Date:10/31/2020-11/8/2020
Destination: Orlando, Florida
Goal: Orlando Parks, Cape Canaveral
Distance: 961 Miles
Means of Travel: Flight
Potential Credits: 24
Day 6
"You see what happened overnight?" Ben asked me excitedly as I made sure my stuff was in order. I knew what he was talking about. Pennsylvania had flipped from red to blue as Philadelphia's votes kept coming in, enough to cinch it for Biden! I kept my fingers crossed, knowing that gap needed to widen for them to call it. Politics aside, today was our last coaster day and I wanted to enjoy it. The park on the menu was Seaworld Orlando, a park I had wanted to visit since I first heard Seaworld existed as a kid. I had the Shamu's Deep Sea Adventures PS2 game and had been to Seaworld San Antonio on the Texas 2018 region trip, all that lead up to today when I would go to the Seaworld magnum opus after all these years wanting to come here!
We also had media permissions for RMC Connoisseurs at Fun Spot Orlando, so there was time to go pop out and do that in the afternoon and film their rides.
Seaworld's entrance is iconic and I loved seeing this when we got there. It's simple, elegant, and so uniquely Blackstone. Plus I love lighthouses anyway so maybe I was a bit biased, but this park entrance is so cute in my eyes!
First up was one of my favorite two things in the world combined: roller coasters and aquariums. Manta always looked like the perfect way to do a flying coaster, keep it graceful and not scary as possible, it's supposed to be an incredible experience not a death-defying "hang on for your life" kind of ordeal. And sadly, I never really "got" flying coasters. My claustrophobia makes it tough to enjoy something with those kinds of restraints, but I had gotten better about that since I got my last rides on Firehawk. Still, none of them really did it for me except maybe Batwing, so I was eager to see how Manta would stack up.
I also noticed a silver arowana in the aquarium in the queue, which is one of my favorite fish and I know they can go for $100 at least easily.
The park was deader than the Phoenician language so I didn't have to worry about crows and always feeling like I was in the way, which was nice. So we wasted no time and headed back to Kraken, which I had heard all kinds of bad things about, leaving me to prepare for the worst...
GODDAMMIT!!!! Someone turn this Kraken to sushi for god's sake! Ben had told me that it had been rethemed from a Key West seaside town into a research lab, he hated it but I actually found the queue really cool. However, once you're actually on the ride is when everything goes to shit. This thing is absolutely awful! I had ridden almost the exact same coaster in Medusa the year before and that was just fine, why is this so rough and so bad? It wasn't quite as bad as Scream or Rougarou, but it's down there in the floorless shit tier for sure.
Come watch us get pummeled!
Wanting an experience that wouldn't get us pummeled, Journey to Atlantis was up next. I had only ridden the San Antonio version of it, which was literally a shoot the chutes with two turntables and Two Steps From Hell on a blown out speaker, so I was approaching this concept with standards lower than the Marianas Trench. Furthermore, I had watched the Atlantis documentary on Disney+ where they explored the possible real ruins of Atlantis in the Straits of Gibraltar before this trip, so the lore was fresh in my mind. This thing is so well done! I loved how you start in a little fishing town and then go to Atlantis, there's a whole simple narrative behind it and I loved that they actually told it pretty well. You get a little wet on it, one flap of my button-down was soaked but nothing beyond that. The ride's craziest moment I think is at the top of the second lift, where you expect to drop into a flume but the boat keeps rolling on the coaster track, then when you're expecting the drop to be a straight shoot the chutes flume, it curves on you before you splash down. Not to mention the soundtrack is an absolute banger! My water coaster standards are no longer sunk like the ruins of Atlantis!
Managed to get my GoPro wet filming it, water droplets on the lens and everything!
After Journey to Atlantis Ben went to the restroom while I went to our locker to grab my backpack. What I didn't know was that Ben's phone was right in front of the backpack, and when I pulled on the handle, crack! I heard the worst sound in the world of Ben's nice, expensive Samsung phone striking the pavement corner-first, cracking the hell out of his screen. "I heard that!" he yelled as my heart skipped a beat. I apologized profusely (as usual) and he was pretty understanding, able to get a new phone on the spot and only asked for a small symbolic fuckup fee to help out.
