San Antonio: Aquatica water park set to open at SeaWorld

Not everything is bigger in Texas.

The new Aquatica water park at SeaWorld San Antonio will be one-third the size and cost half as much as the innovative Aquatica water park at SeaWorld Orlando.

PHOTOS: Aquatica water park at SeaWorld San Antonio

Debuting May 19, the Aquatica park in Texas will feature 18 water slides on 20 acres at a cost of more than $24 million.

That’s considerably smaller than Florida’s $50-million-plus Aquatica which debuted in 2008 with 36 slides on 60 acres as the new high-water mark for water parks.

Like its Florida cousin, the Texas water park will feature a South Seas theme, sunbathing on sandy beaches and a marquee attraction with a see-through waterslide tube that passes through a fish-filled aquarium.

Aquatica is a rebranding of SeaWorld San Antonio’s existing Lost Lagoon water park as a separate admission attraction with the addition of a few new slides and updated themes for several others.

Among the attractions planned for Aquatica Texas:

Stingray Falls - A Proslide Mammoth slide with four-seat family rafts that wind through an underwater grotto past stingrays and tropical fish.

Walhalla Wave - A first-of-its-kind in the U.S., the Proslide TornadoWave slide with four-seat cloverleaf rafts takes riders up a zero gravity wall.

HooRoo Run - Dual 48-foot-tall Proslide Pipeline slides with single and double inner tubes that pass under waterfall curtains.

Tassie’s Twisters - A pair of Proslide Bowl tube slides that deposit riders inside a large bowl.

Kiwi Curl - A pair of 450-foot-long high-speed WhiteWater body slides.

Woohoo Falls - A pair of WhiteWater tube slides, including one that travels through a pitch-dark tunnel.

Big Surf Shores - A 400,000-gallon body-surfing wave pool with five-foot swells.

Cutback Cove Slides - An activity pool for teens and adults next to the wave pool with waterfalls and a WhiteWater corkscrew slide.

Loggerhead Lane - A 1,200-foot-long lazy river with jet tunnels, foam shooters and misters.

Walkabout Waters - A three-story WhiteWater AquaPlay Eruption water play tower with sky-rocketing geysers and giant spill buckets.

Ke-Re Reef - Touch and feed stingrays or wade into the water to interact with the animals in the Ray Connection pool.

Zippity Zappity - A series of Proslide Kidz slides that feed into the children’s play area.

With Aquaticas at SeaWorlds in Florida and Texas, that leaves only San Diego without a water park. Which begs the obvious question: When will SeaWorld San Diego get an Aquatica water park?

SeaWorld officials aren’t commenting, but here’s hoping one day we get the full-size Orlando version of Aquatica rather than the trimmed-down Texas model.