So I am surprised nobody has mentioned this yet. But Sea World did a live stream this morning about the polar bear cub and announced a few things. The most exciting will be Castaway Reef which is the new splash pad area which will be a multi million dollar attraction opening in October this year. Along with the Sea Jellies opening next April, the new Sea Lion show and the VR replacement in 2019. So hopefully we see SW transform back into its former glory. 

Edited September 12, 20178 yr by Tim Dasco

Here is that said video:

And I'm glad to see they are using the theme of Castaway Bay and introducing it into the new area. Hopefully it is as well detailed and themed as the current area is.

Shame that they didn't give him the small microphone when he came on 😥 

Edited September 12, 20178 yr by Adventures With JWorld

Did i miss something? VR?

 

@jjuttp Vikings Revenge 

Was VR even mentioned in that video?

No, but Tim was just adding it to the list of things to come to the park 

Damn. Was getting my hopes up for something Virtual Reality related. If they could work out how to waterproof the Gear Vr, Both Storm and JR could lend themselves well to the concept.  Storm could have the track built by the storm as you fly around and JR would have you Jet Skiing around the coast (Bonus points for the GC coast).

I have a feeling that's what @jjuttp was referring to. That it was in the original post of upcoming things but not mentioned in the video.

Edit: Turns out i'm wrong

Edited September 12, 20178 yr by Jdude95

I really think post-construction VR is gimmicky. 

It the ride is designed with VR in mind then i'm all for it, but when it appears to be an afterthought or a 'cheap' way to offer a 'new' experience, I just don't buy into it. 

From a financial and outside standpoint, i agree. But when it's done right it can revive an old ride ala Kraken at Sea World.

Mentally i've been racking around a way to implement VR/AR into Scooby for the better part of 6 or so months, and the ideas for Storm/JR i entirely fleshed out in the time it took to write the first 2 sentences. Hell in the time it took to write out the last sentence i came up with a VR/AR concept for WWF.

On 9/12/2017 at 3:40 PM, Tim Dasco said:

The most exciting will be Castaway Reef which is the new splash pad area which will be a multi million dollar attraction opening in October this year. 

Wait they are spending Millions on the splash pad how will that work how will a splash pad cost millions.

Concrete, pipes, water features, landscaping, labour. It's not cheap. 

It could really be anything. It could even be something like Pipline Plunge (WWW) or Kahuna falls (AW) they cost around 3 million or it could be small stuff. It's unknown the scale at this time.

10 minutes ago, Reanimated35 said:

Concrete, pipes, water features, landscaping, labour. It's not cheap. 

Yes I know it isn't cheap and i can understand a few hundred thousand but millions of dollars for something like this.

Have you seen plans for it as I don't recall anything be posted as far as photos go so to assume that Sea World are putting something like that in is a bit of a laugh.

I picture something either this size or smaller if it cost a few million. This is Kahuna falls from AW costs 3 million AUD.

4 minutes ago, Tim Dasco said:

It could really be anything. It could even be something like Pipline Plunge (WWW) or Kahuna falls (AW) they cost around 3 million or it could be small stuff. It's unknown the scale at this time.

I wouldn't call pipeline plunge a splash pad considering it is called a water playground.

NearMap image of Castaway Reef construction as of 28/8/17

*They are clearly re-purposing the old wading pool for the "splash pad"

Edited September 15, 20178 yr by rac2703

Credit to TPSN for the photo, 

 

Another day, another new fountain. 

Today’s update:

And I don’t ever remember seeing this element within the Sky Fortress in Castaway Bay, but thought it was pretty cool and shows how good the theming of the area is 

Is that tower they're building going to be for some kind of slide, or just for maintaining water pressure? 

I'm guessing theming \ erupting (water) volcano.

Definitely think this could be a volcano (Photo: TPSN)

Edited October 11, 20178 yr by themagician