SeaWorld San Diego oversells zippy and enjoyable Arctic Rescue coaster as greater than it’s – Orange County Register

SeaWorld San Diego has fallen right into a basic theme park lure of overselling its new Arctic Rescue trip as one thing greater than it truly is — a zippy and enjoyable new launch coaster that’s good for youthful riders and their households.

The brand new Arctic Rescue straddle-seat coaster debuts at SeaWorld San Diego on Friday, June 2 — the fourth new curler coaster on the marine animal park since 2018.

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Arctic Rescue simulates a terrain-hugging trip on a snowmobile over in any other case flat floor with a sequence of whoop-de-doo hills and whipsaw back-and-forth S-curves. The household launch coaster from Intamin Amusement Rides provides fairly a little bit of motion, thrill and pleasure for its comparatively compact format with the assistance of a trio of tire launches/boosts. The modest coaster checks in at 30 toes tall with a prime pace of 40 mph over a 2,800-foot-long monitor.

There are many taller, sooner and longer rides on the planet, throughout the USA and on the West Coast. However nonetheless SeaWorld feels the necessity to lay declare to titles native media retailers will misunderstand or overstate.

Theme parks can’t assist themselves at the moment of 12 months as they unveil the most recent, greatest, quickest, tallest, longest and finest new rides — each making an attempt to outdo the final.

SeaWorld San Diego payments Arctic Rescue because the quickest and longest straddle coaster on the West Coast — however the accolades are a bit overblown for a household coaster that basically isn’t that quick or lengthy.

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Claiming Arctic Rescue is the quickest and longest straddle coaster on the West Coast implies that it’s larger and higher than the puny Pony Specific at Knott’s Berry Farm. That’s not a lot of a boast for the reason that 1,250-foot-long Pony Specific feels prefer it’s simply getting began because the 38 mph horse-themed straddle coaster involves an abrupt finish after a fast and uneventful gallop on an elongated determine eight course.

SeaWorld is taking purpose at Pony Specific in hopes that no one will examine the two,800-foot-long Arctic Rescue to a pair of stellar straddle coasters on the East Coast — Tron Lightcycle Run on the Magic Kingdom and Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Bike Journey at Common’s Islands of Journey. Not solely are Tron Lightcycle (3,169 toes) and Hagrid’s Bike (5,053 toes) longer than Arctic Rescue, they’re much sooner and much superior in terms of storytelling prowess.

Arctic Rescue just isn’t even the quickest trip of its type at a SeaWorld theme park. The same straddle-seat private watercraft-themed 2017 Wave Breaker (44 mph) at SeaWorld San Antonio and 2008 Jet Rescue (43 mph) at SeaWorld Australia are just a bit sooner than Arctic Rescue (40 mph).

From a theming and narrative standpoint, Arctic Rescue lags behind one other snowmobile-themed straddle coaster that debuted in 2023 at one more SeaWorld sister park: DarKoaster: Escape the Storm at Busch Gardens Williamsburg. The indoor DarKoaster takes riders by way of King Ludwig’s deserted fortress and the cursed fortress grounds the place they encounter supernatural forces and mysterious phenomena.

Arctic Rescue takes riders open air into sometimes sunny Southern California for a trek by way of the arctic tundra with the thematic assist of some patches of fake snow on the bottom to create the visible phantasm of a sub-zero frozen journey — regardless of how unbelievable and counterintuitive the thought.