Steel Eel is the tallest, fastest, and longest roller coaster at SeaWorld San Antonio.
This Morgan mega coaster dominates the park’s skyline.
The Cedar Fair trio of Morgan hyper coasters do not have the best reputation, but does
Steel Eel suffer from the same problems?
Not at all!
In this video, I will review Steel Eel and explain why this is a really wild airtime
machine.
SeaWorld San Antonio opened in 1988.
Like the other SeaWorld parks, the San Antonio location opened with a focus on aquatic exhibits
and animal shows.
But in the 1990s, the park started adding rides.
SeaWorld San Antonio added Great White in 1997, a B&M inverted coaster, but just two
years later in 1999 they opened an even bigger coaster in Steel Eel.
Steel Eel isn’t a hyper coaster; it doesn’t quite reach the 200 foot threshold.
Steel Eel stands 150 feet or 46 meters tall.
So while it technically doesn’t meet the definition of a hyper coaster, it certainly
feels like one.
Morgan built a trio of hyper coasters for Cedar Fair the prior 3 years.
Wild Thing at Valleyfair opened in 1996.
Steel Force opened at Dorney Park in 1997.
And Mamba opened at Worlds of Fun in 1998.
While these coasters are praised for their smoothness and are icons for their respective
parks, coaster enthusiasts often criticize these rides for being some of the tamest hyper
coasters in existence.
I really like Steel Force and I think that ride delivers airtime start to finish, but
Wild Thing and Mamba are neutered by a brutal mid-course brake run.
What about Steel Eel?
This coaster is considerably more extreme than those three rides.
Steel Eel is located in the very back of SeaWorld along the park’s perimeter.
The coaster’s electric yellow track looks amazing.
The coaster was most recently painted in 2019 and it looks like its glowing, which is quite
fitting considering the ride is named after an electric eel.
The ride can be seen from anywhere in the park.
It looks particularly great overlooking the lake, but it also catches your eye on the
roadway approaching the park.
I also love how bizarre some of the supports look.
Steel Eel has a ton of them and they are all angled differently.
Many of SeaWorld San Antonio’s rides often have staggered openings, but Steel Eel consistently
opens with the park.
And it also tends to be an extremely reliable coaster.
It was closed due to a lift issue in one of my visits, but in my other visits, it has
run open to close with no downtime what-so-ever…assuming there is no rain.
SeaWorld San Antonio won’t run any of their rides in the rain as I found out in a recent
visit.
Steel Eel has super long trains.
The ride has two trains each with six cars, so the ride can accommodate up to 36 riders
per cycle.
More often than not, I find Steel Eel running just one train, but usually this coaster doesn’t
have more than a 10-15 minute wait since the trains seat so many people.
The ride does tend to have painfully slow dispatches though.
The ride usually sits in the station for a while before the employees start the seatbelt
and lap bar check.
I’m used to the lightning fast operations of the Cedar Fair Morgan hypers.
The trains are identical to the ones found on the other Morgan hypercoasters.
The trains are extremely boxy and have high sides.
This is one of the reasons I won’t be using my personal POV in this video since my chest
mounted Go Pro didn’t clear the front of the train.
The trains are very roomy.
The ride has a seatbelt and a rather loose lap bar that rests a little above my lap even
on the lowest setting.
The trains do have a flaw though.
The seats have barely any padding.
I don’t really notice this on Wild Thing or Mamba because the airtime isn’t as extreme,
but your butt will slam into the seat rather violently at several points on Steel Eel.
So just be warned.
That can be a dealbreaker for some.
In terms of seat selection, Steel Eel is a back row ride for me.
While the front row has good airtime and a better sense of speed, the airtime is far
more sustained in the back.
One last note before going into the ride, Steel Eel is one of the rare coasters without
a covered station.
The employees and guests waiting have slanted roofs to stand under, but the platform and
track is completely exposed to the elements.
It’s a sight you don’t often see.
Once you depart the station, you round a turn and slowly climb up the lift hill.
If you look to your right, you get a fantastic view of the entire park.
At the top, you slowly crawl over the apex and the craziness begins.
