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SeaWorld & Aquatica San Diego

MakoMania

TS Member
Don't think we have a thread for the San Diego location, so I thought I'd kick it off with the following announcement from today.

SeaWorld have announced that as of summer 2018, Aquatica San Diego will be going solar with about 90% of the park's electricity being provided by a brand new on site solar plant. If successful, it is hoped that this scheme can be gradually rolled out into the company's other theme parks and water parks.
 
That's a nice move by SeaWorld there! Hardly surprising, though, as SeaWorld already seems like quite an environmentally-friendly company. All of their bags are paper bags, for example. It does beg the question of whether they will be able to open at night, though, because solar power requires sunlight.
 
That's a nice move by SeaWorld there! Hardly surprising, though, as SeaWorld already seems like quite an environmentally-friendly company. All of their bags are paper bags, for example. It does beg the question of whether they will be able to open at night, though, because solar power requires sunlight.

Solar systems do work best in the day when there is sunlight however i would imagine there will be some kind of back up system. They wouldn't rely solely on Solar however it can build up electricity throughout the day that is stored and used throughout the night. Solar systems have advanced massively in recent years.
 
Solar systems do work best in the day when there is sunlight however i would imagine there will be some kind of back up system. They wouldn't rely solely on Solar however it can build up electricity throughout the day that is stored and used throughout the night. Solar systems have advanced massively in recent years.
I was only thinking that because in our Science classes, we have always been taught that a disadvantage of solar is that it only works during the day.
 
I was only thinking that because in our Science classes, we have always been taught that a disadvantage of solar is that it only works during the day.

Yes, a standard solar system would be at a disadvantage however when you have 'Solar Farms', which i am sure this will, it will be pulling in a lot of energy throughout the day and will use some kind of utility grid to retain the energy to convert. You sometimes see streetlights that are operated by solar power and this is possible because of the power they retain throughout the day :).
 
It's a bit of slight of hand, the park itself will probably still use grid power, solar is far too volatile to run things like computers, ride hardware etc., so the farm will probably be big enough that what it feeds into the grid is a similar amount to what the park consumes, thus classifying the park as being carbon nuteral, or if they genuinely do run the park from solar, the power generated will go through an intermediary system, like batteries, but that is far more expensive, it's easier just to do what Pocono Raceway did and turn one of your giant unused fields into a solar farm and dump that into the grid while using the grid to power other stuff while patting yourself on the back that you're saving the world.

The way solar/wind energy creation works, to quote a funny saying, one does not simply plug in and use.
 
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On an unrelated note, Electric Eel construction is now heating up! Supports arrived on 1st December and according to a photo posted on Screamscape, the ride may have gone vertical. As Sky Rocket IIs are short rides, I shouldn't think that it'll take a particularly long time to build.
 
According to Screamscape (http://www.screamscape.com/html/seaworld_california.htm), park attendance was down 14% in 2017, bringing about 500,000 fewer guests to SeaWorld San Diego in 2017 than 2016. That's a very large fall. Did anything happen in 2017 that might have caused this, @MakoMania or anyone else who might know?

On a more positive note, Electric Eel is due to open on 12th May 2018!
 
The slow public turning away from captive animals, despite the group's focus on conservation.
Just been reading about Barnum and Bailey as this came up.
 
The slow public turning away from captive animals, despite the group's focus on conservation.
Just been reading about Barnum and Bailey as this came up.
Actually, SeaWorld San Diego's issue in 2017 was quite the opposite!

The closure of the One Ocean Killer Whale show in January 2017 was followed by a steep decline in attendance which was partially recovered from May when Orca Encounter opened.

You can see that this was the case, Orca Encounter was scheduled to be coming to Orlando this year, no sign of it, One Ocean continues.
 
Actually, SeaWorld San Diego's issue in 2017 was quite the opposite!

The closure of the One Ocean Killer Whale show in January 2017 was followed by a steep decline in attendance which was partially recovered from May when Orca Encounter opened.

Can you cite a source for these statistics? I was ready to balk at this, but while I suppose many people have given up on Seaworld, especially in more traditionally progressive California, for those still willing and interested to visit, the captive whales are a huge catch. Still seems a bit fishy to me, though, if you'll pardon a pun that someone has undoubtedly made in this thread before.

Incidentally, I see Seaworld are also seemingly in talks with Donald Trump's campaign manager to assist in reforming attendance, having dismissed a pitch from Cambridge Analytica.
 
