The NEW Marine World Theme Park

My Soap-Operatic Life

"If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live." Lin Yu-t'ang

Yesterday we went to the NEW Marine World, aka "Marine World With Rides". I figured that I'd try and do a review of what's changed there for anyone who goes this summer.

The New Rides Marine World got its 16 rides from either the county fair or Great America. If you've been to these places, you've been on Marine World's rides. They've got that people-spinner thing (in the swings, in the air, whatever it's called), the teacup equivalent, the waterfall ride (the only one I got on, liked it, came off drenched), the roller coaster that goes forward and back on the track (Boomerang), the leg-dangler roller coaster like Top Gun (2 of them, I think), the boat that goes upside down (2 of those kind of thing)- most people have seen these things. Oh, and they're going to have the White Water Rapids (Safari here) eventually- I swear, the picts in the brochure are directly from GA. The rides are nice to have, but if you're only going to Marine World for the rides and no animals/shows, do yourself a favor and just go to Great America. There were a few I hadn't seen before- the Dinosphere, the Jambo (people on a platform go up and down in a circle), Voodoo (flipped-around people, one of whom was screaming, "Why did I go on this ride?"), a small train, and the Swan Boats (closed for the weather- it was sunny!).

Dinosphere Here's some of the things that I noticed that were different about Marine World:
a. Way messier bathrooms
b. Sixty thousand six-year-olds from daycares all over the Bay Area, everywhere
c. Ruder workers

I had to contend with two of the three of these while waiting to get into the Dinosphere. It sounded really interesting- a 3-D motion seat ride- but since neither of my parents were going to go on that, I had to go alone. I didn't expect that to be such a hassle. I've seen people at Disneyland go on rides alone. But here, it was a bitch. If you go to Marine World, try to go with people who will go on the rides with you, okay? The whole experience reminded me yet again of why I get annoyed at how the world expects us to travel in pairs or packs.

First, it is very difficult to hold your place in line (well, this wasn't so much a line as it was a corral) when everyone else around you is in a large group (parents and kids or daycare workers and sheep) and/or running around. Lots of people trying to cut in front of me. Second, I couldn't read or do anything to entertain myself because I had to keep an eye out for cutters and screaming ankle-biters. Had no one to talk to either, of course. And third: I had gotten to the door (close to where they lined you up to go on the ride) and the worker chick was handing out the 3-D glasses and taking groups. When I said "One", she gave me this really dirty look and kept walking. I figured that she was looking for some other group to shove me into, which would have been fun- but she never came back. When she'd assigned numbers around the corner of the building, I figured she wasn't coming back, the bitch. How was I supposed to get on the ride without knowing where to go? I got pissed off and walked out. Naturally, I wasn't missed.

The Shows They revised most of the shows this year. Some came out well. Some didn't.

The Dolphin Show They've eliminated the "Showcase Theater" (where they normally had Chinese acrobats) and given the dolphin end of the former Killer Whale and Dolphin Show their own theater. And while the show was good, it sure was short. About 12 minutes, and the normal show time is a minimum of 20. Since the four dolphins were the ones that did the most stuff in the old show, I'm wondering why they couldn't stretch it out more.

The Killer Whale Show Especially when you compare it to the killer whale show. One of their whales died this year, so they had 20 minutes to fill with one performer. But here they pulled it off, without things getting boring.

The Sea Lion and Seal ShowUsually every year the sea lion show comes up with a new joke-filled scenario. This year, they didn't. (sigh) When you compare Marine World to Sea World's show (heck, they do parodies of the other shows at Sea World!) , I was kinda bummed. But at least the one they did wasn't bad (the cruise-ship scenario). And they brought the seals back in! Okay, they don't do much, but they're cute.

The Ski Show The Ski Show also does new scenarios every year. But this year's was well, lame-o-rama. It was this whole thing about trying to sell condos- which has NOTHING to do with a ski show. And frankly, the juxtaposition was quite weird, and the performers who normally were on the ski team hardly had anything to do. My mother's guess was that the new owners of Marine World weren't paying too well, hence the lack of people.

