Disney's Big Blue SeaWorld?

Now that InBev LLC's $52-billion purchase of Anheuser-Busch has been made final, a lot of people are wondering what's going to happen to the Busch theme parks? According to the St. Petersburg Times (in a roundabout way a former employer of mine), some experts believe InBev is going to sell off the parks as soon as this summer. I had read somewhere that Merlin Entertainments Group, which runs the Legoland parks and Alton Towers, may have moved forward with a deal, but I can't find the link so don't put too much trust in that.

The asking price for the parks is at $3 billion to $5 billion, and it's doubtful one company will acquire all of them. Cedar Fair Chief Executive Officer Dick Kinzel has already said his company isn't interested, to which I respond "THANK GOD!" If there's a company that can ruin a great park like Busch Gardens, it's Cedar Fair (or Six Flags). The most interesting rumor floating around, however, is that the Walt Disney Co. might pick up the SeaWorld parks in San Diego and Orlando.

I was talking to my dad about this a couple of weeks ago, and his first response was "So would [SeaWorld] become Nemo Worlds?" It was a joke, but at the same time it's actually a great idea. Let's look at SeaWorld San Diego for a second. If Disney purchased the park, they could convert many of the aquarium exhibits to focus on the Finding Nemo characters, the same way they converted the Living Seas pavilion at Epcot. They could bring Finding Nemo — The Musical to the West Coast. It could be potentially problematic to transform Journey to Atlantis into a Disney attraction. It isn't exactly Disney's style to have the track exposed like that, with the minimal theming. But I'm sure the Imagineers could find a way. Perhaps they could enclose a large portion of it (or at least find a better way to hide the track) and theme it to the Drop Off.

Is an entire park devoted to one film overkill? Perhaps. But it's fun to speculate. Disney has never purchased an existing park, so it's doubtful this will happen anyway. Imagine all the construction the park would have to undergo in order to bring it up to Disney's standards. The company is already spending major cash on the renovation of Disney's California Adventure. On the other hand, San Diego is a popular tourist destination, and as some people have pointed out a potential jumping point for the Disney Cruise Line. In the long run it could be a great investment for the company.

What do you think?