Kinda surprising that the people who work there don't know where things are or where to meet at or even where the giant stadium for the dolphin show is. Next we did the otter encounter - I'd hoped we'd get to touch them, but we barely interacted with them at all. The enclosure behind the otters is small & cramped and we each got to feed an otter one piece of fish through a cut out in the glass. Fun to see up close, but would've liked more of an experience here and they don't do the photo pass here, as they did for the other encounters because of the small space. Lastly, we did the sloth encounter was our favorite - we got to meet 2 sloths and pet one of them, as well as feed them. The trainer here was super friendly & knowledgeable and we just had a lot of fun here. Would've liked to have done more of these kinds of encounters, but just never enough time!

Overall, highly recommend - there's something here for everyone. The belugas in the arctic were especially beautiful.

When you buy an annual pass, hidden in all the fine print is an auto renewal. We did not even know that they charged us for a pass this year until we got our credit card bill. This was more than 30 days after the original charge so neither sea world or american express will reverse it.

After not visiting SeaWorld for more than a decade we decided to give it a try. They charged $98/per head on the day we visited and $35 for parking on top of that.

Shows: There were only 3 shows running when we went. Orcas, Dolphins and SeaLions. The orca show and dolphin show are pretty much the same where the animals come and splash a bunch of water at the splash zone. Do a couple of jumps and that is it. I know SeaWorld changed the shows after the trainer was killed a few years ago but I am sure the should could be made more entertaining without endangering the lives of people.
The sea lion show was amusing but again they only have a couple of performers and a couple of seals. I have seen sea lion show done better at other places.
They used to have a show with dogs which seems to have gone away.
My 7-10 year old kids said the shows were boring and they would definitely not want to re-visit SeaWorld again.

Rides: More than half the rides in the place were closed. When you pay so much money to get in it is really disappointing to see all these rides being closed.

Food: Most other amusement parks have improved the quality and variety of food they serve to some extent. I know it's a captive audience and they can get a away with charging more for food but just like the rides half the restaurants were closed. The ones that were open had log waits and terrible tasting food.

All in all this might be my last visit to SeaWorld in my lifetime.
Definitely would not recommend.

Where to begin... I hadn't been to this "park" since 2013. Capitalism has ruined this place in it's entirety.

No dolphin shows , Shark Encounter - Closed with no mention of it on their website. Aquarium - Closed... And after the disappointment of finding all this out only after paying a $300 entrance for the day paid $17 for a single churro and smart water.

God awful Halloween themed music playing throughout that just made the whole visit off putting and odd. Game vendors yelling as you pass through trying to find an encounter actually open to the public. Couldn't tell if I was at sea world or a county fair.
We went as a family for my daughters birthday request. I was admittedly excited to sea the orcas until show time actually came. I cried and continued to hold back tears seeing the four larger whales with bent fins kept behind the scenes while they show cased clearly very young whales who's fins are still up not showing the depression that performing and swimming in a tank for years on end rather than swimming the world that the older ones do.

... Is it not bad enough that we as humans pay for fruit and clean water and sustenance? We're taking animals out of their natural environment to perform tricks for handfuls of fish that they'd otherwise find on their own in the wild join us in the misery of capitalism? It was sad.

That aside, the sea lion show was cringe af. The script clearly aimed at a younger generation misses and we didn't even get through it in it's entirety.

I want my money back. But more than anything I want those whales released to their natural habitat. We left after a mere 3 hours and half of that was spent wandering aimlessly seeking any encounter that wasn't closed for repairs or for the day.

Overall, an enjoyable day out. The adults and older kids had enough big thrill rides to keep them busy and there was plenty to do for a 4 yr old.
The food was ridiculously overpriced as expected but the cheeseburgers were acceptable.
The orca and dolphin shows are surprisingly still in existence though.

This theme park is honestly VERY lacking compared to Orlando Sea World. The theme parks in CA are mostly a mediocre mini version of parks compared to Orlando parks.
Most rides were closed
The facility desperately needs some TLC, from the condiments station being nasty and not regularly cleaned, to the bathrooms needing a power wash and being replenished with hand soap that not diluted. The food is gross a total waste of money. The workers show from the condiments station being nasty and not regularly cleaned, to the bathrooms needing a power wash and being replenished with hand soap that not diluted. The food is gross a total waste of money. The workers show their lack of enthusiasm and disdain for their jobs. The worst part is being charged a minimal fee to ride two boring rides on the pretense of saving the animals. Only two things made this visit bareable, the Orca encounter and the sea lion show. That's it don't waste your money !

