Florida 01/26 – Islands of Adventure + Sea World
With Epic not being epic, it was time to use our Universal passes to revisit some old classics, and rope drop
Day 5 – Islands of Adventure
Walked straight to Hagrid’s to fall over at the fact that it already had a 3 hour queue for the day, and that it was contained entirely within its own entrance. Flashback to our previous visit where a 2 hour queue left Harry Potter land entirely, something ain’t right.
Writing that off immediately, we chucked a left towards some dinosaurs which hadn’t yet managed to reach unbearable status.
Our single lap on Velocicoaster for the morning was similar to Gwazi in that it felt like the ride was underperforming slightly. Be that the weather, the time of day, the mood. It’s great, but suffers from that Taron effect of a lot happening visiually, with little substance to many of the elements backing it up.
Until the ending, that backs it up.
From there we decided to ride the High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride! for its ever questionable ‘is it a rollercoaster?’ status, just in case. Verdict was that it’s no less questionable than a few other things I’ve done, but I’ve left it off for now through lack of care.
Semantics aside, it was a better ride experience than Tron, and I did particularly enjoy the bit of the story that shows the yellow creatures queueing and paying for a machine in an endless cycle. And no one knows why. Self-aware.
While in Seuss land we walked onto The Cat in the Hat dark ride, which is fun, and longer than I remember. At times like these it’s all about these little victories of finding quality enough attractions that you don’t have to actually queue for, to feel like you’re getting your money’s worth from the machine.
Then we sat on a wall, while ambient audio called us a fool, to look at Sea World info again. Outlook was better than it had been the previous day already, but it needed a little more time.
Assessing queues on this park showed that only Spiderman and Kong were interesting and doable, so took a wander through the sun-bleached superhero land that kinda brings the park down on a visual level.
Spiderman queue went by ok and the ride was also ok. It’s still got the moves and, as with Soarin’, for me it’s just cool to ride something that inspired 50 other versions I’ve ridden since.
Upon finishing that, Kong queue had turned into laugh and leave status. So we laughed and left. Not ideal, but an alright start.
Went for a sandwich via a cheeky drive-by of Sea World to see with our own eyes that Pipeline was testing. Not leaving anything to chance.
Ate said sandwich and then headed in to
Sea World
Comedy began at the parking barrier, meeting the general sentiment of this place really not caring about guest impressions as of late. The price to park was pitched slightly above every other establishment in the city, but that was also before including the cheeky ‘+ tax’ slapped on the sign that they love to hit you with. Reading this aloud with an American accent made it bearable, but the reality of the rip-off soon hits when having to walk through a sea of cars on barren tarmac.
At least it seemed reasonably quiet at the entrance, with security clearly bored and trying to make a good time for themselves.
Quickly learned that the shortest way to #1 Pipeline: The Surf Coaster involves walking through a bar, which is novel, and past an obvious sign that shows off their staggered opening times shenanigans, which is less so.
Almost got baited into some paid lockers by the signage, before noticing that everyone else was just winging it with loose articles, so headed in fully equipped. The tunes in the area are rather fun, with some surfing music that gives it some fun character.
One train was a little slow of course, but we were on in about 25 mins, entertained enough by watching a new ride system in action.
So it’s that new B&M stand-up thing of course, and I had mixed excitement and trepidation about it all. Personally love a good stand-up, with Togo being my kings of the game and having not had one for 30 years it’s nice to see a revival in any form. But then it’s B&M, and their actual ‘seating’ never did much for me. Plus they can’t build a smooth ride to save their life any more.
There’s hope. I actually really like the new product and am excited to see where it goes. The standing design is a lot better, with room to breathe around you, much less clunky restraints and a flexibility in floor-to-ass height even while the ride is operating. This all adds up to fear, and fear is where the stand-up always shone for me.
The starting launch is the next in a long line of the latest fashion – one with a hump in the middle of it, which here serves the specific purpose at least of instantly putting the fear in you. The airtime introduces the fact that your feet can just leave the floor at any moment in the next 60 seconds.
You do a big corner while recovering from that, before heading into a twisty hill that does the thing to you again. Then there’s an inversion to break it up a bit, before a suboptimal second half of mostly corners that don’t best play to the strengths of the ride type, or the theme, save from a couple of whippy transitions.
