Orlando Roundup - SeaWorld & Pipeline: The Surf Coaster

[Gazza]

SeaWorld Orlando

https://www.parkz.com.au/attraction/seaworld-orlando

I bookended my time in Orlando at SeaWorld, with an night time visit on the day I arrived (Due to late trading for their Christmas event)

as well as a visit in the daytime before I caught my afternoon flight on the last day.

The last time I was at SeaWorld Manta was fairly new, and they had just announced the construction of Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin.

The latter was a ride I had been interested in, but 2020 saw it's closure, so it was a case of seeing the full lifecycle of a ride without ever getting to ride it. That all said I finally got to ride another trackless ride using the same system, Ice Age at Genting Skyworlds so it was all good in the end.

So what's new.

Pipeline: The Surf Coaster

Obviously was going to start off here! 

New for 2022, this is a really fun take on the stand up coaster.

Aside from the gimmick of the launch it features open style surfboard themed trains, with a new harness system B&M has patented. 

Normally on standups you slide the backrest/harness up and down, and it is locked in at that height before dispatch. If you have it too high, you can knackerate yourself.

However on pipeline, the seat is still able to move +/- 10cm after locking, allowing for extra movement during the ride. It's not too loose though, it's kind of similar in resistance to a Smiths machine at the gym.

And it is this movement which makes the ride loads of fun. Anytime there is airtime, or even a quick transition, your seat lifts up wether you like it or not, which really emphasises the movements. You can even try to squat a bit before the hills and get bonus lift off.

The ride is mostly fast banked turns, with a couple of hills and a big corkscrew thrown in for good measure, so its perhaps the most stereotypically B&M looking layout ever, but the turns are forceful, and there is one twist right at the end that really catches you off guard and lifts you up.

Wouldn't mind seeing more of these built.

Ice Breaker

The other (currently) launch coaster is Ice Breaker, sort of a spicy compact version of a Mega Lite style ride, with a few small airtime hills, twists, couple of stengel dives. Could even draw comparisons with Maverick, though no inversions. Feels like an enthusiasts no limits project, and thats no bad thing! It's not about raw stats its about interesting forces and elements.

The launch is a multi pass much like Steel Taipan, though it's 4 launches since it starts off backwards.  In addition, the inclines at each end are double ups, so on each pass you get a pop of airtime, before the floater on the spike.

Overall, a fun zippy ride, especially if you like compact coasters with quick twists.

Mako

Orlando finally gets a hypercoaster. This is one of the better B&M hypers, with sustained floating airtime on every hill, and I mean sustained, as in a few seconds worth.

And I guess it comes down to what you prefer. B&M does longer lasting airtime that is less strong. Intamins/Macks is more powerful but over quicker, as is the reality of the physics.

A decent first drop leads into a flat section over the water which fakes you out a bit (instinctively you expect to immediately start climbing again)  before a huge overbank, huge floater hill (best one on the ride), hammerhead turn, another floater hill (where the trims hit), followed by a bunch of smaller hills, some of which near miss with the main supports. The last bit of the ride is inside the main park boundary, with a nice panoramic turn by the main lake and an s bend up into the brakes.

Visually it's mixed. The station has an interesting shipwreck theme, and the front bit of the coaster that goes around the ride entry plaza has had the columns themed with coral growing on it.

The back half of the ride is around an artificial lake, so not necessarily the most visually stimulating environment, and it doesnt help the station looks right out onto the park boneyard.

Night time is probably the best ride experience, nothing like soaring through the cool night air.

Infinity Falls

So in 2018 SW put in some rapids (Orlando has plenty of them), with a drop (yep seen that too), and a vertical lift (Legoland and Phantasialand say hi), and whenever I saw photos of it, I always thought they had gone a bit tooooo abstract with this metal structure next to a drop, certainly looked very SeaWorld. Just another rapids?

But the marketing gimmicks are a distraction, holy shit is legitimately the worlds best rapids ride, purely because of how well it does the rapids part.

 

The video below from Intamin sums it up, there are literally sections with 1m high bunny hops of water you go over....waayyy bigger than those waves you get on other rapids where there are logs under the water creating a bit of a wave.

The ride would be brutally wet with a fully loaded raft. Meanwhile I rode solo at 9pm at night, so managed to miss every wave. Would love to try it again on proper stinking hot day.

There's also a great bit of trickery where the the water goes down a small drop and then flows uphill.

Again just watch the video.

The theming looked nice, it was all your usual jungle and artificial rockwork, but there were accents of fluro colours and modern materials, reminiscent of gear you get from Kathmandu/BCF/Anaconda. Another nice touch was the soundtrack, with drums etc reaching a crecendo on the intense bits as you approached drops and waves, really building the tension.

I made sure I did Manta again, never ridden it at night.

Kraken was closed for maintenance, and I was happy to skip over Journey to Atlantis.

I should give a shout out to the Sesame Street land they built to replace Shamu's Happy Harbour, beautifully themed!

SeaWorld is really doubling down on being about coasters rather than Shamu, and the park actually has one of the 'highest average' coaster collections anywhere, looking forward to seeing how Penguin Trek turns out.

 

Edited December 8, 2023 by Gazza