ORLANDO, Fla. — SeaWorld Orlando’s penguins will be part of the next thrilling attraction opening at the park next spring.

On Thursday, the park revealed more details about its upcoming Penguin Trek roller coaster and shared a teaser video of what coaster will will look like once it’s finished.

As part of the story, the family coaster will take riders on an expedition through the Antarctica wilderness. On ride vehicles designed to look like snowmobiles, riders will travel both outdoors and indoors across 3,020 feet of track. For the indoor, dark ride experience, multimedia and special effects will be used to create the arctic environment. 

“As guests are going through the queue, they will find themselves in the midst of an arctic research base,” said Jeff Hornick, SeaWorld’s vice president of attraction design and development. “And from that base, they’ll actually be sent out and brave a lot of the wild environments and harsh nature of Antarctica.”

The experience will last just over three minutes.

For its finale, Penguin Trek will take into the park’s penguin habitat — a feature that was part of the park’s now-closed Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin attraction.

“Once guests get off the ride, their adventure will continue as they set off on a trek on foot to go actually meet the real penguins in the penguin colony,” Hornick said.

But that won't be the only time penguins will be present, Hornick teased.

“You will see glimpses of penguins in different ways while you’re on the ride,” he said.

Just like so many SeaWorld attractions, Penguin Trek will have an educational element to it. The team behind the coaster wanted to make sure the conservation message that was present in the original Antarctica attraction was included with this one.

“This gives us an opportunity to tell the story in a new way — of engaging with the penguin species and why it’s so critical for us to study them and learn about them,” Hornick said. “And guests will have the opportunity to have those educational touchpoints in the queue and on the ride itself.”

SeaWorld also showed off a piece of the coaster’s track — manufactured by Bolliger & Mabillard — which was displayed surrounded by ice that was brought in to recreate the ride’s chilly, arctic theme.

The park is also hyping up the family coaster-aspect of Penguin Trek, which will have a 42-inch minimum height requirement. That will put it somewhere between the park’s Grover coaster over in Sesame Street Land and its Ice Breaker coaster, which opened in 2022.

Penguin Trek will be SeaWorld Orlando's eighth coaster, following Pipeline: The Surf Coaster which opened earlier this year.