This past week we decided to brave the Texas heat and spend the day at SeaWorld San Antonio! Usually we try not to go to parks in the Texas summer unless we’re including a trip to the water park in our day, but this last Sunday we figured we’d be okay with riding the newest SeaWorld attraction, Wave Breaker, and some of the classic water rides to stay cool. Although the heat may have gotten us in the form of some pretty wicked sunburns, it was definitely worth it to check out some of the progress this park is making on the food and beverage side, and of course re-ride the new rollercoaster! First off, we want to start by saying that we have seen this park make some HUGE strides this year in creating some new and unique food and beverage options unlike anything we’ve ever seen at SeaWorld. As many SeaWorld fans know, this year San Antonio offered the third consecutive year of the Seven Seas Food and Wine Festival to park guests. And while the festival made several improvements from the previous years, in our opinion those haven’t even been the most exciting upgrades that this park has seen thus far. With the introduction of some of their new food booths, drink stands, and patios we are SO excited to be able to spend some time at this park and have multiple options for dining and snacking. And of course multiple things to review for all of you! On this last trip we started our day by heading straight towards the back of the park to ride Wave Breaker: The Rescue Coaster. We passed several of the cool new options for snacks and lounging (which we’ll blog about later) but had one particular new stand in mind. With the opening of the new coaster, SeaWorld also recently opened three new food and beverage stands located near the back of the park as well, directly across from their penguin exhibit. The stands offer a variety of snacks including some of the usual park options such as turkey legs, Italian ice, and sodas. However, unique to these stands AND San Antonio, they also offer gourmet hot dogs and “Penguin Bar” cocktails! Our first trip up to the stand we ordered the San Antonio Dog (for obvious reasons) and the Blue Hawaiin Daquiri and Caribbean Punch Cocktail. Both of the cocktails were delicious. You can either order a 20 oz cup or a 16 oz Souvenir cup for the drinks and we opted for the souvenir. Yes, you can get more alcohol by ordering a regular cup, but Brittany is a hoarder and also sacrifices had to be made for an instagram-worthy picture! The Carribean Punch was good but it was an obvious second palce to the daiquiri, which is honestly probably the best drink we’ve had in this park. Although we can’t tell you what flavor “blue” is, just know that it’s refreshing, and the exact right amount of sweet to be tasty but not overwhelming. The only downside is that since SeaWorld is a park dedicated to animal safety, they don’t offer straws and it was a bit annoying to sip a frozen drink from a hurricane glass without one. The hot dog was a totally crazy but brilliant combination that so obviously screams San Antonio it made us wonder why we hadn’t seen it before. It was an all beef hot dog, wrapped in bacon, deep fried, and topped with nacho cheese and hot Cheetos. My arteries are hurting just thinking back to it. Hot Cheetos and nacho cheese is a popular San Antonio snack, so dropping it on top of a hot dog just makes perfect sense. The best part of the entire hot dog experience here is that the SeaWorld employees make the hot dogs to order, so there’s not some gas station-esque roller keeping multiple dogs warm until you’re ready to order yours. Nothing gets you more amped up for food than waiting in anticipation as it’s being made right in front of you! The second trip up to the stand consisted of us ordering the Smirnoff Preperadas (more San Antonio lingo for you), which comes in mango-watermelon or green apple-cucumber. Both are topped with chamoy and actual pieces of watermelon or cucumber and we couldn’t decide which sounded better so we got both! The mango-watermelon was the winner of this round but they were both refreshing and very different than what we were expecting. Although they weren’t quite as good as the blue daiquiri, we may actually recommend trying these two instead. They’re more signature San Antonio drinks, and it’s always good to step out of your comfort zone. ;) We also ordered a Chicago dog, and a Build-your-own dog. If you’re a pickier eater, like Brittany, the build-your-own is a good way to still get to enjoy a gourmet dog without having to pick half of the ingredients off. Brittany built a Jalapeno Cheese dog and Parker enjoyed the entire Chicago dog. Both were great options, but the overall winner still has to be the San Antonio dog. I mean… it’s wrapped in bacon, it can’t lose! After finishing our drinks and hot dogs, we wandered over to the launch area for SeaWorld’s newest attraction- Wave Breaker: The Rescue Coaster. This unique coaster gives riders the chance to experience the feeling of racing across a lake on a jet ski. The ride was designed by the company, Intamin, who haven’t built a rollercoaster in the US in quite some time. So, rollercoaster enthusiasts are excited to see them making their way back to America. This double-launching coaster is inspired by the thousands of animal rescue missions that SeaWorld completes every year. So far there are 3 different story lines that you can experience as a rider, but, hopefully the park will modify this as time goes by, allowing for countless unique rides. Our only complaint about this coaster is that since this is a family coaster, (including children) the restraints will be tighter for most adults. We did notice that every few trains there were a couple of people who were not able to close their restraints, and unfortunately, had to exit the ride. So, if you’re concerned at all about the size of the cars, please make sure to use the “test seat” located at the ride entrance before waiting in line! Overall, this was a great addition for a park that hasn’t seen a new attraction of this caliber since the two of us were in high school, (we won’t say how long ago that was but the point is, it’s been a while), and we can’t wait to see what the future holds for this hometown park!
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AuthorsParker and Brittany Ruhmel- Lovers of all things food and theme park related! Categories
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August 2019
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