We've got lots of updates from SeaWorld San Antonio in today's post! So much has been going on at the park recently that we figured instead of writing 4 blog posts about each thing, we'd combine it into one EPIC blog post about all of the new events and attractions that have been added recently. We'll break it down into our review of this year's Seven Seas Food Festival, the new Turtle Reef expansion, Aquatica's new water slides, and Sea World's newest quick service restaurant- Pretzel Kitchen. In that order, so if you have a particular section that calls to you, you'll know where to scroll!

This is SeaWorld Texas' FIFTH annual Seven Seas Festival, and it's still one of our favorite food festivals of any theme park. Every year, the park has tried to step it up with new booths, more food and beverage options, and new seating/lounging areas. This year, we definitely appreciate the additions made to the menus. While there was not a new booth added to this year's lineup, the park made an effort to update each of the existing booth's menus. 

SeaWorld still offers tasting lanyards which we HIGHLY recommend purchasing. You can go with a 10-item lanyard for $45, or a 15-item lanyard for $60. The good news is pass member discounts DO apply to lanyards, so depending on what kind of pass you have you could be saving up to $18 on a single lanyard. 

Lanyards also include a free souvenir cup for any beverages you choose to sample with your pass. 

Also be sure to grab an event guide with detailed menus, booth, and entertainment information. Each booth has a dedicated page in the guide that you can get stamped when you've purchased an item from there. If you get a stamp from each booth, you can turn your booklet in for a FREE dessert of your choosing! Worth it! 

There are 9 booths at SeaWorld San Antonio's Seven Seas Festival. We tried *almost* everything at each booth (with help- I promise), and these are our highlights from each:

Cocktails: Mexico Sunset and Caribbean Punch.     Food: Mojo Pork with Black Beans and Rice.
The cocktails are both good and pretty similar in our minds, I can't even tell you which is which or what their flavor is. They both taste like sweet, fruity cocktails. The Mojo Pork was surprisingly good! It is pulled roasted pork shoulder marinated in sour orange, garlic and oregano served with rice, beans, and bread. The flavor was really nice on the pork, and it was such a HUGE serving. You definitely get your money's worth here. 

Pictured left to right: Braised Beef Street Tacos, Deep Fired Elote con queso, Shredded Chicken Verde Tacos, and the Elote again lol.
The beef tacos which featured braised beef, queso fresco, pickled red onion, radish, serrano pepper and micro cilantro were awesome!! The Deep fried elote AKA deep fried corn on the cob with mayo queso cotija, chili powder and lime was also really good!! The chicken verde tacos with diced green chilies, ancho-pepper cheese and pickled red onion weren't our favorite, but they weren't bad by any means.

So much promise and potential here at the Italy booth. This is the one we were probably the most excited for, and I think it may have ended up being our least favorite one.
The booth offers a variety of different flatbreads, a meatball slider, and a cannoli.

The only new addition here is the Greek Zucchini Fritters or Kolokithokeftedes ​(no idea how to even begin pronouncing that, but it looks fun).

And although not new, we have to shout the lamb burger with spicy feta and gyro with Tzatziki sauce. 
The lamb burger is always a solid choice, and the gyro is pretty good as well. 

Also not a lot of new options at this booth, but some of it was new to us. 

This is one of our favorite booths because it has a lot of options and they're all good!

Seriously, ALL of these options are good! We loved the sauce on the chicken wings, and I may even venture to say I enjoyed this rib more than the ones in Japan. 
In our opinion, you can skip on the Kalula Pork Sliders. 
​And we, unfortunately, did not get to try any of the Poke Bowls...YET!

And as stated above- IT'S A PINA COLADA...IN A PINEAPPLE!! Love it. 

Brazil is admittedly not our favorite booth. That's not to say it's bad by any means, there's just so much at the other booths that we love, that we always end up ranking this one last. 

There you go! All 9 booths covered. The Seven Seas Food Festival runs for one more weekend, so if you haven't been yet, get there SOON! It's truly worth it!

Still with us?? That last section was a lot to digest (pun ALWAYS intended). 
This section is all about the newest SeaWorld San Antonio expansion- Turtle Reef!

SeaWorld Texas hosted a Pass member exclusive event for the grand opening of Turtle Reef a couple of weekends ago. It was really neat that the park took the time to put something together to raise excitement for the new area. 
The new area of the park includes Turtle Reef Sea Turtle viewing area, Sea Swinger ride, and Riptide Rescue ride. 

