A lot can change in seven years, especially in Orlando. In the time since my last visit to the Sunshine State, a whole host of new rollercoasters have popped up across every major operator in the city. From immersive story coasters to airtime-laden, genre-defining hypers, there’s surely something for every coaster fan amongst the newest additions. Rather than write an endless parade of ride reviews, I thought I’d summarise my thoughts on all of the new rides at once – so let’s get going!
Mako
Photo: Tampa Bay Times (tampabay.com)
At the beginning of 2022, I had yet to experience a single B&M Hyper Coaster. Flash forward to December, and I’m happy to have seven of these wonderful things under my belt and Mako, brilliant Mako, stands proudly as the second best. (Second place here is basically first, given that I don’t see how any other hyper could compete with Fury 325.)
I’d heard a lot about this shark-themed coaster prior to travelling out, from its consistently smooth ride, beautiful airtime and not-so-beautiful trim brakes, this was a coaster with a reputation. A reputation that held true on each count.
As the first chunky (200ft) lift hill of the trip, Mako’s first drop took my breath away. Although, it may not just have been due to its novelty, given that this drop was consistently fantastic throughout all seven of my rides. Pulling straight into a curved airtime hill that offered a moment of intensity (for me at least) alongside some incredible floater airtime (why is turning a corner whilst you remain in mid-air SO much fun?!) before entering the traditional airtime-hill-centric out-and-back hypercoaster layout, Mako was a coaster that just offered (almost) pure joy from start to finish. The only rain threatening this parade however was the trim brakes, dear lord those trims! At times, they hit so hard that I felt like I was on a wild mouse! I’ve heard on the grapevine that it is possible to get rides where they aren’t so noticeable, so I’ll keep that firmly on the bucket list. But even with the trims fully activated this is one hell of a coaster. Offering unadulterated, pain-free joy, I could happily lap this all day long, and leave the park happy as a clam… or should that be a mako shark?
Slinky Dog Dash
A little bit of an anomaly on this list, Slinky Dog is definitely the least thrilling rollercoaster to get a mention, but in my opinion is no less worthwhile! Unlike every other coaster here, however, we did only ride Slinky Dog once so I can only vouch for a back-row night ride, but I thought this was absolutely charming! Not only charming but a lot more fun than I thought it would be from seeing photos and POVs. Of course, it helped that the barren shadeless hell that is Toy Story Land becomes a fun cornucopia of coloured lights at night and that some Christmassy sound effects had been added, but there was an undeniable joy in bouncing over wacky-worm-esque humps in our little Slinky Dog. The second launch was zippier than expected too! Throw in a chunky animatronic Wheezy performing the iconic You’ve Got a Friend In Me as you sit on the brake run (more coasters should have brake run entertainment!!), and it’s a winner for me! I’m just not sure I’d wait in the lines it gets throughout the day. We hopped in line 5 minutes before the park closed and waited 15 minutes – perfection!
Ice Breaker
It wasn’t until we got in line for SeaWorld’s newest rollercoaster, Ice Breaker, that I realised I actually knew absolutely nothing about this ride. Nothing that is, except the whole minimum height requirement fiasco, which meant that all I really knew was ‘this is supposed to be a family ride’. I can’t say this is a coaster I was particularly excited about. As a general rule, as soon as I discover that a coaster train features Premier’s universally reviled ‘comfort collars’, all my excitement for the ride vanishes in a puff of smoke. Oh, Premier. There’s nothing actually wrong with their coasters, in fact, many are rather excellent, but they simply seem to have gone off the rails with their train design. And that’s painfully (in every sense of the word) true for Ice Breaker. I was actually pleasantly surprised by this coaster. The launches were great fun, the layout packed in an impressive load of airtime and the switch track meant that the operations weren’t as dire as I expected. But once again, it was all ruined by the trains. The comfort collars weren’t even the issue this time, perhaps given the lack of inversions, it was the restraint itself. Solid as a rock, and prone to increasing tightness throughout the runtime, this restraint made the ride almost unbearable by the end. An airtime-packed layout is usually cause for celebration, but here the pain in my thighs that accompanied each pop almost completely overshadowed all the enjoyment it brought. The increasing tightness too felt like the train was attempting to snap my legs in half, and had me begging for release by the time we pulled into the station. It’s just sad really. With almost any other train, this would be a ride that would be near the top of my to-do list at SeaWorld, but I’m just not sure how much the pain is worthwhile. And we know Premier can make comfortable trains, both Mr Freeze and Backlot Stunt Coaster attest to this, so why are the Sky Rockets so bad? *sigh*.
Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind
It’s strange, but I was never really that excited for Cosmic Rewind. Maybe it’s Marvel fatigue? Chris Pratt fatigue? Or maybe just that we were originally scheduled to travel way before it opened, so there was little point getting excited. Whatever the reason, my hype for this ride didn’t truly begin until late summer/early autumn when it felt like a steady stream of my British coaster friends were travelling over and had nothing but positive things to say about EPCOT’s first rollercoaster. With a randomised soundtrack stacked with bangers, I knew that whatever the ride turned out to be like, it would almost certainly be a good time. Alas, we arrived at Walt Disney World the day after EPCOT International Festival of the Holidays began, bringing with it a holiday overlay for the park’s newest attraction. I’m going to take a moment here to mention how irritating this was to me. To change up your park’s most popular attraction just six months after its opening is quite bizarre. There’s a reason Walt Disney World don’t offer Haunted Mansion Holiday. People travel to the resort from all over the world for that One Off Trip. They want to see the attractions in their normal form. As did I with Cosmic Rewind. Thankfully this ‘overlay’ turned out to be nothing more than a new song – a play on ‘Run Rudolph Run’, instead about Rocket Raccoon. Just one new song, playing on every ride, in place of the regular six-song variety. A weird choice, and definitely not one for the better in my opinion, but at least I got almost entirely the usual experience.
So, enough of my whinging, how was the ride??? It was fun! Really fun. I think I spent the entire duration of our rides with my arms in the air cheering and laughing. As far as indoor coasters go, I think this -as a standalone coaster – might be my favourite! It’s a spinning coaster but offers more of a slow rotation than spin so it never felt nauseating to me, though my travel-sickness-inclined partner did feel a little rough after our first ride. As you might guess from the ginormous show building, it’s also really, really long and surprisingly fast! It was, however, and I’m not sure how best to put this, not nearly as themed as I wanted – and expected – it to be. As the most expensive rollercoaster in history, I really thought they’d be doing something inside the showbuilding beyond screens. It felt like what Avengers Assemble: Flight Force over at Walt Disney Studios Park was meant to be. You’re zooming around in a big black box, past screens showing Marvel heroes fighting. Is that the best you can do?! There are a few physical moments. The most memorable being a helix around a model of the Earth – I loved that! But, with the highly-lauded controllable train rotation, designed to ensure that you were always facing the story, I just wish there was more… story. The rotation worked exceptionally well in the first scene of the ride, before ascending into the main show building, truly making me lose all sense of reality for a moment, but it never reached these dizzy highs again. I do have to take a moment to mention the pre-shows though. I won’t go into detail as going in blind definitely enhanced the experience for me, but the second pre-show is fantastic and had a moment that truly took my breath away. Also, Glenn Close is killing it, as per usual.
Whilst at WDW, I rode Cosmic Rewind twice. Once via paid Lightning Lane and once via the free Boarding Groups (refresh the app at 06:59:58 to score a great group – it works!), and whilst I visited the park multiple more times during our stay, I never felt inclined to pay for another Lightning Lane in order to ride. (You can only get a free boarding group if you have EPCOT set as your first park of the day, which we only had once. It sucks.)
This was a coaster that I would absolutely make sure to ride at least once on any future visit, but not one that has me aching to return just to get another ride. A super fun family experience, but worthy of its place as the most expensive coaster in history? Hmm.
Jurassic World VelociCoaster
It’s time for the big one. The addition that looms over the others like a T-Rex over a Compsognathus, the mighty Jurassic World VelociCoaster. As I mentioned in my pre-trip hype list, VelociCoaster is the first rollercoaster I’ve fully followed the construction of. With the incredible work of Bioreconstruct over on Twitter and Theme Park Stop on YouTube, it was easy to track every nut and bolt as they went into building this Intamin beauty. So it was more than a little bit surreal to stand there, facing the lagoon, surrounded by the gorgeous track as we were drawn into the entrance.
On the day we were due to move over from Walt Disney World to Universal Orlando Resort, I’d planned our schedule to try and get us into Islands of Adventure in time to have the first ride of our visit be a night ride on VelociCoaster. From what I’d heard, this was a ride that really came into its own at night, and I wanted the best possible first ride. So with the sun firmly down, we got in line, joining a part of the overflow line I didn’t even know existed and waited not-so-patiently for our first ride. Whilst this overflow wasn’t themed in any way, it did offer stunning views both of the coaster and over the Islands lagoon, which was more than enough to keep me entertained. Onwards we moved, through the already iconic main queue, passing the gorgeous velociraptor statue and receiving our briefing from Mr DNA, before coming face to face with the dinosaurs themselves. First chasing the launching train – such a clever idea – and then in gorgeous animatronic form in their holding pens. After this, it was time to lock up all loose articles in a locker and get ready to ride. Whilst the locker process was a bit of a faff (top tip: walk to the very last lockers if it’s busy, the first were always chaos), I’ve been terrified on enough rides thanks to others’ phones that I’m just grateful to be able to ride without that worry. Just make sure you have somewhere to store your ticket, as you need this to access your locker after the ride!
And then it was time to ride. And, well, it was every bit as awesome as I’d hoped it would be. But I am going to come in here with a bit of a spicy take: I actually preferred it in the daytime. Admittedly, my only night ride was my first, so it may have just been that everything was an excitable blur, or perhaps it was because the lights on my train weren’t working, but I found that I didn’t really appreciate the theming as much as night. I just couldn’t see anything! As exciting as it was to dart through the night, through layers of dark rock and twist over water glistening with the park’s reflections, I kinda preferred being able to see what had been created. After the first ride, though I adored the coaster as it was, I was a little disappointed with the theming as it had essentially all been a dark haze. However, coming back the next day and riding in daylight I got the opportunity to appreciate the rockwork and get a full view of the velociraptors and finally felt like I was truly on a Jurassic experience. The one exception to this was the velociraptors at your side during the first launch, these were far more visible at night! I just really wish I could have had a night ride with a fully lit train, it feels like it could have made all the difference.
