We just spent the last 3 days at Sea World, San Antonio. Paul and I don’t get each other anything for Christmas for the most part, we usually buy something for the house and call it our present. This year we wanted to use our Sea World year passes before they expired, and so we counted the hotel cost as our gift to each other.
** Quickly I want to say that in no way was I compensated for this post! We also got NO discounts on anything that I am talking about other than the ones I found myself! I just want to give you guys the information that I have on a fun place to visit!
If you live within 4 hours of a Sea World, it is worth at some point in your life to get a year pass and try to make it a few times. Locations are:
There are a few things that you can do to really save some money on your trip. The thing unfortunately that you can not save much money on are the tickets themselves, but I have a few ideas to make it a little less painful!
Buy a year Fun Pass if you are going more than 1 day! Even if you know you are not coming back, 1 day pass is $59, a year pass is $79. If you were going 2 days over a weekend it is till cheaper to get the year pass.
Fun Card – I bought these for the kids and I. The 2012 prices are $59 and $49 for JUST Sea World. Prices for Sea World and Aquatica (the water park) are $89 (adult) and $79 (kids).
Benefits…
- Purchase your 2012 Fun Card now and get the rest of 2011 for free!
- Unlimited admission for 2011 and 2012
- SeaWorld San Antonio and Aquatica options available
- No waiting in line for tickets
*Personally I could not imagine going in the summer and not going to the water park. It is a MUST for us. Also, the new one they are building in San Antonio is AMAZING!
Annual Pass– I buy 1 of these for Paul. It is $129. This gets us free parking and 20% off everything in the park. I figure we only need one, and he is the one usually driving. Parking is like $15 so it is worth it.
Benefits…
- SeaWorld San Antonio and Aquatica options available
- Free parking, merchandise and dining discounts, and discounted guest admission with the 1 Year Pass
- Affordable EZ Pay Passes
- Access to 10 SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment parks with the Platinum Pass
- Get to the park when it opens!!! Get in line QUICKLY for the big rides. You will have about 1 1/2 to ride the big rides before the lines are 2 hours long.
- Make sure to see the main shows first. You will need to be there about 30 min before the show starts to get seats.
Total cost this trip to get into the park: $0
Once you have tickets, lets talk about food! You can bring SNACKS and a small 12″ cooler in. They will search it. I bring in water for the baby and all the kids no matter their size has a water bottle with water. I always bring, crackers, fruit, cookies, dried fruit, etc. in and have never had them make me take it out.
We leave a cooler in the car with lunch meat and cheese, plus drinks and soda. I REFUSE to pay $10 each person for lunch or a meal. When it is time to eat or everyone is hungry we go out to the car and eat lunch on the tailgate! I figure we save about $70 a day doing that!
In the Park: They have souvenir cups in the park like the one to the left. They are $8.99 to buy for the year and soda or lemonade refills are $.99. I didn’t buy a cup but 2 of my kids did last March and we brought them with us this time to use.
Total cost for us this trip in the park: $13 for 3 days!
Hotel ~
Obviously if you have someone to stay with that is the best route. We don’t. Last time I was able to get a good deal on our hotel through a daily deal site. We need either 2 rooms or a bigger room than most, so this always costs us more than most people. This time I actually used Priceline. I have not used them in a very long time. But between Christmas and New Years it is very slow (unless there is a BIG bowl game) and rooms are cheap. I got a 2 room, 1 king, 2 queen, sleeper sofa deal for only $99 a night at a Holiday Inn Express by Sea World.
I would suggest Travelocity also. I can usually find a good deal there as well. If you know far enough in advance start watching the daily deal sites in the city you are going to and watch for deals on rooms or bed and breakfasts.
ALWAYS make sure to get a hotel that has FREE full breakfast and FREE internet (a must for a blogger)! I don’t want the added expense of paying for breakfast or the hassle of trying to feed kids granola bars in the room 🙂
Total cost of hotel for 2 nights: $235 with taxes
** I also used Restaurants.com to get 2 different gift vouchers for dinner. I got a $50 one ( to Magic Time Machine) and a $25 one ( to a Sports Bar/Restaurant by the hotel) for only $7!
Because we didn’t have to buy our tickets this time, the entire trip for 3 days with 9 people cost us just under $400. Which I think is pretty dang good!
Part comedian, part Dad, part athlete. He will boss around your children while they play ball.
Just as angelic as she looks, this girl could easily raise a Village by herself, and all the children would grow up to be President.
Self proclaimed, she would be a webkinz dog. Because, "they're cute, and puppies are too. And they're sweet and they always get along with other puppies."
This mini-Martha Stewart can handle ANY craft you send her way. She isn't all bows and rainbows, she's got karate kid moves!
Not "Pick-Me-Up" like caffeine, she wants you to pick her up! AND NOW!
Anything that can be destroyed WILL be destroyed!
Practically Perfect in Every Way for now! Nicknamed "The Panda" she is rolly polly and lives by the motto, "the little one, is KING!"
The resident Labradoodle, Miller got his name because Mom won and got to name the baby! Need something chewed up? He'll take care of it. Especially if it's expensive..
Have you been to Magic Time Machine yet? It is sooo much fun! Always encourage someone in your group to ask the server where the restroom is!
