With a max vertical of 58 feet and reaching speeds of 44 mph, it delivers a surprisingly smooth and satisfying thrill experience for a family coaster.
It offers a surprising amount of air time for a small wooden coaster. White Lightning debuted in 2013 at Orlando’s Fun Spot America theme park. And, unlike Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Escape from Gringotts is totally indoors. Stunning visual effects are emphasized over raw speed or height-there are no loops or inversions. Gringotts is a 3-D steel coaster ride through the bank vaults made famous in the Harry Potter books and movies. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, a family coaster, offers modest speeds, small hills, and a look at the Dwarfs’ cottage and gem mine its ride vehicles swing slightly, almost imperceptibly, from side to side. The spring and summer of 2014 witnessed the unveiling of two new coasters: Seven Dwarfs Mine Train at the Magic Kingdom and Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts at Universal Studios Florida. Two years later, Cheetah Hunt, a launched coaster, opened at Busch Gardens. The first hill is a 16-second vertical climb, followed by a 65-mph plunge. Manta is an inverted steel coaster on which riders are suspended under the tracks, prone and facedown Rip Ride Rockit is also a steel coaster, only here you sit as opposed to being suspended. The spring and summer of 2009 marked the debut of Manta at Sea World Orlando and Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit at USF. Best of all for thrill-ride mavens, none of the players were content to rest on their laurels: Universal Studios Florida (USF) came back with Revenge of the Mummy in 2004, followed by SheiKra at Busch Gardens in 2005 and the awe-inspiring Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom in 2006. All of these coasters, except for Gwazi, featured inversions, corkscrews, and rollovers. The upshot was a banner year in 1999 for Central Florida roller coasters, with The Incredible Hulk Coaster, Dueling Dragons: Fire and Ice (later Dragon Challenge, demolished in 2017) opening at IOA Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster coming online at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Gwazi, a wooden coaster, debuting at Busch Gardens Tampa (it closed indefinitely in 2015).Ĭlose on their heels in early 2000 was Kraken at SeaWorld. But when archrival Universal announced plans for its Islands of Adventure (IOA) theme park, featuring an entire arsenal of honest-to- Pete thrill rides, Disney, spurred by competition, finally went to work. Through all this, Disney sat on the sidelines, believing storylines and visuals should trump thrills and chills. Busch Gardens was the pacesetter during this period, launching Kumba in 1993, with its 114-foot vertical loop and seven inversions overall, and, in 1996, Montu, then the world’s tallest and fastest inverted roller coaster, with a maximum height of 150 feet and speeds of 65 miles per hour. In the interim, coasters enjoyed a technical revolution encompassing aircraft carrier–type launching devices and previously unimaginable loops, corkscrews, vertical drops, and train speeds. In relatively quick succession followed Space Mountain at Disneyland and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at both Disney parks.īut irrespective of the Mountains’ popularity, Disney didn’t build another coaster in the United States for almost 20 years. Though Disney pioneered the concept of super-coasters with its Matterhorn Bobsleds at Disneyland in 1959, it took them 16 years to add another roller coaster- Space Mountain at Walt Disney World-to their repertoire. Rather, you’ll be among the intelligentsia of roller coaster aficionados, united in the belief that these thrill rides are-or ought to be-the heart of every theme park. If you go to a party where folks are discussing Immelmanns, heartline rolls, dive loops, and LIM launchers, don’t mistake the guests for fighter pilots. In this week’s post, Bob Sehlinger and Len Testa, authors of The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World, discuss the many wild and amazing Central Florida Roller Coasters.
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