Antarctica: Empire Of The Penguin
At SeaWorld Orlando
All-new adventure allows guests to experience the sights, sounds, thrills, chills and penguins of Antarctica, through the eyes of a special penguin hero named Puck
It’s been 16 long months, but finally the penguins have returned to SeaWorld Orlando!!!!
The new realm of Antarctica is an immersive area of SeaWorld full of beautiful icebergs, a base camp that you wish you could actually visit, food for the pickiest of eaters, merchandise with a heart, and most importantly a first-of-its-kind attraction leading you to a penguin encounter you won’t soon forget!
“We’ve taken our guests and fans on astounding journeys,” says Terry Prather, SeaWorld Orlando’s president. “But no one has ever experienced what we’re bringing to Orlando this year. The first-of-its-kind ride, the cold, the wind, the thrills and danger of Antarctica, coupled with getting up close to penguins in their freezing world is something only SeaWorld can do.”
As soon as you walk into the Antarctica area, you know that you’ve traveled someplace special! There are huge icebergs, mounds of snow, beautiful carvings, and rushing winds that put a chill in the air no matter what the Florida temperature may be!
At the Expedition Café, we are all visitors to Antarctica looking for a meal to warm us up from our frigid environment. In the café, you will find American, Asian, and Italian cuisines featured in a mess hall setting where you are free from queues. There are also hydroponically grown produce and herbs, call ‘freshies’, that are incorporated into your meals. With outside seating available under canvas type sails, and two Quonset-type huts provide seating for guests dining on a mix of cooked-to-order food and quick-serve delights is comfortable.
Glacial Collections gift shop is the place to shop for anything and everything a penguin fan could ask for! The retail shop’s color scheme of black, bright yellows, oranges and whites, and the penguin-shaped displays welcome guests to browse the cache of splendid penguin-related items.
Glacial Collections is where you can also build your very own Cup That Cares!
Also new at Antarctica are souvenir cups created by SeaWorld and Coca-Cola®. The Cup That CaresTMis a novel reusable cup program with a twist of technology: An RFID (radio frequency identification) chip embedded in each cup interacts with software at Antarctica’s Coca–Cola Freestyle dispensers to calculate CO2 and tell guests how they are being more environmentally responsible by choosing to refill and reuse. And there’s more: SeaWorld will donate $1 from each Cup That Cares purchase to the SeaWorld and Busch Gardens® Conservation Fund, a not-for-profit foundation that helps protect wildlife around the world.
And finally we come to the showpiece of Antarctica… Antarctica Empire of the Penguin!
On board a first-of-its-kind trackless, all-family adventure ride, guests become one with the storyline as they follow Puck’s, a gentoo penguin who is beyond loveable, adventures. Each mobile simulator ride car allows guests to choose one of two levels of exploration – Wild Expedition or Mild Expedition – for various degrees of ride intensity. Designers say each version has multiple variations for a feeling of unpredictability, just like the continent of Antarctica.
“When our little hero penguin learns to waddle and slide, we’ll feel what it’s like as the car moves and reacts to the storyline. When he takes his first swim or barely escapes danger, our guests will feel as if they’re right there with him,” explains Brian Morrow, SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment® creative director.
“On this adventure, we learn that we’re a lot like penguins. We’ll find we need each other and our families to survive,” said Morrow.
There’s one more family SeaWorld guests can join at Antarctica … and that’s a huge family of nearly 250 penguins. Stepping off the adventure ride, guests find themselves among a colony of Adelie, gentoo, king and rockhopper penguins in a 30-degree habitat filled with wind, snow, rock and chilly water. It’s what makes Antarctica the coldest theme park attraction in Orlando. New technologies combine to create a freezing – but dry – climate, allowing guests to spend time in the penguins’ amazing world.
Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin also includes educational elements. Kids can “measure up” to all 18 species of penguins carved into the rocks in the plaza. They can engage in kid-height and kid-friendly interactive touch screens and talk with SeaWorld educators to learn more about the importance of community and how penguin colonies work together and rely on each other for survival.
I seriously don’t want to go into too much detail, because I really believe this is one attraction you must really experience to understand it’s true message and beauty.
The official Grand opening of Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin will be held today, Friday, May 24th!
There will be an “Ice-cutting” ceremony beginning at 8:45 a.m. and includes a live performance by award-winning country artist Lauren Alaina, the voice of the Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin theme song.
SeaWorld Orlando will also be giving out special Antarctica bracelets for the first 700 fans through the front gate, admission is required. SeaWorld Orlando is also encouraging guests to wear black and white to show their penguin pride
If visiting SeaWorld Orlando was even remotely on your ‘To Visit’ list for your next trip to Orlando, you might want to consider moving it to the ‘Must Do’ list…I promise that you won’t regret it!
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