People love watching penguins swim and waddle through the arctic-chilled water, and now SeaWorld Orlando has made it possible for visitors to watch them in specially designed habitat, according to USA Today.
Usually people have to travel long distances to see penguins up close, but beginning on May 24, SeaWorld will open its new attraction, "Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin," with Gentoo, King, Adelie and Rockhopper available to see visitors.
"If you listen, each species has a different type of vocalization," Mike Boos, the vice president of zoological operations at SeaWorld Orlando, said about the noises the penguins make."
Some of them make dolphin-like squeaks, some honk and some have a different sound altogether. They are also very curious animals.
"They all greet you in their own unique way," Boos said. "They just want to come over and see what you're doing."
The 245 penguins will live in their new habitat, where the temperature is kept at a chilled 30 degrees. Instead of a glass partition, which is usually used in exhibits to separate the animals from the visitors, the exhibit will feature a two-foot high rock wall, which will be there to keep the penguins from hopping into the crowd. The area will also include 50-foot glaciers and hand-blown icicles, as well as an underwater viewing area.
"Antarctica is a huge, vast and sometimes alien world that most humans have never seen in person, nor will they ever get to," Brian Morrow, the senior director of attraction development and design at SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment, said. To remedy this and provide an authentic experience for visitors, SeaWorld has replicated it, and guests can go through the exhibit on a ride.
"They don't ride on tracks," Morrow said, adding that this allowed engineers to create 32 different ride scenarios. The ride takes you through the habitat as if through the "eyes" of a penguin.
"When he stumbles, your vehicle follows that," Morrow said. "And when he slides across the ice, you feel that too."
For those concerned that the penguins aren't used to so much human attention, Boos can assuage their fears.
"They are very accustomed to seeing guests," Boos said. The noise won't bother them either, as they are the creators of much of it.
"Antarctica tells a very different visual story of scale, realism and detail yet to be seen at SeaWorld," said Morrow. "It's really the next chapter for our company."
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