Because of how Morgan profiles their drops, they provide some incredible and sustained
floater airtime in the back car.
The drops take forever to reach their maximum angle of descent, so you’ll be floating
the whole way down.
But the landing isn’t pleasant.
Because you start pulling out immediately after you reach the max angle of descent,
you are violently slammed back down in your seat.
This would be less of an issue if the seats were well-padded, but unfortunately they are
not.
You then rise up the second hill giving everyone several seconds of sustained floater airtime.
Like the prior drop, the landing is a bit hard though.
The second drop doesn’t go all the way down to the ground.
Instead, you pullout halfway down and rise up into the third hill.
It gives another great dose of sustained floater airtime, but it’s especially magical in
the back row.
The third drop goes back down to the ground, so back row riders are out of their seat for
4ish straight seconds.
As a result, you really get slammed back into your seat at the bottom.
You then climb into the mid-course brake run getting some decent floater airtime if you’re
up front.
The brakes then loudly engage the train.
As I mentioned earlier, this is the issue on Mamba and Wild Thing.
You come to a near halt on those coasters.
On my rides in 2018, a similar thing happened on Steel Eel and the return leg only had a
minimal amount of airtime.
However, I don’t believe that is the most common occurrence.
Most POVs and my experiences in 2017 and 2020 see the train slowed a good amount, but you
never come to a stop.
You regain your speed on a twisting drop off the mid-course.
This drop is stretched out and unfortunately it offers no laterals or airtime.
But don’t worry, the next hills will.
You then climb over a camelback underneath the mid-course.
This hill normally delivers weak sustained floater airtime throughout the train.
If the ride is stopped on the mid-course and is running slower, this hill won’t offer
any airtime.
That is followed by four consecutive bunny hills.
Normally these hills deliver nice fl-jector airtime in the front car.
If the ride is running slow, it’s weaker floater airtime.
In the back car, the bunny hills deliver weak but sustained floater airtime, but the strength
decreases with each hill.
Each of these bunny hills does slam you back into your seat, but it isn’t quite as violent
as the taller hills in the first half.
After the final bunny hill, Steel Eel has bled off almost all of its speed.
So you cross-over the maintenance road and turn into the brake run.
These turns are unbanked, but because you’ve lost so much speed, you get no laterals.
You then loudly grind to halt on the final brake run, ending the ride.
Steel Eel is a fairly well paced coaster.
The only interruption to the action is that mid-course brake run and lackluster drop initiating
the second half, but all the other hills deliver airtime in droves.
In terms of smoothness, Steel Eel tracks very smoothly.
The ride has smooth transitions and doesn’t shuffle or rattle.
The only comfort issues are those hard landings after a large chunk of the airtime hills.
It’s not enough to ruin the ride for me, but it does detract from the ride since I
was dreading that slam in the middle of each airtime moment.
I know others who cannot enjoy the ride at all for this reason.
If Steel Eel ever got padding, it would rocket up my rankings.
So what would I rate Steel Eel?
I would give this coaster an 8 out of 10.
Steel Eel is a floater airtime machine.
Pretty much every hill will have you levitating out of your seat.
It’s just one camelback or bunny hill after another.
But the ride loses a few points because of how you are continuously slammed into the
unpadded seats.
Compared to the other Morgan hypers, I would take it over Mamba and Wild Thing without
a doubt, but I think I prefer Steel Force by a slim margin.
And I much prefer Superman el Ultimo Escape at Six Flags Mexico.
But I think Steel Eel has the best sustained airtime of any of these rides.
Compared to hypers from other manufacturers, the quantity of airtime still stands out but
I would take a good amount of the Intamin and B&M hypers over Steel Eel because of the
aforementioned comfort issues.
Of the rides at SeaWorld San Antonio, Texas Stingray came close, but Steel Eel is still
my favorite attraction in the park.
So those are my thoughts on Steel Eel, the mega coaster at SeaWorld San Antonio.
Have you been on this coaster?
How do you think it compares to the other hyper coasters out there, whether it be from
Morgan or other manufacturers?
I would love to hear your thoughts down in the comments.
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Thanks for watching!