Sesame Place in Middletown will be getting a West Coast sister theme park.
On Monday morning, SeaWorld Entertainment and nonprofit Sesame Workshop announced they will open the second Sesame Place just outside San Diego in time for spring 2021. The popular Middletown theme park will remain open.
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The park will replace Seaworld-owned water park Aquatica San Diego in Chula Vista, California, a city in the San Diego metropolitan area.
Fox 35 in San Diego reported the new park will be 17 acres, which is slightly larger than Sesame Place’s 14-acre space in Middletown.
“As we celebrate Sesame Street’s 50th Anniversary, we are excited to share the news of a major opportunity for kids and families to connect with and learn from the brand and its beloved characters,” said Steve Youngwood, president of media and education and COO of Sesame Workshop. “The opening of Sesame Place San Diego will give guests a unique and powerful way to experience Sesame Street, enable us to connect with even more families, and further our educational mission.”
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The new park will feature family rides, water slides, live character shows, parades, and interactive experiences similar to those at the local theme park, which opened in July 1980. The new park will mirror the existing one by also being welcoming to children with autism.
“We are thrilled to be able to grow the presence of Sesame Place theme parks in the United States, and San Diego is the perfect complement to our Philadelphia location,” said Seaworld interim CEO Marc Swanson.
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Sesame Workshop and SeaWorld’s license agreement runs through December 2031.
As part of the deal, Seaworld has the green light to have Sesame Street characters appear at the company’s Busch Gardens parks and SeaWorld theme parks in San Diego and San Antonio. In addition, a Sesame Street Land recently opened at SeaWorld Orlando.
There were previously Sesame Place parks in Texas and Japan, but both have since closed. The Texas park was mostly indoors and was only opened for a few years in the 1980s, while the Tokyo park was open for 16 years.
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