I don’t know if it was better or worse for it, but on re-rides you can lean into the unique sensation more by springing down and ‘jumping’ into the key moments. It adds to the thrill of course, but equally to the discomfort if you land in an anatomically compromised position.
Had a blast anyway, made me realise I don’t get to try much new these days. Layout feels a bit prototype, but positive impression overall.
#2 Penguin Trek was the other new B&M that we needed, and was quite the opposite in every way. Queue took us through some of the rocks that we had explored previously as just the abandoned dark ride, before a bit of a themed room and batching staff having an argument with guests about not being able to take their fanny pack on or something.
Exact same Sea World rubbish from years ago – haphazardly trying to ruin someone’s day over an item that can easily go in the loose item storage available on the platform, to try make $2 + tax off them at a locker.
They had no logical grounds to back their claim beyond sounding like an ass, of course, so after 30 seconds of no clear indication whether we were clear to pass or not, we passed them and their nonsense and walked onto the next arriving train.
Starts indoors with a bit of unconvincing gumpf, rocks and screens of Legoland quality. Then a surprisingly punchy, for what it is, uphill launch into the outdoor layout.
Which immediately rattled around and rode hilariously at low speed, making the mockery of this once fine rollercoaster company that we’ve all become so used to by now. It doesn’t even look pretty, and that’s like their only thing left.
There’s a poxy second launch in there somewhere, which just happened, and the rumble continued awkwardly into the brakes. So for the competition it’s up against in the ‘family multi-launch’ category – awful. +1
Round the corner is one of their finest creations at least, it was finally time for a Mako marathon. I had been looking forward to reuniting with Florida’s third best coaster for some time and on a trip that made it very hard to come by any unadulterated coasting experiences the laps didn’t disappoint.
It perfects the essence of the B&M hyper for me, the ridiculously sustained float into a satisfying crunch that lands perfectly, on Mako alone, on every single hill. In the golden 2nd row, even the trimmed hill adds to the experience with a delightful third tier of float-brake-crunch, but it’s the first camelback that’s just on another level and has you actively counting the seconds out of seat. Love it.
Wanted to give Ice Breaker another shot after kinda liking it, but hating life while riding it because comfort collars and the fabled ‘best place for your ‘loose’ item is loosely in your hand on a jerky ride you may want to hold on to, rather than bent round your face or just, I’ll take them from you and put them somewhere’ policy.
Both of these issues were rectified on this occasion, with the collars being a thing of the past, many congratulations to all involved.
Thus it’s a solid ride. The multi-pass two stage humps are silly and awkward in a good way and then there’s a decent punch to the top hat, twists and turns that follow. Feels too short after the faff.
With operating hours closing in faster than expected we took a couple more laps on the best boys and then headed out, satisfied with success at Sea World. It weren’t pretty, but it got the job done.
After another food break the plan was to head back to
Islands of Adventure
and suck up the wait for Hagrid’s, no matter the cost. For all the Universal attractions with perpetual 3 hour waits this trip, it seemed to be the only play to dedicate your dying hours to a single lap on one of them, as the fastrack stops serving not long before closing. Then, like it should do all the time, operationally it motors through the remaining guests.
Aside from thinking we were in the wrong queue for the first five minutes, for how big the fastrack one was at an hour before park close, the tactic worked. A combination of moving faster, eventually, and the simple resignation to ‘this is our lot for the night’ makes it somewhat more bearable. And in my lack of general excitement I’d forgotten just how damn good this ride was.
It’s so long, with so much going for it. One of very few attractions with a wait like that that actually lets you feel like it was worth it for the ride time. Particularly at night, with the headlights and sound effects and other trains zipping around it’s such an adventure in both layout and technological goonery.
While never truly kicking your ass, the ride is just pure joy from start to finish. As established I love a multi-launch and you can’t get more multi than this, nor help but think back to Penguin Trek and snort. My only real criticism is that the very final, most potent acceleration of them all, leads to a disappointingly short section before the final brakes. Just when you feel it’s peaking. In Falcon’s Flight terms, because everything for me going forward is likely to be in Falcon’s terms, it would be ending after the top hat.
If only we could ride it again.