Was very disappointed with the restrictions on gold pass which advertised 5 free tickets with no restrictions. At arrival was only able to use 1 of the 5 passes and had to wait till Nov to use another and more restriction for balance after that. That has never been the case with passes in the past

We had annual passes for the last couple of years. New roller coasters are a lot of fun and we brought family along too. Food is exceptionally horrible and has been for some time. However we will find other things to do in San Diego as they automatically auto-renew annual passes now (NOT an option) when you order and make it virtually impossible to cancel online. The website just sends you in circles. Saw complaints about this over 6 months ago online and in newscasts so they have taken no action to improve this.. so it becomes a big headache to wait on the phone to cancel. We had discussed renewing until we learned of their policies toward loyal customers.

We have been to other Sea Worlds and we're looking forward to this trip to San Diego. It paled in comparison and there were definitely disappointments but I want to start with what was good.
The sea life viewings were incredible. The whales, dolphins, walrus, sea otters, jelly fish, sand sharks and penguins were amazing. The trip to see these and to be so close was well worth the admission price. The park was slow so we had excellent opportunities to see everything up close for as long as we wanted.
Unfortunately there are some downsides that need to be highlighted . We did not get to the shows. There were problems with some signage with some confusion about the timing. Getting around the park was a bit challenging because there were only a couple of Maps widely spaced in the park. Food was okay and pricing was okay for the food. We however, had the package plan that included meals and that was a good value. But I must say that we tried to make reservations for Dinner with the Orcas and the app would not work and the phone number that was given was never answered.
We also paid extra to not stand in lines for rides, however, there were only two big rides running and our granddaughter was not tall enough to ride on them so that was wasted money. The other rides were closed with no explanation and the big ride, Atlantis, is still being refurbished.

The worst experience of my life. I thought the animals appeared sick as many of them were discolored (see image) or performing odd repetitive behaviors. The staff was extremely rude. I ordered ribs from a cafe believing them to be gluten free without bbq sauce, I was told they are not and that I could swap with any other food item on the menu without any financial reimbursement.

Took the family to Seaworld yesterday, Saturday. Bought tix in advance online, got there right at opening, disappointed that a place with so few Thrill Tides still charges nearly $100/person when three of those rides are closed.

We still enjoyed the exhibits and rides that were available. Food is expensive, of course. Animals, especially the penguins and walruses were great!

TERRIBLE guest relations and ride attendant. Sky Tower ride had technical difficulties after we waited 35 mins in line (with small children) and were told immediately "to exit the ride" with no explanation or options since we had already paid for the ride for 10 people. When we asked the attendant what happened, his response was "I don't break the ride". Guest relations had a real attitude when we asked for a refund of the ride...we waited for another 25 mins for a supervisor and was given a sarcastic comment of "have a nice day". VERY disappointing experience.

Fun time! I have not been since I was a kid. Brought my own son now. Interactive and educational. Exhibits were great. Most of the staff were amazing. People at the food stands always looked like they were not happy to be there.
Came during off season so some attractions were down. Looks outdated but still has charm.

We did the beluga whale interaction, the one you actually get into water with belugas. It was AMAZING. One of the best animal interactions experiences ive had. Well worth the money. Learn about the belugas, great interaction time, fun pictures, well set up private shower/locker room for each individual that is locked as well. Water felt not too cold with the wetsuit and great foot boots. Absolutely worth the money!

Poor...
I had 70% tickets at the beginning of the year, I thought the way we do it in Orlando and we had a pretty nice memory of it.
What a disappointment here in San Diego, the park is old. Attractions are either closed, under maintenance... or down!!!
We were lucky to have done Manta, twice because no queue then broke down!!
Electrian Eel is, however, an attraction that deposits as they say.

32$ parking!!! $65 meals for an average pizza in every sense of the word, a plate of nuggets and a bowl of ridiculous maceese (a little cardboard like they put a scoop of ice cream in my house!!!

I support myself in the idea that I only paid $35 a ticket

I was afraid to go to this park based on reviews so I was pleasantly surprised to have such a nice time. It was expensive and there are a lot of additional fees for rides which shouldn’t be after you’ve already paid the entrance fee, but it was still a nice visit.

