Ride Mako first thing in the morning. PERIOD. Manta and Kraken usually keep a 15 minute wait throughout the day, so those you can just reride over and over again. Also, if it's hot, buy a Quick Queue for Atlantis. Trust me.
Definitely ride it late in the day. It's best if you're on the last train of the night, front row, carrying a car door, and yelling at disabled people.
No joke, I saw something really similar to that at BGT last Friday minus the car door. Florida is weird.
No, I guess not. If you look at the arrows in the picture below, you can see that the train enters the 'flying snake dive' in the opposite way than you were thinking. At least, that's my guess
That still looks like it's gonna knock the g-forces out of my soul.