Flounder's Flying Fish Coaster (Mermaid Lagoon)
| Flounder's Flying Fish Coaster | |
|---|---|
| Park | Tokyo DisneySea |
| Land / area | Mermaid Lagoon |
| Type | Steel junior roller coaster |
| Opened | September 4, 2001 |
| Designer | Walt Disney Imagineering |
| Height req. | 90 cm (35 in) minimum |
| Status | Operating |
Flounder's Flying Fish Coaster is a small steel roller coaster in Mermaid Lagoon at Tokyo DisneySea in Urayasu, Chiba, Japan. It is the outdoor coaster of a port themed to Disney's 1989 film The Little Mermaid, and it is named for Flounder, Ariel's fish companion in the film. Built for younger guests having their first roller-coaster ride, it runs a short, low circuit in trains made to look like a school of flying fish. The coaster opened with the park on September 4, 2001.[1][2]
Mermaid Lagoon is divided between a large indoor hall, built to feel like being under the sea, and a smaller outdoor section in front of King Triton's castle facade. Flounder's Flying Fish Coaster belongs to the outdoor section, alongside Scuttle's Scooters, while most of the port's gentler flat rides sit indoors.[1]
History
Tokyo DisneySea opened in 2001 with seven ports of call, and Mermaid Lagoon was its port for young children. Most Disney parks give that audience only flat rides and play areas; Tokyo DisneySea gave them a real, if small, roller coaster as the port's headline ride, and Flounder's Flying Fish Coaster has held that role since opening day.[1][2]
The port around it has changed more than the coaster has. Ariel's greeting location and the Mermaid Lagoon Theater have opened, closed and been repurposed over the years, while the coaster's short circuit above the outdoor lagoon area has remained a constant first-coaster fixture for visiting families.[1]
Experience
Riders must be at least 90 cm (35 in) tall, the lowest height requirement of any coaster at Tokyo DisneySea, and younger children ride accompanied under the resort's usual rules for small guests.[2] That low threshold is the point of the attraction: it is designed to be reachable by children who are still years away from the park's big coasters.
The trains are styled as bright flying fish, and a school of them climbs a short lift, then works through a compact series of banked turns and gentle dips around the outdoor section of the port, skimming over the themed rockwork and water features below.[2] There are no inversions and no large drop; the circuit is brief, and its sensations come from the turns, the modest height above the lagoon, and the feeling of speed that a small coaster gives a small rider.
Set against Raging Spirits and Journey to the Center of the Earth elsewhere in the same park, Flounder's Flying Fish Coaster looks modest, and by design it is. Its job in the port is different: to give Mermaid Lagoon's audience — the youngest riders in Tokyo DisneySea — a genuine coaster of their own, themed to a character they recognise, rather than a scaled-down afterthought.