Virtual Reality in Theme Park Essay

Kraken - Turn upside down and fear

Kraken is the name of a big, fantasy monster that is also called the giant monster in SeaWorld Orlando. It has a rail frame but the floor is empty. The collection is located in the US state of Orlando, Florida, in the Sea World and Entertainment Complex. Manufactured by Bolliger & Mabillard, the ride features a total of seven inversions including two vertical loops, a dive loop, a spiraling camelback (zero-g roll), a cobra roll, and a corkscrew.

Kraken officially started in 2000. It is also the world's second-longest floorless coaster elongating up to 4,177 feet (1,273 m). The roller coaster has been refurbished and renamed to Kraken with virtual reality.

However as of the 2018 fall season, the name Kraken has remained, but the virtual reality experience is no longer available.

Kraken (from 2000 to 2017)

In 1999, Six Flags Great Adventure spent $42 million on new attractions including a prototype Floorless Coaster by Bolliger & Mabillard, Medusa (later Bizarro). The immediate popularity of the ride led SeaWorld Orlando and three other amusement parks to announce plans to install Floorless Coasters in 2000; aside from the announcement of Kraken on May 6, 1999, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom announced Medusa, Geauga Lake announced Dominator, and Six Flags Fiesta Texas announced Superman: Krypton Coaster.

Kraken was announced as costing approximately $18–20 million. After the construction and opening of the complex, the managers of the complex sought to make this tourist place an international and global place.

It was doing well in 2000, but for some reason, it was downgraded. The structure for the ride was well underway in January 2000. During structure, Superior Rigging & Erection was responsible for erecting the supports and track of the roller coaster.

On June 1, 2000, Kraken officially opened to the public. At the time of opening, Kraken held the record for the tallest and longest roller coaster in the state of Florida. It held this record until 2006 when Disney's Animal Kingdom opened the 4,424-foot-long (1,348 m) expedition, Everest.

Ride experience

After riders have boarded, the station floor is retracted and the front gates open. Kraken departs with a right U-turn out of the station. This leads directly to the 153-foot-tall (47 m) chain lift hill.

At the top, the train crests the lift hill and follows a fairly level turn to the right before dropping 144 feet (44 m) towards the ground. The ride then enters the first 128-foot-tall (39m) vertical loop followed by a diving loop, passing by Mako's lift hill. A spiraling camelback (zero-g roll), where riders experience a feeling of weightlessness, is followed by a cobra roll. A banked turn to the left leads into the mid-course brake run.

The exit from the mid-course brake run drops down directly into the second vertical loop. A subterranean dive into Kraken's lair is followed by a flat spin. The ride concludes with a final brake run and a short path back to the station.

Reception

The Orlando Sentinel commended the ride for 'perfect timing and keeping folks guessing', giving the ride ratings of 4 out of 5 for both thrill and theming. Sentinel reporter Dewayne Bevil ranks the ride at number 7 in his Top 50 Orlando Theme Park Attractions list.

Although it was reported that the ride would be more exciting than The Incredible Hulk at the nearby Islands of Adventure theme park, Mike Thomas of the Sentinel concluded that 'Hulk clobbers the competition', with Kraken taking the number two spot. In an interview for the Los Angeles Times, Jerry Dane of the Florida Coaster Club described the floorless experience as 'you're hung out there open and free'.

Dane also commended the ride's ability to provide different yet equally good experiences in a variety of seats. In 2012, Kraken was featured on the Travel Channel TV series Insane Coaster Wars and received first place in the public-voted 'Wrong Way Up' category. Theme Park Review's Robb Alvey shared the view that Kraken was better than the competition including Dollywood's Wild Eagle and Dorney Park's Hydra the Revenge.

At Amusement Today's annual Golden Ticket Awards, Kraken was ranked in the top 50 steel roller coasters numerous times since its opening. It debuted on a poll at position 48 in 2003, and peaked at position 26 in 2005, before it off the poll in 2009.

Early reception to Kraken was mixed, with theme park enthusiasts noting long dispatch times as the main detractor. Overall VR experience seemed to be positive, however.

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Theme parks have been offering virtual reality-like experiences for decades. Even in its earliest days, Disneyland invited visitors to rocket to the moon, fly to Neverland with Peter Pan, take a submarine voyage, and travel to Africa aboard a jungle cruise. More recently, however, parks have been incorporating virtual reality headsets into their roller coasters and converting the thrill machines into story-based attractions.

