This morning, SeaWorld held their quarterly investor release, which of course had some rough news for the parks due to COVID and other things. Instead of just posting all of the information, here are some highlights as it relates directly to theme park fans such as us. 

If you'd like to read the entire release, you can check it out here. - Gregg 

So what does this mean? Quite simply, any rides SeaWorld parks were set to debut in 2020 will not be opening until 2021. This includes Iron Gwazi, Emperor, Pantheon and Ice Breaker. 

Texas Stingray at SeaWorld San Antonio already opened for 2020. 

While this is a pretty big blow to theme park fans, it's not entirely unexpected. In 2020 the parks are trying to do the best they can just to stay open, which includes reducing capacity. Opening a new ride to bring in guests really doesn't make a whole lot of business sense. 

It's been widely reported for months that SeaWorld has "defaulted" on payments to RMC for Iron Gwazi, this is a part of that. It doesn't mean that it won't open, it just means they've been working with them to defer costs that aren't directly related to the parks operating in 2020. 

You can find the rest of the COVID-19 response steps the parks have made below. 

COVID-19 Response
​
Since the global COVID-19 pandemic has begun, the Company has taken proactive measures for the safety of its guests, employees and animals, to appropriately manage costs and expenditures, and to provide liquidity in response to the temporary park closures related to COVID-19. Some of these measures included, but are not limited to the following: 

• increased its revolving credit commitments on March 10th and subsequently borrowed the remaining available amount;
• issued $227.5 million of first-priority senior secured notes to obtain additional liquidity;
• amended its existing senior secured credit facilities to amend its financial covenants;
• initially furloughed approximately 95% of its employees upon closing all of its parks;
• obtained payroll tax credits and deferred social security payroll taxes under the CARES act;
• reduced executive officers' base salary by 20% until the theme parks substantially resume normal operations;
• eliminated and/or deferred all non-essential operating expenses at all of its parks and corporate headquarters while the parks were closed;
• eliminated substantially all advertising and marketing spend while the parks were closed;
• substantially reduced or deferred all capital expenditures starting in March 2020 (other than minimal essential capital expenditures);
• postponed to 2021 the opening of rides that were still under construction and originally scheduled to open in 2020;
• worked with its vendors and other business partners to manage, defer, and/or abate certain costs and payables during the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic; and
• implemented a rigorous and strict formal review and approval process for payments and cash disbursements.

I'm down in San Diego for a few days visiting my sister so I thought it'd be a great idea to head out on the trails around mission bay and see if I could get some pics/video of SeaWorld. 

Written by Gregg Condon

Heading to the park area via the trails around Mission Bay. If you're ever vacationing down here they are really great. 

Heading towards the park via the Boat Ramp off SeaWorld Drive. 

Don't think that truck is carrying anything for the park, but you never know. 

And there it is, Emperor. 

The track is definitely done, obviously we can't get in to see what's going with the themeing, station, etc. 

Walking around to the front end of the park. 

A clear shot of Journey to Atlantis. And sure, I could have walked up there and gotten closer pictures, but I didn't really want to chance it. 

A very empty parking lot. It was bizarre. 

Thanks for reading/watching. Hopefully soon we'll be able to actually venture inside the park and get some rides on Emperor. 

Also, the reason I've been coming to San Diego so much lately. My sister was just diagnosed with terminal stage 4 bone cancer. Since we just met a few years ago for the first time, we've been trying to hang out as much as we can. And these past few days have been AMAZING! 

She's set up a GoFundMe for a cross country RV trip. I'll be joining her on this trip when I can, and she's going to be documenting her travels. If you can, please consider donating. We also have some cool park stuff we're going to be auctioning off for her GoFundMe over the next few weeks. Stay tuned! 

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This past weekend we were down in San Diego to see some family so we did a quick drive by of SeaWorld on both Saturday and Sunday. Also, will add, checking into a hotel for the first time since all of this started was super weird. So be prepared for that the first time you do so. 

We were hoping to actually be able to stop somewhere, park and take pictures, but that didn't seem possible without breaking a whole lot of rules. Still, some of these pics came out ok. Enjoy! 

​I see something!! 

Promise, it's back there somewhere. =) 

Emperor and Electric Eel! 

Journey to Atlantis looks SO much better with it's new colors!! 

On Sunday we took a different route to get to where we were going, was again hoping we could park somewhere to take pics. Didn't happy, but here's a different view! 

Can't wait until we have some parks reopening here in CA. Hope this tides you over until then! 

We hope you enjoyed this quick drive-by of the park. We hope we can bring you some fun from inside in the very near future.