The shows are wonderful and educational. Plan your trip around the show times. I cannot comment on any of the rides as I did not participate in any.

This was the our 4th visit to Sea World with grand children. Always enjoyed a lot but this time it was different. Many rides and attractions were closed ‘for maintenance’. Sky tower, sky ride, Manta roller coaster, and all water rides were shut. Ticket prices are through the roof but availability of activities has severely declined. We purchased annual fun passes thus visited this place 3 days in a row. Fortunately, some kids rides and Arctic Rescue were operating, thus, kids were able to make the best of the worse situation. Were happy getting multiple rides on roller coaster. All day dining pass for $60 is a total rip off. Low quality fried food and sugary drink is all you get for exorbitant price. Not a fun place anymore!

Only 1 ride was open. It was worthless. Couldn’t get a refund once we entered. Nothing to see inside and was A waste of time and money.

the Sea life you would not otherwise see is worth the price of admission at least once, but i will never go again.

first of all, dont buy the "eat all day" pass. its a rip off, but if you insist make sure to purchase it on online with the ticket. but if its a family or 2 of you its worth it. you have to pay a 10 dollar "fee" to pay online but its still 20 less than what you will pay at the gate. the vast majority of the food stands and such do not "participate" you have to go to designated places and they DO NOT tell you this.

in 47 years i have never been to a restaurant or cafeteria that moves slower than everyone there. its like they are told to go slow. its set up like a homeless shelter soup kitchen, i was shocked to see what you were offered. you wait in line, and you wait in line and you wait in line. a half hour to get food. I got so tired of waiting very early that i simply took what i wanted and walked out. so, you needn't pay for food, nobody cares. just take it and walk out. thats what i did the rest of the day. ice cream ,i found no dining hall that offered ice cream, you want that you have to pay for it). so id say "what do you mean this doesnt count towards the all day pass" and they tell me its ok, keep it. i was never more angry than having to "queue" up to get food with workers who do not care youve paid a fortune to get into the place but youll spend 2 out of 8 hours getting food. lol. o and first thing in the morning you have to walk deep into the park to find a place to use your 'pass". i spent like 15 minutes in line before i was full of rage and realized the people o front of me were waiting in line FOR NO REASON....i cut, crabbed what i wanted, and was out of there. BE AWARE OF YOUR SURROUNDINGS and whats going on, i watch many people waiting in queues for no reason!

I spent over 20 minutes at the ticket counter with a girl who was so stupid. i was so very close to calling for a manager. i could not believe how stupid and slow she was, and tried lieing to me avoid work. but i dont want to be "that" person, but in hindsight my benevolence helped no one, including her.

they have 2 roller coasters, one is worthless but the other was awesome, and i didnt find it until the end of the day and when i was like AWESOME im gonna do this for an hour, THEY CLOSED THE RIDE 2 hours before park close. i was beside myself in disgust. according to them it was for some stupid crap for Halloween, which isnt for another 2 damn months. a Halloween show that didnt start until the park was closed anyway.

I was able to catch all the shows, despite what some reviewers have said about having to walk across the park, its not true. i went from one show to the next with much time to spar. i was happy with the animal shows and a magic show they had.

like other reviews, i felt getting around the park was hard, i felt like i was purposely made to feel lost, to keep you wondering to stumble into some money extraction. when you pay for animal encounters they do pretty much zero to make sure you know where to go, you have to figure out yourself. i also felt like the rides were hard to find, i had to walk around several times trying to find the entrance.

all these complaints you read, they are not shocking observations. the park knows. they have their reasons for everything. i wont return, but i wish i could because the stuff i liked, i really liked. but the money you have to burn at this place!

SeaWorld itself is in sad need of updates. It's faded glory is on full display. It's not clean or well-run. We had several animal 'Encounters and Interractions' booked. Where to meet was unclear and we were sent by employees from spot to spot looking for the starting point. When you arrived at the correct spot, there was no employee waiting to assist you at your appointment time, nor was there a sign that you were at the correct meet-up spot. No paper maps were available and their app is not user-friendly. The food was subpar, even for theme park food.

