Picture by Joe Burbank, Orlando Sentinel

Well I knew it was going to happen, I just did not know when. Today Sea World of Orlando announced that they would raise the price of a basic one day ticket. The cost now will be $78.95 for a basic one day ticket to Sea World. The move brings Sea World’s base price to just 5 cents less than single-day, single-park tickets to Disney or Universal, both of which raised their own prices over the summer.

Every year all of the big three theme parks raise their base, one day one park ticket prices. So it’s nothing new, it happens every year. But I wanted to let you know this. Now, most of the theme park tickets people buy actually cost less than this. That’s because of all the special multi-day and park hopper ticket deals you can find.

In fact you should never buy a one day, base price ticket to one park at Disney, Universal Studios or Sea World. Normally if your on a vacation in Orlando your going to spend several days at the parks. All of them offer two, three or more day ticket deals and park hopper specials.

But they have to have a base price to work with, so they always have a standard, one day one park price to work with. As you can see, all the theme parks are very close when it comes to their base price. But it can vary widely with multi-day and park hopper deals. Now if only they would lower their base price!