The pass member grand opening event featured meet and greets with Shamu, free Krispy Kreme turtle donuts and tumblers, a few words from the park president, a ribbon-cutting ceremony, and exclusive ride times.

Riptide Rescue (Sea Turtle Rescue Mission themed ride)

Sea Swinger (Swinging ride)
Does not go upside down, but does get almost parallel with the ground.

Around the ride area you can find several of these cool fact boards with information about conversation and SeaWorld's rescue initiatives. 

You made it through the lengthiest sections of this blog post! Congratulations!
​You're prize awaits: water slides!

SeaWorld isn't the only one with a new addition this year. Aquatica, SeaWorld's waterpark, also got some love for the 2019 season. Ihu's Breakaway falls is a new slide complex developed by Proslide that features the tallest drop-style slides in Texas! 

There are 2 of the "drop-style" slides in the complex that require you to step into a pod where you anxiously await the dropping of the floor beneath you, and there is 1 regular body slide. It's still a thrilling body slide, because I mean come on have you SEEN how tall it is, but not having the floor-drop element definitely eases the anxiety of it a bit.

Are you excited to take this almost 80° plunge?! 

Pretzel Kitchen replaced the previous spot, Sea Star Market Cafe, which featured sandwiches, salads, and wraps. And I think it's safe to say this is a delicious upgrade.

This is new restaurant option features a variety of different savory and sweet pretzels.

You also have the option to add on side dipping sauces which we are all about! So we ordered the cream cheese frosting, spicy mustard, and beer cheese. 
The Texas Favorite is a giant pretzel topped with beer cheese and Hot Cheetos. Okay, first of all, OMG. Second of all, it is definitely a Texas favorite. As an avid Hot Cheetos fan since practically birth, I am LOVING the utilization of this spicy treat in so many things recently. Now, we do want to point out that the menu says this pretzel comes topped with beer cheese, but the employee working the day we ordered topped ours with nacho cheese. When we asked about it, he told us that it should actually be nacho cheese. So, not sure if the sign or the employee was mistaken, but honestly, it's good either way and you can always order an additional side of any of the sauces. 
​The Cinnamon and Sugar nuggets were a perfect dessert snack. I can honestly see us ordering these pretty often whenever in the park because they're easy to eat and share. And the side of cream cheese was completely worth it!
​The Sausage on a Stick Pretzel was messy! It tasted awesome, but definitely make sure not to ditch the paper boat it comes in because the sausage will definitely drip. This paired well with both cheese dips and the mustard!

Overall we're happy that the park decided to bring a pretzel shop to San Antonio! We love Mama's Pretzel Kitchen in SeaWorld Orlando so we were excited as soon as we heard pretzels were coming here! Plus any new additions in the food and beverage department are always exciting!

Congratulations on making it all the way through. Although, this should have been something you actually enjoyed rather than a feat. We want to thank everyone for your continued support of Ride or Dine! We love taking crazy cool trips across the country to different theme parks and blogging about it along the way! If you haven't already taken the time to follow us on social media make sure to do that below! And don't forget to comment and let us know your thoughts on what we've posted! Have any of you seen these new SeaWorld San Antonio expansions yet, or plan to soon? We want to know!! Until next time, have a whale of a day!

This past weekend we visited our home park, SeaWorld San Antonio, to check out their newest event: Bier Fest! This German-themed event features over 100 types of beer, live German entertainment, and several unique food offerings. You know we love a good food festival, so when SeaWorld announced plans for this year's newest event, we were all over it! ​

SeaWorld Orlando and both Busch Gardens parks are also offering Bier Fest (at different times of the year) and we're planning on visiting BG Tampa in a few days to compare our home park's festival to theirs. But for now, here are the highlights of San Antonio's Bier Fest and a few bonus construction photos of the park as well!

The festival was contained to one area of the park. When we first got there I was a bit let down because I thought it would be more spread out throughout the park. However, upon spending a mere 5 minutes in that heat/humidity, I was grateful to not have to walk far between booths. 

Although there were no food sampler options for this event, there was a beer sampler lanyard. It's $25 for ten 4 oz beer samples. We each got one, which ended up being more than enough! There are a lot of beers to try, but 10 per person is a lot! Even if they are small. 