The only reason the park gets 3 stars is that the Beluga Interaction was amazing, once the employee showed up, the Penguin Encounter was good, and the Sea Lion Encounter was fun - although we went in circles with employees sending us from one spot to the next trying to find where we waited for the start. It was ridiculous that there wasn't at least a sign saying - "Beluga Interaction" - "Sea Lion Encounter" etc. Then in order to get the expensive photos of the interaction, you had to go far away to a spot. SeaWorld, for the prices we paid for these adventures, surely you can do better. Step up.

I worked at SeaWorld in the early 2000s when the park was clean, well-run, and staff were trained to deliver a great guest experience. Sadly, my recent visit was disappointing. Major rides and attractions were closed, air conditioning was off in key areas, broken seating went unrepaired, and both the penguin people mover and Wild Arctic elevator were out of service—leaving families and guests with mobility issues struggling. Staff seemed untrained and unfriendly. SeaWorld has declined drastically, and I can’t recommend it. For a better experience, visit Universal, Disney, or Knott’s.

A carnival in every way you would imagine. It is presented in a way that feels like good value but the nickel and dimining starts immediately. Parking prices are multi-tired and expensive (zoo is free so no justification for this). Once inside it is constant adverts and pressure to upgrade your experience to the point where you leave feeling duped. It is also a constant barrage of carni games, gift shops (some less that 20-ft from each other), and every conceivable way of getting you to pay more and more and more. You expect theme park prices on food and drink but these are astronomical and poor quality. They make you pay more for the chair ride and tower when the rollercoasters are free, no idea why. Everything you buy has a 5% surcharge added on (for high operating costs). So astronomical costs become even worse. Made worse when you read all the signs indicating they donate 5% to marine conservation, great but it ain’t coming from their pockets.

Left feeling disappointed and conned. Save your money and do the zoo, at least you arnt lining Ainheiser Busch’s profits.

Disney seems more expensive but you get what you pay for.

Came here for the first time since I was a kid to let me children experience the magic. We had an amazing time. The rides had barely any lines and they loves all the touch tanks by the entrance to the park. The staff was very friendly and the kids loved the new cleaner fish touch tank. The shows were amazing and we were able to see every show with many rides in between. The dining with the orcas experience was so great and I would highly recommend it. We had unlimited food and drinks with many opportunities to see the killer whales. Overall we had an amazing time with the whole family .

Unfortunately, I am well aware of the publicity or image problems surrounding Sea World. I mention this not to start a lengthy debate but rather to highlight the inner uncertainty that surrounded my visit to Sea World San Diego. I was really hoping for an experience that would renew my faith and allow me to make peace with my decision, however that was not the case.

Sea World San Diego is a profit first experience that preaches animal welfare as its main motivation. When I say the prices rivaled that of Disneyland and at some points exceeded them, that's no joke. For the cost of a park ticket you can expect to pay additional fees if you actually want to ride some of the main attractions which will be over before you can blink. The rules of the park clearly say no outside food or beverage and yet everyone else seemed to ignore this, silly me decided to follow the rules and got penalised at every food or drinks stand and to top it off, the food was below average for the price. This supplemented by a constant reminder to recycle and reuse rather than throw away trash which I'm all for, but there is zero effort by Sea World to promote this within their park except the occasional recycling bin. Although by no means perfect, at least San Diego Zoo seemingly delivered on the message of animal welfare and tried it's hardest to reduce plastic straws, bottles packaging etc...

I'm no expert but I am educated enough to know none of the beautiful and social sea life looks to be fulfilled, clearly not thriving in captivity. I'm sure Sea World has saved a great many animals over time, but my experience today did not make me feel great about my choice and while both my daughters adored seeing the animals up close, when a child not even 4 asks you "daddy is the whale happy?" You know you've potentially made a bad decision. I'm sorry but Sea World just did not make me believe they care about animal conservation over profits today and I don't think I'll be returning any time soon.

We arrived before the park opened at around 8:45 AM. We were able to park quite close to the entrance. We had the Unlimited Queue though i don't think you need it - the park was busy but no ride via the Unlimited queue had a wait of more than 45 min max. Also Arctic Rescue was not operational that day. Still we had an amazing time with the rides - Electric Eel, Emperor, Manta and Journey to Atlantis are all awesome rides. They have fun rides for kids as well. The shows were great - Sealions and Orcas were awesome. The dolphin theatre is under renovation, so they do they dolphin show at Dolphin point. The aquariums are fun with unique wonderful animals. Don't miss the spa fish and sting ray touching experience. The Jellyfish experience is very cool. we also did the Bayside Skyride which is a pleasant ride in the sky. The Christmas Lights make the park glow in the evening and makes it magical with the Christmas music. There is also pretty good food available with pizza, churros, burritos, ice creams, etc. All in all a great day at the park for our family. We spent a good 9 + hours at the park.

