Tanna

I know I'm thinking small, but with no finances coming in, and let's face it, these are big animals we're talking, who is to take care of them?I know the dream of a lot of PETA is to ride the larger mammals smiling into the sunset, to the Land of Shangrila, but that's just not going to happen with positive results. Are there any proposals for sanitary sanctuaries, with quailified caretakers in any of their plans? Does anyone think that they are playing it one step at a time; get control of the park, then worry about the realities of owning these animals when the time comes?

I couldn't read it, either. I was just hoping to catch the gist from another source.

Oh. That's a strange turn of events. That might change my plans, somewhat. Can't go see sea mammals if they're dead and and stuffed in a trash bin after their rescue.

I saw a giant strawberry twirly ride tooling down the highway a few years ago on the back of truck. Also, the beautiful mini-hamlet of Miamisburg has the Spring Fling and the... one in autumn? I guess the Fall Pall? on the grounds of the town's library. It has carnival rides. The Miamisburg library grounds is also reported to be haunted. I've been watching "Parks and Recreation".

The shadow of the noodle makes it seem as if the noodle is displeased to be photographed.

The people that hold their noses at Seaworld will probably always hold their noses, they get stuck in a mindset like a 15 year old girl that hates the homecoming queen for being homecoming queen. Those people aren't going to stop and re-examine their logic; they are right and cannot be wrong, it would be a loss to their ego. They aren't going to sign up to a rescue blog. When you suggested a sea pen, my assumption (yah, I know, "ass u me") that you meant a controlled environment that was safe for them. Seaworld is going have to care for these animals, and Seaworld without the whales still means that the whales are somewhere, being tended to, without the revenue they bring in. To be honest, the activists are reminding me of hillbilly neighbors, they got mad that I will defend myself against their fighting dogs jumping my fence, but then got mad when I built a regulation pit bull fence to keep the dogs from getting in my yard, because an eight foot fence isn't neighborly. I would like the makers of Blackfish next film to be about, not tearfully emotional activists on an oily boat looking on a whales in the ocean, but about a pack of activists cleaning up a junked up river, or at least going to the beach and picking up the trash. They can at least explore the impact of boaters and kayakers barging up to wild whales and getting their butts handed to them by the Big Blues. Have you seen the youtube videos lately? Boaters literally barging up to whale faces. How is that any better than than Seaworld is doing? They are like the Timothy Treadwells of the water.

Yeh, the motif is kind of hokey/kiddie, but it could be in the kids' section of the park; maybe they wanted to play it safe. Old funhouses had devils, clowns, drunks, skeletons, and risque ladies, I don't know if the park can get by with burlesque humor today.

There seems to be quite a few missteps in the managing of this event, aren't there? They were late to combat the effect of the film with the PR debt., and now this. I wish this weren't so, to be honest I am concerned about what will happen to the animals if these shin kicks keep up.

Those colors are in the clown Haunt, of course they can get the colors right. It looks great, it's an answer to the problem with funhouses, walkthroughs can be dangerous to fools. I'd like to ride this, but the spinning would stop my husband dead in his trakks.

It's so hot and awful out, you might as well do it just to be refreshed.

Nope. And don't get me started on the two attempts at releasing orcas that spent time in captivity (one a captured orca and the other a rescue)...they were NOT the successes activist make them out to be.I actually no issues with the idea of sea pens, problem is the threat of disease mainly. Oceans are pretty polluted...(thanks to us of course) the captive orcas probably get sick and any bacteria they themselves carry can have its own negative impact on their wild counterparts. SeaWorld need to work on all the exhibits (orcas, dolphins and even the seals/sea lions). In the case of the dolphins, I wonder about the show dolphins because in Orlando and San Diego they share the complex with pilot whales. At Orlando in particular there are 4 pilot whales there now, and they are all still on the young side and still growing... Now you see the difference between book (video/internet) knowledge and experience, my big problem with sea pens is the fear of some over the top activist vandalizing the sea pen in an attempt to free them. Isn't that how the three whales at Sealand ended up in big crates overnight?

First anti-clue; the bald, well dressed figure is standing still. Every time I've seen Don, he's moving. He never stops long enough to just stand.

If the interaction with humans could still go on until slowly phased out. A lot of those whales grew up with those two legged pilot fish on the edge of their habitat. Faeire would know more than me, of course, because I'm a video fan, never set foot into the park yet, but Tillikum is now rewarded with a hose, because they don't pet him anymore. I don't know how he's accepted that. A sea pen where they can still be amused I can agree with, but to toss them in open water where they mistakenly hula to try to get fish would be a travesty. There's film where an orca is teaching a calf a show trick- that's their hunting now. A sea pen with butlers might be best. I wish to see more of the new habitat to judge for myself if it's a good compromise in my mind. I must make my judgement by pressing my nose against the glass, I'm sure of it.

