https://theonion.com/study-dolphins-not-so-intelligent-on-land-1819568299/

Go back to sleep, dad, you need your naptime. ;-)

That’s for Orcars.

The yellow line in the meme is selecting quite a bit of area that isn't SeaWorld parking, and it's quite old too. On right it's selecting some park area and the lot for a boat launch. On the left there is admin buildings and a Marina + parking for that. Check the satellite view.

That's still insane. This is Hagenbeck zoo in Hamburg. The green area is a parking garage and a small parking lot dedicated to the zoo. Everyone else just comes with the subway.

One thing America has in abundance is land.

The other thing is greed.

So if you're ever asking " is this option really cheaper?" The answer is that they went with the cheap option.

ROI on even a 2 story parking lot is a lot longer than the one and much more expensive than double the price.

Paving is cheap, easy and other than drainage design is pretty straightforward. Put in drainage, grade land, put down bedding material for the asphalt, put down asphalt and curbing, paint line install signs.

A multi-story garage needs a ton of engineering, concrete and rebar and is custom to each location. Because you have a lot of weight in these structures

If you look at amusement parks that have parking garages most of them are land locked or purchasing new land for parking is so expensive it's cheaper to build a garage

(Please note I'm am a layman about construction, there is probably a construction person or engineer that can explain it better just a theme park fan that likes reading about how the engineer rides and have occasional tumbled over into parking engineering which is a fascinating topic of how much engineering goes into it)

It is more expensive to build multilevel parking but its how the laws work. It might even be that the law required this much parking based on statistical models, which is insane if people are getting there some other way.

Imo we could reduce the size of parking lots by just requiring nearby businesses to allow unrestricted parking during their off hours.

Yes, a lot of the time it is, depending on land acquisition cost. Plus you then have some amount of additional ongoing maintenance cost for the structure which is also more than just that of a surface lot.

I think sea world is old enough where the land was cheap enough.

Parking structures are something like 5-8 times more expensive per spot.

Cars constantly emit toxic fumes whenever they're running. If you try to enclose a parking lot you need some extremely expensive and power-intensive ventilation. Maybe that'll change as electric cars become more common.

It's not for poors

Are you kidding? The parking fee is an astronomical part of entry fees.

Is there a bus from parking to the entrance tho? Or you have to walk there like some ant? /s

I have strong feelings about the animals in the Sea World exhibits, particularly the Orcas and Dolphins. However, I contracted for Sea World Orlando for 5 years as an entertainer and often had to be "back-stage" or "back-area." I watched Blackfish and it did NOT represent the experience that I, or any other team member I worked/talked with had. It felt very sensationalist and not grounded in reality (or at least, the reality I witnessed for 5 years). If you watch it, I'd just approach it with some scrutiny, because it really didn't come off as a "documentary" to me.