Sesame Place San Diego is a children's

theme park An amusement park is a park that features various attractions, such as rides and games, as well as other events for entertainment purposes. A theme park is a type of amusement park that bases its structures and attractions around a central ...

and

water park A water park (or waterpark, water world) is an amusement park that features water play areas such as swimming pools, water slides, splash pads, water playgrounds, and lazy rivers, as well as areas for floating, bathing, swimming, and other baref ...

, located in

Chula Vista, California Chula Vista (; ) is the second-largest city in the San Diego metropolitan area, the Largest cities in Southern California, seventh largest city in Southern California, the List of largest California cities by population, fifteenth largest city ...

. It opened on March 26, 2022 on the former site of Aquatica San Diego. It is the first theme park in the world to open up as a certified

autism The autism spectrum, often referred to as just autism or in the context of a professional diagnosis autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or autism spectrum condition (ASC), is a neurodevelopmental condition (or conditions) characterized by difficulti ...

center by the International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards (IBCCES). Sesame Place in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, was the first theme park in the world to be a certified autism center., Sesame Place San Diego is owned and operated by

SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment is an American theme park and entertainment company headquartered in Orlando, Florida. The company is a subsidiary of SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. and owns and operates thirteen recreational destinations in the Unite ...

, which operates the park under an exclusive license from

Sesame Workshop Sesame Workshop (SW), originally known as the Children's Television Workshop (CTW), is an American nonprofit organization that has been responsible for the production of several educational children's programs—including its first and best-know ...

, the non-profit owner of ''

Sesame Street ''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000) a ...

''.

Overview

As a Water Park

Sesame Place San Diego originally opened on May 31, 1997, as ''White Water Canyon'', being operated independently. At the time it featured 16 water slides and a wave pool, with a western theme applied to it. The park suffered from many management and construction problems, and the poor attendance led to the park filing for

Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, whe ...

in June 1998. In December 1999, Cedar Fair purchased the park from its original owners for $11.5 million. Under its new ownership, Cedar Fair gave the park a new beach-theme and a rename to Knott's Soak City U.S.A. for its reopening on May 27, 2000. On November 20, 2012,

Cedar Fair Cedar Fair, L.P., formally Cedar Fair Entertainment Company, is a publicly traded master limited partnership headquartered at its Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio. The company owns and operates eleven amusement parks, nine included-w ...

announced it had sold the park to SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment. The acquisition saw the park transformed into a water park named ''Aquatica San Diego''. The refurbished park reopened on June 1, 2013. It features a wide array of attractions for all ages and swimming abilities, one of which passes by a

flamingo Flamingos or flamingoes are a type of Wader, wading bird in the Family (biology), family Phoenicopteridae, which is the only extant family in the order Phoenicopteriformes. There are four flamingo species distributed throughout the Americas ...

habitat. The water park was featured on the episode, "Appalachian Splashin" on Xtreme Waterparks.

As Sesame Place San Diego

In 2017,

announced that a new Sesame Place park would open "no later than" mid-2021. The location of the new park was soon revealed in 2019 when SeaWorld announced that Aquatica San Diego would be re-branded as Sesame Place San Diego park for the 2021 season. The ''Sesame Street''-themed park would feature tame roller coasters, carousels and other family-friendly rides, the street made famous on TV, a parade, live shows, character interactions, and other attractions. The park retained the Aquatica water attractions into the new park, although one of the rides was removed for being deemed too extreme for the retheming. Construction took place in phases, allowing Aquatica to remain open for the time period. The park's opening was soon delayed to 2022, due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

halting construction. Aquatica soon closed for its final season on September 12, 2021, and the remains of the park were transformed into Sesame Place San Diego. In November 2021, it was confirmed that the newly themed park would open in March 2022. The park opened on March 26, 2022.

Attractions

As the park was originally a water park, Sesame Place San Diego contains mostly water attractions, but with its retheming, several dry attractions are included as well.

Dry Attractions

In addition to the rides, a replica of Sesame Street called "Sesame Street Neighborhood" is also featured, alongside photo ops with many Sesame Street characters.https://sesameplace.com/san-diego/character-photo-ops/

Water Attractions

References

External links

Sesame Place official site
{{coord missing Buildings and structures in San Diego 1997 establishments in California SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment Tourist attractions in San Diego Amusement parks in California Chula Vista, California