As someone who grew up with fond memories of SeaWorld San Diego, I was thrilled to finally purchase annual passes to share that same magic with my own children. However, after three visits, the gap between my childhood memories and the current reality is deeply disappointing. My experience has been defined by a lack of operational transparency and what feels like deceptive service practices.
I am voicing my complaints and concerns about deceptive practices in the hope of seeing SeaWorld return to the good experience I remember. It is my sincere wish that the park can address these issues and again become the place of enjoyment it once was.
1. Lack of Communication Regarding Ride Availability
SeaWorld appears to struggle with providing accurate, real-time information regarding ride closures. There is a significant lack of transparency on their website and mobile app; we often planned our day around specific attractions and rides, only to find them closed upon physical arrival at the entrance. It feels deceptive to lure tourists with advertisements for major attractions without providing a reliable way to check their status before paying for admission or entering the park. Guests should not have to "pray" that a ride is open after already committing their time and money.
2. Deceptive Dining Practices (Dine with Orcas)
My most frustrating experience occurred during the "Dine with Orcas" experience, which was marketed and sold as an all-inclusive, pre-paid buffet. Upon being seated, we were presented with a drink menu without any pricing information for alcoholic beverages. Critically, our server failed to disclose that alcohol was not included in the buffet price we had already paid, nor did they mention that these drinks would incur an additional fee. It is a highly unethical business practice to serve a consumer a product without disclosing the cost upfront, only to demand payment after the item has been consumed. It was a shock to be asked for a payment after the meal for a single beer charged at their own discretion for nearly $17—a cost that was never disclosed upfront. When I addressed this lack of transparency with the server, Michael, and a supervisor, Mr. Emmanuel, their response was condescending. Rather than acknowledging the failure to provide clear pricing or the server’s neglect in disclosing extra costs, their "it is what it is" attitude was dismissive and defensive.
Conclusion
It is understandable that a business must be profit-driven for longevity and sustainability, but SeaWorld has gone over the edge. It appears the park is trying to save costs by keeping attractions closed without informing visitors, while simultaneously trying to earn extra dollars on drinks without properly informing the consumer. This is not a genuine or honest way of conducting business. I am voicing these complaints and my suspicion of deceptive practices to other agencies to bring more awareness and attention to these issues.
The lack of professionalism from management regarding these transparency issues has turned what should have been a year of family fun into a series of frustrations. I hope SeaWorld takes steps to improve their digital communication and ensures their dining staff provides full financial transparency to guests in the future. It is my sincere wish that by escalating this, it will help shape SeaWorld back into the high-quality, honest experience I remember from my childhood.

Amazing day at SeaWorld San Diego - great rides and shows. Just make sure you get there early and have a fast pass - makes the day great!

3 dollars per locker per hour. A single backpack comes in. It's a robbery. You leave it in one to take advantage of the most 2 games. It's a robbery. We are a family of 5. Therefore, 15 dollars every time. They should do like all the challenge of the parks, leave the bag next to the exit, next to the train. Lockers end up being more expensive than paying for the lighting lane

Great place to spend time with family and friends. Lots of food options as well. Music is available .

Last night was Member Appreciation night but I brought my friend to enjoy this BEAUTIFUL Aquarium for the day. SeaWorld does a VERY GOOD job in Animal rescue! Christmas time is top rated shows & the LIGHT show with the FANTASTIC 🎄❤️Decorating….AMAZING!

I bought a SeaWorld annual pass since I now live in San Diego. It is a good deal even if you just use it to walk around the park or see some of the marine acts more than once.

I've only taken friends with me twice. On the first visit I used my two free benefit passes. Since the second pair of ticket was during the same period as the first visit I had to pay for them at a discount but still pricey. Let me tell you why:

1. San Diego SeaWorld is under going a lot of construction. Additionally several of the restaurants have been shuttered since I started coming last year. Three of the main roller coasters were closed on various days and multiple visits. The water ride which consists of only one plunge and then a flat circle to get back to the exit, was closed until recently due to child weather and construction. To add insult to injury, the roller coaster rides are extremely short. If you have a long wait line it's not worth riding unless you're doing it for the first time. The first time is a decent but brief thrill. Platinum members can occasionally get skip the line passes for $20 a day, $35 all other days. Otherwise they are $70 per person and you can still wait 30-45 minutes in line on some of the rides.

