A tip I learned many years ago: for parks that also have a water park, e.g. Six Flags America, go on the hottest weekday you can find. Everyone will be at the water park, and there will be zero lines for anything else.
- That’s my closest park as well
- Yes, I’m a coaster junkie. My all time favorite is Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point, but for good old nostalgia it’s the Great American Scream Machine at Six Flags/GA.
- I’m not much of a water park fan, but there are several around
Big fan, though inversions (loops and such) really don’t do much for me. Besides, any coaster that goes inverted pretty much has to have the horse collar restraint system which I hate. I like the freedom of just a belt or lap bar. I’m in it for the airtime, the delicious feeling of almost zero gravity when cresting a hill. So I tend to gravitate to the woodies and some of the steel hypercoasters like Goliath at SFMM.
I’m in LA. We’ve got Disneyland/California Adventure, Six Flags Magic Mountain, Knott’s Berry Farm and Universal Studios. I’ve only been to Disneyland in recent years. Knott’s Berry Farm has a water park attached to it, I believe, but I’ve never been.
California Screamin’ at California Adventure is a fun roller coaster, primarily because of the linear induction launch, but it’s fairly tame. I don’t think I’ve been on anything considered “extreme” since I was a teenager, long ago.
As to your specific questions:
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I assume Disneyland is the winner by a wide margin. Magic Mountain is the best roller coaster park, but as someone mentioned upthread, Six Flags parks seem to have a “ghetto” reputation these days. Certainly Magic Mountain does.
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I’m not a junkie, and was a bit of a late bloomer with roller coasters. My favorite will probably always be my first, one called “Revolution” at Magic Mountain. I don’t think it’s there anymore.
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I think all of them are fairly popular, what with this being a tourist destination and all.
Johnstown, PA here. We’re only an hour from DelGrosso Park, which we went to last year. There’s another small park near there; I don’t remember the name. Idlewild Park is 30 minutes from our front door. We haven’t gone there for rides but we did go to the Highland Games there in 2012. We’re also about 3 hours from Knoebels in one direction and Conneaut Lake Park in another.
For big park fun we can go to Kennywood or Hershey. I’ve never been to Hershey so I’m looking forward to that trip. I’d like to get a bunch of Dopers together for a Dopefest to Hershey this year.
I went to Idora back in 1982 for a friend’s dad’s company picnic. What a day! I was so upset when I heard it burned down. My mom used to take us to Geauga Lake when my brother and I were kids. I haven’t been there in forever.
I love the Jackrabbit at Kennywood. The double-dip at the end is great. I’ve tried the rebuilt Blue Streak at Conneaut, too. Never again. Nearly bit my tongue in half. It’s a woody, and gives an extremely bumpy ride.
**1. In your area, what is the most popular amusement park? **
Cedar Point! We went there almost every year growing up and I love the place.
2. Are you a roller coaster junkie? if so what is/was your favorite?
Actually, I’m not a coaster junkie. They’re terrifying and they give me headaches.
Cedar Point has been around for over a hundred years and they have a large collection of hand carved carousels. My favorite ride in the park is the Racing Carousel called Cedar Downs. It was built in 1922. It’s one of only two such carousels still in existence. Here’s a video:
The horses race four abreast. They move up and down, like a normal carousel, and also back and forth, in their lanes, and they rock a little bit too, so that they actually “race” as the carousel turns.
This may not sound interesting but like a lot of early amusement rides, it’s surprisingly dangerous. The horses are big (they seat two apiece), they’re not very stable, and the only thing to hold on to is a tiny loop of metal simulating the reins. The whole thing turns at about fifteen miles an hour. If it wasn’t historical, they would never build a ride like this today.
It’s a fun ride, with the racing aspect, and a great way to cool off.
**3. Are there popular water parks or other amusement parks in your area?
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Cedar Point has it’s own water park area, plus the main park has several water rides (I love the white water ride especially). Great Wolf Lodge has a water park in Sandusky. And there’s another one called Kalahari Water Park, too. Which, I guess, if you think about the Kalahari, you immediately think, water sports? I don’t know.
Then of course, there’s Lake Erie, with swimming, boating, parasails and jet skis.
I love amusement parks, too. And I miss the old-style ones. Each was unique. Today’s all look the same to me. But the thrills are certainly larger.