One of the latest rides to get a VR overlay is Kraken at SeaWorld Orlando. Marrying immersive content that depicts an underwater journey to face the titular legendary creature with the coaster's extreme height, speeds, inversions, and G-forces, the park was renamed the enhanced attraction, Kraken. As with other VR coasters, SeaWorld's ride demonstrates the intriguing possibilities that the technology offers. But it also highlights its limitations.

When it is their turn to ride, passengers climb into one of the coaster's seats and don the headsets. Unlike most other parks, which use portable, smartphone-equipped goggles for their VR rides, SeaWorld has outfitted Kraken's trains with integrated, onboard headsets. Every seat has the technology available, but passengers can opt to ride with or without the goggles.

As soon as they put on the headsets, guests see a virtual launch bay instead of the ride's loading station. Their simulated field of vision extends 360 degrees in all directions. In the storyline, the coaster car has become a mini-submarine, and the riders are oceanographers. When the actual coaster train leaves the station, it takes a slight dip down before it turns and engages with the lift chain. The VR content designers have cleverly matched the small drop with an underwater dive into the sea.

While the visuals don't appear to be very high resolution, they are nonetheless engaging and offer a compelling view of ocean life. As the train slowly ascends the 149-foot lift hill, riders can see colorful coral reefs and schools of fish. An underwater volcano appears ready to erupt.

When the coaster dives down its 144-foot first drop, hits 65 mph, and takes riders on its intense journey, menacing sea creatures try to attack the sub. One even tries to swallow it. Then the slithery Kraken, a huge, multi-tentacle beast, begins to pursue the vehicle. The underwater journey ends with a brief obstacle course ride through the lost city of Atlantis.

The VR visuals are synced well to the motion of the train. That's a good thing since any disconnect between the two could cause nausea. Because I was afraid of feeling ill, I had been apprehensive about riding Kraken. I'm happy to report that I didn't experience any queasiness.

One of the biggest drawbacks of VR coasters is the considerable amount of additional time it takes to load and unload passengers. To SeaWorld's credit, it has many more ride operators in the station than a typical coaster crew. They help wipe down and sanitize the headsets in between train dispatchers and assist each passenger with putting on, adjusting, and calibrating the goggles. Despite the extra help, many minutes lapse until the train finally leaves the station.

SeaWorld's corporate VP, theme park experience, takes twice as long to unload and load the VR-outfitted, thereby reducing Kraken's capacity by 50%. For parks that want to keep lines moving and customers happy, that's an enormous — some might argue untenable — tradeoff to bring VR to one of their coasters, especially one of their headlining rides.

In anticipation of the ride's crazy-long waits, SeaWorld wisely eliminated Kraken's standby line and introduced a complimentary reservation system it calls, Spot Saver. Visitors can use a phone app or a kiosk to reserve a ride time at the park. At the designated time, they enter the queue and then have no more than a 30-minute wait before boarding the train.

However, when the park is crowded, guests who don't use the Spot Saver system early in the day or don't arrive until the afternoon may not find any time available. As an alternative, optional, one-time passes that cost $10 allow visitors immediate front-of-the-line access to the ride.

While Kraken's altered reality is appealing, riders will probably immediately notice that things are conspicuously missing in the virtual world: namely their hands, the rest of their bodies, their friends sitting next to them, and, for that matter, any sign of human life. Like other VR experiences, the SeaWorld ride transforms passengers into strange, disembodied blobs of consciousness. It can be unsettling to wave your hands in front of your face but not be able to see them. For these and other reasons, augmented reality, or AR, which imposes digital content onto the real world, might make more sense than VR for enhanced park attractions.

Kraken's graphics are okay, but they are more virtual than reality. No passengers would ever confuse the animated renderings with an actual excursion aboard a submarine — especially when they are wearing clunky goggles that move around a bit during the turbulent, tumbling ride. It's hard to get lost in the illusion when riders remain acutely aware that they are really aboard a tricked-out coaster.

Theme parks are still trying to figure out how to best incorporate VR. 'It is somewhat of an experiment on a grand scale for a mass market,' is how SeaWorld's Morrow characterizes Kraken. He says that the park chain may try to add VR to other coasters. But it is currently offering DeepSEE VR: Orca 360, a small-group experience that takes guests alongside whales in their natural habitat, at SeaWorld San Diego. It has plans to integrate VR on a simulator attraction at Busch Gardens Williamsburg for the 2018 season. 'We want to keep playing in this category of emerging technologies,' notes Morrow.

For now, VR rides seem not quite ready for prime time. Like the mythical Kraken, they may prove to be elusive. Or, as VR technology improves, they just may turn out to be monsters that parks can harness and ride to great success.