Manta

Since quite a while the responsible park designers of Sea World Orlando/Florida were thinking about how to link the two major themes of the park, rides and the ocean fauna. Their intention was to create a new attraction that everyone would have the possibility to experience, no matter if they cannot ride because of age, height or other restrictions - an experience for the whole family. The result of this thinking is now standing clearly visible in the park: A Flying Coaster of the well renowned ride manufacturer Bolliger & Mabillard, based in Monthey/Switzerland.

The theme "flying" is relatively uncommon in a theme park related to sea animals, but the final product couldn't be much more logical. The Manta ray (Manta birostris) was chosen as an eponym for the new crowd puller. Those elegant animals are "flying" through (and sometimes even over) the ocean with their wings, like in zero gravity. This given, Sea World visitors can take a flight together with the majestic Manta ray - even without getting wet.

After entering the park through the main gate, we take a turn left and follow the path. Shortly after a few meters, the prominent ride silhouette drops into the visitors eyes. The elegantly curved, marine-blue tracks are crossing the sunny Floridian sky like hand-made painting. The Manta ride entrance is situated opposite to "Turtle Point", a fern-covered rock with a beautiful waterfall and a Manta-shaped sculpture with the rides name on it is guiding the way. The path leads to a tunnel underneath the waterfall rock in which we hardly trust our eyes: large acrylic glass windows in the walls open views to huge aquariums. The twinkling water surface can be seen in a distance, a lot of different shoals whizzing the wet element, and also the rides godfathers - the Manta rays - are present in large numbers, gliding majestically in front of the astonished guests.

Hereby, the attraction concept comes to full glance: Non-riders are able to admire those aquariums by entering a separate entrance. As in the ride queue itself are solely windows in the walls, the separate area also consists of an immense acrylic glass ceiling where some of the inhabitants already took place for a little rest. A 360°-aquarium, designed especially for children, opens the possibility to plunge into the submarine world, but adults are not able to resist, too, and crawl into the crow's nest.

Finally, we reach the entrance and the entrance - yes, that's right, the attraction features a double loading station in order to load and unload one of three identical operating trains as fast as possible and to keep the ride capacity on a maximum, measuring up the large attendance of the park. A ride operator points us to the left or right, we climb the stairs to the loading platform and are assigned to one of the rows by a ride operator. He fills up empty seats - but wishes for a specific row can be addressed, of course. The trains feature eight four-seated cars and a frontcar without seats. The frontcar is themed in the shape of a beautiful big Manta ray, followed by several other, smaller conspecifics who will all accompany us on our journey and can also be found in-between the cars.

We take one of the 32 seats, closing the shoulder- and leg-restraints. After the obligatory final checks the hydraulic system lifts us in a lying position underneath the track with a turbine-like howling - one final look to the Frontcar and we begin to feel like a Manta. The train slowly starts moving forward, passing the switch to the lifthill, the chain enters the hook without a remarkable jolt. The lift accelerates perceptibly, we climb up the hill and the very comfortable lying position starts giving a nice prickle in our stomach. One last glance left and right of the landscape and amazed visitors faces directly under the Lifthill, and off we go.

Reaching the top of the lifthill, the train drops downwards in a slight right curve, it seems we nearly hit the ground with our stomach, then the train is climbing upwards again into the first big ride element, the Pretzel Loop. This could be roughly described as a standard loop, but starting from above, then going downwards. We enter the element with a good amount of speed and feel negative g-forces at the highest point, really flying with the manta. The world is turning upside down - or are we? The Pretzel loop pushes us into the backrest during our descent, not too much in the first rows but in the back rows it becomes a breathtaking experience. But we already made it out again up the hill, taking a sharp 90° left turn through the loop and into a 360°-corkscrew. We take a fast dive to the right and with high speed into a 270° downward helix, followed by another crossing of the loop with a 360° Inline-twist, where the track winds around the train, vice versa to the corkscrew.

Still with enough speed, the train climbs up the hill to the block brake, passes it and enters the last section of the track, which contains the next highlight of this superb ride. After a fast right downwards turn our train seems to touch the water surface of a small lake with the right Manta-wing and passes a small palm tree-covered island with a very nice fountain. Riders in the last rows might get some splatters of water here. We fly over the entrances waterfall, take another 360° corkscrew and after a left turn we are finally landing in the final brakes. Slowly, the train passes the transfer track and maintenance hall, takes one last left turn, crosses another switch and enters one of the stations. The seats move down to the vertical position again and release us. With an euphoric feeling, we leave the station.

Beside the existing roller coasters Shamu Express (Zierer family coaster in Orca Design), Kraken (B&M floorless coaster) and the water coaster Journey to Atlantis (Mack Rides), Sea World Orlando has made another well-done addendum to their portfolio with Manta. The ride is perfectly incorporated into the extremely nice landscaping of the park and can be seen and experienced from each and every side. The waiting area, surrounded with aquariums, creates a good accommodation to the ride itself. Also non-riders are invited to take a rest, the specially designed separated entrance gives a very comfortable opportunity for admiring the interesting and different views of underwater life. The well-balanced and enjoyable ride on the B&M Flying coaster makes it a very easy decision to instantly get in line again for starting another flight through the (air)ocean with the Manta.