Early Sunday morning a massive storm blew through the area, putting all hopes of attending Sea World in doubt. High winds and rain plagued most of the night, but by 9am most of the bad weather had cleared. We arrived to find that both Manta and Kraken were down due to the high winds, and would likely be closed for some time, so we went to see the whale and dolphin show, which was a nice relaxing show. We opted to not sit in the splash zone due to the wind. We then fed some stingrays at the stingray pavilion and went into the aquarium underneath Manta.

As lunch approached we decided to take a look at some sharks (and tons of teeth!). With both coasters still being down, we went to grab some lunch at the Smokehouse near the observation tower. I opted for the BBQ chicken which was absolutely incredible, complete with fries, dinner rolls and lemonade, arguably the best meal of the trip. Having not being on the Wild Arctic simulator before, my sister suggested it after having done it a few years ago in our previous trip. I was actually quite surprised with the intensity and accuracy of the maneuvers given the age of the ride. It is certainly underrated for a ride of its type. As we exited, we noticed that Manta was testing, so we quickly made our way over to find about a half hour wait for the ride. Being one of my favorite coasters, it was a no brainer that we would wait.

Manta once again absolutely impressed the daylights out of me, and I would not hesitate to say it could be my favorite coaster at this point. The pretzel loop offers an intense highlight in an otherwise gentle, yet exhilarating experience. Every element seems perfectly placed and executed. The water splash at the end it quite a thrill when you are nearest the water on the train as well.

With my dad and sister’s flight time to go home quickly approaching, we headed to Kraken to find it was still closed and was likely to remain as such for the entire day. The trains on Kraken don’t weight nearly as much as those on Manta, so the wind still presented as issue. We decided to get in a ride on Journey To Atlantis before we made our way towards the exit. While still a bit windy, I didn’t mind getting wet a bit because Journey To Atlantis is still a very impressive ride with its scenery and thematic elements.

It’s not a huge deal that we did not get to ride Kraken, as I have ridden it many times, but it did mean my sister will have to wait to get in her first ride on that. For the most part though, we made the best of what was already going to be a short day when the weather did not cooperate, so I was still pleased with what we were able to do. 7/10 for the day.