2. Food is ridiculously expensive. The only time I eat at the park is when my additional 20% coupon is active. Even then it's expensive. You can buy an all day food and drink pass but there are many eateries that don't accept it. Either way you go expect to spend $50-$100 per person a day.

3. Live encounters like swimming with the dolphins or the Orca encounter look fun but are very expensive. I haven't yet done any except feeding the rays. Bring your own wetsuit if you do a live experience and it's cold or and you need one.

4. Be prepared to miss out on a lot due to early park closure, the afore-mentioned construction and unexplained show cancellations. The live dj performances for Mardi Gras, New Year Festival and Seven Seas events have yet to actually take place on every single visit I made to the park.

Maybe all this will improve when summer begins. Park management seems to do whatever they want without any consideration for guests and on-site staff service staff are zero help when dealing with complaints some to the point of being rude.

So in the meantime for the extra one hour drive north I recommend visitors and tourist is a stick to Disneyland and or Universal Studios in LA. You get a much better experience for the money.

3 parks in 1 … part roller coaster thrill rides, part county fair with low end food and “win a teddy bear for your girlfriend” type storefronts, and then what made SeaWorld great which is cool looking aquatic animals with great staff to care for them and train them.

The last part did not disappoint but I wonder what their business model is and where this is going.

The park is smaller and older than the one in Orlando. Kind of like Disneyland versus Disney World.

We went here years ago and it was expensive but fantastic. Now it's just expensive and run down. Lots of stuff just closed and getting in was a nightmare as bag check took about an hour. We had preferred parking and I'm handicapped, and went on a Thursday at end of August, but after parking, we had to walk about a 1/4 mile to get to the end of the line. Ride operators were lifeless and bored. Most food places weren't open and the burger place that was charged a extra 5% fee for something like inflation or Covid or some other bogus additional fee on top of the high priced food. The shows were horrible. The pet show that was a favorite of ours was not running and the wonderful almost cirque de soleil show over the bay was no longer there either. The "shows" of dolphins and the orca were just boring. Getting pretty decrepit overall.

Sea World in San Diego is a large park with rides, a nice area to see the whales, and whale and dolphin shows. They also have penguins and other fish that you can touch. I was not impressed with any of it and we will not be back. The only reason I am giving 3 stars and not 2 is because the staff is super nice and know the area well.

Parking is for a fee and get ready to walk to the gate. The day we were there it was so hot and there is no escape from it. They don't have enough places to sit and when you find one you might very well be in the sun. It was miserable.

Getting in took about 20 minutes, so they should staff up.

The food selection is very poor. They have sandwiches, burgers etc., but none of it is good and we had to wait until we left to have a real meal.

The rides are fun for kids, but the lines are long so get ready to wait, in the heat.

They have dolphin and whale shows. We wanted to see one and they were all cancelled for the time we picked. No notice, nothing. I really felt ripped off.

They have a fish petting area that is not supervised and kids just grab star fish etc. and this is cruel. Can they at least have someone that says no, don't put the starfish in your pocket.

They also have an area where you can put your hand in and the wrasse will nibble on your hand. At least they enjoy that, but again, not one attendant to deal with kids that are not being raised with any manners by parents.

The place is pretty clean.

Overall, it was very disappointing and even my grandkid does not want to come back. Bye Sea World.

Very bad management. Hamburger restaurant (Explorers Cafe) had no hamburgers at 2pm. Only option was orange chicken but they were also out of soy sauce and teriyaki sauce. Was not able to go on any rides because the people who pay to skip the line have priority and sometimes you’ll wait 60 minutes and the line won’t move at all because the people who pay to skip the line keep coming. App does not update wait time. Electric Eel said 20 minute wait in app but when I arrived it says 45 minutes. Employee said the app time are not updated. The app said Shipwreck Rapids was closed but I arrived and there were a few hundred people in the regular line and it was not moving because Quick Queue still had hundreds in line and they don’t alternate lines, they only allow quick queue customers to ride. There were no employees anywhere near the ride to ask how long the wait time was. The three most popular coasters were broken/closed all day. Emperor, Arctic Rush and Atlantis. I tried to ride Manta but it had a 90 minute wait but likely longer because quick queue customers were likely to be the only ones getting on for the next few hours. Wasted a whole day at SeaWorld. A hot dog was $13. All management needs to be fired.

