SeaWorld San Antonio is retheming its kids’ area next year.
In 2025, the current Sesame Street Bay of Play will be turned into Rescue Jr., themed around SeaWorld’s animal rehabilitation programs.
“Rescue Jr. will be an exciting addition to our park and put marine animal rescue at the forefront with our guests. The new play area will be a fun and exciting way for our guests to learn about the animal rescues that our dedicated teams do every day, 365 days a year,” SeaWorld San Antonio park president Jeff Davis said in a statement. “We know that Rescue Jr., along with all of our animal habitats and presentations, will ignite a passion in young hearts, inspiring them to become future animal rescuers, scientists, veterinarians or conservationists.”
The attraction lineup includes a brand-new roller coaster called Beach Rescue Racer. Rather than being a retheme of the existing 229-foot-long Super Grover’s Box Car Derby, Beach Rescue Racer is a newly constructed 1,000-foot-long ride from the same coaster manufacturer, Zierer.
The area will also offer a mini-train ride called Ocean Quest Express, the Seabird Swing and Tide Pool Tumble, which SeaWorld described in a press release as “allow[ing] guests to ebb and flow as they glide and slide in and out with the tide on a seaside joy ride.”

Seabird Swing (SeaWorld)
SeaWorld San Diego made a similar change to its Bay of Play area after 2022, also rechristening the section as Rescue Jr. In an Instagram post, the San Antonio park said “Sesame Street” characters would still be featured in the park’s Halloween and Christmas parades.
Two “Sesame Street”-themed parks in Pennsylvania and California remain part of the United Parks & Resorts chain, along with “Sesame Street” areas in SeaWorld Orlando, Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, and Busch Gardens Williamsburg.
The theme park company did recently get into a court battle with Sesame Workshop, from which it licenses the “Sesame Street” characters. As Florida Politics reported, United Park & Resorts was ordered to pay $11 million in license fees to Sesame Workshop that had not been paid during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It wasn’t the first complaint that the SeaWorld has faced over pandemic-era debts. The city of San Diego is pursuing court action over a reported $12 million in unpaid rent owed by SeaWorld San Diego, while Busch Gardens Tampa Bay once faced liens of $3.5 million for unpaid labor and materials related to Iron Gwazi, which was in late stages of construction when the pandemic hit in March 2020.
