Thrill Rides

[Harvester]

Right. Anyway, a few days ago I came back from Spain and, among other things, we visited Port Aventura. They have tons and tons of great stuff there, the entire place is beautiful, but I won't bore you with all that crap and will skip straight to the point.

So, I had my first roller coaster ride there. It was the Dragon Khan roller coaster (they say it's one of the best in the world). Prior to that, I had no experience with thrill rides, so I was only vaguely aware of what was coming. The thing started climbing really slow and reached a peak (from which you can see miles and miles of beautiful Catalonian landscape all around you, which adds to the fear factor). Then of course it decided to dive down reeeeeaaaaly fast. That was a real bitch. It felt like I was falling really fast - though I was perfectly aware that I'm sitting and have a safety belt, I couldn't FEEL any of that. It was just like a feeling of freefall. That was too scary for me, I was just waiting for the vagon to part with the rails and crash somewhere in the beautiful Catalonian landscape, so I closed my eyes for the rest of the ride. I felt lots and lots of falling and turning around and it was scary as hell. Of course, now I feel extremely sorry for being a coward and missing an extremely important part of the ride - the view.

Fortunately, I made it up later with another mad scary thing - a freefall simulation called Huracan Condor. For those who haven't tried it, it looks like this: They put you in the chair, lift you and then throw you down. In more detail, your "chair" (I don't know what else to call it) is climbing slowly to the height of 80 meters (it should be around 250 feet if I'm not very much mistaken). You stay there for a few seconds, then they rotate the chair just a bit so that your head goes a bit forward and then you fall. The first 60 meters is free fall, and the rest is slowing down and finally stopping. Though the main attraction here is of course the fall itself (which causes your stomach to go up to your mouth, just like the roller coaster) for me the scariest part was the climbing and those few seconds at the top. There are simply no words to describe that feeling - you are 80 meters above the ground, have nothing under your legs, and that Catalonian landscape is spreading miles and miles around you. Such mixture of beauty and fear is rarely seen. Of course, from the second I stepped on that darn thing, in my mind I was calling for my mom, wanting to get the hell away. Fortunately, I didn't close my eyes this time. So, that Huracan Condor minute is the absolute highlight of my short visit to Spain, beating the Salvador Dali museum in Figueres, Magic Fountain in Barcelona and even Nou Camp (!)

What I wanted to ask everyone is to describe your experience with thrill rides of this (or other type). Were you thrilled? Scared? Terrified? Having the best time of your life? Judging from my first (and hopefully not last) experience, if you can overcome the fear, the thrill rides are quite possibly the most exciting thing EVER. Better than having a threesome with Scarlett Johansson and Anne Hathaway. Or foursome with Claudia Schiffer, Cindy Crawford and Marilyn Monroe in their prime.

[radiowaves]

You are a brave person. I like to take risks and to be in dangerous situations, recently i have even gotten into some extreme sports, but I don't like the extremes where control is not dependent on me but on someones elses hand. This reminds me that a caroussel cought fire in local park recently. They couldn't turn it off, so people had to ride through fire several times, now that is awesome.

[R4L]

I skateboard, but the thrill is nothing compared to that.

I went to Six Flags, and they have a coaster called Kingda Ka. The thing starts off flying forward at 100 MPH (I think its a little more) and it goes straight up (and I mean STRAIGHT up) in the air 438 ft while spiraling, then it goes down the other 438 straight down drop, reaching speeds over 100 MPH before finally braking.

It looked really short, but im afraid of heights, and seeing every dot (people ) on the ground and the really small buildings, plus the enormous amount of countryside, I got really scared and stared screaming when we hit the drop.

It was all laughs after that. I even saw my picture that they take when you hit the drop and my face looked something like this:



If I could ride it again, I would. It was really fun when I got off, but the sheer exhilaration and fear when I thought that I was gonna die on a rollercoaster was utterly intense.

[Domino]

I love amusement parks, but haven't been to one in 10 years. I am really not a fan of the scarier rides and some roller coasters but i have been on a few. I think one reason is that i am afraid of heights and also afraid of being killed on a ride. Malfunctions with rides can happen, or you have an improperly trained ride attendant who really doesn't know what they are doing. I like building amusement parks in RCT, i find that entertaining, but you won't see me in any amusement parks for awhile. I think the link below is probably the reason...

http://www.rideaccidents.com/

I have been checking that site out for years, and it seems like accidents happen more often than we would like to think. Maybe i'm just a scaredy cat. 

[Steel Drummer]

Maybe they don't publicize these Thrill Ride accidents so that their profits won't decrease from paranoid people. I think that the ride attendants are to blame for quite a few incidents:

(Monday, April 9, 2007) - A 7-year-old boy died after he and his mother fell out of a Sizzler ride yesterday at a carnival in Hope, Arkansas. Witnesses say that the boy stood up after falling to the ground and was struck by one of the ride's cars. He then stood up a second time and was struck in the head by another car. He died at a hospital hours later as a result of traumatic brain injury.

A member of the boy's family says that the safety bar was not properly latched, and that the mother was trying to get the attention of the ride operator

Just a thought..

[Buckethead]

I've been riding such rides all my live. And in that time several things have happened to me such like: the cars stopping on the middle of the lifthill, a woodenrollercoaster that didn't make it all the way ( we had to walk back on the side of the track) and I once fell while doing a rodel bahn, me and my brother wen't on one car togheter and we have gone extremely fast, then there was this s-turn and we crashed. But overall I think thrill rides and rollercoasters are pretty save. A guy on Discovery channel once commented that riding a coaster is more save to riding a bike or a plane.

