Author: Allen

SeaWorld celebrates 60 years…

…and I had no idea until I visited and saw it on some banners.

SeaWorld 60th anniversary.

60th anniversary is a bit of a cheat. While the original SeaWorld in San Diego did open in 1964 (making the SeaWorld brand 60 years old), the Orlando park did not open until 1973. Happy 51st anniversary, SeaWorld Orlando!

I suppose this is similar to how Walt Disney World celebrated “100 years” in 2001, based on the birth year of Walt Disney, then later celebrated the 50th anniversary of Walt Disney World.

SeaWorld 60th sign.

You will notice that, unlike the SeaWorld of the past, this SeaWorld does not seem to promote its animal shows at all — just roller coasters and their water/flume ride. More on this later…

SeaWorld entrance plaza sign.

There were some photo signs around the park with specific dates, such as this one about their Sky Tower, which I assume opened in 1975.

There were several others I spotted, but the one I think I liked the most was about their classic water ski show. I remember watching some version of that in the pre-Epcot era of Orlando:

In front of Seafire Grill (well, outside the bar area for it) was this photo, which I suppose is showing what that building used to look like. I have no memories of it from my childhood visits, but it certainly gave me tiki vibes.

There were even tributes to the more recent history of the park during its years under Anheuser-Busch ownership. Though this sign made me sad, because it reminded me I have to pay for beer at this park now.

Speaking of adult beverages, of course there was a specialty drink with a special souvenir cup.

The blue clam shell looking thing on the top of the straw was some kind of dissolving glitter thing that made the cocktail sparkle.

I expect there was more going on throughout the park, but those were the main things I noticed. Unlike Disney, SeaWorld is not set up to have anniversary parades and fireworks and such. I bet their 60th anniversary doesn’t even last 18 months 😉

But I digress… A quick recap of the history of SeaWorld, taken from the always-accurate Wikipedia entry:

  • 1964 – SeaWorld San Diego opens.
  • 1973 – SeaWorld Orlando opens.
  • 1976 – SeaWorld parks sold to Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. (I know nothing of this, but apparently HBJ owned Cypress Gardens near Orlando which I knew of, but never visited before it closed.)
  • 1978 – SeaWorld San Antonio opens. I grew up in Texas and never visited this park. I did, however, visit the very first Six Flags over Texas near Dallas, and frequented my local Houston park, Astroworld, which became owned by Six Flags.
  • 1987 – There was a hostile takeover attempt!
  • 1989 – SeaWorld sold to Anheuser-Busch, maker of Budweiser. Because, reasons. (Busch Gardens and many smaller complexes were operated by the beer company. In Houston, there was a small and short-lived Busch park, though I only remember us visiting it to see a trained bird show. The park side may have been gone by then.)
  • 2008 – Anheuser-Busch sold to Belgian-Brazilian brewer InBev.
  • 2009 – InBev, who was not in the entertainment business, sold the parks to Blackstone Group. They renamed to SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment.
  • 2024 – Then they renamed to United Parks & Resorts Inc.

Which brings us to today where it seems clear the park is moving away from the SeaWorld branding by removing it from the company name, and deemphasizing animal shows in their 60th marketing.

With all the roller coasters the park has been adding — two have opened since I returned to visiting the park in 2020 — I am going to randomly predict that the future of SeaWorld will be a different name, and the removal of the “trained animal shows.” We have already learned that the orcas will not be replaced, so that will leave only the Sea Lion and Otter show and the Dolphin Encounter show.

Perhaps after a few more roller coasters, it will simply be a water-themed coaster park where all the rides feature aquariums and are named after sea life.

We shall sea. Until then, you can browse thousands of my SeaWorld photos taken during my digital camera-era visits:

http://us-sw.disneyfans.com/SeaWorldOrlando/index.html

I will have a bunch more from 2024 added as soon as I have time to sort them and regenerate/upload the gallery.

To be continued…

Discovery Cove, Howl-O-Scream, Dreamworks Land, and more…

Over the next few weeks I will be working on an update to the photo galleries. Over 6200 photos will be added (yes, it they include plenty of photos of walls and trash cans and other details I found interesting).

I also want to write up thoughts on Discovery Cove (spoiler: probably my favorite Orlando thing now, if the price is right for a visit–and that comes from someone who hates getting in public pools or water parks).

There were some wonderful team members, cast members, and ambassadors encountered along the way, too, so some shout-outs to them too (such as Biebs at Duff Brewery, who, along with John, seem to be there every time we visit).

More to come…

Howard Johnson’s Mattercam

Last year I stumbled upon this YouTube video where a family photo bombs the Mattercam:

The Mattercam is a camera on the top of the Howard Johnson’s hotel next to Disneyland. “Back in the day” it provided a static image of the Matterhorn that would refresh from time to time. Today, it is a live video feed, and the camera pans to different locations every few minutes.

