Kraken is a
steel floorlessA floorless roller coaster is defined as a coaster with trains that ride above the track and allow the passenger's legs to dangle. The manufacturer's web site reads, "A new generation of Sitting Coasters with dangling feet close to the track."The floorless roller coaster is a fairly new concept in...
roller coasterThe roller coaster is a popular amusement ride developed for amusement parks and modern theme parks. LaMarcus Adna Thompson patented the first coasters on January 20, 1885...
manufactured by
Bolliger & MabillardBolliger & Mabillard Consulting Engineers is a roller coaster design consultancy based in Monthey, Switzerland. The company was founded in 1988 by Walter Bolliger and Claude Mabillard, with Bolliger acting as president and Mabillard as vice-president...
and is located at
SeaWorld OrlandoSeaWorld Orlando is a theme park near Orlando, Florida. It is owned and operated by Busch Entertainment Corporation, a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch InBev...
. When it opened in 2000, it was the first floorless roller coaster in the
Southern United StatesThe Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, Down South, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive region in the southeastern and south-central United States...
. It held the record as the longest roller coaster in the state of
FloridaFlorida is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States, bordering Alabama to the northwest and Georgia to the north. It was the 27th state admitted to the United States...
until the completion of
Expedition EverestExpedition Everest - Legend of the Forbidden Mountain is an elaborately themed roller coaster at Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park in the Walt Disney World Resort.-Background:...
at
Disney's Animal KingdomDisney's Animal Kingdom is a theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort. The fourth park built at the resort, it opened on April 22, 1998, and it is the largest single Disney theme park in the world, covering more than 500 acres . It is also the first Disney theme park to be themed entirely around...
.
Kraken is tied with
Steel EelMaking its debut in 1999, the Steel Eel is a custom hypercoaster built by Chance Morgan, Inc. At a height of 150 feet, Steel Eel is the tallest roller coaster at SeaWorld San Antonio. Also the tallest roller coaster out of all Sea World parks...
as the fastest roller coaster at any
SeaWorldSeaWorld is a United States chain of marine mammal parks owned by Anheuser-Busch. The parks feature captive orca, sea lion, and dolphin shows and zoological displays featuring various other marine animals. The parks' icon is Shamu, the Orca. There are operations in Orlando, Florida; San Diego,...
park.
Attraction theme and design
Kraken is, as its
nameKraken are legendary sea monsters of gargantuan size, said to have dwelt off the coasts of Norway and Iceland. The sheer size and fearsome appearance attributed to the beasts have made them common ocean-dwelling monsters in various fictional works...
suggests, a mythological sea monster. In SeaWorld’s vision, the kraken is a giant version of the dragon eel, a multicolored cousin of the
moray eelMoray eels are huge cosmopolitan eels of the family Muraenidae. There are approximately 200 species in 15 genera. The typical length of a moray is 1.5 m , with the longest being the slender giant moray, Strophidon sathete, at up to 4 m , and the largest, in terms of total mass being the...
. The kraken can be seen emerging from its "lair," a rock formation near the attraction entrance. Within the rock is a small cave holding the creature's "eggs," in actuality spherical aquariums in which reside another variety of
eelTrue eels are an order of fish, which consists of four suborders, 19 families, 110 genera and approximately 600 species. Most eels are predators...
.
The roller coaster's layout combines both characteristics of such a creature. It lies alongside a lagoon, referring to its aquatic habitat. Further, the coaster dives underground three times, a nod to the caverns and crevasses that it would call home.
The track is sky blue, with beige supports. Its three trains each feature eight cars, with each car carrying four guests sitting side-by-side, for a total of 32 passengers per train. Guests are secured using an over-the-shoulder harness with locking seat belt. As with other floorless coasters, mechanisms under the loading station track raise temporary platforms into position to allow guests to board, then retract them out of the way so the train may leave the station. In order to reduce the noise made by the roller coaster train, the tubular steel rails are filled with sand.
Track layout
Kraken departs the station through a U-turn to the right that leads to the 149-foot lift hill. At the top of the hill, the roller coaster makes a right turn and drops to the ground below. It enters its tallest element, a 119-foot-tall
vertical loopThe generic roller coaster vertical loop is the most basic of roller coaster inversions. Specifically, the loop refers to a continuously upward-sloping section of track that eventually results in a complete 360 degree circle. At the top-most piece of the loop, riders are completely inverted.-...
, where the
on-ride cameraAn on-ride camera is a camera mounted alongside the track of a roller coaster, log flume or other thrill ride that automatically photographs all of the riders on each passing vehicle. They are often mounted at the most intense or fastest part of the ride, resulting in humorously distorted...
awaits as the roller coaster returns to ground level. It then climbs to the top of a 101-foot diving loop that sends the roller coaster back the way it came. It climbs again to enter a zero-gravity roll, then drops down to enter the two-inversion cobra roll, which exits into a wide sweeping U-turn to the left that brings the roller coaster to its mid-course brake run.
As
Kraken exits the brakes, it drops down to the left sharply, diving underground as it enters and then exits a smaller vertical loop. The roller coaster climbs a gentle hill before diving underground again into another U-turn, this time to the left. It then enters its final inversion, a flat spin before entering its brakes, returning to the station via one more U-turn to the right.
External links