Aquatica San Antonio in San Antonio, TX

Aquatica is Sea World's water park, for a separate entry fee, and is a great and exciting way to beat the Texas Summer heat. With its family friendly atmosphere to its exciting water thrill rides, this park has a little something for everyone. You can relax at the giant wave pool with the sand beach just adjacent, or get your adrenaline rush on Ohaus drop slide where the bottom drops out and sends you on an exhilarating thrill. The Stingray falls family raft ride ends with a unique view of a sting ray exhibit from inside the tank (in a tunnel) My family and I had a blast at this park and look forward to returning.

Such a fun park to go to. A little out of the way from the downtown area but not too bad... Remember to bring sunscreen

We took our 10-year old twins to Aquatica for the day. They were very impressed. We were also impressed - but not favorably. Aquatica is a huge water park adjacent to Sea World. There are numerous impressive water slides, swimming pools, a massive wave pool and beach, a lazy river, a place where you and your kids can swim with stingrays ... the list goes on and on. Your kids cannot help but be impressed with all of this. But if your kids are like mine, they probably think SpongeBob Squarepants would make a fine POTUS and that ice cream is most important of the five food groups. I was impressed with how Aquatica has been cleverly planned to fleece you at every turn. They carefully anticipate your every need and do all they can to make you pay dearly for every scrap of comfort or convenience. Although your children will enjoy it, your day at Aquatica will be a memorably brutal, uncomfortable, expensive experience. ESSENTIALS YOU SHOUD BRING: 1) suitable sandals - the sidewalks will be too hot to walk on in bare feet; 2) sunscreen, lots and lots of sunscreen; 3) hats (the treks across the parking lot alone warrant a good sun hat); 4) towels; 5) a foolproof plan for reuniting with your brood or tracking devices for your kids - once you let them loose in this enormous park you won’t be able to find them again and they won’t be able to easily find you; 6) LOTS OF CASH or a credit card with a high limit. Items 1-4 can be purchased on site but you won’t like the prices. DON’T BRING any food or beverages. That is strictly verboten because conflicts with Aquatica’s business model which depends on making you pay dearly for everything you might need or want. Admission to Aquatica for one day for a family of four will set you back about $120. If it ended there you might not feel too bad. After all - your kids are worth it. But the fleecing process begins before you get out of your car. Parking your car for the day will cost $24. Mind you, that’s a minimum for parking. Go to Google Earth and check out the size of the parking lot! It’s enormous! For $24 you can park in the “general parking section” which can be a challenge to traverse under the best of circumstances. On a hot, south Texas summer day, the trek from general parking to the entrance is truly an ordeal. If the general parking area is nearly full and you are forced to park in its most remote reaches, you and your kids might wish you’d worn your hiking boots. When you’ve finally traversed the general parking zone you will be more than halfway to the entrance. Now you’ve reached the outer edge of the “preferred parking” zone. It costs just under $30 to park your car here for a day. No matter how many empty spaces there may be in “premium parking,” you cannot park here unless you paid the premium price. So you keep walking. There is no alternative to walking. There are no cute parking lot shuttles to whisk you between your car on the far reaches of this blisteringly hot sea of asphalt and the entrance. If there were any such shuttles, you’d probably be asked shell out another $10 to ride it - and that would probably be the price of a one-way ticket. There are two critical rules here: A) Make sure you didn’t leave anything behind in the car that you might need or want in the park. You don’t want to make the harrowing trek across the parking lot again. B) Take careful note of where you parked your car. Better yet, use your phone to photograph the sign designating your parking lot sector. After spending the day under the hot Texas sun, eating lots of greasy food and drinking too much beer, you could die wandering around that immense parking lot looking for your car in the sweltering late afternoon Texas heat. Keep walking! With perseverance and by the grace of God you will eventually reach the entrance. Now you can stand in line to go through security. Standing in the hot sun in line for the security check will provide a good reminder (and allow plenty time) to apply sun screen. When you finally get inside Aquatica you can try to find lounge chairs for your family in the “first come, first served” general seating areas. These seating areas are easy to recognize. They have no shade and the lounge chairs are packed together so tightly that if you’re from New York City you may find yourself longing for the wide open spaces of Times Square on New Year’s Eve. I’ve seen shanty towns in the third world that were less crowded than this. But Aquatica also offers preferred seating areas. These seating areas are less densely packed, offer some shade and tend to be more conveniently located to facilities and food and drink. You can also rent a covered cabana for the day. Here you will have shade, comfy lounge chairs, easy access to some of the nicer pools and, best of all, some personal space! Renting a cabana for a day will will set you back $400. Lest you think that was a typo - renting a cabana for a day will set you back FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS! But, looking on the bright side, compared to the cost of treating a family member for heat stroke or skin cancer, $400 is really a bargain. Some of the attractions (like the watersides and the stingray tank) can have horrifically long lines. But there is a solution for this too and, as you might have guessed by now, it’s going to cost you. For an added fee you can buy “upgrades” so your kids can avoid standing in line with the children of the unwashed masses. Even though we are very fortunate and can readily afford such luxuries, I decided not to buy these upgrades for my children. I really don’t want them to grow up to be remotely like Don Jr. or Ivanka. When it’s time to eat or drink anything - you have to trek to the food court areas to stand in line (in the sun). The prices are high ($8 hot dogs) and the quality is low. As best I could tell - there is no poolside service. Another available upgrade allows you and your family to eat and drink as much as you or they want without having to carry cash or credit cards around. But the cost of this option is absurdly high especially when you consider the low quality of the food and that you must still stand in line in the sun for the privilege of eating food that could be more appropriately used to fatten cattle. We won’t be back. There are better, more attractive options. I think they’re called beaches.

Great location they have a good parking place they have a good variety of animals Animals are well treated

Great rides for all in the family. The park is a great size. tons of good places to sit. They have services for special needs. All you do is tell guest services you have a special needs child/adult with you and they give you white wrist bands to use to help skip some of the lines. THANK YOU for this it really helps. You cannot bring your own life jacket unless it is coast guard approved. The jackets there are great! They even had one that fit my son who is 60lbs the had the leg strap which he needs.