delirium_guy

Walking out tonight from work, they had one of the construction gates open. They were hauling in more trees, fairy large trees at that, for landscaping. Also, the pretzel loop was illuminated tonight....looked real good! Not sure, could have been work lights, but they havent been on before.

Heard again today.....Sunday is the magic day if all goes according to plan. The site is looking nice. As of this morning, the water fall structure has the rock work topping off now all around it. The station has received more coats of paint, both in a red and yellow color. The lagoon was receiving a liner this morning from the waterfall area, all around the grove of pine trees and all the way back to the brake run it appeared. Coming together VERY VERY quickly now.....

*Official* opening, but stay posted for a soft opening sooner than that if all goes according to plan. Keep hearing that they'd like to send the first train by the end of the week....

Regarding the theming that is currently backstage, there is no way it can be seen from Sky Tower. Its nestled up next to the trees that line the hill and construction road. Like I said, I'm sure it'll be making its way onto the site very soon! Also, heard a rumor that by the end of next week the first train will be cycled through! Definitely getting more exciting each day at construction site!

No pictures. They are in a backstage area, so I will not take any pictures nor will I post them. I enjoy my job, thank you They will make their way to the construction site soon enough, fairly soon I'm certain so when they do and are in public view I'll get pictures and put them up!

Just a quick update. Some of the footers in the splashdown area are receiving the same rockwork treatment that the pretzel loop received. Also, there are thematic elements that appear to be for the exterior sides of the aquarium area that are being staged on the employee path that leads from Security Gate 1 to the park. I walked by them today on my way in. Looking GREAT. Noticed a few sections that are sculpted and painted to resemble the beach, with various colorful shells sticking out of the sand and footprints embedded in the sand also. The other sections could possibly be for INSIDE the aquarium, I'm not totally sure. Either way, they looked great and were quite colorful with a lot of teal accents in them.

There will no sealife in the splash zone for the attraction. All of that will be housed inside the exhibit itself. The pathway between Strollers & Turtle Point has since re-opened in its new incarnation, which is noticeably more curved than before to accomodate the pond being constructed in front of the employee lounge. This is supposed to be the new home for the flamingos. The new pathway definitely takes you closer to the ride and definiterly makes it look more impressive. Can't wait for everyone to see it with the walls down!

Rumors say that the trains have already arrived; however SeaWorld has said that the trains would arrive sometime in February. So nobody really knows unless somebody here can confirm that they seen the coaster trains themself.. They said they would be installed in February, not arriving in February The trains are on property under wraps. Starting to hear more and more about testing in early to mid-March.

To the best of my understanding, no part of the train will touch the water. The splash effect will be 100% generated by jets of water, more or less, that will shoot out. I do not believe the splash will have any guest interaction, rather mostly for show. With that said, the system is adjustable so it could happen.

Rumor has it the trains started to arrive yesterday on site. By the time I made it through they weren't there, but a friend of mine who also works at the Park was crossing over the makeshift pathway for the employees to get around the blocked midway and saw cars being unloaded from the back of a trailer and said there were several people out taking pictures and such. I am not confirming this in anyway, but thats whats going around at this point. As far as testing, March is rumored to still be the target to begin testing for the actual ride itself.....so really we aren't all that far away if thats the case!

I've been off the last 2 days, so today was the first day I was able to check out the closure of the main path. They have COMPLETELY removed the midway all the way down to the former Loggerhead Larrys store and have now began to extend the excavation of the lagoon. With the construction wall down in that area, the ending is looking A LOT more impressive and you can really visualize what the finished product will look like.

The entire pathway will be resurfaced, actually, and I suspect that they will go ahead and start preparing the new path that will extend over to the ride area itself. A new path will be constructed starting from the right hand side of Loggerhead Larry's gift shop (which is now closed as it is prepared to be a new merch location for the ride). This new path will also be accessed from where the current Turtle Point area ends near the backside of Larry's.

Actually, no, you are thinking about the wrong path. This is the pathway in the very front of the Park that passes by the employee lounge and splash down area. The pathway under the first drop, in front of Blue Horizons, will not need to be shut off again

Concrete is now being poured to form the base of the splash area, I noticed early this morning. Also to note for those planning a visit soon, the main pathway that extends from the Strollers area back to Key West / Turtle Point will be closed off starting Monday in order to accommodate Manta's construction and will be shut off until the end of this month.....this means taking the LONG way around to Kraken through Waterfront.

Word has it trains will be in place by February, with testing of the ride components beginning in March. Official opening is Memorial Day at this point, however like all Orlando attractions, we could be seeing a soft opening sometime in April. Given the pace they are on and the progress thats been made so far, this wouldn't surprise me at all.

