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Pipeline devise creates confusion in Westmoreland County

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By Orlando Sentinel

Published: Saturday, May 25, 2013, 9:00 p.m.

Updated 2 hours ago

Three years ago, Harry Potter loosened Mickey Mouse’s hold on Orlando’s theme-park market.

Now, Puck a Penguin is prepared to try pulling Mickey’s fingers even over apart.

After some-more than a year of construction, SeaWorld Orlando this week will open Antarctica: Empire of a Penguin, a scarcely 4-acre, multiattraction “land� built to demeanour like a icy continent and starring an charcterised gentoo penguin named Puck.

Orlando-based SeaWorld Entertainment Inc., that only finished a $700 million open batch offering, has huge expectations for Antarctica, a largest enlargement in SeaWorld history. Company President and Chief Executive Officer Jim Atchison calls a devise “a genuine game-changer for us.�

But over simply boosting SeaWorld’s fortunes, attention analysts contend Antarctica has a intensity to change a Orlando market, that historically has been dominated by Walt Disney World.

During a past decade, Disney World’s executive expansion devise has been to convince travelers to spend their full vacations on a property, lured by programs such as sliding-scale sheet prices and a giveaway airfield shuttle. But that indication has been challenged recently by Universal Orlando, that has captivated millions of visitors to a parks on a strength of a 3-year-old Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

With Antarctica, analysts say, SeaWorld has an event to continue that shift.

“Antarctica, in my mind, is a unequivocally good exam of how opposite a Orlando landscape has become,� pronounced Bob Boyd, a convenience researcher during Pacific Asset Management, a California investment-management company.

Antarctica is SeaWorld’s entrance into a march of expensively designed “landsâ€� that U.S. theme-park owners are building opposite a nation after a success of Universal’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

Universal primogenitor Comcast Corp. is duplicating Wizarding World during a West Coast park and will supplement a second Potter land — Diagon Alley — subsequent year in Orlando. The Walt Disney Co. final year non-stop Cars Land during Disneyland and a initial phases of New Fantasyland during Disney World. It has begun rough work on a land formed on a film “Avatar,� also during Disney World and approaching to open in 2017.

SeaWorld’s Antarctica includes a first-of-its-kind trackless float and a frigid, walk-through penguin habitat, along with a 325-seat grill meant to resemble a multinational disaster gymnasium and a penguin-themed present shop.

The association will not divulge what it spent on Antarctica, yet one researcher estimated a cost was almost reduction than a $265 million that Universal spent on Wizarding World and a estimated $425 million that Disney is spending on New Fantasyland.

Still, Antarctica is a biggest in a collection of rides and other construction projects on that SeaWorld has spent $420 million total during a past dual years. Executives contend they devise to trim their collateral spending in a entrance years to something closer to $150 million annually.

To maximize a investment, Antarctica will have to do some-more than expostulate aloft assemblage and sheet prices. SeaWorld needs a devise to tempt guest into spending some-more on food and souvenirs.

SeaWorld hopes to obey some of a success Universal has had with “butterbeer� and other Harry Potter-themed food and sell in a Islands of Adventure thesis park.

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