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Posted on Sunday, 05.31.09

In Florida's Theme Park Central, everything's looking up this summer

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BY JANE WOOLDRIDGE

jwooldridge@MiamiHerald.com

In Florida's Theme Park Central, everything's looking up this summer. Literally.

At Universal Studios, the soon-to-be-launched Rip Ride Rockit roller coaster shoots riders up a 167-foot, 90-degree lift in 16.5 seconds. At SeaWorld, visitors can make like sea rays as they ''fly'' above the park on the new face-down Manta coaster. Disney's high times are decidedly gentler: a tethered hot-air balloon takes guests 400 feet in the air, then brings them sweetly back to earth.

An hour south, Florida Ecosafari guests soar through nature on ziplines in the heart of the 4,700 acre ranch-and-preserve called Forever Florida. And at the Ritz-Carlton and J.W. Marriott Grande Lakes in Orlando, weekend guests can monkey around on a ropes course that reaches 50 feet in the air.

If all that's not enough, you can sleep in the trees at Disney's new Treehouse Villas -- part of Disney Vacation Club, but available to any guest.

Add in new earthbound offerings and some of the most cost-wise values in memory, and even if you've been to the parks recently, you may find yourself ready to return.

UNIVERSAL STUDIOS

For coaster fiends, the hot ticket this season is Universal Studios' Rip Ride Rockit , Orlando's tallest coaster and, says the park, the fastest X-CAR type roller coaster in the world. The thrills aren't all about speed; special effects include your personal sound selection. When the ride debuts in early summer, riders will zoom up, down and around through their own music video.

A dozen riders board; each picks his or her own music from 30 songs including country, pop, rock and club that blasts through a 150-watt stereo head speaker.

''You get about six heartbeats before you hit the tower; within seconds you're going straight up in the air,'' explains Mike West, executive producer of Universal's creative studio. ``Thrilling is an understatement.''

That's 167 feet -- 17 stories -- at a 90-degree angle and a speed of 11 feet-per-second. From there, the ride drops at 65 miles per hour over 3,800 feet of steel track, careening around the concentric circles of the Guggenheim Museum set in the park's New York area and through six maneuvers. Three of them are first-evers: the Double Take (reportedly the world's largest non-inverted loop), the Jump Cut (a negative gravity spiral) and -- fittingly for a music-themed coaster -- a Treble Clef.

One of the slick tricks: Riders never go upside down, says West -- so no shoulder harness is needed.

Fourteen cameras -- six on the train, eight along the track -- capture images. Within two minutes of staggering off the Rockit, riders get to view their own personalized music video incorporating the music they chose for the ride, video from their experience and b-roll -- all suitable for uploading to YouTube. It's for sale -- natch; no word yet on the price.

SEAWORLD

The new Manta coaster is designed both for those who love to fly and those determined to stay earthbound. True to its SeaWorld mission of education-tinged fun, the Manta queue runs inside an aquarium-lined tunnel that provides both respite from the sun and an up-close view of a guitarfish, cownose rays, a white blotched river ray and hundreds of manta rays.

Non riders can check out the aquarium and cling to terra firma. For those who long to go airborne, this is the ride of rides. One of a handful of ''flying'' roller coasters in the United States (and the only one in Orlando), Manta suspends riders beneath the track in a harness that clamps in legs and shoulders, creating a sensation that you're a manta on steel rails.

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