Many attractions but I was not too impressed with the shows (dolphins and killer whales). The most disappointing part is the complete lack of gluten free options. There is a suggestion to use one of the restaurants where staff is “trained”, but it was a complete contamination nightmare. We ended up not being able to eat at all, which with children is kind of problematic. Not sure why they cannot just organise one of the restaurants with a simple steak with veggies. Besides this, it was chaotic, but that it not surprising.

We went to Sea World on Monday. It was okay. I think older kids 8 and up should like it because there were a lot of roller coasters, but most of them we could not get on because of the park closing. Anyway the shows were great! The dolphin shows were good cause it was fun seeing them do tricks. We also saw the sea-lions show, it was funny and cute. Here’s some stuff I didn’t like about Sea world. There weren’t a lot of rides for non roller coaster people, but at the end of the day, I think some people would like Sea world.

Found the signage to exhibits in park confusing. Frequently lost. Very hot when we were there. No shade places anywhere to sit unless you went into a restaurant. Very loud pop music blaring all day which you just couldn't escape anywhere. Would have liked to stay another couple of hours but just could not take the heat and constant music. Loved the orca show. Absolutely stellar. will never forget. Dolphin show had way too much conservation talk at beginning. Sorry, I want to see the dolphins. Lots and lots of vendors. Too many in my opinion. Detracted from experience. We had been super excited to go but found it to be a disappointing day in general.

Nearly 50% of attraction were closed, No warning, web sight stated attractions were open. ultimate experience bundle. very far below standard food, pre-made & dry

You arrive paying high value in the parking lot. The animal part is quite interesting. Very careful. Now disappointment part of the toys. The water drop was a Mexican hat-like toy. I had an employee, that's right, one to take care of three queues (who paid fast queues, little child queues and normal queues) to organize people, guard safety belts. Each exchange of people in the toy took long minutes.

I got the annual pass on the Black Friday Sale (it was a buy one, get one 50% off deal). I visited SeaWorld for the first time yesterday. There weren't many people there, which made it a great time to enjoy the all-day dining offer. The staff were really nice, and I loved watching the orca, dolphin, and sea lion shows. It was my first time seeing an orca! The flamingos and penguins were also a highlight. This place is wonderful. I'm afraid of thrilling roller coasters, so I was happy to see there were many interesting shows and sea animals to enjoy instead of just rides and coasters. I really recommend downloading the SeaWorld App for planning .

This visit occurred 12/21/25.

The website and app do not work. It is impossible determine what rides are operating and the times of shows using a smartphone.

Additionally, we had a terrible experience visiting the sea lion exhibit. I rented an e-scooter. We arrived at the entrance and were told to go around to the right side. We did, entered, and got situated to watch the show.

Then two Hispanic female employees approached us and told us we could not be there with the scooter. They did not offer us any alternatives. They told us to leave, or they would call security. We explained again that other employees had directed us to go to this area. They claimed I was aggressive when I became irritated by their refusal to make an effort to accommodate us.

Then a white, blond-haired man with a Hispanic surname came over and listened to us. She offered to refund the scooter cost and said to call her if we had any more issues.

We left the sea lion exhibit. We were immediately accosted by two white male security guards who told us that we would be kicked out of the park if we continued to cause problems.

I used the number on the card provided by the employee who helped us at the sea lion exhibit. She did not respond to calls or texts about the security guards. They followed us periodically for the rest of our visit.

When we tried to get a refund for the scooter rental, the manager stated that the lady who offered it was “only a curator” and had no managerial authority.

The park is run down. The curator blamed Covid for the difficulty in hiring quality employees. Covid is OVER. This lame excuse sums up the lame efforts of Seaworld management to produce a quality product with cohesive customer service efforts.

The seaworld shows have changed a bit by focussing on education and conservation, but it's still seaworld. They have added some rides which makes the experience that much better. I could watch the beluga whales all day, and the walrus was very entertaining. There's nothing that much greater than getting splashed by an Orca whale. I'm still a sucker for it.

