This summer our family took a holiday to Florida and as always we visited SeaWorld with one of our plans being to experience this new attraction.
The outside surrounding area of Antarctica is surreal and has been designed brilliantly. The walkway has been designed so it looks as if you are actually surrounded by snow and ice and all the signposts fit perfectly with the theme.
There is also a gift shop and a café which we didn't get the opportunity to visit but they're designed in a kind of Antarctic camp theme which really suits its surroundings.
Now onto the actual attraction.
I'm going to start with the queue. The first time we visited SeaWorld we found the park to be fairly quiet as compared to other years that we had been and thought the queues for rides and attractions wouldn't be too long. We were correct on the ride side of this thought as the longest we queued for any ride at SeaWorld was just 15 minutes!! However we walked around to the Antarctica attraction to find that the queue time was almost 3 hours long!! We decided not to queue on that particular visit as it was getting fairly late and with a tired 8 year old we probably wouldn't have made it into the attraction anyway.
We returned the week after to find the queue for Antarctica was still 70 minutes long. This time we decided to queue as we knew this would be the last time we visited the park this year. Despite being advised we would be waiting for 60-70 minutes, we actually queued for 1 hour 45 minutes. The whole of the queue is outside with very little shaded areas and fans that blew out the hot air.
Now for the actual attraction.
The first part of this attraction is a short 1/2 minute video introducing you to a baby penguin called Puck and visitors are told that this ride will follow his travels as the penguins go on a journey. This happens in a room which was overfilled in my opinion but I understand that the staff needed to speed up waiting times. However after this short video, visitors are again put into a queue!! We queued for a further 30 minutes making our total wait for the attraction 2 and a quarter hours!! This part of the wait was far better than the first part, air con and in a room which was beautifully lit with coloured lighting and designed to look and feel as though you were inside an icy cave.
The ride.
There were 2 options for the ride; Mild or Wild (height restrictions for wild). Both of these options involved being seated in an 8 seater circular open pod/car. These pods took visitors through 2 areas which were decorated with coloured lighting and icy looking sculptures which was breath takingly beautiful if you're into feeling like you've been transported into glittery well lit worlds. The mild pods are as they say, not a huge deal of spinning and are a lot calmer, where as the wild pods move around a tiny bit more. The pods are not on a track which was one aspect that impressed me; they are all coded to take a certain route and although they get very close to other pods, some of the surroundings and décor, they never touch.
The last couple of areas that the pods take you to are a video room where you see an animated video of Puck and his fellow penguins. During this short video, the wild pods become a simulator and will move to create a 4D cinema kind of experience whereas the mild pods sit stationary for this.
The pods are then taken round to where the live penguins are kept. You can see the penguins behind a glass panel and there are tonnes of them!! The ride then comes to an end at the start of the Penguin enclosure.
Finally the penguin enclosure.
This section of the attraction is the bit we'd all been waiting for and I'm not sure if I was as impressed as I'd hoped I'd be. The penguins are literally within touching distance!! I heard one child say he could have picked a penguin up and snuck it in his rucksack - that's how close they are!! There are 245 penguins within this enclosure; Adelie, Gentoo, King and Rockhopper penguins. As impressive as this section was, I felt that it needed more. The ride part of this attraction led me to think that the penguin enclosure would be more impressive; don't get me wrong, its fantastic, but it was missing something I couldn't quite put my finger on.
This area is extremely cold!! We didn't get a massive amount of time in there as the staff were guiding people along (probably because of the massive queue outside!!) but our teeth were about at chattering point and we had goose bumps!!
The lighting in this area isn't brilliant. Taking photos of the penguins without a flash was next to impossible - I would advise taking a DSLR or compact camera with a lowlighting setting. Both my phone and compact camera didn't take great photos in this low lighting.
As you walk to leave the attraction there is an underwater viewing area of the penguin enclosure, this again isn't brilliant for taking photos as flash is prohibited but the lights in the tank make it slightly easier.
All penguins seemed incredibly calm, relaxed and happy which is always good to see.
Over all I was fairly impressed with this attraction, however it is not worth a 2 and a quarter hour wait to spend minutes sat in the pod and only a few minutes in the enclosure itself unless you are desperate to see the penguins and/or to experience the ride.
I would advise to hit the park as early as possible and head straight to this attraction to avoid long queues or leave this attraction until fairly late in the afternoon/early evening.
I have heard and read other peoples experiences with this ride to be similar to my own. Do be prepared to wait for up to 4 hours especially during summer time!!
Disclaimer: None of these photos are my own.
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