CoasterDirected Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 Had an absolutely incredible time at SeaWorld today. Overall, an amazing park with great shows, a great atmosphere, and amazing rides. I loved this park way more than I thought I would and completely entertained the entire day. Lemme just give a quick grade to each ride. Manta: ATimes Ridden: 4Easily best flying coaster I've been on, tons of fun. Pretzel loop is super forceful and crazy in the back row, rest of the ride is tons of fun with the second half of the ride my favorite part. Coasting over the water with the fountains going off is awesome and flying so close through the rock work beats any near miss on a wing coaster.Journey To Atlantis: B/B-Very fun water coaster, my first by Mack Rides. Was missing the hologram in the opening scene and a few other effects were down. Drop was fun and the final coaster section was surprisingly good.Kraken: BTimes Ridden: 2Easily my favorite floorless (only have ridden Rougarou). "Rattly", but to be honest, I don’t really care. Had zero head-banging, and the entire ride is tons of fun. Drop was underwhelming but the rest of the ride made up for it. Zero-G roll was great. Especially love the second half when it dives into the trenches and tunnels and that final corkscrew was awesome. Mako: A+Times Ridden: 7What? This thing blew away my expectations, easily destroys my now second favorite B&M Hyper, Diamondback. It's extremely well paced and has very strong floater, even on the hill that has the trim. Second half is great with the overbanks, although it is a little slow. Best seat was definitely front, followed closely by the back for the insane airtime on the drop. The other seats are good but I would not rate it as high as I currently am if I only rode middle seats. Bottom line, probably top 5 coaster.Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin: C-Times Ridden: 1I was very disappointed in this ride. I didn't know exactly what to think except for a trackless dark ride with some real penguins in it. Was the longest wait of the day around 40 minutes when Mako was a walk-on and honestly I regret it. The trackless functionality is completely wasted and even the "wild" setting was extremely tame. It felt like I was in a warehouse with fake ice, and I know that is technically the case, I shouldn't feel like that. HPATFJ and Spiderman are some of my favorite rides of all time and honestly I would take them over many coasters, why couldn't this be like that? I got off this thinking, "Wait, that's it? That's the best they could do with this incredible technology?" Overall amazing park where all my expectations minus Antarctica were blown away. Totally worth the visit, especially if you pair it with BGT. Manta and Mako jumped into my top 10 coasters currently, but I will have to see if that remains true after my trip to Busch Gardens on Tuesday. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoddaH1994 Posted October 18, 2016 Share Posted October 18, 2016 I can not express to you how underrated that I think Sea World is as a park. I'm in a little disagreement about your rating of Journey to Atlantis, as I think it really is a hidden gem in their lineup. Also, did you have the opportunity to see One Ocean or Blue Horizons? Truly remarkable experiences! Keep us posted! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bkroz Posted October 18, 2016 Share Posted October 18, 2016 I love the idea of Journey to Atlantis, and I really love the progression of it (and its finale), but the ride itself is very, very, very disjointed. There's such potential – a protective seahorse spirit guiding you through the city as it's swallowed by the ocean, an evil siren luring you in deeper – but to the average rider, there's no plot, lots of flickered-out effects, and some very corny, odd moments. Also, that stupid Beetlejuice songs takes me very out of it, every single time hahaha. Antarctica was a let-down for me, too, which is sad. I mean, it's an enjoyable ride and probably as well as they could've done given the tiny space, but it would've been awesome to see them hit it out of the ballpark with the first trackless darkride in the U.S. – before Disney or Universal; who could've imagined! It's not a bad ride, but it's not what it should be. I actually would've preferred if it more closely resembled the concept art - sliding, skidding, and spinning through a bright, icy, cold "Arctic" exhibit with real Arctic animal enclosures built along the ride's path. Instead, it's circling around in a rainbow-lit dark cavern. The concept art: The end result: And then to everyone's surprise, the BULK of the ride parks the sleds in front of large, flat walls with rectangular movie screens, lightly jostling along to a flat CGI "motion simulator" film (with some of the worst transitions I've ever seen). Very strange... So far, we're in agreement. Thanks for sharing! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoasterDirected Posted October 19, 2016 Author Share Posted October 19, 2016 I can not express to you how underrated that I think Sea World is as a park. I'm in a little disagreement about your rating of Journey to Atlantis, as I think it really is a hidden gem in their lineup. Also, did you have the opportunity to see One Ocean or Blue Horizons? Truly remarkable experiences! Keep us posted! I liked it a lot, but the dark ride section was lackluster and missing a decent amount of effects when I rode it. I did not see Blue Horizons but I saw One Ocean and loved it to bits. Amazing show and such a cool way of showing off some amazing and gorgeous animals! SeaWorld's Orcas are such beautiful creatures. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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