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^If you listen to every conference call, you start to build a picture of what is and what is not working.

SeaWorld San Diego was stabilising,

2014 (-17%)
2015 (-5%)
2016 (flat attendance on 2015)
2017 (-17%)

The end of the theatrical Orca shows in January of 2017 is the cause, the data backs it up. We see an initial sharp decline in 2014, a more modest decline in 2015, no decline at all in 2016 and suddenly back to a sharp decline in 2017.

Its worth mentioning that SeaWorld Orlando and SeaWorld San Antonio have not seen attendance fluctuate as much as San Diego. In fact, SeaWorld San Antonio has grown attendance over recent years.

Orlando and San Diego are both up in attendance so far in 2018 compared to 2017 :)
 
Actually, SeaWorld San Diego's issue in 2017 was quite the opposite!

The closure of the One Ocean Killer Whale show in January 2017 was followed by a steep decline in attendance which was partially recovered from May when Orca Encounter opened.

You can see that this was the case, Orca Encounter was scheduled to be coming to Orlando this year, no sign of it, One Ocean continues.

Oh Mako, I always love your enthusiasm for the business group, but your analysis is based on weak foundations.
You have to look for a meaningful correlation between base numbers, just because x goes up as y went down, does not mean there is a direct causation, where is your proof that the one was caused by the other?
Overall, the general public, particularly in the USA, are moving away from looking at captive animals, even if the company tries to shift focus to conservation.
 
Oh Mako, I always love your enthusiasm for the business group, but your analysis is based on weak foundations.
You have to look for a meaningful correlation between base numbers, just because x goes up as y went down, does not mean there is a direct causation, where is your proof that the one was caused by the other?
Overall, the general public, particularly in the USA, are moving away from looking at captive animals, even if the company tries to shift focus to conservation.

Rob, zoos and aquariums in the USA break collective attendance records year after year. I am afraid that in your analysis you are talking a load of baloney :p

The attendance drop in San Diego last year was caused by the end of the theatrical Orca shows, and to a lesser extent worse weather as well as a lukewarm reception to Ocean Explorer. No question about it.

If the public in California were turning more and more away from SeaWorld, attendance wouldn't be up in 2018.
 
So, is Screamscape correct in saying that park attendance went down by 14% in 2017?

Also, I am intrigued to see how the other SeaWorld parks did when the TEA report comes out in May 2018.
 
Mako...more baloney.
Go check the figures...how do you think zoo and aquaria attendances have figured when compared to overall population expansion in the USA over the last hundred years, and paricularly during the rapid population expansion of the last couple of decades.
As a proportion of population, fewer and fewer people are attending captive animal attractions.
Go chat to Barnum and Bailey.
 
Well, hopefully Electric Eel will bring the guests back to SeaWorld San Diego in droves, like Wicker Man has bought the guests back to Alton Towers!

I reckon the reason that San Diego has seen worse attendance decreases in recent years than Orlando and San Antonio is because San Diego is probably still the company's most animal-centred park, so to speak, whereas Orlando and San Antonio have put greater emphasis on rides as of late. Not that that's a bad thing, it's just that it gives people more of a reason to boycott the park.
 
Mako...more baloney.
Go check the figures...how do you think zoo and aquaria attendances have figured when compared to overall population expansion in the USA over the last hundred years, and paricularly during the rapid population expansion of the last couple of decades.
As a proportion of population, fewer and fewer people are attending captive animal attractions.
Go chat to Barnum and Bailey.

I'm not condoning travelling animal circuses which can be very inhumane, but you just shot yourself in the foot.

It is very true to say that public perception of using Elephants in shows has worsened, I'm not pretending that the same hasn't happened for Killer Whales, but Barnum & Bailey's ticket sales plummeted once they removed Elephants from their shows! This is very well documented. The exact same thing happened last year at SeaWorld San Diego.

You can stop with this population expansion BS. More people decide to visit a zoo or aquarium every year than the year before, simple. More people visited zoological facilities in 2015 than 2014, more in 2016 than 2015, more in 2017 than 2016, and there will be more in 2018 than in 2017.

Zoos and Aquariums are the largest recreation in America, higher attendance than theme parks and even all professional sports games across the year combined.

I really do enjoy many of your posts Rob, but you really don't know what you are talking about here.

There are good zoos and aquariums and bad ones, if a facility is not accredited then I will not defend it, but the standards required to become accredited are quite simply astonishing.
 
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