It was bound to happen sooner or later. Your many letters, trip reports, and constant questions about Shamu and pals at SeaWorld have brought us to the beginning of a new era - ShamuChat.
Disneyland opened in 1955. You’ve had over 50 years to ride the Jungle Cruise - been there and done that. And we’ve all grown tired of waiting for Mickey and Minnie to marry. We want more. Sure, there will always be a soft spot in our hearts for Walt, but there is a new fish in town and EVERYONE is going crazy for SeaWorld.
Clyde, Seamore, Dolly, and Shamu are just waiting for you to dive in to a whole new world of fun. And we’ll be right there with you every spash of the way.
And to start everything off on the right foot, there’s a new SeaWorld fan club called Sea23 which will be fishing juicy information, photos, and stories from Davy Jones’ locker.
Why the name “Sea23?” Well, the magic began in a college dorm room in 1964 with a 23 gallon aquarium and one tiny little whale. That early whale was called Tiny and he would fit in the palm of your hand. And he was quite a character, often jumping out of his tank to grab a lamp cord or splash the cat. Such a showman in fact that there would be lines of students just waiting to “See Tiny.”
But as Tiny grew, that 23 gallon aquarium became a bath tub, then an inflatable pool, then a traveling attraction at local fairs and and carnivals. Finally, Tiny was moved to a sinkhole in San Diego and SeaTiny was founded. It wasn’t until later that year that the name of the park was changed to “SeaWorld” as new marine life was added to the park. And how to Tiny become Shamu? When the park called a sign company to order signage for the Tiny show, and park executive was overheard asking his secretary to buy him some “shampoo” and the sign company thought he said the show was called “Shamu.” The name stuck. And that’s how Tiny became Shamu and SeaTiny became SeaWorld. And that’s the true story behind the Sea23 fan community.
There is no park or family travel destination in the world with the level of detail, fun, sun, and blue concrete as SeaWorld. In fact, SeaWorld president, Avril Imbécile, was quoted as saying, “There can never be enough concrete or outdoor vending facilities in an aquatic park. We are committed to finding exciting new ways to display our fish and sell as much merchandise as possible to school groups and curious tourists.” She continued “We are so excited to be working with ShamuChat to provide fascinating history and trivia to the foaming fans of SeaWorld. We know you can’t get enough of our soggy brand of magic and we are looking forward to your many visits to our aquatic parks.”
So we’ll be right here to report about the carefree antics of the Polar Bears of the Wild Arctic, each hatched chick in the penguin encounter, fill you in on construction of the new Manta attraction, and help you dry off after that soaking experience on you Journey to Atlantis.
Dive on in, you’ll always have a whale of a time at www.shamuchat.com
Update April 2nd 2009 -
Thank you all for playing along with our April Fools gag yesterday. We put a lot of effort into this little gag for you. We purchased a new domain - www.ShamuChat.com - which directed to SeaWorld content on MiceChat (still does), put a new banner at the top of the site, wrote new content for the main page, created a new SeaWorld forum, published tons of new SeaWorld threads, created a Sea23 fan community, and changed our Avatars to match the ShamuChat theme. It was exhausting, but really fun. We hope you had a great time!
We would like to express that part of what made this a fun gag is that SeaWorld really is a great park and a lot of fun to visit. That made our switch to ShamuChat seem plausible, In fact, as the day went on, I found myself wanting to visit Shamu and pals more and more. Perhaps a ShamuChat meet to SeaWorld is in order. 
Have a great day Chatters and thank you for making ShamuChat the greatest SeaWorld board in the universe - even if it was only for one day. Keep in mind that all of our SeaWorld content is still available on MiceChat and we encourage those of you who enjoy the SeaWorld parks to continue posting and reading that content. MiceChat is about the entire theme park industry, not just Disney.
Cheers everyone, thanks for the spashing good time.
-Dusty
View: Welcome to ShamuChat
16 Comments, Comment or Ping
DISNEYLOVER2009
LOVE SEA WORLD BUT DISNEY HAS MY HEART.
Apr 1st, 2009
DISNEYLOVER2009
IS THIS APRIL FOOL’S PRANK?
Apr 1st, 2009
JBodine
Oops! Wrong board! I was looking for the Marineland enthusiast club. My bad.
~JBodine
Apr 1st, 2009
whitestrat
It’s about time! Disneyland is cool and all, but nothing compares to a true life nature experience, peering into oversized swimming pools and watching majestic sea creatures doing stupid tricks for frozen fish-sicles.
You know, just like in the wild.
Apr 1st, 2009
Foolish Mortal
Perhaps the two parks can share characters in some way. Perhaps we could ride through Shamu in Storybook land or cower in Pinochio’s Daring Journey when Jimminy Cricket yells out”Look out! It’s Shamu!”
Shamu has a much splashier (splashier….get it?) color scheme going for him than Monstro anyway.
Apr 1st, 2009
FeistyFigaro
This is a CRUEL Aprils fools joke. This is equivalent to calling a bomb threat in a airplane, or saying fire in a packed hall. Its a prank but it hurts…
LOL its actually pretty funny because it really caught me off guard and suspended my belief for about ten minutes!
Apr 1st, 2009
Radiobarry
Good job, Dusty.
Wonder how Shamu would do on Splash Mountain.
And FEISTY, this hardly equates tio the things you mentioned.
Happy April Fools Day, everyone.
Apr 1st, 2009
TimmyTimmyTimmy
who or what is shamu???
Apr 1st, 2009
TimmyTimmyTimmy
I deadly angry… but now I see haha
Apr 1st, 2009
Stitchy
hey! What about the manatees???? They need love too!
Apr 1st, 2009
FeistyFigaro
RADIOBARRY its called sarcasm…..
Apr 1st, 2009
WOKcreative
It’s all true. The TDA middle management all packed up and went South. They took advantage of the indecisiveness of In-Bev and swooped in for a not-so-hostile take-over, just before a new buyer could be found for the Busch/Sea World parks - figuring new owners wouldn’t know who had been there or not. They’ve already got approval to start building a new non-descript gray parking structure just for the Sea23 charter members (for a fee of only $385.00 for your own personalized parking space - per year).
p.s. Join the Save Marineland Campaign to bring it back! by clicking here [this hot link has been disabled - no mention of other web sites will be allowed on ShamuChat]
Apr 1st, 2009
WOKcreative
Seriously, someone put a lot of work into all of those other links (click on ShamuChat at the top of this page) - Great Job!!!
Apr 1st, 2009
pixie chick
Finally! Enough with the mice, on with the killer whales!
Apr 1st, 2009
ni_teach
A very nice change of pace April 1st report! Great job.
Apr 1st, 2009
Dustysage
It was a lot of fun everyone. But you wouldn’t believe the amount of work we put into this little gag. We purchased a new domain ShamuChat.com which directed to SeaWorld content (still does), put a new banner at the top of the site, wrote new content for the main page, created a new SeaWorld forum, published tons of new SeaWorld threads, created a Sea23 fan community, and changed our Avatars to match the ShamuChat theme. It was exhausting, but really fun. We hope you had a great time!
We would like to express that part of what made this a fun gag is that SeaWorld really is a great park and a lot of fun to visit. That made our switch to ShamuChat seem plausible, In fact, as the day went on, I found myself wanting to visit Shamu and pals more and more. Perhaps a ShamuChat meet to SeaWorld is in order.
Have a great day Chatters and thank you for joining along.
Apr 2nd, 2009
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