the roller coaster ratings

i never did get to ethos vegan restaurant because time seems to speed up in the second week and any opportunity slipped passed. i did however get to go on many of florida's top rollercoasters; this is the list by park and in the order that we did them.

rockin' roller coaster at hollywood studios

space mountain at magic kingdom

experience everest at animal kingdom

manta and cracken at seaworld

hulk, dragon challenge, rockit, the mummy at universal parks

kumba, cheetah hunt, montu, kwazi, scorpion, sheikra at busch gardens


scariest ride: manta. this coaster has you sitting with legs hanging and then pivots you up so that you are parallel with the ground and all your weight is pressed down against the restraint. this is disconcerting enough when you are stationary but then you are transported in this position up the first incline. the first time that i did this ride i pretty much prayed that i would not fall out and die a horrific, splashy, death. the park had put some netting underneath but this was to catch the shoes and mobile phones that fell out, not bodies. once you ascended the first peak, you were spun and sent around the rest of the ride, never completely at ease with your precarious situation. unfortunately my children loved it and we went straight back on. second time, a little better but still, by a long, long way, the scariest ride we went on.

fastest ride: you would think that this was cheetah hunt but it was sheikra that was the fastest. this was certainly not the best because it was a bit of a one trick pony; taking you up a long climb to a vertical drop, stopping just long enough to encourage a few screams and then dropping you so that you left your seat as you fell. fantastic for that part but catrin, 9 years old and just the required 54", found it boring because that was all that it did.

most anticipated ride; montu. this looked amazing because of all the inversions, 7, but did not live up to its promise, just too damn smooth.

ricketiest ride: has to go to kwazi, simply an old looking wooden structure and boy you got banged around.

ride with a name that made some sense: joint hulk and cheetah hunt. hulk was breathtaking, very fast and very powerful. the start was amazing, catapulting you into the ride with amazing acceleration and never letting up, very hulkish. cheetah humt was based on the movement of a cheetah and like the hulk the first trick was acceleration usinf repelling magnets to eliminate friction but cheetah hunt was power and style. it was very long and graceful with amazing changes of direction and speed.

Best rides:

these were the rides that i enjoyed the most

1. kraken: very fast and lots of inversions. we went on time after time at the end of the day,
2. Kumba: closed when we first went to check but then we did a front and a back ride. excellent.
2. Hulk: power
4. Manta, dragon chalenge and montu

other rides worth a mention

the new rides are hybrids between coasters and simulators and in this genre we went on the simpsons ride, spiderman and harry potter. of the three i would have spiderman first, 3d glasses rather that simulated 3d gave a better overall experience (i flinched both times when the bricks came at me, that dr octopus!) and then it was potter and the simpsons.

best tip: don't go to disney.

second best tip: if you do go to the big parks use the single rider queue. the queues for the harry potter ride were enormous; in the single rider queue we waited for 5 minutes. you sometimes get to ride with a family member but not often but that is usually much better than spending an hour in a queue with them.

third: if you like coasters, do busch gardens. it's also a pretty decent wildlife park.

fourth: use a satnav.

off to the airport and working tomorrow so see you in the restaurant.

cheers

wayne