Rides at SeaWorld San Diego

Sun-drenched SeaWorld San Diego is the sum of its parts and so much more. It’s a zoo, an aquarium, a thrill-ride theme park, and a vital animal research facility. Sprawling across nearly 200 acres on San Diego’s Mission Bay, this park will educate you, entertain you, and amp up your adrenaline on exciting rides.

Start your visit with a five-minute ride up the Skytower, a 320-foot column that overlooks the park. Then think of your favorite sea animal and go find it—thousands of creatures are on exhibit, from sea horses to sea lions. At Turtle Reef, view loggerhead, hawksbill, and green sea turtles, plus thousands of tropical fish. In the Shark Encounter, walk through a 57-foot acrylic underwater tunnel. You’ll be surrounded by several species of sharks swimming in a 300,000-gallon lagoon.

Ride the Electric Eel

For a different kind of excitement, SeaWorld has plenty of thrill rides. Take a lap on San Diego’s tallest, fastest rollercoaster, the Electric Eel, which soars to 150 feet with multiple loops, twists, and inversions. The slightly tamer Manta rollercoaster roars across the park at 45 miles per hour. Then splash your way downriver on Shipwreck Rapids’ wheel-shaped rafts or plunge 60 heart-stopping feet on the Journey to Atlantis flume ride. You’ll suddenly understand the significance of negative G-forces, and you’ll get soaked to the skin.

Learn at the Penguin Encounter

Roll along the moving sidewalk in the Penguin Encounter past a colony of 300 penguins, including tall Emperor penguins and smaller Adélie, Gentoo, and Macaroni penguins. These adorable tuxedo-wearing birds hang out, swim, waddle, and slide on their bellies in a simulated Antarctic. Sign up for the Penguins Up-Close Tour and you can meet a penguin face-to-face and learn more about these extraordinary birds.

Play at the Dolphin Encounter

In the Dolphin Encounter, you’ll stand poolside with a dolphin trainer and get up close and personal with utterly charming bottlenose dolphins. You’ll learn a few hand signals to communicate with these super-smart creatures, who seem as eager to please as golden retrievers. For an even bigger once-in-a-lifetime thrill, the Dolphin Interaction Program lets you don a wetsuit and get in the water to touch, feed, and play with the animals.

Watch Sea Lions Live

SeaWorld’s famous arena-style trained animal shows are guaranteed to wow. Two of the most popular performers are Clyde and Seamore, an acrobatic comedy duo of hilarious sea lions, who seem to get a genuine kick out of performing for—and splashing—the audience. They don’t mind posing for photos, either. Other popular shows star dancing dolphins who do an Esther-Williams-style synchronized swimming routine with wide grins on their faces.

Interact at the Beluga Encounter

SeaWorld’s newest interaction program lets you enjoy a one-on-one experience with enchanting beluga whales. These snow-white denizens of frigid Arctic waters are known for their curious temperaments and cheerful-sounding calls. You’ll go behind-the-scenes at the Wild Arctic habitat and meet the gentle belugas and whiskered, long-tusked walruses at poolside.

Come watch acrobats of the ocean jump, flip, spin, and exude their natural charm in both SeaWorld’s classic shows and its all-natural marine life experiences.

Go to the lively yet intimate Dolphin Days show to see Bottlenose dolphins and short-finned pilot whales take to the waters—a great chance to see how SeaWorld San Diego’s professional trainers work closely with these marine mammals. It’s also a lot of fun, and a chance to get doused in designated splash zones.

Sea Lions LIVE, meanwhile, offers up SeaWorld’s take on a sketch comedy show, starring the park’s beloved pinnipeds Clyde and Seamore, and their fun-loving O.P. Otter; the trio are pretty pop-culture savvy, with their marine-life-based spoofs on TV shows (as evidenced in “Dancing with the Pinnipeds” and “SLSI: Sea Lion Scene Investigation”). For furry-animal entertainment, go to Pets Rule! and watch a talented cast of dogs, cats, birds, and pot-bellied pigs (most adopted from shelters) entertaining stunts with their trainers—and watch for cameos by emus and kangaroos.

During summer 2017, SeaWorld San Diego debuted an experience with the park’s majestic resident killer whales: Orca Encounter features a Pacific-Northwest-themed backdrop and a three-story-high video screen that shows a documentary-style presentation about how these mammals move, hunt, and communicate in the wild. And taking center stage, you can watch the resident orcas splash, breach, and otherwise act naturally in the waters.

It’s one thing to see SeaWorld San Diego’s remarkable collection of exotic animals performing in shows or in their enclosures. It’s another (unforgettable) thing entirely to get up close to the creatures—and even touch them. Two of the most remarkable exclusive experiences have you climb into a SeaWorld San Diego wetsuit to get right into the pool with gentle, snow-white beluga whales, found in Arctic waters. 

At Dolphin Encounter, you get to feed, touch, and use special signals to communicate with bottlenose dolphins; the Dolphin Interaction Program lets you get right in the pool with the creatures and play with them. Go behind-the-scenes again with the Penguin Up-Close Tour to learn everything about the little black-and-white seabirds, including what they eat and how to help protect them in the wild. If your family still hasn’t gotten its fill of wildlife, take them on the 45-minute Killer Whales Up-Close Tour, which offers an insider’s look at how these awe-inspiring mammals are cared for.

Depending on what time of year you visit, there are fun seasonal offerings at SeaWorld San Diego. During summer, the park has a new take on an evening light show: Electric Ocean takes its inspiration from the ocean phenomenon bioluminescence, where the ocean glows in the moonlight. The nighttime show, which runs through Labor Day, also features dance music, a DJ, and costumed sea creatures taking to the dance floor.

Come fall, SeaWorld’s Halloween Spooktacular (weekends from late September through October) invites kids to dress in costume, mingle with strolling characters, and go trick-or-treating in the park. Don’t miss the Halloween-themed sea lion and otter show, Clyde & Seamore’s Big Halloween Bash.

When the holiday season gets into full swing, the park takes on an ocean-meets-Santa’s Workshop ambience. SeaWorld’s Christmas Celebration (typically running from mid-November to around New Year’s) includes a Santa’s Christmas Village, Rudolph’s Christmastown, and holiday-themed shows, such as Dolphin Island Christmas and Clyde & Seamore's Christmas Special, starring the popular sea lion and otter.

During the holiday season, the O Wondrous Night show tells the Christmas story using 30 carols and a variety of live animals. Stay through sundown to catch the nightly lighting of the 40-foot animated tree and to see how the park’s main landmark, the 320-foot Skytower, looks with with its holiday lights.