As a pure coaster though, this is fantastic. I love speed, I love airtime and most of all I love hangtime, and this coaster delivers them all by the bucket load. Both launches are fantastic, although I’m always a sucker for a second launch. I just adore that feeling of ‘wait, we’re going to go even faster?!!?‘ And that subsequent top hat seemed to deliver fantastic air time for me wherever I was sat on the train. Two of my favourite elements are present here too with both a glorious dive loop and a delightfully long zero-g stall – a strong contender for my favourite part of the ride! But of course, then there’s the iconic ‘mosasaurus roll’, a modified barrel roll taken directly over the lagoon. If, like me, you live for those ‘oh my god I’m about to fall out of this train and crash to my death moments’, this is the element for you! Combining that traditional fear of falling with a nice bonus fear of drowning is this glorious, glorious inversion. Wow, I’m really making this sound fun aren’t I? Trust me, it’s the best.
The only thing that let it down for me was that I had one janky ride. I’m assuming it was a train in need of a wheel change, but it was rattling. It’s just one of those things but did make that one ride a bit unpleasant, and gave a slight element of fear to subsequent rides as I prayed for a different train. But on the whole, this is a wonder. A rollercoaster that takes the very best elements of modern coaster design and fuses them with fantastic theming. This will surely remain one of Universal’s iconic attractions for decades to come.
Hagrid’s Magical Creature Motorbike Adventure
Going into this trip, it felt a little bit like Hagrid’s Magical Creature Motorbike Adventure (or Hagrids as I shall refer to it from now on) has become slightly forgotten. Following the addition of the next big dinosaur-themed thing, Hagrids is no longer the newest coaster on the Universal block and as such, doesn’t seem to have many people talking about it anymore. That was until I arrived at the park. Safe to say, it’s not been forgotten. The crowds this thing seems to pull are like nothing else at the resort. Of course, that may be a question of capacity or a variety of other factors including relatively frequent downtime – this is one of the most complex rollercoasters on Earth after all! But as I quickly learned through my time at Islands of Adventure, if you see this coaster posting a wait time under 90 minutes you are on to a winner! So, why is it so popular? Well, aside from being themed to one of the most popular franchises ever to exist, just the small fact that it’s one of the greatest story coasters I’ve ever had the joy of riding. A large part of this is, unsurprisingly, due to the aforementioned complexity. (SPOILERS AHEAD) This is a coaster that features no less than seven launches, two drop tracks (only one is experienced during the ride but there are two to aid capacity) and a vertical rollback which depends on the extraordinarily quick action of a piece of switch track. Sure, all these features contribute to downtime (though queue-times.com reports an incredible uptime of 98% for the past week when writing) but they also make for one of the most exciting, novel family rides out there. You truly never know what this thing will do next. I’d watched a POV and it still caught me unawares! And whilst Hagrids is designed for families, those launches are still thrilling, particularly if you’re sat in the motorbike seat! You see, on top of all of these tricks, the ride also offers two different riding experiences with both Hagrid’s motorbike and its sidecar to choose from! Unsurprisingly, I found the motorbike to be the superior option, offering a more exposed and thrilling experience. But you could stick a Zamperla Volare train on this thing and it would still be a delight. Alright, that might be pushing it. But the point stands.
Then there’s the theming. Animatronics, statues, smoke, lighting, stone structures and yes, even a terrible mural. You name it, they’ve probably thrown it at this ride. There are plenty of familiar characters to greet as you zoom through your ride, including the first (to my knowledge, I only watched the first Fantastic Beasts movie) appearance of the Blast Ended Skrewts! But my favourite part of all was actually an encounter with Devil’s Snare. The way that moving vines had been intertwined flawlessly with the rest of the set truly made it all look real to me. You could tell me that they were real vines being twisted through the wall and I wouldn’t be surprised. Oh and the lights, oh my gosh the lights! Each motorbike on the train has a full headlamp package and on a night ride, they just elevate the experience that bit more. I could gush about this ride forever. It’s nothing short of a masterpiece, and one of the few rides in the world that I would happily spend two hours waiting in a dull, lifeless (the queue sucks ok) cave for.
Universal really are on fire, huh?
So there you have it! All my thoughts and feelings on all the major coasters to have popped up in Orlando during my extended absence. Of course, there are a few more coasters to talk about in Central Florida, but we’ll get around to those soon! All in all, what a bloody brilliant few years it’s been! Whilst Orlando has always been THE place for theme park fans, the coasters didn’t quite stand up to their regional counterparts. But now? Orlando is undoubtedly a rollercoaster destination in its own right, and for us theme park fans who adore both theming and thrill, there’s no better place in the world.
Speak again soon,
Claire
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coasterclaire.co.uk 