Food options limited. Long wait lines for food.
Under staffed concessions. Found self -serve ice cream bars, all melted.Grounds are not clean.
Very tired facilities

Water ride was too cold for a 60deg F and rides was chilling which was another kind of fun I reckon. Carpark charged USD30 which is abit overprice

I would give Sea World a negative 5 if I could. Half or more of all rides and shows were closed. Some food places were closed. It cost $30 for a small pizza and a small drink. But hey ALL the stores and games were open. Some employees were very rude. They should put on there website days that things are going to be closed and they should Never close that many things at once. Go Some where else to enjoy your trip and skip Sea World.

The park was dirty, understaffed and several rides opened late or not at all. We bought the meal plan and skip the line. Forget the meal plan, only a very few restaurants take them and you cannot preorder with the plan. We ate at Ship Wreck Harbor and it took an hour to get food. The place ran out of ice, ketchup, and mustered. REALLY SEA WORLD! There were cob webs over multiple signs, trash in the water at the water ride, and food all over the ground at the eating areas. The coffee kiosk and restaurants needed double the staff and the employees were very apologetic about staffing. Ship wreck harbor opened 30 min late and multiple of the larger attractions were closed for renovations or repairs. WOW WHAT HAPPENED TO SEA WORLD- DONT WASTE YOUR MONEY TO STAND IN LINE ALL DAY .

Paradoxically, we must not go there for animals! Because there are very few.
The SeaWorld in Abu Dhabi is 100 times better visual level.
However, this Sea World there is more of an Attraction Park, with quite a few nice rides. There were not many people in August, 5 min at each Attraction that allowed to repeat them several times. A smoking area (VERY APPRECIABLE), and the park is very clean. Like all parks, the problem is food (not good and expensive).
But the day was nice. The staff is friendly.

The best outing during our California trip, highly recommended , we were family of five , my kids were 15,14 and 12 years old. 23 enjoyed it big time , we spend the entire day

We spent the day at SeaWorld and I was really disappointed. It just seemed to be about selling you something more than showcasing the animals. And I spent a lot of money to buy a Fast Pass for my 3 grandkids age 4, 6 and 8 and my daughter and I. I found out when I got inside the park that we couldn’t use it for any of the rides for small kids! We needed a junior pass for them. How was I to know - it wasn’t an option on the online order! Don’t waste your money on any of it! Go to the zoo instead!

Was very crowded. That should not be a problem for a park like this. But looked like staff was totally overwhelmed waiting fot food took more than an hour. Food was bad. Staff had no clue and was very slow. The shows were decent. For a world renouned park is was dissapointed. Not worth the price.

My current passes has expiration dates of 7/5/2022. Tried to cancel the renewal online, very confusing and find no where to cancel on the Seaworld website. Called Seaworld San Diego on 07/04 morning and want to cancel the renewal, but the passes have already been renewed. I stated my passes does not expired on 07/05/22 and indicated we have no interest to renew the passes. The associates refused to refund my money. I asked to talked to supervisor and cleared stated we will not be renew the passes but still no resolution, my request was basically ignored. Seriously?

We went to Sea World, San Diego in August and I just realized I never posted a review. Overall, I would say good balanced out bad, but that we will not return to this park. On the positive side, we did enjoy the shows (Orca and dolphins) and it did appear that the animals really liked their trainers (we spent significant time watching the dolphins play with their trainers in their dolphin area and both the dolphins and the trainers really seemed to be enjoying themselves), and my daughter and husband enjoyed the roller coasters. We had read in advance about what rides would be opened and what would be closed, so we were prepared for that. There were enough rides open to be considered acceptable. The food situation was completely unacceptable - as many reviewers have pointed out, Sea World is understaffed and the lines for food were ridiculously long. We had prepaid for a meal (which I don't recommend) so we were stuck waiting in the very long lines. I finally sent my husband and daughter to ride some rides while I waited. Overall, we waited over an hour (maybe 90 minutes) to get a really mediocre meal. I don't remember if you can bring food in, but next time I'd just bring in some granola bars and skip the food offered by the park entirely. Overall, we had read the bad reviews so we were prepared for the reality of the park. We decided to go despite the bad reviews and we enjoyed our day since it was our only time there. We won't go back and we wish the park management was better.