At what age did you start loving coasters?

[GhostRider16]

I think I would have loved coasters at an earlier age, but my parents did a good job of scaring me from coasters. I loved the little rides like Jaguar when I was young though. When I was 14 I some how managed to ride Xcelerator and it was all over from there. I fell in love with the ride and it made me want to ride even bigger and more thrilling rides. Xcelerator will always have a special place in my heart.

[andeman]

I think I was about 12 years old. It was when I first rode Balder.

[Ace Of Spades]

I've really loved coasters since I was three years old, but I limited myself in what I would ride until I rode Batman: The Ride at SFMM in 2004. The rest, as they say, is history.

[Mozart67]

I had been riding them since I was 6 or 7 {Matterhorn, WDW], but it wasn't until I was dared to ride Shock Wave at SFOT in 1979, and in 1980 when Judge Roy Scream opened, that I really fell in love with them. I was the stereotypical fat nerd in 79 (age 12, I guess) and was dared by most of the rest of my class when we went to SFOT on a field trip; Shock Wave scared the hell out of me, but I ended up riding it nine times that day. Still lovin' em, though!

[LHomma]

When I was younger for about six years in a row I always went to American Adventure for my birthday and my sister always went to Alton Towers but I would hardly go on anything.I was a complete chicken when it came to roller coasters and rides in general but used to love theme parks for some reason lol. My mum always said she use to feel bad making me wait 2 hours while the rest of my family went on thunder looper and the beast but I used to be happy as larry just watching everything around me. It wasn't until i was about 14 i fnally had the courage to go on the Iron Wolf and the Missile at American Adventure.

[coaster-crazy]

Ever since I rode my first roller coaster in 1999 at 5 years old, I've been hooked on them. RollerCoaster Tycoon, which I got one year later, really sparked my interest and still does.

[coasterobsessive]

I hated coasters when I was younger and didn't really get into it until I hit 40... Xcelerator in April of 2007 changed my mind...

[coasterkramer]

i always loved roller coaster i worked on them i think i started loving them at 4 or 5 years old my sister got me into them i have ridden 78 coaster and i plan to do more im hoping to go to Europe and Asia and ride some of there white knuckle rides

[the ghost]

I never really got the "fear" of coasters and have ridden for as long as I can remember. I remember once when I was 5 or 6 and I PISSED OFF my parents cause I rode Jaguar 5 or 6 times. They wanted to do other things, and my 3 year old sisters weren't tall enough to go on, but I was selfish at 5...like most 5 year olds. My parents waited at the exit(yes, they walked me to the entrance first) and waited, but somehow they didnt see me, and I kept riding. Then stupidly saw them after I had ridden however many times and essentially bragged about it, yes, it was a walk on, and I got in trouble and didnt get to ride any more.

 

Then Ghostrider opened up, and the rest was history. Holy hell, at the time that thing was AMAZING!

[coasterfansince1999]

I was about 6 years old and I was HOOKED.

[Rai Fox]

Hmm...in theory or in practice?

 

I always loved amusement parks, even as a little kid, but mostly the more "family-ish" rides, and the general atmosphere of parks. I was more than a little hesistant about bigger rides.

 

Despite that...I was 9 the year Steel Phantom opened. I remember reading about it and making it one of my life goals at the time to get on it. I didn't know where it was, or any of the details...but I WAS GOING TO RIDE IT. SOON! The fact that I was at the time still terrified of big coasters was only a minor nuisance, not even worth worrying about.

 

When I was 11, my family went to BGW for the first time, the year after Drachen Fire opened. I talked about it nonstop up until the trip, for months. The entire way down, my parents had to listen to me going on about DF. When I got there, I walked up to the entrance to the queue, took one look at the ride, and slowly started to step backwards. "IIIIII....don't...know about..." At which point my father grabbed me by the collar and dragged me onto it.

 

I came off it grinning like a maniac and I haven't looked back or hesitated to ride any coaster since.

 

(For the record, I finally got on Phantom's Revenge for the first time three years ago. Almost two decades waiting. It did not disappoint.)

[Ed Farmer]

Kumba in the spring of '94, Drachen Fire and Dragon Mountain on the same trip/vacation the following summer. Those 3 got rid of any fear I may have had and got the ball rolling. I didn't really take it on as a sort of hobby or interest until '99 with Raging Bull.

[simaticable]

2000 after Mind Bender. My dad dragged me on, but I fell in love with it and the other coasters (besides Ninja)

[sammmmmy]

I was six and already into computers a lot, so one day my mom decided to buy me the most appropriate video game she could find— Roller Coaster Tycoon, which I still play obsessively to this day. Id be obsessed with locomotives and trains before that so its easy to see how one led to another. After spending lots of time going on RCDB and pressing 'random roller coaster', I finally was surprised by my parents with a trip to WDW. My first real coaster other than Big Thunder Mountain at WDW was Blue Streak at CP when I was seven, and it took me until I was around eleven to finally ride Millennium force, my first 'biggie'. I got in line with my cousin and was shaking throughout the entire queue, almost to the point where I chickened at the station. I ended up riding, being the start of my real obsession to this day.

