Sea World have quietly removed the TMNT characters from the park, with the only reference now being ‘Donatello's Ninja Flyers’. No shows, no character appearances, no photo ops. I contacted the park and they confirmed that due contracting an internal review, TMNT has been removed from the park.

Does this mean the cost to have TMNT went up?

I’m curious as to what this could mean for the rest of the Nickelodeon contract as it’s been over 10 years since the land first opened and the contract most likely doesn’t have long left before it expires or sea world looks at replacing the area itself with a new theme.

The original deal with Nickelodeon i believe started in 2011 when they introduced the parade at the lake and a Dora stage show, the land then opened in September 2015. We don’t usually see licensing deals last much more than a decade in Australia, so will be interesting to see how much longer it lasts.

19 minutes ago, themagician said:

The original deal with Nickelodeon i believe started in 2011

I totally forgot about the parade and Dora show, 15 years is an exceptionally long time for an IP at an Aussie park (barring MW). The Nickelodeon IP’s currently represented at sea world besides SpongeBob and maybe TMNT are now quite outdated. I wouldn’t be shocked if VRTP are currently reviewing their options on what to do with Nickelodeon and whatever replaces it becomes Sea Worlds new addition in a year or two considering Sea World are most likely next up for a big investment now that Wet ‘N’ Wild and Movie Word have gotten theirs.

I'd be saddened to see the SpongeBob stuff go. It fits so well and the theming in the kids area is so nice.

On 07/01/2026 at 8:42 AM, themagician said:

The original deal with Nickelodeon i believe started in 2011 when they introduced the parade at the lake and a Dora stage show, the land then opened in September 2015. We don’t usually see licensing deals last much more than a decade in Australia, so will be interesting to see how much longer it lasts.

It's a bit strange: It sounds like everything from TMNT was removed due to it expiring but everything Spongebob/Dora related was retained.

I'd assume that given all characters are owned by Paramount that they'd expire at the same time: seems that isn't the case. One thing though is the TMNT stuff is based on the 2012 cartoon I believe: I feel there could've been something where Paramount wanted Village to update it to the newer versions for brand consistency (Mutant Mayhem) and Village didn't want to spend the money doing so so they removed everything instead.

The TMNT have indeed been gone since Mid 2025.

21 hours ago, TBoy said:

Paramount wanted Village to update it to the newer versions for brand consistency

The TMNT costumes the park used appear to have been retired globally (no longer used anywhere).

Based on how faded Patrick (SpongeBob) got until the park replaced the costume I would hazard a guess a set of 4 new TMNT costumes would have cost a pretty penny that the park didn’t want to spend.

I don’t think the TMNT license expired as such, there’s still ride/theming/merch.