Sea World/San Diego in December

beachdreamr1229

DIS Veteran
Joined
Mar 12, 2013
My kids requested a trip to Sea World for their birthdays and we'll be driving down the weekend after Christmas. I haven't been in about 6 or 7 years due to my own personal feelings on Sea World, but I always told myself if my kids requested to go, we would despite my feelings so that they could see it for themselves...

Anyway, I have never been during the holiday season. Can anyone give me an idea of what crowds will be like? Will rides and shows all be open? Are there any cool holiday things going on?

Also, trying to decide what to do the other day we're down there. It's a toss up. My kids are 9, 5, and 5 (the 5 year olds will be turning 6). My oldest son wants to explore the old town area, the mission, and pretty much the whole historic area as well as the embarcadero. My little ones want to go to the safari park. We'll have 3 adults and are staying in the mission valley area. Would it be reasonable to split up? Like, one or two of us could get dropped off at the safari park with the little ones while the rest go exploring? Are there easy public transit options? Or should we just pick one of those activities? Which would you do? I've been to everything from the list, but not since I was a kid, so I really have no basis for planning.
 
For Sea World, all the rides and shows will be open and they do have special events for the holidays. They do special Christmas versions of the shows, Santa visits and I believe they now have the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer characters. We used to have passes when our kids were little (10 years ago when we lived in SD) and just went two weeks ago after years away, and I was surprised at all the changes. There are tons of rides and much more of a focus on conservation and we only covered about half of it in a day, so you should have plenty to do.

For the other day, it's not really possible to split up and do the Safari Park and downtown/Old Town with one car unless someone is willing to do a lot of driving. The Safari Park, which I highly recommend and is perfect in December weather, is in Escondido at least a 45 minute drive from all the other activities you're talking about. If you want to split up, I would send the littles with the car up to the Safari Park and take public transportation to the other sites. There's a Trolley station in Mission Valley which will get you to Old Town or the embarcadero and my boys love traveling by Trolley. If that's too much walking, Uber/Lyft is readily available too. Another option would be to hit the Safari Park early and Old Town in the evening for dinner/exploring, or to do the Zoo instead of the Safari Park as that would be within dropping-off distance.
 

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