Dive coasters.
It’s a breed of ride pioneered by Bolliger and Mabillard company of Switzerland, which made its debut back in 1998 at Alton Towers park in Staffordshire, England, with a one-trick pony ride called Oblivion.

I say it’s a one-trick pony, but admittedly, it’s a pretty good trick. Riders board ridiculously wide vehicles, so wide that all but the middle two seats dangle out beyond the edges of the track. They are hauled up a hill, round a slow turn, then approach the precipice of a very steep drop, where they are then stopped and teeter on the edge for several seconds before plunging, nearly weightless, down the drop. Oblivion’s drop descends into a deep hole, then rockets above ground, around a turn, then back to the station.

By today’s standards, that’s very basic. In 1998, however, it was revolutionary. Still, this model of coaster wouldn’t really get much traction in the market until several years later. Taiwan opened an Oblivion clone called Diving Machine G5 in 2000, and those were the only two dive coasters in the world for five years. In 2005, Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida, opened Shiekra- a dive coaster with a complete coaster layout (not just a drop), several inversions, a second vertical drop, and an innovative water-based brake system that provided spectacular viewing for non-riders. The trains also included a third row of seats, increasing the capacity and opening up this type of coaster to large parks. It was a massive hit.

Busch Gardens Williamsburg debuted their Griffon coaster two years later with 10-across seating (adding to the capacity yet again), an additional inversion, and an even more spectacular water brake.

The dive coaster had gone from a one-trick pony niche ride to a full-fledged destination-worthy attraction. Shiekra and Griffon were cloned in South Korea and China, respectively, and custom layouts began to pop up around the world. Most of them had 8- or 10-across trains, two vertical drop moments, and a water brake finale.

But this article is about Emperor at SeaWorld San Diego, named after the Emperor penguin, an aquatic bird that can dive to great depths.
It opened in March of 2022 after a long delay due to Covid-19, and it has none of those features. The trains, for starters, are only six seats wide.

The track layout is ridiculously short (just 30 seconds of ride from the top of the first drop to the brakes), there is no second drop, and there is no water-based braking system to drench passers-by on a hot day. By comparison to dive coaster models of late, it might even look a bit lacklustre.
But if you’ve never been surprised by a coaster that you didn’t think would be very good, then you’ve not ridden very many coasters.

The first drop is a respectable 15 storeys, but the rest of the track is considerably closer to the ground. The narrower trains mean far less stress on the vehicles, so higher G-forces, snappier twists and turns, and higher sustained speeds are possible here and Emperor takes full advantage. Unlike the larger models’ extended transitions and carefully crafted aerobatics, SeaWorld’s model attempts to mimic the Emperor penguin, the ride’s namesake, with a steep dive followed by quick transitions and rapid spins as if it were all being done underwater. I’ll admit that the theme seems like a bit of a stretch, but it actually works pretty well.

The lift hill is steep and the trains race up it at 20mph (33km/h). The top of the lift offers incredible views of San Diego, Chula Vista, and even Tijuana, Mexico. As you round the corner at the top, you’re facing the rest of SeaWorld and the Electric Eel coaster. You’re also facing Mission Beach and the historic Giant Dipper coaster, but to be honest, you probably aren’t going to even try spotting it, because you’re stopped at the precipice of a 15-storey vertical drop and that is likely to command all your attention.

The drop is good, even though it’s five storeys shorter than some of the larger models. In terms of how long you’ll be dropping, that extra five storeys translates to fractions of a second anyway, so it’s genuinely not that noticeable. After that… well…. yeah, it’s noticeable. Giant, lazy elements on the larger rides are replaced here by smaller, tighter, rapid-fire elements taken much faster than you might expect from a dive coaster.

The Immelman maneuver (a half-loop that exits at the top into a twisting half-roll), a staple of dive coaster layouts, is blisteringly fast and offers some nice positive-Gs. You’ve barely recovered from that when a brand-new-for-a-dive-coaster element comes racing at you. SeaWorld is calling it a ‘hammerhead turn’ - which is an aerobatic move where a stunt plane races straight up, stalls, then falls backward and races back toward the ground. This element doesn’t mimic that move at all, so I’m wondering if maybe they’re thinking ‘hammerhead shark turn’. That doesn’t really make much sense, either, as it looks nothing like a hammerhead shark.

If I had to name it, I’d call it a ‘cutback’ - a maneuver first introduced on Drachen Fire at Busch Gardens Williamsburg in 1992 - which is an almost-upside-down 180 degree turn. If you’ve read the ElloCoaster article on Iron Shark, you’re already familiar. Regardless of what you want to call it, it’s a freaking blast and it might be my favourite moment on the ride.
Racing out of the hammerhead, the train rises and spins into a delicious inversion that’s part flat spin, part barrel roll, but on a piece of track angled up at around 45 degrees. It exits at the top into a swooping right turn and right into a corkscrew before hitting the brakes.

While the bigger versions of this ride might look more impressive from the ground, Emperor holds its own against all of them. The lack of a second vertical drop, which has become pretty much standard for these rides, isn’t even a detriment in my opinion, but an asset. There’s no midcourse brake in the layout to kill the pacing, so the back end of the ride is just as speedy and intense as the first half. It’s short, but intense and has no moments to catch your breath. The only thing that feels truly missing is the splashdown finale, but that is likely due to the narrow trains. If you have to skip the splash in order to have the speedy, twisty, rapid-fire layout, then I’m all for it. Take the dive.