Really? How many times? All of my guest interactions usually end up with guests being *excited* about the ride....as they stand there and try to figure out just exactly what its going to do. In any event, I noticed them changing this out last night as I was headed out for the evening. Things definitely appear to be ahead of schedule, lucky us!

Now we know why they've been touting 4 inversions I first got to see the layout about 3 months ago, that inline twist that was put in place today was NOT mentioned anywhere on the layout....its not even on the one currently at the construction site. I don't get much time to actually go sit and check things out in detail, but I am surprised by the rock work going in by the supports of the pretzel. There are TONS of those rockwork forms that have been sitting in the front of the construction entrance (on Sea Harbor Dr) for about a month or so now....so those are just the first of many to come. Call it a mini Tatsu if you will, though I personally don't see anything mini about it, but I think Manta is looking like its going to deliver a damn good ride. I'll grab some new pictures tomorrow on my break, no doubt they will have several more sections of track in place.

Some new pictures from today.....moving along very quickly now...

Actually, if you go and check out the layouts that have surfaced, the ride does NOT go between Shrek & Jimmy Neutron.....everything remains in the undeveloped area behind Jimmy Neutron. The closest to anything it gets in the Park itself is back by Twister, which of course already has the construction walls up.

I was looking at it again today. The turnaround that leads into that s-turn and inline twist is looking real interesting. I just happened to look up and notice that the track is most likely going to be going over top of the trees that line the walkway from KeyWest area back to JTA and Kraken. There were still a few supports missing, but it must drop steep and quick because the supports for the S-turn and beginning of the inline are LOW to the ground. Can't wait to see what this section ends up like.

Not the greatest pics, since they were from my phone, but snapped a few on break and on my way home for the evening. This morning they started to hang the rest of the track for the first half of the pretzel, it was completed by about 3:00 this afternoon and they were hauling more track to the site...... Taken from Smoky Creek BBQ This was taken from Bayside Stadium

I understand what you are saying, but again its not like they weren't planning on HHN Actually, given the proximity of the walls, it seems like very little goes over the main midways.....except out by Blue Man The rest runs down an undeveloped area *behind* the main midways. Its Florida, we could sit here and keep coming up with special events that could interfere with construction The Christmas stuff starts in about 2 weeks......after Christmas/New Years is over Mardi Gras will be following in February. Doesn't matter, point is they seem to have fallen behind schedule. Universal in general is just a hot mess right now with all the construction in both parks!

I'm still not fully understanding what, if any, delays HHN had on the project. Everytime I was at HHN, they were working away full steam each night....and thats with two of the queue lines and exits crossing over the middle of the construction site. Originally, it was rumored to begin construction immediately following the close of Mardi Gras. Either way, it definitely seems like they are behind, but after seeing the explosion of progress on Manta I wouldn't count on HRRR opening too far behind schedule. As for Manta's opening, there is a countdown clock posted above where we enter the park before we clock in.....the current countdown puts the opening somewhere around Memorial Day. I'm just curious, did Kraken have any sort of soft opening back in the day? Last I heard, Manta was actually *ahead* of schedule...lets hope that trend keeps up. At this pace, seems like the actual ride itself is going to be completed well before the end of the year.

I was off today, but still took a quick spin through the Park so I could actually take my time to look around the site. They essentially have all the supports up, give or take one or two, for that entire side of the construction site. Trying to figure out somewhat of a profile, since we haven't been able to see an actual 3D layout of the ride, it looks like upon exiting the pretzel loop the train will drop about half way to the ground and perform that turn through the pretzel itself. The next portion, which runs back to the pathway that was closed off, appears to be fairly flat with little drop or elevation change. Seems like its going to be a spot for the train to glide through the air. While it appeared to feature a horseshoe turn on the layout, its definitely not. The first half of that turn remains flat, with the track appearing to fly somewhat over that portion of the midway. It looks like it will then drop all the way to the ground before performing the S-turn into the inline twist. The inline itself looks like it will be climbing up into the block brake as it twists. They are definitely speeding along with construction now. No new track has been added, though I'm sure by the weekend or early next week it'll go up in a hurry.

I agree Cory. Again, while I agree that I don't fully understand the purpose of the block on this ride, I don't think it will have all that much of an affect on the ending. The block is barely used on Kraken, in fact a lot of days its completely off. There was no new track lifted into place when I left work at 4, however they had placed 3 new supports and were hauling in several truck loads of track to the site. With the two tallest supports for the Pretzel now in place, you can get a really good perspective of how Manta is going to fit in the SeaWorld skyline....its looking good and I'm actually very much looking forward to it. - Todd