A few of the old wooden ones I remember riding were at Santa Monica, Elitch’s Gardens, Excelsior, Silver Dollar City, Arnold’s Park and several, including The Bobs, at Riverside. But I think I’ve ridden my last one. I exited Excalibur at Valley Fair feeling as though I had been battered.
I did enjoy the modern Manta at Sea World in Orlando. It was nice and smooth.
I can and do continue my hobby of riding Philadelphia Toboggan Company merry-go-rounds and whenever I’m near an area which has one I make the effort to get to it for a ride. That’s my speed these days.
I grew up near Geauga Lake and we went there every year for dad’s company picnic. They had The Wave for a long time which I learned to love, and then they added a water park but I wasn’t into it. I hung out at the local pool with a waterslide.
We’re close enough to Cedar Point that many people I know either visit at least once a year (or more) and some worked there in the summer program. I’ve never been - I’m not in to roller coasters. My friends are going next weekend.
I did go on several Geauga Lake coasters before it shut down but I wasn’t crazy about them. I liked a lot of the rides, though. A lot of them.
Cool screen name…I get it!
As ZipperJJ notes, Geauga Lake closed down quite a few years ago. Somewhere online not long ago I saw some photos of what the site looks like today…just as you can find photos of the Idora Park site in various stages of decay down through the years. It’s still possible to slip through a hole in the chain link fence that surrounds the Idora property and stroll around today. (Don’t ask me how I know this! ;)) But there is almost nothing left that identifies what used to be there.
All of the wooden coasters at Kennywood are great, each it its own way. That double dip on the Jack Rabbit gives you some great “air time.”
It’s been several years since I’ve been to Conneaut Lake Park too. The saga of the Blue Streak is a long and complicated one, but I believe it reopened last year, after several years of dormancy, thanks to a fundraising drive.
Regrettably, the large multi-story restaurant, which had been there since at least the 1920s, burned to the ground last year.
Yeah we were in Florida 2 years ago and did Disney, Universal, and Sea World.
Is it me, or are parks getting away from roller coasters and pushing those 3-d rides?
Anyways that Aerosmith rockin coaster at Disney certainly was cool and it was different doing a roller coaster with no initial dive. The Mummy coaster at Un. was similar. I couldnt believe my special needs son actually rode that Manta at Sea world - twice. And he actually ASKED to go on it. This is a kid who never wants to ride anything!
BTW, do Florida residents get discounts?
You don’t need as much space for the simulators, so that does seem the way a lot of things are going since most of the parks a pretty much built out. I’m not a huge fan, since I get motion sick on anything that isn’t 3D. Weirdly, the Spiderman ride at Islands of Adventure is just about my favorite ride ever. The Transformers ride is the same ride system, but loud and nonsensical.
CA Screamin’ at Disney’s CA Adventure also has the launch like RnRC, but it’s a much smoother ride. Manta is a ton of fun. It’s a completely different ride depending on whether you sit in the front or the back. They have a ride at Magic Mountain in SoCal that is the same sort of flying coaster.
I think you can get resident discounts at all the parks, but I’m not sure how much of a savings it is. You can actually get a free one-day one-park ticket for Disney World if you volunteer for any RunDisney race above 10 miles (they have about 6 each year). I have been doing that to collect tickets for family and friends. Sea World also has a pay-for-one-day-get-the-whole-year sort of thing, which is good if you know someone with an annual pass, since those come with parking privileges and that pass doesn’t. All of the parks give pretty good resident discounts for annual passes, so that’s the way most people seem to go. I have one for Disney that gets me into all the theme parks, the water parks, Disney Quest, as much golf as I want at their 9 hole golf course (which got me started golfing and is almost worth the $600 a year alone), and parking. I have one for Sea World/Busch Gardens/Aquatica too. This year I got one free guest pass for each of the three parks that I have on my pass, which was really cool and I’ve gotten great discounts for Discovery Cove by having it too. I had an AP for Uni, but I sort of got bored with it. I plan on getting another after Diagon Alley opens and the crows for it lighten up.
I’m 53, and loved amusement parks/roller coasters until I was 36. At that point, I met my future wife, who suffers from vertigo and can’t handle roller coasters. So, for over a decade, I never went to an amusement park.
But our son is tall enough to go on all the big, scary rides now, and is always gung ho to do tham. So, we’ve gone to a bunch of amusement parks over the past few years, and I have done all the wild, crazy, terrifying rides with him. (No more teacup rides or baby bumper cars for HIM!)
