Sea World San Diego's Water Park: Aquatica - Sweet Shoppe Mom

San Diego, CA is one of our favorite destinations for a short road trip from Phoenix. This past Labor Day weekend we decided to fit in one more trip to San Diego while it was still beach weather (and to escape our 100+ degree weather at home). Besides lots of time at the beach we like to visit one attraction – the last two trips we visited SeaWorld and this trip we decided to experience Aquatica, SeaWorld’s Water Park. The park is located in Chula Vista, CA – its not located near Sea World San Diego but it was an easy drive down the freeway and we combined it with a visit to Coronado Island which was on the way home back to our hotel. Aquatica opened in 2013 – the park was previously called Knott’s Soak City.

I was impressed by the size, lushness, and how all the attractions looked brand new. The weather was prefect – warm enough that the water felt refreshing and not as hot as it is at the water parks at home where you burn your feet and over heat while waiting in line. The lines were pretty short too – much better than any water park I’ve visited.

My son and I always love lazy rivers and we enjoyed Aquatica’s Loggerhead Lane – my son loved the waterfall where he got soaked! (don’t worry, you can avoid it if you prefer to keep your head dry). He also loves wave pools and he thought Aquatica’s Big Surf Shores was a blast. While he hung out in the wave pool, I enjoyed getting some sun on the lounge chairs (moms need their time to relax!).

After spending some time in the wave pool, my son wanted to try out the kids play area, Walkabout Waters. He could have spent all day there – his favorite part is when the bells rings and the giant barrel filled with 500 gallons of water spills over completely soaking anyone standing under it.

Next we decided to try out the rides. Aquatica has a great mix of rides with tubes and without tubes and it was hard to pick our favorite.

Mom’s pick – WooHoo Falls

Brendan’s pick – Walhalla Wave

WooHoo Falls is a single tube ride where you have a choice of several different paths that are either enclosed or open and after lots of twists and turns you are dumped in a large pool of water. The Wallhalla Wave experience involves an over sized raft where you can sit up to 4 people and you twists, turn and spin down the 78 foot slide.

Aquatica has lots of food options for lunch, dinner or snacks. We opted to pack a lunch which we ate in their picnic area outside of the parking lot (with my food allergies its simpler to pack my own food when we go places). I bought my son Dippin’ Dots at the end of the day and he thought these were the best thing ever! You are allowed to bring in a bottles of water.

disclosure: We were provided complimentary tickets to Aquatica for the purposes of this review. All opinions are our own.