For the first time you didn't do bad. Dragon Kahn is a pretty big and prehaps scary coaster. But you shouldn't close your eyes. If you do that you might get terrible nausy or might hit your against something.


As I said I've been doing thrill rides all my live. When I was little I was always excited to ride roller coasters and other thrill rides. It just gives a great feeling. And it still does, only now I'm more relaxed and it's fun to see how other people think it's pretty scary and the look on their faces when you go to a loop, it's classic 

[Ghost]

Of course, now I feel extremely sorry for being a coward and missing an extremely important part of the ride - the view.

I always close my eyes on the first time I ride a coaster. The second time, I ride it with my eyes open. I'm generally impressed at how much more intense a ride is if you don't see anything.

One of the best coaster I had the pleasure to experience was the Colossos in german "Heidepark". That thing has its own entry in the Guiness Book of records; it's the steepest (but nor highest) wooden coaster in the world, with a 60m drop at 60, 65 angle and a top speed of about, uh, 140 (?).
Imagine it.
You enter a platform that's already 10 to 12 m high. You enter the coaster- in a rough tunnel construction. You're then lifted another 63m above ground. Unfortunately, the park itself isn't that impressive, you only get a good view of some generic german forest. But that drop! That frikkin' drop that squeezes you to into the seat with roughly triple g... After a couple of seconds, you see no more landscape, no sky, just the rest of the coaster towering, mad as it seems, ABOVE your head. Good, good adrenalin rush.

Apart from that, I tend to prefer corkscrew coasters these days. There's something about having your brain twisted in all possible axis' of movement 

[Harvester]

Yes, as was mentioned earlier, I think that statistically riding a rollercoaster is safer than driving your car.

And of course, I forgot to mention - the reason why the coaster worked so good on me is that I'm also afraid of heights. Cool, eh?

[Erenan]

I really enjoy roller coasters, but I haven't been on one in a long time. I need to get myself to Six Flags sometime soon, but my wife gets motion sickness really easily, so she isn't interested in going.

On a side note, roller coasters are one of those things that make me wonder what space aliens would think if they visited our planet to study our behavior. Ice skating rinks, too.

[m0ds]

Dragon Khan is a beast! I haven't ridden in, but I've been into coasters since I can remember & so I've definitely seen the on-ride video of that one!! Ever since I was a kid I was taken to the local fair where the rides were pretty good. From there me and my dad went to some Theme Parks and, I;ve been to a few more myself & of course at Mittens we've been to a few!!

I haven't been able to get to any Six Flags or movie studios - which are the real parks I want to visit and get thrilled at! But some of my favourite rides are homegrown. Collosus at Thorpe Park is awesome. I call it Fate of Atlantis: The Ride! Very intense, lots of barrell rolling!! See the on-ride video at my YouTube Nemesis at Alton Towers will always be a favourite, especially if ridden at the front! That was the UK's beast of a coaster when it first came out! Oblivion is alright, just not long enough!! I think one of my favourite UK coasters is one that WAS called "The Ultimate", up north somewhere at Lightwater Valley. It used to be the world's longest coaster at just under 2 miles long. It was a demon! A wooden coaster too. In fact, I noticed one of the coasters on the original Roller Coaster Tycoon had exactly the same design! More recently visiting Terra Mitica with Farlander & the AGSers was great. I can't remember what all the rides were called but we went on like Nemesis & that was intense. Their wooden coaster was also pretty rough, which made it fun. And for the first time I experienced a drop-ride with real altitude! Previoius to that the only drop-ride I'd been on was in Trocadero, London - but that one's great too!!

Disneyland, Paris is hardly thrill seeking but the Space Mountain ride, Rock n Roll Roller Coaster & Indy rides were all pretty good. Space Mountain especially! Still there is magic at a place like that and I still had thrills from rides like the teacups & honey i shrunk the audience :p The Swedish park we visited with Andail & AGSers was also fabtabulous! God knows what all the rides were called but there was one fairly rickety coaster which was great fun. I generally find all rides fun, even the water rides/log flumes (and there's been some great ones of those at various Mittens hehehe) and stuff. Finally, I just want to big up also the stand up coaster at Drayton Manor park. Cos that was a first of its kind in this country, and I managed to ride it about 15 times in one day. So I'm addicted!

I think it's a shame that coasters especially get removed or moved to other parks. There's a lot of great rides from the UK that I wanted to re-ride but they dissapear & are replaced with sometimes arguably not as good rides. AT's Thunder Looper, AT's The Beast, DMP's Klondike Mine Coaster, LWV's The Rat...gah..There's a lot of decent websites out there that remeniss in all the old rides :p

So, anyway. I'm glad you enjoyed your first thrill experience Harvester! You'll enjoy many more, I'm sure

[Harvester]

Hey, m0ds! Thanks for the great post, I was looking for some recommendations and now I don't have to search anymore 

I will probably go to Germany at the end of August, so I guess I will visit some coasters there. Yippee!

[Ghost]

If you go to germany, make sure to visit Phantasialand and have a go on the Black Mamba. Nothing superlative, but an impressive, african-style ride. Smooth and fast, a very good looping to get you started too. Plus, if you make it there during summer vacation, chances are we'll meet. I'll be working there in July- as a mascot.

[Buckethead]

I have great respect for you Ghost. Being a mascot is hard work. All those little brats  not to forget that mascot costumes are always very warm.

Good luck! 

[Ghost]

Ah, I did it last year too. It's true, there must be more comfortable uniforms in the world, but most times it's good fun. Sometimes the kids are a bit overenthusiastic, sure, but it's not as if they constantly try to kick you.  It's also quite interesting to have a glimpse "behind the scenes" of such a park.