Sea World’s Manta

When I heard that IzeaFest was being held at Sea World in Orlando I was super excited!  This meant I could ride the Manta.  We have a Sea World about four hours from us in San Antonio, TX but we aren’t lucky enough to have the flying Manta roller-coaster.  The first ride was with several other bloggers/friends.  Alan, Drew, Buck and Dave all rode with me.  I have to say Drew and Alan were a little nervous which was hilarious but at the end we all loved it!  Absolutely LOVED it.

12 Seconds Clip after first ride on Manta

MommaDJane after Manta on 12seconds.tv

Buck and Dave had already gotten the Fast Pass bracelets so they could skip lines, after waiting on Drew, Alan and I for a while Buck decided to go purchase us the bracelets to skip ahead with them.  How kind, right?  So after we rode the first time we thought, hey we have these bracelets now and we need to put them to use so we must ride again.  Alan and I rode three times total and rode the Kraken twice.  We would have ridden more but we ran out of time after this happened:

12 Seconds Clip after third ride on Manta

Got stuck on Manta on 12seconds.tv

Yes that’s right, we got stuck on the Manta.  Now most would think OMGosh I’d never ride again…  Well I would have loved to ride again if we wouldn’t have had to rush to the airport to catch our plane.  It wasn’t the fault of Sea World that the Manta shut down during  the ride.  Matter of fact it was the fault of the very lovely gentleman in front of us who decided to NOT follow the rules and brought on loose articles.  He had his sunglasses hanging from a cord dangling down by his feet which set off the sensor and shut down the ride.  When his sunglasses triggered the sensor it made the ride think something was wrong with the foot area and that possibly someone’s feet were hanging which would have been dangerous.  So it shut down immediately.

Although this wasn’t Sea Worlds fault, they were just setting up the system to protect the riders.  I was a little peeved at the fact they couldn’t press reset and get us off.  I mean seriously…  We hung face down for over 20 minutes.  I thought a couple of times I was going to pass out with all my weight being on my chest.  Plus my neck was killing me from holding up my head that long.  There was a little girl that started bawling I am sure from fear and some pain.  She said she was having a hard time breathing and when they got her off they had to wheel her down in a wheelchair.  She was fine from what it seemed but still very scary.  I couldn’t imagine being a child stuck on a roller-coaster.  To get us down they had to move steel steps over to each person and get us down one by one using a tool to release the harness.  They released our feet first, let us step down on the stool and then released our body with us pretty much falling out in a way.

It was an experience, that’s for sure.  So the next time you see rules on a ride, follow them.  If you do have loose articles, at least keep them in your pockets or INSIDE the roller-coaster.

Also as a thanks from Sea World, we got bottled water.  The lady was standing there handing them out as we got off.  I’m sure they thought we were about to all faint.  They also gave out tickets to skip the line on a ride, although we already had bracelets to do that and were leaving.  However I did give it away to some kids coming in the front gate on our way out.