Next we crossed the park to go to Voyager's for some good old-fashioned BBQ! We had the dining deal so it was more sampling than it was a gluttonous lunch but man their brisket here is so good!
While we ate our BBQ, we were taunted by this gorgeous view of an incomplete Ice Breaker not taking any passengers. I thought this looked like a fun coaster but it wasn't as high priority for me as Iron Gwazi when I planned this. Oh well...
Next up was the big seadog. Seaworld Orlando's magnup opus, and the tallest coaster in Orlando: mighty Mako! Another ride on Ben's resume, I hear so many great things about this coaster, time to see if it lives up to the hype!
First thing I noticed was simply how well-done Mako's area is. The park did a great job theming it as a shipwreck graveyard, combining aged and dingy with sleek and colorful in that way Seaworld/Busch love to do. Ben and I threw our stuff in a locker and headed onto the ride!
Ben LOVES Mako's soundtrack, and I see why now! It suits the ride perfectly, combining beautiful and ominous, a theme that echoes throughout this entire experience. Heading up the lift, you can see all of Orlando, all of this theme park Mecca I had just spent a week exploring, from a height I had never seen it before. And set to that music? It ties the experience together perfectly.
Mako rides in two pretty distinct halves. You go down that drop, it rips you out your seat in a way no other B&M does, and you skirt across the water for a split second. From there, I got major Fury vibes for the pacing and force level over those hills, and major Behemoth vibes for the consistency hitting those airtime moments along a body of water. This isn't like normal B&M floater you'd get on Diamondback or Intimidator, this is full on Fury-style ejector over every hill. You get a nice kick of negative Gs right before the brake run before it slows you down. From there the ride turns into Raging Bull, barreling through these really cool curves through through the area and over the water, giving you a great sense of speed before hitting the final brakes. All in all, I really liked it! Easily my favorite B&M hyper (not giga, hyper) and while I didn't mention this coaster that entire review, I'd compare it to Baby Orion. People were just kind of "meh" when it was announced but the ride kicks major ass, way more than you expect of a B&M hyper. Plus that curve out of the airtime hill in the back gave me major Orion vibes.
We rode the front and the back and got POV footage of both. You can tell from the front seat ride I was surprised over those hills!
We decided to go cool off next on Infinity Falls, a water ride I actually really wanted to get on. I changed into my water ride clothes and we hopped in line with the useless Quick Queues we wasted money on. I love this ride's energy! The scientific/environmental vibe, the lively drumbeats, the theming, it pumped me up to actually get on a water ride for once!
I got soaked to the core. Like, this thing isn't Popeye's but it's a close second, you get completely drenched on it. There's a good roller coaster section where it's just barreling down these curves increasing in speed as you just smash through section after section of rapids.
But the grand finale of the ride ensures that if there was a square inch of your clothing that somehow stayed dry in that washing machine of a ride, it wouldn't stay dry when you got off! Ending a rapids ride like this is like combining Whitewater Canyon with Congo Falls back at home. One is a prolonged experience that progressively gets you wet, the other just drops and soaks you. This is like having water dumped on you from every direction for four minutes straight and then taking a splash from a shoot the chutes. Combine the exciting, raucous ride you get on Infinity Falls with the super cool theming, I don't even care that I got wet this is my new favorite water ride!
From there, Ben and I had arranged a time with Fun Spot Orlando to use RMC Connoisseurs's media credentials to film there with my GoPro, so we headed out. We stopped by the Verizon store on the way so Ben could get a phone that hadn't been dropped out of a locker. And we got there in the nick of time, his phone was starting to black out the screen! I felt so bad but he was able to replace it no problem at all so that helped.
So we get to Fun Spot and let them know we're here so we can get their PR person out to walk us around the park and oversee our filming. The place was dead so I knew it would be no problem. That being said, this place is actually pretty nice! Not much you don't see at any other family fun center, but the way it's presented and the fact that they have a few legitimate coasters sort of sets it apart.
White Lightning was our first stop, as the main reason we went was to check out the new section of Titan Track on the bottom of the valley out of the S-curve. Riding it, you can tell it made a huge difference. The ride still has the feel of raw texture you get from metal rolling on metal on wooden coasters, but it feels so much smoother than the rest of the ride. This struck me as the perfect way to solve problems on coasters with maintenance issues, just slap this on the problem spots and that constant need to retrack certain sections could be a thing of the past!
