What got you interested in coasters?

[Dleo]

 

I'm not sure why I'm so fascinated by the structures themselves, though. I could just look at coasters for hours. It's weird, because it's not like I'm an architecture buff or anything. I just find coasters beautiful.

 

I can totally relate to that too. I can sit and watch all day. Especially like watching the trains snake through rolls.

[FLIPDUDE]

I enjoy looking at coasters but not to the point where i can stare at them for hours on end without riding them.

 

However HEARING a coaster makes me all giddy and happy. The screams and the chika-chika and whatnot is enough to get the andrenaline pumping for me.

[ghost007jas]

I've been into theme parks since I was very little, due to my fascination of Disneyland and Walt Disney himself. I didn't ride my first "big" roller coaster until I was ten, as I was scared of dem dere loopedey loops!

 

But after my ride on Kong and Medusa, I suppose you could say I was hooked! I checked out every roller coaster book available to me, and watched an old coaster video that featured Batman: The Ride, Raptor, Magnum, and Viper.

 

Then I moved to Southern California which is where I first joined boards like these.. so.. here I am, I suppose!

[Simon Baynham]

Hi TPR Members

 

A 1978 visit to Pleasure Beach (Blackpool) got me interested in coasters. When I was just seven years old, I begged my aunt to take me on the Grand National (I was a terrible child). I came off the ride crying, and my aunt's face was as white as a sheet from shock. She hasn't spoken to me since! True!

 

My second coaster was BPB's Revolution in 1980. I didn't ride my third coaster until I was in my teens and able to visit parks on my own.

 

Simon Baynham (UK)

[andy_e219]

One year my dad bought me RCT for my birthday. I became addicted to the game. After a while I got tired of it and decided to take a trip to PKI. Ever sience then I have been interedted in Amusment Parks and coasters.

[DBru]

I was a very tall three year old (almost 4) when we went to Kings Island for the first time. My mom got me on the Beastie (FOC). As soon as we went down the first drop, I was hooked. I held my hands up because other people on the train were, but my mom kept putting them down.

 

Now we can't go ANYWHERE without planning an amusement park visit, and I blame my parents. They turned me into the addict I am today!

[ETapley0687]

I was born like this! lol Literally! As far back as I can remember I've always loved them. When I was younger I was scared to ride them but still loved them. I didn't start riding EVERYTHING until I was maybe 9 when my dad forced me to get on the Zipper at a local carnival for my first time lol. Since then, I felt like I could ride anything and that's what I've been doing! I don't know, I guess I'm weird or something lol because it feels like it's a gene or something in my body that makes me love them so much.

[Angry_Gumball]

Yes, time for a life story...well, not really but my interest has come a long way.

 

I've always been fascinated with coasters even when I was too small and too afraid to ride. I mainly rode as many flat rides as I could when we'd go to Great America, and almost had the courage to hit up Demon as I was tall enough. I did make it on Grizzly though I was completely afraid to do so. As I always doodled when I was young, I'd always design notepad coasters (random doodles of imaginary/deadly rides). It wasn't really until I went to SCBB when I got dragged onto the Giant Dipper. I was even more so afraid of that than Grizzly. After 1 ride, I headed back in line again as my parents asked "Hey, where are you going?" I told them "I'm going to ride it again!" I did a few rides on it as I was suddenly hooked. Again, several years go by, too afraid to be inverted, still doodling loopy coasters. Wasn't until 1998 when we did a So-Cal spring break trip, which consisted of Disneyland, Universal Studios, and of course KBF. I saw pictures of Windjammer prior to the visit and I was like "Wow! Racing coasters! I'll totally go on that!" After getting there, I finally lost my inversion virginity as I took a smooth ride on Windjammer. (Was I one of the few who actually enjoyed it?) Later, I did Boomerang as I wanted to step up the inversion count. I ended that day with chickening out on Montezooma's Revenge as it only had lap bars to keep you in. Kinda freaked me out, several years later again... Rode Tidal Wave/Greased Lightning at Great America with no fear. Glad I rode it then as now, I can't.

 

So that pretty much sums things up. Addiction really settled in after the KBF trip, and eventually stumbled upon TPR when they sold VHS tapes of coaster footage.

[Tömmioh]

I've always liked amusement/theme parks, however until I was 14 I used to be quite a coward, I only rode 'mild rides' et.c.

However after I saw Beverly Hills Cop 3 I wanted to find out more about the park in the movie and then I did some research which led me here and there, and meanwhile I saw huge coasters I never heard of/seen before and I started to get interested, and collected more and more knowledge and also started to play RCT2. Gradually, after I was 15, I overcame my fear of inversions and 'very big and fast' coasters. There you go.

[Rct3man777]

Well, what got me hooked was when my dad was researching cool stuff because he was bored, then he found the old 3D video of SFOG's goliath, and that got me hooked ever since. I didn't start learning about them in general until about a year later, though.

 

Then I went to lagoon which got me REALLY hooked, and after that in febuary the next year, I went to disneyland and knott's berry farm...I remember riding montezooma's revenge! Funfunfunfunfun!

 

P.S-Thanks dad...

 

lol

[Erik Johnson]

Up until 2005 I did not ride any of the bigger coasters. Sure I rode Space Mountain and Thunder Mountain since I was little, but it was the bigger ones that intimidated me. I always did have a fascination with coasters. I remember driving by Great America (Gurnee) when I was a little kid seeing the massive (at the time) American Eagle and the Tidal Wave (This was before Florida got any big outside coatsers) (edit--I forgot about the Hurricane at Circus World). I did manage to get the nerve to ride Busch Garden's Scorpion as my first looping coaster when I was in the 6th grade and I did not have a very good experience (Its an intense little coaster if you have never ridden it) after which I swore off coasters that went upside-down until I tried Rock N Rollercoaster in 2005. Soon after, I returned to Busch Gardens (after around 20 years) and rode my first B&M coaster, Kumba, and you can say I became a little obsessed after that . And yes, I do ride Scorpion now if you are curious.

[dammie16@vt.edu]

I went to WDW when I was 3 but I don't remember much.

 

I got hooked when my family went to Hershey when I was 5 and all I remember was I had a claim to fame saying "I rode SDL 5 times when I was 5" The next time we went to a park it was GAdv. I believe and I was too short to ride some of the big guns but I REALLLLLY wanted to. That yearning was fullfilled a year later at, once again, Hershey park where I could ride Great Bear, Sidewinder, and Wildcat.

 

I've been hooked ever since.

[thrillgeek]

Wow I actually made a relatively popular topic I also fueled my addiction, like so many of you guy's, with rct way back in the day.

[Capitalize]

I was scared of most coasters until I was about 10ish (my parents forced me on Beastie at KI a couple times when I was really little and that pretty much ruined riding coasters for me for a while). When I lived in Orlando in the late 90's I would ride the coasters at Magic Kingdom, but when we went to Busch Gardens Tampa you couldn't pay me to go on Kumba, Montu, or Python... I did love Scorpion, though...

 

It wasn't until I moved to Virginia that I went to Busch Gardens Williamsburg in 1998 and reluctantly went on all the coasters, most importantly Alpengeist, that I started to love riding coasters.

 

 

Its kind of funny though because before then when I was still scared of coasters I still loved learning all about them. I owned all the "America's/World's Greatest Roller Coaster Thrils" tapes and would spend lots of time on line learning about coasters... I could tell you who designed a coaster and what elements it had, but you probably couldn't get me on it. I also loved drawing and "designing" coasters ever since I was little.