A coiling serpent of a thrill machine that has impatiently sat idle for two years amid a pandemic pause is crouched and ready to strike at the adrenal glands of ride enthusiasts that have been eagerly eyeing SeaWorld’s new coaster with a mixture of anticipation and fear.

SeaWorld San Diego will open the new Emperor floorless dive roller coaster on March 12 as the tallest, fastest and longest ride of its kind in California.

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I rode Emperor five times on Monday, Feb. 28 during a media preview and found the new coaster offers a placidly panoramic view of San Diego before precipitously dangling riders 15 stories above the ground and plunging them into a spaghetti bowl of twists, turns and inversions.

The new Emperor coaster is named for the world’s largest penguin, but SeaWorld could have easily named the new ride Anaconda after the world’s largest snake. Emperor squeezes a lot of thrills out of a tight knot of inversions that will leave riders gasping for air after a relatively quick two-minute ride.

Emperor swiftly ascends a 153-foot-tall lift hill before taking a leisurely 180-degree turn that offers a sweeping view of downtown San Diego and Mexico in the distance. Then the excitement begins — with Emperor suspending riders at a 45-degree angle at the precipice of the first drop for three to five seconds. Riders can glimpse the nearby Electric Eel and Journey to Atlantis coasters — but their focus will undoubtedly be on the ground below and the thrills that lay ahead.

When the brakes release, the 18-passenger coaster train rockets down the 90-degree first drop at 60 mph before snaking through a barrel roll, Immelmann loop, corkscrew, hammerhead turn and flat spin in quick succession along 2,500 feet of track.

The new Emperor floorless dive coaster at SeaWorld San Diego. (Brady MacDonald / Orange County Register)

The new Emperor dive coaster at SeaWorld Diego is surprisingly big, aggressively bold, glassy smooth, whisper quiet and unrelenting once it gets going. The front row feels like your dangling feet can touch the track below the floorless coaster train. The back row pulls the most G forces as the car winds through the snaking course. Stuck between the two, the middle row provides the most opportunities to sightsee across the San Diego skyline before the true business at hand gets underway.

A sign in the queue warns riders to stow loose articles because “the ride always wins.” You should heed that advice. Emperor pulls enough Gs to yank the fillings out of your teeth — let alone the smartphone out of your pocket.

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Emperor sits on what used to be part of the SeaWorld parking lot — tucked away in what feels like a backstage space behind the Wild Arctic attraction surrounded by 15-foot-tall black fencing. The location brings to mind Scream at Magic Mountain that Six Flags euphemistically called its “parking lot themed” coaster. SeaWorld at least threw some rocks and landscaping on top of the old parking lot — unlike Magic Mountain, which has kept the parking spaces painted on the pavement for decades. Eagle-eyed Emperor riders will spot a dozen fully-decorated Christmas trees clustered together in the parking lot below awaiting SeaWorld’s next holiday season.

SeaWorld is billing Emperor as California’s tallest, fastest and longest dive coaster — a direct dig at Knott’s Berry Farm’s lower (3 feet), slower (3 mph) and shorter (213 feet) HangTime dive coaster.

It’s no accident SeaWorld is being mentioned in the same breath as Magic Mountain and Knott’s. SeaWorld is taking on the coaster parks to the north as the marine park continues to offer more thrills to complement its animal attractions that have come under fire in recent years.

Think of the new San Diego coaster by Switzerland-based ridemaker Bolliger & Mabillard as the junior version of Griffon and Sheikra at the Busch Gardens theme parks on the East Coast. It’s not surprising to see B&M steel gracing the SeaWorld San Diego skyline as the park pivots to become more of a ride-based park like its Busch Gardens cousins.

SeaWorld’s corporate parent made an unsuccessful bid to buy Knott’s parent Cedar Fair that could have turned the Buena Park theme park into Busch Gardens Berry Farm. Expect to see more coasters and thrill rides in SeaWorld San Diego’s future.

Emperor was supposed to be SeaWorld San Diego’s third coaster in as many years following Electric Eel in 2018 and Tidal Twister in 2019 — but the new ride’s planned 2020 debut got put on hold by the COVID-19 pandemic. SeaWorld reportedly had yet another coaster in the works as a replacement for the Wild Arctic simulator attraction — but that was pre-pandemic and a lot has changed since then. Another coaster next to Emperor, Electric Eel and Journey to Atlantis would make for a massive tangle of steel at the east end of SeaWorld San Diego.

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But for now, ride enthusiasts who have been anxiously waiting two years to test out SeaWorld’s newest coaster finally get their chance — and Emperor shouldn’t disappoint. The anticipation is nearly over — as long as fear doesn’t stand in your way.