A blog by Cameron and Shannon

9. Terrors of the Deep, Sea World.

Still open

OK, OK…This is not a closed attraction, but as far as I can tell from all present day paraphernalia, the name has been changed to Shark Encounter. Aside from this bothering me because sharks are not the only thing you are encountering, in my opinion it’s a little deceptive to lure vacationing families in to “encounter” sharks. “Encounter” makes it sound like you’re going to accidentally run into your weirdo neighbor at the grocery store and it’s gonna be all awkward.

O HAI! C’mon, let’s encounter one another!

When I first heard the name had changed to Shark Encounter, I was worried the other terrors of the deep (along with the TOTD decor) had been phased out - but from what I can tell this isn’t the case (which makes the renaming even more infuriating - this is the SAME EXACT ATTRACTION, with a lamer name). Additionally, this attraction has already been named Shark Encounter before - before they renamed it Sharks! and then revamped it and name it Terrors of the Deep. While all these things are stupid and/or annoying, that’s not the thing I wish Sea World had never changed.

The first time I went to Sea World, I was six years old. This was either in the original Shark Encounter or the Sharks! era, but I have trouble placing the time exactly because in trying to research the history of the Sea World Orlando shark exhibit I seem to have discovered the one thing that does not exist on the internets. Sea World was actually the first amusement park I visited, and my family advertised it to me with guarantees of dolphins, exotic fish and Shamu.

They did not mention the sharks.

Sea World could flash their fancy pants halved plexiglass “see-this-can-hold-the-weight-of-100-elephants-you-are-so-safe” display all they wanted; I had seen the Saturday afternoon television airing of Jaws 3. I can now laugh at the (several) liberties the film took with Floridian geography, the nature of great white sharks and construction standards of underwater viewing tunnels (how in the world did the Jaws franchise get actual Sea World to sign off on that movie?). However, at the age of six I knew for a fact that if I went into an underwater tunnel full of sharks, at least one of them was going to break the tunnel glass, and we were all going to DIE. Heck, in the movie, it only took one shark to break through the tunnel.

Back in the late 80’s there were no puffer fish, barracudas, eels or lion fish to work you up to viewing a tank full of sharks. As I remember it, they first subjected you to an educational narrative in the shark viewing room - yes, that is correct, Sea World used to offer actual educational presentations (this was in the time when the park was owned by a children’s book publisher, not a beer franchise) then allowed you to walk through the shark tunnel. Here’s the freaky part: when you entered the shark viewing room for the presentation, they had the viewing glass covered with screens - screens that, for the majority of the presentation, were backlit and had silhouettes of sharks swimming, just swimming around, behind this guy while he talked on and on. This was a cruel mindtrick to play on a child who had seen Jaws 3. I have no idea what was said in that presentation - all I could do was obsessively gape at that screen, watching for any shadows that came too close in a head-on fashion. Even without the nudge to the imagination a viewing of a cheesy 3-D Jaws sequel offers, the thought of sitting in a darkened room where sharks are mere feet away but you can only see their shadows gives me chills. It. Was. Awesome. And I wish it had never changed.