My wife still won’t go near them!
If I’d been riding roller coasters all along, I might have adapted gradually. But I find that the rides are a lot more uncomfortable than they used to be. It’s not so much that they’re faster or have steeper drops- rather, it’s that I get slammed around a lot more, and come out with bumps, bruises, and a dislocated vertebra or two.
The biggest and best nearby amusement park is Fiesta Texas, in San Antonio. Their best ride is the Iron Rattler.
Are PTC carousels special, as compared to, say, Herschell-Spillman or Looff carousels?
I presume you know that the carousel at Santa Monica is a PTC machine. Perhaps a bit unexpected, as the whole pier was originally built by Looff (I’m pretty sure), so I would presume it originally had a Looff carousel there.
The other carvers, including Dentzel, were also very special I think. What’s attractive to me about PTC is that there were so many of them made - 75 - and that thirty-three of them still are operating.
PTC has quite a number of wooden roller coasters still in use as well.
The PTC owners were not carvers so over the years they hired a variety of mostly immigrant German carvers to work for them. Because of this there is a range of styles the other owners, who did their own, don’t have.
The Looff horses were intriguing in their ornamentation and Dentzel did fantastic menageries. He, being one of the earliest carvers of horses in America, few of his works remain functional. Fires, common in the old amusement parks, took their toll on many others.
I don’t know much about Herschell-Spilman Co. But the PTC rides were the first to come to my attention so that, along with their relative availability, is where my interest came from.
There have been at least two separate owners of two amusement piers in Santa Monica. And you are correct that Looff brothers was one. I believe that they had the PTC carrousel built directly on the pier in the early twenties which would coincide closely with their opening the pier. I didn’t find any evidence that they’d had a fire there so I’m unsure why they would choose a competitor’s carrousel. Interesting question.
Our local amusement park is Darien Lake. It’s a decent regional resort.
But I’ll admit I haven’t been there in a few years and it’s gone through some pretty big management problems. The park has changed management four times since 2007. So I have no idea what it’s like now.
No. Don’t really care for them.
Google Maps and vague recollections of advertising tell me of something called Ray’s Splash Planet.
My only memory of a childhood visit to Euclid Beach in Cleveland was a ride on the Wild Mouse.
Speaking of rollercoasters, whenever I watch a pov video of a rollercoaster ride, I get a weird sensation behind my eyes. Anybody else experience anything like that?
Looff was unique in the fact that he was located on the West Coast – in Long Beach. There’s still one of his carousels there, last I looked. (Okay, that was over 10 years ago, IIRC.)
Herschell-Spillman did menagerie machines too. There’s one in Tilden Park, Berkeley, and one in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.
For a cute cartoon featuring a roller coaster, go to YouTube and look up Roller Coaster Rabbit. Roger Rabbit baby-sits Baby Herman at the amusement park and they take an unscheduled roller coaster ride, among other adventures.
I live a mere 69 miles from Cedar Point, easily a day trip.
I suffer from vertigo, so I can’t ride anything that goes upside-down. I can go on anything, as long as it’s upright. The best old-timey coasters were in Euclid Beach (the Racing Coaster, The Thriller, and the Flying Turns), which was torn down decades ago.
There are no other parks around here, competing with Cedar Point. Seriously, who could compete with Cedar Point?
I was a coaster junkie in my youth because my dad was one. I’ve ridden some of the most extreme coasters in the world shortly after their inception–we visited Six Flags Great America multiple times a year, and Cedar Point three or four times when I was a teenager.
My mom has always hated coasters, and she would wait on the ground while my dad and us kids went on the rides. Since hitting adulthood, gaining weight, and disliking the adrenaline rush/sensation of physical loss of control, I’ve become my mother. Plus, I worry about the seat belts being designed for smaller people. The easier rides tend to have bigger, adjustable bars/belts. The hardcore rides are more strictly limited, and there’d be no quicker way to ruin my day than to be hustled out the exit gate while my friends have fun without me. This has never happened, but it would if I hadn’t stopped riding.
My fiance hates roller coasters too, so that’s fine. The only rides I like anymore are fun, low waterslides. I don’t see riding any coasters more extreme than the log ride for the rest of my life, and that’s just fine by me!