As of this writing (9/23/2022), here are the fourteen locations the camera will cycle, in this order:

  1. Matterhorn
  2. Space Mountain
  3. DCA Overview
  4. Mickey’s Fun Wheel
  5. Incredicoaster –
  6. Carsland –
  7. Guardians of the Galaxy –
  8. Grand Californian
  9. Monorail
  10. Esplanade
  11. Check-In Spot
  12. Disneyland Overview
  13. Bobsled Zoom
  14. Submarines

The Walt’s Chili Bowl family chose the “Check-In Spot” for their location. I thought it might be fun to pinpoint all the locations the Mattercam points to which could also offer photo bombing opportunities.

Unfortunately, I live in Iowa, so running down to the Disneyland Resort Area is not something I can easily do.

Any locals out there care to take this on?

New Lost Island photos in the Theme Parks gallery

My Theme Parks photo gallery has been updated with new photos from Lost Island Themepark in Iowa. Check them out here:

http://themeparks.disneyfans.com/

I also have nearly 100 VR360 photos/videos to process and get posted. The photos will end up at my Park Hopping in VR Facebook group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/parkhoppinginvr/

…and the videos will be shared to my Park Hopping in VR YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/@ParkHoppingInVR

I will post an announcement here or on my DisneyFans/Park Hopping Facebook Page when these are posted.

https://www.facebook.com/@disneyfanscom

More to come…

Disneyland VR360 photos from 2017

When I bought my first digital camera in 1996, I was the only person I knew that had a digital camera. I had to explain it as a “computer camera” when folks asked what it was. No one knew the term “digital camera” yet.

Even when I’d visit Disneyland, no one had them. You’d see the occasional camcorder or film camera, but no one was snapping away digital … yet. That changed quickly.

Later, I took a 3-D camcorder attachment on a trip, recording interlaced 3-D to Digital8 video tapes.

Around 2005, I took a “one shot panorama” camera gadget to the parks. You would point the camera up, where it would take a photo of the bottom of a half mirror ball. Software would later turn that in to a panorama with limited up/down viewing. This was the predecessor to the 360 cameras we have today.

When I “returned” to Disneyland in 2017, I took my RICOH Theta VR360 camera with me. I have never shared any of these photos before (there really wasn’t an easy way to share them back then), but I have started uploading them to my “Park Hopping in VR” YouTube group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/@parkhoppinginvr

Stop by and see opening year of Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout in VR.

Experience A Bug’s Land in VR.

Be amazed at the incredible quality of a 2017 VR camera 😉

Or not. But they are still fun to look at.

Drop by and if you also do VR photography, feel free to share some of your theme park VR photos.

More to come. So much more…

In VR…

As I began sorting nearly 200 VR video and photo files from a recent trip, I decided maybe I should find a place to upload them. So…

For other VR photographers and videographers, I have also set up some similar Facebook Groups so we can all share our work:

Logos by Tanjalin.

More Branson photos…

More photos have been added to the Misc (“Other Places”) photo gallery:

There are now over 26,000 photos in this gallery. New additions include:

  • Branson Treehouse Adventure – tour the “Captain’s Quarters” treehouse.
  • Branson Landing – including the water and fire show designed by W.E.T. (former Walt Disney Imagineer, if I recall).
  • Showboat Branson Belle – Built in 1995 (?), this large paddle boat cruises Table Rock Lake while visitors dine and watch a live music/dancing stage show.
  • Retromania – revisiting their New Wave Cafe.
  • Flaming Margarita’s – both the original Mexican food location, and the American Kitchen restaurant. These are hidden gems in the area, with top notch service and food offerings — a very surprising find.
  • Downtown Branson – check out Farmhouse Restaurant, establishedin the 1970s.
  • Billy Gail’s – a phenomenal “Southern cooking” eatery. Sweet tea, fried okra, and 14″ pancakes!
  • …and more.

“Look at all those people coming out of the unisex bathroom”

To this day, this is one of the funniest quotes I remember from Disney World.

There was a time when Disney was seen as safe and squeaky clean, but as times change, we have seen more and more once-wholesome things be removed from the parks (or edited from movies or songs).

I decided to post this quote here in case anyone else ends up searching for it. We’ll see if someone comments, either asking about it, or naming what it is from.

Begin.

Meow Wolf? More like Wow Wolf.

Ever since stumbling across some YouTube videos for Omega Mart (the Meow Wolf “art installation” in Las Vegas), I have been curious about just what these places are.

Now, after seeing the Meow Wolf Denver location – Convergence Station – I still don’t know.

But it was more, so much more, than I expected.

Super well done. One of these would fit right at home at Walt Disney World or Universal Orlando somewhere.

Details to come. But wow. Just wow. We spent almost seven hours exploring, and are know we still missed areas that we’ve seen on their video tours.

Butterfly Palace and Rainforest Adventure in VR

Here is 10 minutes of VR 360 video from Butterfly Palace and Rainforest Adventure in Branson, MO. You can look left, right, up, down and even behind you from various locations.

4/28/2024

This video was recorded using an Insta360 X4. It was set to 8K mode using all automatic settings. This should give folks an idea of what the quality is like “out of the box” without making any adjustments.

NOTE: YouTube appears to downsize the video to 4K 🙁