As a whole, I liked the ride a lot. It felt like a baby Mystic Timbers, not quite as intense but still a lot of fun, and you get some pleasant floater over those hills. It's comparable to InvadR for most similar GCI I think, it's not going to throw you around relentlessly in the way that Thunderhead, Gold Striker, or Renegade do but it doesn't need to. It's a fun ride for thrill-seekers and families alike, and it plays its role very well.
Freedom Flyer and Sea Serpent were next. Freedom Flyer reminded me of Dragonflyer at Dollywood in terms of ride experience and texture, it's nice and smooth and just sort of glides over the midway. Not as intense as Dollywood's but still a great ride that shows a lot of improvement on Vekoma's part since they built the Runaway Reptar clones. Sea Serpent was Sea Serpent but I got to film it!
A major thank you on behalf of myself and the other RMC Connoisseurs members for allowing us to film here. It was an honor! Fun Spot was so enjoyable and they've got a cute little lineup of great rides here. Definitely check it out if you're in the area for the bigger stuff, it's a great way to kill an hour or two!
Back to Seaworld!
Ben finished setting up the new phone while I snagged a few photos of Mako and Manta.
We wanted to use our dining deal again, this time at that restaurant by Infinity Falls. I got this really nice chimichurri skirt steak over rice with chips, it was the best meal we had here by far! I didn't expect much from a theme park steak but this stuff is like, melt in your mouth tender. Easily the best Brazilian dish I've ever had!
The sun was going down, but it made the park look gorgeous!
Well we wanted to see Count Von Count at Sesame Street but I heard he was in Pennsylvania counting absentee ballots for Biden. Actually, I was just here for Grover's Soapbox Derby, which wasn't much to write home about. But this area is so cute! I loved Sesame Street and as I grew up, it became one of those children's franchises I grew to really respect once I learned more about it, and I'm super proud that something like that was part of my childhood. So coming here made me happy, I'll admit it.
Ben and I had a bit to kill before Orca Encounter, so we went to Wild Arctic to see some of the animals there.
Wild Arctic was really well themed and like Animal Kingdom, gave me Columbus Zoo vibes with the theme as a research outpost up north. A little hard to photograph through the glass, but I loved these animals, particularly the seals and the belugas. Who doesn't love a chonky sea pupper that turns into a cute lil torpedo when it swims?
Next up we had one more charge of the dining plan to use, so we went to get a couple of fish sandwiches. At this point I was stuffed but continued to sample anyway, and this was some damn good fish! We also checked out some of the Christmas stuff around Shamu Stadium, which was nicely done.
Time for the grand finale to the day: Orca Encounter! I loved One Ocean at Seaworld San Antonio, but this always intrigued me more as something more educational. And to my surprise, it was still pretty flashy and show offy and I wasn't expecting that. You still got giant marine animals flying through the air and splashing everyone. But what got me was that the show not only showcases these behaviors, but explains how they use them in the wild. There was this super cool sequence that had them working in unison to kick up a big wave that was used in nature to hunt, which was probably my favorite part of the show. One Ocean was still great, don't get me wrong, but Orca Encounter blows it out of the water. Pun intended.
Finale my ass! Ben and I ran and managed to snag a ride on Mako and the last ride of the night on Manta to close out the coasters in Central Florida on this trip. Flying around at night in the silent darkness was a beautiful experience and the perfect coaster experience on which to end the coasters leg of the trip.
This was a day over fifteen years in the making and I'm so glad I finally got to go to Seaworld. This is easily a top ten park, it's gorgeous, their coaster collection is great, the ambassadors were all super friendly with us, and of course good food and beer. However, it left me in a serious dilemma because I can't pick a favorite between Mako and Manta, and honestly I don't need to. Both do very different things very well. I'd like a favorite, it's corny to give every coaster a participation trophy, but I legit can't decide between them. Regardless, this park is incredible and does so many amazing things for the world we live in and the animals we share it with. I snagged a Seaworld Rescue hat at the gift shop and wore it to Thanksgiving later that month around a Blackfisher family member and I ain't sorry one bit!
UP NEXT: Florida during an election should be enough to make anyone leave the planet, right? Ben and I take this trip out of this world, a crazy time at CityWalk, and the exciting conclusion of the 2020 Presidential Election!