Normally there's some sort of ski-off bad-guy plot, but this one was silly- rednecks and the condo girl (who bore a frightening resemblance to Anna and Angela) fighting over a shack that CG bought from them a year ago and was going to blow up- which doesn't explain why they'd go ballistic over it NOW, or agree to a ski-off for it. There were exactly three good things about the show:

1. The ski-off between the rednecks and Ted the intern were quite funny, everyone smacking each other around and falling off their skis.
2. The redneck in the orange suit smashed into the ski ramp, and CG yelled, "You killed Kenny!" (Love those South Park references!)
3. Ted the intern was cute.

Elephant Encounter Good little show. Done well. Elephant funny. 'Nuff said.

The Tiger Show

My dad and I have this fight every time we go. I like to go to the bird show (birds are cute, show is funny). He hates the bird show ("they do the same stuff every time"- so does every other show, Dad). This year he won and we went to the tiger show instead. I've never really liked it in the past- frankly, they didn't do much except for posing on chairs or little leaps. But this year it stunk to hell.

Reason #1: The seating. They put the new show in another spot, where I think they used to just have the observatory area (Tiger Island). The tiger area is this fenced-off square, 3/4 of it pond and 1/4 land. The land area has nice benches put directly in front of it, and the water area is this sloped area where you sit on the ground. When sitting in the benches, you cannot see the water area. When sitting on the floor by the water, you cannot see the land. And they wouldn't let me stand in the middle (although they didn't let me know this until it was too late for me to sit ANYWHERE- I had to sit practically in Dad's lap. And they had stared at me standing there for fifteen minutes previously. What kinda morons are you guys?). Half the show takes place on the land and half in the water, they tell you- this ensures that nobody will be able to view the entire show!

Reason #2: The trainers and tricks. One of the things you notice (or used to notice) was that if an animal missed a trick, they made him/her do it over again until they got it right. Heck, they even did that at the ski show. But here, when a lion wouldn't do a leap (one trick out of her repertoire of two), they let her go. Hello, that's not training the animals. There were a few cute tricks with the tigers, but not many. One climbing a tree was about as interesting as it got.

Reason #3: The overly-hyped tiger swimming. This is the only place where you can see tigers swimming. Tigers love to swim. This is what they tell you. While I'll admit here that I couldn't see very much at all from my vantage point, this didn't appear to be the case in the show. The trainers musta spent fifteen minutes running in the pool and swinging toys at the tigers' heads (they warn you that if you sit in the front you'll get wet. This is true, because the trainers throw a LOT of water around. You'll get wetter here than you will at the dolphin show, I betcha), trying to get them in the water. I don't think they wanted to swim. And the pool seemed a bit shallow for that anyway, since from what I could see all the tigers did was RUN through the water. They did this for the last 20 minutes of the show. It was boring as shit.

The Stunt Show-Curse of the Lost City This one sounded promising, in the Indiana Jones mold. A crazy professor is after a gold statue that will enable him to change shape. A good guy is trying to stop him. Meanwhile, another bad professor and his idiot sidekick are also out for gold in the cursed lost city of Zsinj. And yes, there are some nice stunts, beating up moments, tricks with fire and revolving doors. But like the ski show, the plot sucked. Well, more like things were left out. The evil professor did NOTHING else but pound on his chest in Tarzan gear and yell, "I am Wonomba, sorcerer and ruler of the lost city of Zsinj!" No shape changing (you don't even see the statue again after the start), no fight to the death with good guy. Heck, you coulda cut his part out and missed nothing. The show ends with the other bad professor being shot. My guess is that the show ran long and they just cut it off in the middle. Mistake, guys.

The Animals The animals were great. Except for the tigers, of course.

The Souvenirs I got two glass figurines (octopus and skunk) and a butterfly necklace.

Links to other sites on the Web

The Shadow Zone- Web Resources (Tigger, bottle)

Since I probably won't get to check this again before I leave, just send e-mail to my usual address below, and hopefully I'll be able to check it when I get back.
To the previous page To the previous entry To the next entry To the June archives To the most recent entries To go home

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page