There were several stands set up both right outside and inside the newly built "Biergarten." Each stand offered a few selections of a different variety of beer. There were IPA's, Bocks, Ambers, Largers, Ciders, and more!

Each stand offered 3-5 unique draught options and 2-3 bottled or canned options. 

Inside the actual Biergarten there were a few more beer stands, a stage, and food booths!

Not a ton of food options here, but we think there were enough. This event is more focused on the beer and theming rather than food like Seven Seas is.
​So, this amount of offerings was perfect!

Potato Pancakes with Sour Cream and Applesauce and Beer Cheese Dog.
The beer cheese dog was AWESOME! So. Much. Cheese. 
The potato pancakes on their own weren't too special, but I've got to say, they paired really nicely with the dog.
​As delicious as cheese is, every third bite needs to be something different. The potato pancakes were perfect for that.

Smoked jalapeno and cheese bratwurst on a stick. 
Another huge hit. The sausage was really good. A perfect blend of spicy and cheesy.

Streusel Cake.
​A personal favorite from the festival. It was like a moist, gooey-centered coffee cake. I loved it. I wanted 4 more. 
I will say, I thought this would be elevated by being warmed up slightly and served with ice cream.
​But, that's just me being extra. 

So, overall I'd say that we really enjoyed SeaWorld's first Bier Fest! It was a bit small and contained to one area, but, just like the Seven Seas Festival, we anticipate this to grow and grow as the years go by. We're excited to see SeaWorld create new, fun ideas for the park year-round. 
This event definitely got us excited for Howl-O-Scream (starting September 28th) and this weekend's visit to Busch Gardens. AND added bonus: BG just made their 2019 announcement and 2020 "hybrid" tease announcement today which has us feeling all giddy inside for the Busch/SeaWorld family of parks. 

Summer has finally arrived and theme park season is back in full swing! This weekend was the opening of SeaWorld San Antonio's new summer celebration: Electric Ocean. We decided to check it out, along with the new Sesame Street Party Parade and nighttime shows. While visiting the park we also saw some exciting newly renovated areas as well as some developing construction. We got some photos and we can continue to update everyone as developments are made, but for now, it's fun to guess what the park may have in store!

Electric Ocean is SeaWorld's new summer nighttime experience.
​They've set up an area of the park (from just before WaveBreaker to just after Great White) with EDM DJ's, bars, snack stands, and even dance clubs. It's an interesting concept. It's very visually appealing, and it's a fun idea, but maybe because we were there on a Sunday night..it just seemed to be missing the people! The dance floors were pretty empty, with the exception of some of the costumed employees and a few children.
Hopefully it'll get a little bit more popular on Friday and Saturday nights going forward. 

The Deep Sea Silent Disco was a dance floor set up across from Wave Breaker. There is no DJ here, you actually rent headphones from the glow shop set up behind it and you listen to your own choice of music. Hence the "silent" disco. 

Headphone rental pricing (seems a little much to us).

Cool giant Lite Brite board set up next to Silent Disco

The Chill Out Bar is very easy to miss. We actually walked right by it and had to back track and study the map to find it. The whole idea is a club that stays cold..so we get that the door needs to stay closed. But, they could definitely do with a larger "open" sign! Maybe a sign on the actual door as well?

They had some cool drinks, above is the full menu. (Shock Wave pictured)

We also tried the nitrogen boozy ice cream. It tasted awesome! And it's a fun process to watch. I will say, though, it took them a good 20 minutes to make it. I do think they were just trying to figure out the machine and I don't anticipate it continuing to be such a long process for the rest of the summer, but I would still plan accordingly if you're trying to hit up a show after grabbing your ice cream!

Other fun "Electric Ocean" snacks.

Also new for 2018 is SeaWorld's Sesame Street Party Parade. The park has added new designated parade seating and viewing areas as well as painted parade markers on the grounds throughout the route. It was a cute parade and everyone seemed to enjoy it. The entire parade route was packed with people.

New parade viewing area (a few hours before the parade start)

SeaWorld also brought back the summer favorites from last year: Sea Lions Tonite, Shamu's Light Up the Night, and Hydro Power Extreme FX

You can scroll through photos we took of the construction happening in the park as well as some of the newly renovated areas. The park is doing a great job of making improvements. Any thoughts on what they may be doing in these developing areas? Possibly Halloween event related? New Ride? The possibilities are endless!