Maybe it's Bubble Thinking at it's finest. The people that are running the place think what they have is fine the way it is, until they themselves trip on the carpet. Faeriewench isn't the only person who notes the dolphin tank is too crowded, but there the dolphins are, in that tank, crowded. Sometimes there's a problem in businesses where there needs to be a few people that are slightly disgruntled and want change, but not disgruntled enough to take part in a film that slams the company. Hard balance. Maybe you are right about the timing- someone noted there wasn't a lot of open space, then they rushed to shut people up.

I'm humored by it.

That's a good point. Even if they didn't, it can be construed as if it were.There's mini-scuba tanks on the trainers now, which the park said was in response to the death of one of the trainers. That also seems as a response to the activists, and OSHA. (I never did learn what happened to the wine and dine OSHA lady...) I don't think the park is finished, as wished for in the Huffpo article. Wishful thinking doesn't make it so. They just need to bring awareness to their plusses. The announcement came with a lot of artists' renderings of the new attraction, but maybe the old Walt Disney style "Men in suits meeting during planning stages with dates added" wouls help at this point, if this were in the planning stage before Blackfish. The year Blackfish came out, they unveiled that Arctic Zone penguin ride, and thst wasn't nailed together out of used trailers, that took some thought. Maybe it's just bad timing.

Evidently, I did, too. My parents brushed that gig off when I brought it up. Vortexfan, I suspect there are people in the world that are always going to focus on the sticky end of the lollipop. If the group that produced Blackfish got their way, and the whales were freed, not only would they focus on a larger group of animals in their next bid, but if anything happened to the whales in the open sea, they would still place the blame on Seaworld. There are some people that will do anything to wipe the smiles off of people's faces.

I did a restuarant in the theme park genre, or really, the "Amusement Park" genre. One of the tricks I used was painting a sign in one set of colors, then painting crackle over the top, then repainting the sign in another set of colors, to make it gaudier and older looking. He wanted an "outdoor restaurant indoors" so that's what he got. We knew if we went too seriously, it would look corny, so they agreed to let us make it purposely corny. The customers loved it. I love Amusement Park Art, I love doing it. I have hand painted signs in my house, some with the pointing fingers that have inside jokes as the words. When people cry about theming, I get a little pinked about it, because KI has a lot of theming, in my opinion. It's carnival theming with lights and color and motion.

Diamondback. I love it, but it scares me.

Wow- this post started in 2007- I was wondering for a second why people were complaining about the food and prices, I didn't look at the date at first, and wondered what was wrong with all of you. I was going to dismiss the lot of you as a bunch of granny nags Reading this thread shows me how far the park had come, due to Ouimet's skills.

There's nothing wrong to feel this way, as I am the same way. I like tamer rides better and those seem to be disappearing... All my favorite parks have more tame rides than roller coasters, the environments of those places feel much more relaxed and that's what I like. I do not care about coasters doing backflips over the front gate. I'd rather SeaWorld build flat rides rather than more coasters atm, I'd always thought it be cool to be if something like Supreme Scream (or Power Tower whatever you most familiar with) were to appear, but that's just me. I've got great rides here in Ohio, and we have the Newport Aquarium, but we lack what Seaworld has. Do you think they will phase out whale shows? The other animal shows don't seem to be in peril from activists.

Well, for me it's a plus; I want to see the animals swim around and play. In a way, I'm glad I didn't reach my goal yet, because I would like to see a great big huge wall of orcas, where before, I'd be able to see them through the viewing window I've seen in videos. I'm not interested in the musical shows as much as just watching them. With the upgrade, I'd be able to stand and stare and not worry about blocking a little kid that wants to see them, too. For me, Seaworld is cool and swanky because they rehab animals, I follow their Twitter, FB and get the emails, so I get all the news of seals going back to the sea. They are doing more than a lot of animal welfare services out there. I think the PR was late in refuting Blackfish, but it seems they've done more to put their message out. The problem with that is only the people that want to subscribe to their social feeds are the ones getting the message they already know. Only the people that like what Seaworld is doing are seeing the freed manatees. This is just going to cause me to put more spare cash in my bucket list bucket to get there. GYC is right, it's more of a zoo than a park. I'm not interested in the rides so much, except for the penguin exhibit, and I'm a rides person.

You are right, I didn't think about that. It takes quite a few years to engineer something like that.

I came here to remark on this. A great big habitat with a great big viewing area. I still wish we could watch them online. Watching live-stream cameras is great while I'm working, except for that one Grampa Munster penguin that sits right in front of the camera. Even if it is to deflect bad PR, the whales don't care, they get bigger space.

I was kinda hoping for a reclaimed timber look, to match the mill. Now it kind of looks like that ports-office on a construction site. If this permanently houses Slaughterhouse, will they be able to put in more elaborate effects?