Marineland Sold to Company That Owns Sea World

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, which operates Sea World Park in San Diego and Cypress Gardens in Florida, assumed ownership Tuesday of the granddaddy of aquatic parks, 32-year-old Marineland on the tip of Palos Verdes Peninsula.

“But we are not becoming a Sea World,” Marineland spokesman Laurie Armstrong insisted. “We will remain as Marineland and continue under our present management.”

Terms of the change in ownership were not disclosed. A spokesman for the new owner could not be reached for comment late Tuesday at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich headquarters in Orlando, Fla.

Known primarily as a book publisher, the firm operates other Sea World parks in Ohio and Orlando and is building one in San Antonio.

In a brief announcement, the company said it acquired “substantially all” the assets of Marineland Amusements Corp., a subsidiary of a privately owned company based in Hong Kong, Warwick International, which had bought it in 1981 from co-owners Taft Broadcasting and Kroger Co. (Taft’s Hanna-Barbera division, a studio that produces television cartoons, had operated the park as Hanna-Barbera’s Marineland.)

Armstrong’s comment that Marineland will “remain as Marineland” underlined a measure of irony in the park’s takeover by the owner of San Diego’s Sea World, which opened as a more elaborate version 10 years after Marineland first swung open its gates in 1954.

Frequently in the past, Marineland sought to differentiate itself from Sea World’s glitzier approach, portraying itself more as an educational institution and sea life refuge as well as an amusement park. But Marineland, which prospered in its first decade, almost immediately began to see its fortune ebb after Sea World began aggressively promoting itself in the Southland’s hotly competitive theme park market.

In 1964, the year Sea World opened, Marineland drew 1.4 million visitors, compared to 400,000 in San Diego; four years later, Sea World reported 1.4 million visitors while Marineland had 1 million. Patronage hit bottom at 750,000 in 1973, when Sea World’s gate topped 4 million. Attendance at Marineland has since ranged upward to more than 1 million.