Keeping in theme with our last couple of posts, we're staying local for this week's blog. We're taking everyone on a frightful adventure around one of our favorite park's Halloween events: Sea World San Antonio's Howl-O-Scream! It's become tradition for us to attend Howl-O-Scream every year, and it's something we really look forward to. The last few years we've started noticing a new effort put forth by the SeaWorld team (which we mentioned seeing in their food and beverage department in an earlier post) and it has made attending the yearly event even more exciting. This year we focused on all the new food and drink booths, new nighttime show, and of course their newest haunted attraction: Dark Side of the Gardens. 

We decided to start making our way around the park counter-clockwise beginning with the I.C.U/ Rehab area of the event. This area of the park features a haunted house that's returned a few years in a row and hasn't really seen too many updates. But, SeaWorld definitely made up for that in the theming and scares around the house this year. Walking into the area you're greeted by deranged hospital patients, nurses selling I.V. shots, and a brand new bar called Rehab. 

The next area we hit was the Hunter's Hangout/Prey area. This entire part of the park is themed to the haunting idea of being hunted like "prey." This haunted maze is our favorite and has been a part of the Howl-O-Scream lineup for five years now (which is blowing our minds because it still feels brand new to us!) You're thrown into a backwoods camp-site and quickly begin to realize that the other campers are there for only one thing- to hunt you. The maze has maintained its creepiness over the years thanks to the scare actors which are a little too realistic to ever let that uncomfortable feeling pass. Between their borderline inappropriate comments, separating groups and even couples through different parts of the maze, and squeezing people through tight spaces, these actors have got it figured out! Every time I walk through this haunt I can't help but think that the whole idea would make a great movie (...or maybe it already is one..?) Either way, it's a scary-good time! 

After this, we headed toward the newest haunt in the park: Dark Side of the Gardens. This haunted maze replaced a long-time favorite of local SeaWorld fans: The Frightmare Forest. Although we were excited to see a new addition to the haunted house line-up at the park, we were a little sad at the idea of losing a classic. Admittedly though, the forest was never one of our favorite haunts, it was more of the IDEA of losing something we were so used to. The Dark Side of the Gardens is a maze themed to the idea of living nightmares and the unknown. The haunt was filled with several things that definitely made us scratch our heads and look at each other in confusion, but I think that was the point of the whole thing. Less jumpy scares, more psychological scares with this one. The most memorable moment from 2017's visit probably came from a line that one of the scare actors said to us inside this house (I don't want to give anything away but it was just a weird, out-there comment and we'll never forget it) and that's saying something. 

Located next to the entrance for this new haunted attraction was the Z Bar. An apocalyptic-themed bar complete with zombie bartenders, cocktails, shots, and food! At this point we'd been seeing these test tube and syringe shots being offered around the park and decided to give in and finally try them. We each had a test tube shot which is described as a "special blend of punch and rum." It was definitely more rum than punch and lacked any real "special" flavor, but, for $4.99 I guess that's a pretty good deal!

The last area of the park we spent time in was "Vampire Point." Although this area doesn't have a haunted attraction attached to it, it's still really well-themed and offers a bar, photo-op, and short live show. The bar, "Blood Thirsty," offered vampire-themed concoctions made by the undead bar staff. Like the other pop-up bars around the park, this one also offered cute souvenir glowing glasses for their tasty cocktails. There was also a short live show which featured vampires singing and dancing around this lounge-y area for guests to sit and watch. It definitely had a creepy vibe, which is what they were going for, so props to them. 

At this point, we didn't realize how late it had gotten or that the houses all closed 30 minutes prior to park closing, so we didn't get to do the last two haunts. Unearthed and Karver's Kradle. However, we've done both houses before in previous visits, so it was okay. 

We ended the night by making our way up to the front of the park for the new nighttime show: "Jack is Back!" Although the park typically ends the night with a show near the entrance featuring the event's haunted host, Jack, this year's show seemed better than others! It not only featured everyone's favorite creepy pumpkin man, it also featured singers, dancers, fireworks, and an illusionist! It was the perfect ending to a very fun Halloween night! 

Howl-O-Scream runs on weekends from now until October 29th, so you still have a couple of weekends left to enjoy! We're going to try to make it back at least once before it's over because we enjoyed it so much! And you can bet that the tradition won't end this year, and we'll be returning to SeaWorld's Howl-O-Scream for years to come. Until next time, Happy Howl-O-Ween!