Boston seals the deal as Sea World welcomes crowds

Boston the California sea lion was back on stage for the first time in three months to entertain crowds at Sea World’s reopening at the weekend.

Trainer Erin Oakley with Boston the California sea lion. Picture: Russell Shakespeare

Boston the California sea lion was back on stage for the first time in three months to entertain crowds at Sea World after the park reopened its doors at the weekend.

The 300kg mammal performed before thousands of people who visited the Gold Coast attraction since Friday, but it was not a normal day out for revellers.

Despite just two cases of COVID-19 in Queensland, strict hygiene and social-distancing rules were implemented throughout the theme park, including ­enforcement of the 4sq m rule, in­creased cleaning and sanitation of rides and high-traffic areas and contact tracing through tickets and apps.

A maximum of 6000 people were allowed each day as the park operated at half-capacity, but ­Village Roadshow Theme Parks chief operating officer Bikash Randhawa was pleased with the attendance to the parks over the weekend, with strong numbers visit­ing Sea World and Paradise Country.

“There was an exciting atmosphere throughout both parks,” he said. “It was also positive to see guests being so accommodating and respecting the newly implemented COVID safe practices we have rolled out across the parks.”

Sea World is the first theme park to open in the post-COVID environment after all closed to the public in the last week of March.

Village Roadshow’s Movie World and Wet’n’Wild is readying to open in mid-July alongside ­Ardent Leisure’s Dreamworld and WhiteWater World. The Australian Outback Spectacular is slated to open on Friday, while Top Golf opened earlier this month.

A return to normal operation will not be a quick fix for the local economy. Destination Gold Coast estimates that the local tourism economy will suffer a loss of $3.3bn to $4.3bn this year as a ­result of a drop in up to 10 million tourists in the COVID-19 crisis.