Apologies for the double post mods. Figured I’d debrief my SWO day today. I held off heading to the park until 10:30 as I didn’t see a need to get there at rope drop and I was sleep deprived. Once I arrived I went to watch Dolphin Adventures which was a pleasant show I certainly liked it more than the dolphin and beluga show in San Antonio. Following that since I skipped JTA Sunday I figured I’d hit that for the credit. Wow I would love to take a look at the difference in cost for this ride vs JTA in Texas. This ride had some high quality theming unfortunately the Gorgon head element was not operational today. I got significantly more wet on this than I expected. It is a quality water ride for sure definitely not to be missed on a SWO visit.
After that I decided to go get a few Kraken laps in and rather similar to Sunday, for some reason Kraken closed at 4pm 2 hours before park close. Is this routine? Or is SeaWorld doing this because of how dead this week is or because staffing (my guess based on the company’s history it’s to save money on staffing). Despite my success in both test seats for Hulk Kraken I could only ride in the modified seats which limited my experience to rows 4 and 5, unlike Hulk which has modified seats in rows 4, 5, 1, and 8. It is wonderful as much crap as Universal gets for being against larger guests they offer that option on Hulk. Admittedly B&M OTSRs are becoming rather frustrating for me, as I can now ride attractions like Twisted Timbers, Forbidden Journey, AND Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit for crying out loud but the inconsistent seatbelt lengths on the B&M OTSRs screws me on some of those, but I am 6’3 309 with broad shoulders so I guess it’s what I deal with until my size is reduced further. But I really like Kraken I’m torn on if I like it more than Hulk or not I got 4 laps on Kraken total this trip. After that I proceeded to Manta.
Manta I accumulated 6 rides on that great B&M Flyer during this trip, it has been 10 years since I rode Superman at Six Flags Great Adventure. I really enjoyed Manta, the layout was difficult to really get used to like some other rides. The pretzel loop is just a blast. I love the queue and theming and rock work throughout the ride with all the water elements. It’s presented extremely well and is rather delightful to arrive to when arriving at SeaWorld Orlando. I have yet to ride Tatsu or any other B&M Flyers besides a Superman clone but I will always be happy to take a lap on Manta. After that I went to Mako to get a couple laps before the only sea lion show of the day.
Mako. Yeah Mako. 14 laps total over the 2 days, absolutely fantastic Coaster. I would almost describe it as the “perfected B&M Hyper” the hills are designed to produce significantly more airtime than any of the other three hypers I’ve encountered (Apollo, Nitro, Intimidator). I felt like I was out of the seat for several sustained seconds on some of the hills especially the large camelback coming off the turn from the drop. The drop is amazing it admittedly caught me off guard how steep it was on my first ride. I really enjoyed the speed hill and people can call the ending boring I think it’s perfectly fine to wrap up this extremely re-rideable coaster. The one complaint I have the trim, wow that thing grabs the hell out of the train. Otherwise my favorite B&M I’ve ridden by far until whenever I drive to Charlotte in the next year I imagine, but Mako has certainly solidified itself as one of my absolute favorite rides.
The sea lion & otter spotlight show um I mean it was fine? I felt like compared to the sea lion show in SA I saw which was the special “Sea Lions Tonight” show or whatever it was kinda boring. Definitely a lot more stupid humans just pretending to be dumb than I remembered from that show in SA which admittedly had parodies roasting everything in the park that everyone did throughout the day which is an excellent bit of self-aware humor for sure.
I also watched the Orca Encounter as I would have felt like I missed out if I didn’t. It was largely identical to the San Antonio show just with 3 orcas instead of 2. The script was the same. Definitely a cool show just to see Orcas in action.
Overall I really enjoyed the park despite the frustrations over Infinity Falls, Ice Breaker, one train Ops, which I didn’t find pervasive today as I got several laps on the coasters anyway. It’s really honestly not fair to compare this park to the San Antonio location but I went 2 months ago so it’s difficult to avoid. It’s obvious the park has a SIGNIFICANTLY higher budget which I knew already, but after going I would love to see the numbers. I’m definitely glad I went to the San Antonio location first. The landscaping isn’t even comparable, the sharks underwater bar had literal mini aquariums in the bar itself and the number of noticeably nice bars on the water was hard to ignore. There’s a lot more animal exhibits and obviously the coasters are largely superior with the only one I find comparable to the big 3 in overall quality was Texas Stingray. But yeah honestly I feel like I went to SeaWorld in Texas but I REALLY went to SeaWorld in Florida. I’ll have to write up a debrief on my Universal day as well which I already expressed my opinion of VelociCoaster in another thread.
