Wanderlust World Wanderlust World In order to understand the history of Sea World Orlando, the history of the establishment of Sea World parks must be understood. A group of UCLA graduates decided to create an underwater restaurant in San Diego in the 1960s. When these plans didn't exactly work out, they instead decided to build a theme park for marine life lovers. The success of this park ultimately led to the construction of Sea World Orlando as well as other Sea World parks.
After building the first Sea World in San Diego, the owners of Sea World had an epiphany that led them to build Sea World Orlando. Just after Disney World opened in the early 1970s, Sea World founders saw that people from across the country and across the world were flocking to Florida. They knew if they built a park there, they would be able to have a year-round location that would draw tourists at all times during the year.
Sea Wold Orlando operated under the umbrella of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich--a publishing company that had some financial difficulties--for nearly the first 15 years it was opened. In the meantime, the company continued to develop the other parks it had in San Diego and Ohio and built a new Sea Wold in San Antonio. Because of financial difficulties, the company sold all of the Sea World parks, including the Sea World Orlando to the Anheuser-Busch Company, which purchased the parks in 1989.
After Sea World Orlando was undertaken by the Anheuser-Busch Company, there were several additions and innovations that were added to the park to make it even more tourist-friendly. Anheuser-Busch had more expendable income to use to make the upgrades than the Harcourt Brace Jovanovich company had--especially in its financially strapped years just before it sold Sea World.
The Anheuser-Busch Company put millions of dollars into renovations on a new Shamu stadium to offer a better experience for park visitors who had come to see the park's biggest draw. The park also added thrill rides in an effort to give thrill seekers in Orlando a reason to visit.
Although Sea Wold had traditionally been a park where people could observe marine life in a controlled environment, Anheuser-Busch made some adjustments to this as well after buying Sea World Orlando. A satellite location was built in the southern part of the state to include interactive programs such as opportunities for visitors to sleep over. There are also adventure camps available to children, teenagers and adults. The Key West location and the Orlando location do a lot of cross promoting to attract tourists from one location to the next.
Sea World Orlando has continued to build on the successes in its past but also to adapt so its future will remain profitable as well. In addition to regularly debuting new shows at the park, Sea World Orlando has also opened a water park called Aquatica.
Park organizers hope the already-established park and the new innovations will mesh to encourage visitors to want to see some of the things they saw before again and to see new things at the same time.