Parks Magic
SeaWorld's Pass Member Picnic Is Eight Days Out, and the Pass Member Ticket Is the One Still Marked Available Soon
News

SeaWorld's Pass Member Picnic Is Eight Days Out, and the Pass Member Ticket Is the One Still Marked Available Soon

Michael Travels
·
Published

SeaWorld Orlando's Pass Member picnic is eight days away, and on the park's own event page the only ticket carrying an availability caveat is the Pass Member one.

The page lists two tickets side by side. The first card is titled "Pass Member Picnic Ticket" and carries a subtitle directly under the name: "Available soon." The second card, "Service Member & Veteran Picnic Ticket," carries no such line. Both end in a Buy Now button. The label is not permanent furniture either: in archived copies of the page from May, July and August, neither card carried an availability line at all.

An outdoor buffet line on a sunny lawn with trees behind, a bearded man in a grey t-shirt at the left of the frame using tongs to load a plate, a woman in a teal tank top and another woman in grey holding plates of burgers and sides, a small girl holding a plush penguin, and stainless serving trays of grilled meats and rolls at right above foreground bowls of shredded cheese and shredded lettuce

SeaWorld's own illustration of the picnic buffet. Image: SeaWorld Orlando.

A caveat worth stating plainly, because it is the difference between an observation and an accusation: we can only see the public page. SeaWorld's September Pass Member news tells members to "Purchase your picnic ticket through the Pass Member portal," which sits behind a member login, and the Pass Member card's Buy Now button points at the sign in page. It is entirely possible the ticket is buyable once you are logged in. What is on the open web is one ticket flagged Available soon and one carrying no such flag, eight days out from the event.

Two cards, two destinations

The destinations do not quite match the copy either. The Service Member and Veteran card reads, "Available for active-duty service members and veterans to join the Pass Member Picnic celebration. Log in to ID.me to purchase your tickets." Its Buy Now button does not go to ID.me. It goes to SeaWorld's military discount page at /orlando/tickets/military-discount. The Pass Member card's button goes to /orlando/account/sign-in.

Three children and a man with a lanyard standing at a curved reef viewing window, watching a large sea turtle swim past at the left of the frame, with coral, rockwork and small fish visible through the glass and a girl in a pink top hugging a plush manatee

The photograph on the Pass Member ticket card, the one marked Available soon. SeaWorld's own alt text for it is "Children looking at a sea turtle." Neither ticket card is illustrated with food. Image: SeaWorld Orlando.

Four names for one picnic

The event's name is not settled either. Across SeaWorld's own surfaces it goes by four different names:

  • The event page headline and breadcrumb call it the Pass Member & Military Member Picnic.
  • The events index calls it the Pass Member & Military/Veteran Picnic.
  • The site navigation, which appears in the SeaWorld Orlando site header, calls it simply Pass Member Picnic, dated September 20. So does the September Pass Member news post.
  • The August Pass Member news post, still live, headed its version Military and Pass Member Picnic.

The billing varies below the headline too. On the events index, SeaWorld's description opens "Pass Members, active-duty service members, and veterans are invited to join us Sunday, September 20." In the September blog, the body copy never mentions military members at all; they appear only in the disclaimer.

The salad changes between paragraphs

Within one event page, the menu is listed three times, and no two of the three lists are identical. The opening paragraph lists "hamburgers, hot dogs, BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, macaroni salad, house salad, pit beans, and assorted cupcakes and cookies." Scroll down to the Price block and the same meal is described with "macaroni salad, chef salad, pit beans." The page's own menu module, further down again, lists House Salad, and is the only one of the three to include a drink: "Water or lemonade."

So the page says house salad once, chef salad once, and House Salad once more, and two of those three are in paragraphs sitting within a few hundred words of each other. For what it is worth, when we covered the September perks on August 29 the menu we quoted said chef salad, which is still what the September blog says today. Archived copies of the same event page from May, July and August, back when the URL was advertising the May and July editions of the picnic, say chef salad in all three of those spots and never say house salad, so chef salad is the older wording and the Price block is the one place the switch to house salad has not reached.

A smiling woman in a red, white and navy colour blocked sweatshirt pointing upward with her right arm while leaning against a man in a hoodie reading SEAWORLD 1964 SUPPLY CO., the two of them standing inside a curved acrylic aquarium tunnel with green lit water, rockwork and fish visible overhead and to either side

The photograph on the Service Member and Veteran ticket card, the one with no availability caveat. Image: SeaWorld Orlando.

The details that are not in dispute

Underneath the inconsistencies the practical details match across SeaWorld's surfaces. The picnic runs Sunday, September 20 from 12 to 4pm at Ports of Call. Tickets are "$10 per ticket when purchased online through the Pass Member portal or ID.me until to the day before the event, or $15 per ticket when purchased the day of the event (subject to capacity) at Ports of Call," SeaWorld's own stray word included. Entry is limited to "Pass Members and Military Members only, along with their guests. Limit 6 guests per person. Valid Pass or military ID required for entry," and the fine print adds a second, separate cap: "Limit 7 tickets per member."

Park admission and parking are required and not included, and there is no re-entry: "Please note, re-entry is not permitted for this event."

One last oddity. The page still sells the date as "an exclusive summer picnic." September 20 does land two days before the equinox, so it is technically accurate. The wording is not new to this edition either: archived copies of the page ran the same line for the May and July picnics.

Sources

Image credits: All three images are published by SeaWorld Orlando on the event page linked above.

Related News