There’s something about staring down a towering, tubular plastic water slide that awakens one’s amateur physicist.
Waiting in line at attractions like Adventure Island’s brand-new Colossal Curl, you fuzzily crunch factors like mass, height, velocity and slope in determining a) the maximum amount of thrill such a ride is likely to offer and b) the maximum number of bones you will break if you fall off.
Colossal Curl is a turquoise, green and yellow behemoth of a thrill ride that stands 70 feet high. The tallest ride in the park (and some would argue the most perilous), it opened for the first time in March and is already popular. On a warm and sunny Saturday, the line for the Curl gets long early on.
Thrill-seekers 48 inches in height and above, clustered in parties of two to four, perch on a tall staircase that offers sweeping views of the coasters of Busch Gardens, downtown Tampa and beyond. It is in this line that a more timid ride-goer must summon his or her inner statistician to calculate the risks (which are in fact infinitesimally small; seriously, don’t worry about it).
At the top of the staircase tower, your party steps on a large scale to determine whether your combined weight exceeds 800 pounds. Once the party in front of you clears the entryway to the slide, an attendant summons you onto a four-person inflatable raft with ropes in the middle you’re instructed to grasp.
Once you’re all situated, and the coast is clear, the attendant guides you toward the tunnel at the slide’s opening, which features a surprisingly chilly waterfall.
Almost immediately, the nerve-rattling twisting, turning and falling begins. As soon as the slide turns downward, the raft shifts, placing the heaviest person among you at the head (if he wasn’t there already). You pass through one or two sharp turns where the slide isn’t covered; if you glide through those curves at the right speed and angle, you’ll nearly touch the top as you get closer and closer to the ride’s climax, the “clover leaf,” which resembles a steeply tilted satellite dish. You can angle your raft to keep it in the water at this point, but if you’re feelng daring you’ll want to try and catch some air.
After the clover leaf, a quick, steep downward jaunt shoots you out onto the slide. The faster you fall, the higher you climb before embarking on one last fiendishly rapid hurrah of a descent toward the shallow pool at the ride’s end, a welcome sight.
Adjacent to the slide is Mango Joe’s, a concession stand serving frosty piña coladas and mango daiquiris as well as local craft beer on tap.
You’ll welcome it, especially if you plan to take a second run at the massive thrill ride you just conquered.
If you can stomach more speed and peril, there’s a deceptively terrifying ride next to the Colossal Curl we dub the Purple Twisty; it sends the rider barreling through the slide’s many turns, in the dark, at surprising speeds. Another nearby ride sends only the boldest attendees down a flume-like slide at what seems like a near 90-degree angle into a long pool.
But Colossal Curl offers the most actuarial bang for your buck, so you’ll want to climb that towering staircase more than once during
your trip.
Adventure Island, 3605 E.Bougainvillea Ave., Tampa. Hours: Mon.-Sun. 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Apr.-Oct. Admission: $49.95. Parking: $12.