Yes we went the other night! That place is a HOOT! Yep we asked where the bathroom was and got an escort! The kids LOVED it, it is the weirdest place ever!
WOW Tiffany!! Awesome job! You have to plan my Disneyland trip this summer, haha! We go every year but no matter how hard I try we still end up paying a ton for everything!!
Tiffany – Are you allowed to bring food or drink into the park? I’m sure it’s expensive to eat there
Yes you can bring snacks. You can NOT bring entire meals or like a subway bag of sandwiches.
You can take sandwiches in if they are cut in half or forths for a child.
Also it is worth it to buy the cups we have had two of our for four years and they still refill them for .99.
We live 5 min. from Sea World San Antonio. Refillable cups are a must have and totally worth it. It also makes sense to buy one parent a pass to get the free parking and discount and the rest as fun cards.
Another Freebie we discovered in the water park was to turn in any locker keys left in the lockers. They give you a $5 gift card/voucher to use on anything in the park!
plus, because San Antonio is such a tourist town , lots of OTHER attractions, including San Antonio zoo, river walk boat trips, ETC give a discount if you show your sea world pass!
we just missed you, were in SA before the holidays!
If you do choose to eat at the park (San Antonio), there is a Rosita’s Pizza near the lake that is all you can eat pizza, salad, pasta, and desert for $10. Plus you can refill your big souvineer cup at no additional cost! Worth every penny to sit in the AC and relax for a few minutes!
we do the same every year, except for the hotel. We usually search price line and all the other websites but we found choice hotels (comfort inn, etc) to work for us. You can get a good sized room with 2 bed and a fold out for $100 depending on what weekend you go. We also have 5 kids so we need room, sometimes we travel with our dogs so we need a place for them. But if you join their club for free(they also have packages we are free) you can score points and reedem for free hotel night(s) and upgrades anywhere. I would check it out. I am from San Antonio originally so I know where to go, but we live in Richmond, TX so traveling with 5 kids and 2 dogs sometimes is a chore! Sea World is great.
If you have a popcorn lover in the family you can buy the souvenir popcorn bucket and then just buy refills. It’s good over various years too, just like the souvenir cups. My 4 yr old LOVES popcorn so this helped us avoid meltdowns and was still frugal!
OMG I want to go now too, for my birthday (near the end of jan)! Do you have any more suggestions about going there? Just looked up reviews for the magic time machine, and it seems like a bunch of their reviews are really bad! what did you guys have, and is it really that gross? (the food, not the atmosphere) please elaborate more on everything!
Maybe I didnt’ see it right but you bought your husband a $129 pass to get discounts and then fun pass for all of you? I see you have 7 kids and we have 5 so up there with ya almost!! So do you buy his pass first to get a discount on the other passes or how does that work? I just noticed it said discount for them.
To get discounts once you are inside the park. like on food, etc. Not on passes. Sorry about the confusion!
We have gone with our three boys twice. We did stay at the Drury one night..got a great deal but it was a nightmare. The room reeked first like smoke then like bleach when they came in to “deodorize” it. My youngest was just a toddler followed me out of the room when I was going down to get something from the lobby. I didn’t realize it until I heard him as the elevator doors closed…I hit the button but couldn’t get it in time…so there I was going down and my toddler was all alone up on the floor..luckily a maintenence guy grabbed him and had him sitting on his cart drinking a sunkist when I RAN up the stairs from teh next floor..scared the bejesus outta me.
But …we now stay at a cabin type little motel called Sun Country..not the fancy one near seaworld..but about 20 minutes from seaworld. We always get a two room cabin that is either on the playground (a HUGE rectangle sand filled playground that fills the whole courtyard)..or one that is right off the pool…which takes up the other half of the huge courtyard.. each cabin has a private porch, a mini fridge and microwave as well as coffeepot. They do a continental breakfast with danishes, cereal, muffins etc..every morning and even a happy hour type of get together at poolside in the evenings…and the guests are all super nice. Last time we went we scored a deal $68 a night!!! and we did the seaworld thing for two days..had the buy one day get 2nd for free tickets..
We visited the HEB treehouse children’s museum. (think it’s been renamed)
Did the riverwalk, the alamo, and lots of other of the touisty places.
we go a few times a yr and do the same things you do! great little vaca for not a lot of $$! I go on priceline to do a bid for a room right before we are about to leave.. some bigger hotels are desperate to fill their rooms so I can get a great hotel with full breakfast and evening bar for $60. so that’s big saving!
Hi Tiffany,
Have you ever looked into renting a house for the week instead of a hotel? We stayed off site once in Florida (near Disney and not far from Sea World) and it was heaven. The house was amazing and even had a pool and hot tub (we didn’t use the hot tub, those creep me out). The house slept 8 people and was so neat and clean and new looking. The cost was far less than any hotel we could find, around $75 a night in the house. Of course you pay a deposit, but you get that back as long as nothing is ruined/broken etc. I recommend looking into this as an option. I also did this in California once, well worth it.
Oh, it also had 2 master suites and 3 bathrooms! Two other bedrooms as well and 2 dining areas, one formal one not.
That is a great idea, and I have wanted to! What site did you use to find one?