Independent guide and review of Florida as a holiday destination

SeaWorld & Discovery Cove Guide Book Reviews

The Wave Maker: Story Of Theme Park Pioneer George Millay And The Creation Of Seaworld, Magic Mountain, And Wet 'n' Wild, ISBN 1893951081

This book is not a guide to SeaWorld as such but is a biography by Tim O'Brien of George Millay, the man deemed to be the "Father of the Waterpark Industry", both marine life parks and water slide parks. Published in hard back by Ripley Entertainment, Inc. in September 2004.

This is a great insight into how the water theme park business started

This is the first story of the creation and the early history of the SeaWorld parks, now owned by Anheuser-Busch, Magic Mountain, now owned by Six Flags and the Wet 'n' Wild parks, now owned by Universal and by Palace Entertainment.

It covers the construction through to the early years of operation and describes George Millay's personal story, how he took risks and how they paid off.

George Millay was one of the four founders of the first SeaWorld park in San Diego in 1964. He went on to help develop new SeaWorld parks in Cleveland, Ohio and Orlando, Florida.

After being ousted from SeaWorld in 1974 he created the Wet 'n' Wild water parks. By the time he sold them in the late 1990s, there were seven Wet 'n' Wild parks.

The Wave Maker is a great insight into the business that goes on behind the scenes in the creation and running of theme parks.

Buy This Book

As well as Amazon.com, can also be bought at other book stores like Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.ca

Note that most guide books are re-published annually so you can often pick up a bargain if you don't mind last year's edition.

There have been many guide books written about the Orlando theme parks and the central region of Florida. We are in the process of reviewing many of them and our aim is to publish reviews of the best guide books on these pages.

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