SeaWorld: Summer clock ticking however nonetheless no Infinity Falls open date

The sun and school are out, which means the money is flowing fast at Orlando’s theme parks.

Eager to show off its latest attraction, SeaWorld Orlando invited more than two dozen journalists and bloggers for a behind-the-scenes tour of Infinity Falls on Wednesday.

But the ride wasn’t ready. Wearing closed-toe shoes, the group walked around the attraction with mounds of dirt, heavy machinery and construction crews in the background.

SeaWorld Orlando has not yet announced an opening date. That’s alarming, one tourism expert said, as the company seeking to rebound financially heads into fierce summer competition with Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando Resort.

Disney’s Toy Story Land opens on June 30, and Universal already unveiled its ride from the “Fast & Furious” franchise before Memorial Day weekend.

“They’ve missed the boat,” said Scott Smith, a University of South Carolina assistant hospitality professor, about SeaWorld. “It’s a missed opportunity. … Summer is the most important season to the Orlando theme parks.”

It’s already mid-June, and the lack of an official opening date makes it difficult for SeaWorld to advertise the ride, said Smith, an Orlando native.

And besides, many Orlando vacationers — and there are plenty, about 72 million arrived in 2017, according to Visit Orlando — have already locked down their summer plans, Smith said.

When asked, a SeaWorld executive didn’t pinpoint any significant construction problems that might have slowed down the project other than the natural challenges of building something new within the park’s existing blueprint.

Jeff Hornick pointed out that the 5-minute-long ride is complex and has taken about a year to construct.

The ride itself is installed, and what’s left is the finishing touches — such as the landscape and sidewalks — as well as an extensive testing process, said Hornick, SeaWorld Entertainment’s senior director of theme park development.

SeaWorld must test the rafts hundreds of times with dummies to get a sense of how they respond whether, for example, it’s a group of cheerleaders or a group of linebackers on board, Hornick said.

“We’ve been testing already, and we have a lot of testing to go,” he said. “We want to make sure it’s 100 percent safe and 100 percent fun.”

As the only other attraction at the park besides Journey to Atlantis on which customers can cool down, Infinity Falls features a 5-second, 30-foot vertical lift up a waterfall followed by an exciting 40-foot drop.

Part of the experience will also be some of the extras, like riders admiring a flock of up to 25 flamingoes — a peaceful moment before the journey through water rapids begins.

The landscape includes adding 700 trees. One ficus tree alone weighed 22,000 pounds and required three cranes to lift it.

“We’re creating a jungle one tree at a time,” Hornick said.

At any time on the ride, up to 14 rafts will be in use, so SeaWorld expects a capacity to load about 1,025 people an hour — similar to one of its major roller coasters.

The eight-person rafts will get dispatched every 26 seconds onto the 1,520-foot track where four pumps churn 269,000 gallons of water per minute.

“It looks so much fun,” added Hornick who will be one of the early human testers to experience it. “I can’t wait to be on the raft for the first time.”

For all the pressure to open early, SeaWorld also wants to avoid making other mistakes that have happened at other attractions over the years, Smith also pointed out.

Take Jaws: The ride was shut down about two months after Universal Studios Florida’s grand opening in 1990, and it took until 1993 to fix it.

And Test Track — one of Epcot’s most thrilling rides at Walt Disney World — was expected to open in May 1997 but didn’t until March 1999.

“It’s a mistake to rush something to open that’s not ready yet and get all the negative press and disappoint the customers,” Smith said.

Or when parks announce an opening date but fail to deliver, he said.

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