SeaWorld just confirmed its Orlando park president is out. What they did not do was explain a single thing about it.
Back up a week.
Look, on July 29, a social media report claimed SeaWorld Orlando park president Jon “JP” Peterson had been forced out of the company. That followed an earlier claim floating around that he was retiring effective immediately. No announcement from the company. No job listing. Nothing from Peterson himself.
We handled it carefully at the time because the evidence did not support anything louder. A missing job posting proves nothing. Companies promote internally, drop in interims, and run quiet searches all the time. SeaWorld's own materials still had Peterson listed as president earlier in 2026.
The honest read was narrow. Somebody reported he was gone. The company stayed silent. That silence raised a fair question without answering it.
This week, we got half an answer.
What They Announced
SeaWorld Orlando, Aquatica Orlando, and Discovery Cove are all back under one park president.
Brad Gilmour, running Aquatica and Discovery Cove since 2023, immediately adds SeaWorld Orlando to the pile.
The 23-year company veteran replaces Jon “JP” Peterson, whose departure went completely unexplained in Thursday's announcement.
So the rumor held. The reasoning did not come with it.
Who Is Brad Gilmour
Not some outside hire showing up with a turnaround deck.
Gilmour has been with the company for more than two decades and has led Aquatica and Discovery Cove since January 2023. A lot of people in the Orlando attractions world have watched him climb.
For a company dealing with as much as United Parks & Resorts is right now, giving more ground to someone with that much history at least buys continuity.
They Ran This Play Before
Not a new structure. A reversal.
Kyle Miller was tapped as interim president of SeaWorld Orlando, Aquatica, and Discovery Cove in 2019 and later kept the job permanently.
The company broke it up in January 2023 when Miller moved into a corporate operations role. Peterson got SeaWorld Orlando. Gilmour got Aquatica and Discovery Cove.
Gilmour's promotion glues all three back together for the first time since then.
Miller is still around as chief parks operations officer for United Parks & Resorts' Florida parks, a corporate seat he has held since January 2023.
What Peterson Actually Did at SeaWorld Orlando
Worth saying, because he was not just keeping the chair warm.
When SeaWorld promoted him in 2023, the company said he had roughly three decades there, including years leading zoological operations and SeaWorld Orlando's rescue work.
Penguin Trek opened under him. So did Expedition Odyssey, which got closed and reworked into Expedition Odyssey: Fire & Ice less than a year after it debuted.
Talking to Attractions Magazine in May around the Fire & Ice launch, Peterson described how it came together.
“You get a vision and a conversation of, ‘How do we make this better?'” he said.
He talked up the queue, the music, the scents, the visuals, the emotional storytelling. He was especially bullish on how it played across generations.
“I think we have hit something that is going to be, for a very long time, a ride that people talk about,” Peterson said.
All of that is Gilmour's now.
And So Are the Problems
The expanded job comes with baggage, including some that's already in his own portfolio.
The National Labor Relations Board recently ordered Discovery Cove to recognize and bargain with a union representing divers at Discovery Cove and Aquatica, after finding that the company had unlawfully refused to do so. That fight started while Gilmour was running those two parks, though the public record does not pin down his personal role in the response.
United Parks & Resorts has more stacked up. The U.S. Department of Justice has challenged its accessibility policies. Sesame Workshop is suing over the licensing agreement.
The money is a problem, too. The company reported weaker attendance and financial results for 2025. It is still spending, with SeaQuest: Legends of the Deep headed to SeaWorld Orlando.
On this week's earnings call, executives laid out the priorities. Better marketing execution. Attendance growth. Using intellectual property to pull in new audiences. That last one is already showing, with licensed horror landing at Howl-O-Scream for the first time this fall.
Does Any of This Hit Your SeaWorld Orlando Trip
Not tomorrow, no.
Park presidents make the big operational and strategic calls, but SeaWorld Orlando runs on a much broader leadership structure than a single person. Events, attractions, and tickets are untouched.
What actually changes is direction. One office now steers three Orlando parks instead of two. Guest experience, pricing, seasonal events, and investment across SeaWorld Orlando, Aquatica, and Discovery Cove all run through the same desk.
Whether that means tighter alignment or one executive spread way too thin is the real story going forward.
And SeaWorld still has not said a word about why the last guy is gone.
