When I was a kid I enjoyed roller coasters, but it was never the big attraction for me—I liked the junk food, the recreations of the quaint streets and fantasy/sci-fi environments, the dark rides, basically the non-thrill ride attractions.
Now, I can’t think of anything less I would want to do than get on a cramped, rickety, noisy, jarring nightmare. Ugh. Much less stand in line for one. Nooooo thanks.
It’s been ~40 years since I last visited CP, but I loved it there—especially the coasters. Nothing like feeling your hair flow in the breeze behind you as you plunge down the track at high speed. But, now with only 2 strands of hair left on my head, I don’t think the experience would be as fun.
…I guess I could wear a wig.
I’m not a big coaster fan but I do enjoy California’s Giant Dippers. Anything longer or more intense gives me motion sickness. I try to ride the one in Santa Cruz once a year and the one in San Diego whenever I’m down there. I rode the Great Scenic Railway at Luna Park in Melbourne and that was very cool.
Used to go to Six Flags America and King’s Dominion all the time but haven’t gone in at least a decade.
Went to Universal and Legoland in Orlando about 5 years back. Except for the ride through the castle at Harry Potter, we didn’t go on any of the rides. It has elements of a coaster, but it really isn’t one. We mostly just wanted to go inside the castle.
We go to the county fair every year, too, but never go on any of the rides. I mostly go just for chicken-on-a-stick and various fried stuff.
Frequent visits to 6 flags Great America with lots of roller coaster rides were a big part of my teen years thru the years when my girls were young. But now my joy has diminished over time, especially since I’ve developed fairly severe cervical spondylosis in my neck. I still enjoy rides with sudden drops, but not the neck-jerking, headbanging rides. It’s been years since I’ve been on a roller coaster and I don’t expect that will change.
I haven’t been to the local park (Canada’s Wonderland) in over 5 years (maybe more like 10?), but I remember liking it the last time I went. My wife has zero interest in thrill rides, so I go by myself; the single rider lines are usually not too bad, in my experience. It’s not as cheap as it used to be, though.
I’m 57, and the answer for me is “not anymore.”
As a kid, I adored going to theme parks. But, I had a love/hate relationship with roller coasters: I sometimes enjoyed them, but the combination of a tendency towards motion sickness, and a fear of heights, made me less interested in the huge and extreme coasters. As a result, while I loved going to theme parks, I spent a lot of my visits there on the other, non-coaster rides.
In the decades since I was a kid, roller coasters, and other thrill rides, have gotten more and more extreme, and became less and less appealing to me. Combine that with less of an interest in standing in line for an hour for a 2-minute ride, and I haven’t been to a theme park in close to 20 years.
Hmm, with both our cervical radiculopathies, we could race the coasters and finish neck to neck.
Yep, made by the same coaster-building company even.
Or at least half-brothers…
I like steep drops. Not so much having my head rattled around. So I get plenty of enjoyment out of old-school hill-only coasters. But I’ll pass on the corkscrews and hairpin turns.
Last time I was at King’s Dominion I rode some old wooden roller coaster multiple times without even having to wait in line.
If there were two separate mirrored tracks it was whatever they changed the name of Rebel Yell to. Or it was the Grizzly.
My “secret trick” for amusement parks was to go to one with a water park and go on the hottest day you can. Everyone goes to the water park, and everything else is near abandoned.
One ride on Boblo’s “The Mouse” was enough to turn me off of coasters for life. My balance mechanisms took a real beating.
I haven’t been to a theme park in years, but I recall that they used to make a point of other things they offered. Years ago, Cedar Point had an ad with a jingle that included “…be a bird trainer…”, the accompanying picture showed children hand-feeding birds (doves?).
So I’ll say that I can enjoy an amusement part, but for the other things it offers.
Wow. I need to lie down.
mmm
I mentioned this ride was shut down when we went… saw on the news yesterday that it’s been permanently retired. They said a woman in line had been seriously injured last Summer when a part flew off the coaster and hit her. Oddly, I hadn’t heard about that until yesterday.
I didn’t know there was a Giant Dipper in San Diego. I’ve been on the Santa Cruz one several times. I enjoy the old wooden rickety coasters, and the beach location can’t be beat.
As for thrill rides in general, the older I get the less I care.
On edit: I wonder if a love for extreme rides goes hand-in-hand with a love for extreme hot sauce. Like some people have slightly lower sensory receptors and need more stimulation? Dunno.
I think that was it, still called Rebel Yell whenever I was there before 2016. Wikipedia tells me it’s now Racer 75.
I wonder if that’s true. I hate both thrill rides and hot sauce.
I love thrill rides and hot sauce. Though my “extreme” is pretty mild. My limit is only a tad past habaneros.
But really, the more significant factor is that I almost don’t get motion sickness at all. I trained myself out of it as a child by reading in the back seat of a hot car with tiny windows driving down twisty roads. There’s no downside to thrill rides aside from the lines.
I’m nearly 65 and went to Hershey Park in Pennsylvania with the grandkids earlier his summer. I hadn’t been on a coaster in, maybe, 20 years. I still get a kick out of them. Wood and steel each have their own allure. One was one of the ‘rapid acceleration then straight up before twisting and looping’ variety. Great fun. If it wasn’t for long waits, I could ride them all day. I always wanted to try CP but its a long drive from the Jersey shore.
Have you gone to the much closer Six Flags? Kingdom Ka, Nitro and El Toro are great coasters. Unfortunately El Toro had an incident recently.