San Antonio, one of Texas’ top travel destinations, is beckoning families to The Alamo City this summer with an array of enticing attractions, eateries and exhibits with CityPass San Antonio offering bundled savings options.
CityPass, a ticketing program available in many of the country’s major destinations, recently launched in San Antonio allowing visitors to save money by choosing four attraction visits from participating partners. These include Go Rio San Antonio River Cruises, San Antonio Botanical Garden, San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio Zoo, The DoSeum children’s museum, the Tower of the Americas and The Witte Museum.
Here are some highlights of what’s new for this summer along with some key family-friendly restaurants and accommodations.
FUN
An enhanced water park experience has debuted with the grand opening of Hurricane Harbor San Antonio. Highlights include six new family and kids’ attractions including Bonzai Pipelines racing tube slides and Vortex kids raft ride; eight new palapas-style double-decker cabanas and more.
Also new, in partnership with IGN Entertainment, is the ESIX Gaming powered by Coca-Cola™. IGN, the world’s number one entertainment platform, becomes the official streaming and media partner in debuting this new, top-of-the-line competitive gaming campus. As the largest gaming-focused media platform in the world with over 286M+ unique users, IGN is positioned to bring the excitement of ESIX to gamers of all ages. Through this partnership, Six Flags Fiesta Texas and IGN Entertainment will host and stream a range of competitive events throughout the year featuring the biggest games, teams and IGN’s array of beloved hosts.
The all-new thrill ride Catapult Falls is the world’s first launched flume coaster and North America’s only vertical lift. Eleven boats, each with eight riders, catapult through the launch at speeds of 30 feet per second, allowing riders to feel the rush of a coaster while experiencing the rocking and swaying of riding on a track of water that kicks up waves as it moves. Once at the peak of the ride, guests will experience the world’s steepest drop in a flume attraction, angled at a staggering 53 degrees, the chute plummets riders into a watery splashdown at over 37 miles per hour.
Also, brand new at SeaWorld San Antonio is ImaginOcean a glow-in-the-dark marine-themed family-oriented puppet show from Tony Award Nominee John Tartaglia. This one-of-a-kind theatrical performance is packed with a fun musical score, amazing puppetry, and dazzling neon colors.
At Aquatica, the all-new Kata’s Kookaburra Cove has burst on the scene, a new 3,000 square foot water-themed play area that’s a preschooler’s paradise.
The Alamo – This spring, the Alamo, working to improve the visitor experience and expand its exhibition facilities, opened the new Ralston Family Collections Center. This building displays the entire Phil Collins Collection, among other pieces from the Alamo Collection, in its 10,000 square feet of new exhibit space – five times more than the Alamo has today. Visitors are invited to remember and revisit the cherished Alamo, just named USA Today’s “Best Free Attraction” for 2023.
San Antonio Zoo – Named “Best Zoo in Texas” once again, the San Antonio Zoo is not resting on laurels with exciting new additions and renovations. For this summer, they announced the return of meerkats, bringing these playful creatures back after a 27-year absence. These inquisitive creatures come from the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa and belong to the playful mongoose family. Visitors to the new meerkat habitat can expect to see a lively family of five adorable meerkats living in a social group called a “mob.” During foraging, one meerkat stands guard, perching on its hind legs and keeping watch over the rest of the group. These social animals communicate through vocalizations, making for an intriguing show of nature.
Natural Bridge Caverns – Owners of Natural Bridge Caverns opened Hidden Wonders: a multi-million-dollar tour experience featuring state-of-the-art lighting, a sound and light show, and expansion into never before toured areas of the Hidden Cavern. The Hidden Cavern is a unique environment which never had a natural opening to the surface. As a result, delicate and beautiful formations grew in a sealed environment. New lighting is one of the dramatic changes in the cavern as well as a 1,100-foot-long expansion of the public passageways through the cave.