 

 

It was great especially for my younger siblings (and parents ) to help them overcome the fear sooner than I did having me as basically a tour guide and expert whenever we visited theme parks, making them much less scared to ride unlike I had when I was that age.

[Trues]

I was 11 when we went to Cedar Point for the first time. Skipping over every other ride in the park, my dad drug me straight to Corkscrew and said "we're riding this, you and me, right now". I felt sick. I didn't want my first coaster to go upside-down. Turns out, after some convincing, I got on the ride and LOVED it!!! Then I rode every ride that I could in the park. Now I've been there every year since and Corkscrew is another outdated Arrow.

 

Roller Coaster Tycoon also helped fuel my early obsession

[154bmag]

When I was ten, my parents got my the original RCT as well as a season pass to SFMW. From that day forward, I looked everywhere to find and piece of info I could, every fact, every ride, etc. This is also how I found TPR.

Edited June 1, 2012 by 154bmag

[mtavenger55]

I would say around 13 (2003). My parents got season passes to GADV & I was hooked ever since!

[CpBluestreakCp]

When I first got RCT when I was around 8. A few years after that, I wanted to learn more about how they work and so on. So around 10 or so is when I officially started to love them.

[IronWolfman]

When I was 8 I rode Timber Terror at Silverwood, and it all went down from there!

[Tomes1225]

I went to Disney and Universal when I was five and I obsessed over my parent's guidebooks. Since then I've always loved roller coasters. I got into RCT2 afterwards which progressed to RCT3. From there I developed a love for realism in my parks which lead me to wanting to know how actual rides were layed-out. That's how I made it here.

 

We would always go to Six Flags New England when I was little and I was always fascinated with the roller coasters. The combo of being fascinated by real life parks and realism in RCT3 lead to my love and knowledge of roller coasters.

[ImmelMatt]

In theory, probably when I was four and my mother bought me the Disney Sing-Along Songs that was filmed at Disneyland. I had never seen a roller coaster before. My mother must have noticed I was enamored, because she bought me Kidsongs' Ride the Roller Coaster afterwards which I watched so much I wore the tape down. I was very young when I went to my first amusement park, Paramount's Great America, and was only big enough to ride the Blue Streak, though I did get to ride Logger's Run with my dad. I'd been fascinated by roller coasters ever since then. I remember cutting out magazine articles of roller coasters and looking up roller coasters in the early days of the internet. This was fueled by the fact that for the early part of my childhood, I lived in the subdivision across from Six Flags Great America, which turned my fascination into a full-blown obsession that has lasted to this day.

 

In practice is a different story. I loved the idea of roller coasters and what they were capable of. It wasn't until I was five, shortly after we had moved next to Six Flags Great America, that I stood in front of Whizzer and realized... these things are HUGE. I mean, the little kiddie coaster I rode at PGA not a year earlier was maybe 20 feet tall max? Here I was in front of 70 foot tall Whizzer and I was just crying. Yes, I was one of those kids who makes a big show at the air gates when they realized they were in over their head. My fear lasted for about three years, until the fateful day when my father had had enough. By this point I was able to do Whizzer on and off, depending on how I felt that day, but he was convinced I just needed a good kick in the pants, metaphorically speaking, and that metaphor was Demon. He told me he would give me five bucks (a fortune when I was eight!) to ride it once, and if I didn't like it, I would never have to ride another roller coaster again. That day, I got five bucks and realized I loved roller coasters. Been riding happily ever since

[doom1001]

I always liked coasters,rode coasters,enjoyed coasters but it wasn't until my first ride on Montu at Busch Gardens Tampa when I was 17-18 that something totally changed,like literally as soon as I got off that ride my brother and family just looked at my face and asked me what's wrong with me because I literally looked like I was in some sort of joyous trance,and I think I was for a good hour after riding it.Montu's still one of my favorite rides out there.I credit that ride to getting me hooked on coasters and I credit my first visit to Halloween Horror Nights II in 1992 to getting me hooked on theme parks.

[MayTheGForceBeWithYou]

Since I was 5 and went on Space Mountain after 1998 Tomorrowland opened. So fun.

[Rollercoaster Rider]

1999- 2000/2001

 

I was watching a Discovery Channel special and got hypnotized. It might've been a rerun cause I remember checking out a book about coasters around 2000. The special was called either: Wild Rides 2 or Extreme Rides (The One with Superman-The Escape, Pitt Fall, The Axis, Ultra Twister, Alpengeist, Thunder Rapids @ Lake Compounce, Etc.)

[RCT3Bross]

Around the age of 7 ( year 1999). But it seemed so normal back then like that curiosities on how a coaster stayed on his track. It didn't look like I ended up being a coaster fan. 7 year later (year 2006) I noticed that I was a coaster fan for some years and went this year to Disneyland Paris. After I went on Rock n Roller coaster the ambition exploded and went wild for a year of 3 couldn't think of anything els than coasters coasters coasters. Today I'm at ease following the projects and going to many coasters around the Netherlands and Germany namely. So it all stared on age 7.