Changsucks
09-19-2010, 03:54 PM
What happened to make you like coasters more than the average person; enough to duscuss them online and travel to ride them? Post your whole story here!
I think my coaster-addiction was triggered (unknowingly) when I was 3 and I rode my first coaster, Little Dipper at Castle Park. It's a tiny Miler kiddie coaster, but I loved it and remembered wanting to keep riding. However, a year later I was forced on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disneyland, because supposedly it was just a "choo-choo train". It was terrible, and made me scared of coasters for what I thought would be forever. Then when I was 5, my family took a vacation to Florida. We did Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure. I didn't want to ride ANYTHING, but somehow my parents still got me on some rides like Pirates of the Caribbean, Spaceship Earth, The Cat In The Hat, and what did the most damage, Pteranodon Flyers (a kiddie suspended coaster, but I thought I was going to fly off!). Then when I was 6, my school took a field trip to Camp Snoopy. Everyone rode Timberline Twister but I chickened out... I did ride some kiddie flats though! Before we left, everyone was allowed to take a last ride on Timberline Twister. I got myself on it and I actually liked it, but it didn't really help much as I was still terrified of coasters for some reason. I even came back to Knott's a few years later and was secretly scared to ride it again, so I gave the "eh, too long of a line" excuse.
This brings us to a new chapter... going to parks, but not riding literally anything. All I wanted to do was walk around and look at the huge coasters in awe, wondering how people rode them. It was basically torture for my parents, so that's why I only got to do it rarely, but I can understand why. I mean, what fun is going to an amusement park if you don't get to ride anything?! I was scared of kiddie coasters, log flumes, everything.
Somewhere around here we went to Disneyland pretty often. California Screamin' was one of my favorite coasters to watch, and I still love the way it looks and fits into the boardwalk. I rode Mulholland Madess once and actually cried, and it was pretty hard to get me to cry. I also have family in Las Vegas so whenever we would go there I loved watching Manhattan Express.
I went to Six Flags Magic Mountain for the first time in 2006. I didn't ride one thing, but it instantly became my favorite park ever. I had a few coaster books and I remembered bookmarking all the SFMM coasters and almost studying them! My dad would also bring a camera and take pictures of the coasters when went to parks, so I think that's what inspired me to do all the PTRs I do now. I still have those old pictures somewhere in my room (there's SFMM, KBF, Scandia, Belmont Park and the San Diego Zoo). It's really fun looking back on them now.
A year later when I returned to SFMM, my parents told me I had to ride at least one thing, so I naturally chose Canyon Blaster. It goes around twice, and I remember after the first round I was basically begging to get off. And I was like 10?! When 6th grade started, I began getting interested in the computer. I looked at www.rcdb.com and www.thrillride.com all the time and loved watching coaster videos on Youtube. As the time went on, I learned and discovered more and more. I joined my first site, www.Themeparkinsider.com, in September 2007. I loved reading the coaster reviews on there and even posted some of my own pathetic ones of the kiddie coasters I had ridden.
Then it happened in November 2007 when I went to SFMM for my 3rd and possibly last time. I had to choose between riding Gold Rusher or never coming back again. I rode it, and I was really proud that I rode a somewhat-decently sized coaster! It was all up-hill from then. In March of 2008, I got to do the Northern California parks and I rode the kiddie/family coasters at each park. The trip ended with Gilroy Gardens in which I rode Quicksilver Express (the coaster I was most scared of) 13 times in a couple hours. We went to Vegas later that month, and I rode the log flume at Buffalo Bills, so there went my fear of Log Flume's! I returned to Castle Park and rode theirs, then went to SFMM and did Revolution, Ninja, and all the log flumes. That was a big deal for me, but I loved it all. Then I just continued clibing higher and higher at each of my local parks. By July of 2008, I had ridden everything at SFMM, KBF, Disneyland, and the Northern California parks plus Lagoon... except for X2, which I was scared of because my friend told me it was horrible, not really because I had a fear of it. My coaster count was now 64 when only a few months earlier it was 7!
July was also when I joined my first forum, www.coaster-net.com. This is when I'd say I officially became addicted. I really learned a lot about coasters and they became a huge hobby of mine.
Looking back on my childhood, I can tell that I always did love coaster because of a lot of the stuff I did. I was really into Hot Wheels, and I would buy a bunch of the tracks and rearrange/mix them together and make my own huge coaster going all around my room. I also loved RCT2 and remember trying to recreate some of my favorite coasters to watch... Ahh...
I think my coaster-addiction was triggered (unknowingly) when I was 3 and I rode my first coaster, Little Dipper at Castle Park. It's a tiny Miler kiddie coaster, but I loved it and remembered wanting to keep riding. However, a year later I was forced on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disneyland, because supposedly it was just a "choo-choo train". It was terrible, and made me scared of coasters for what I thought would be forever. Then when I was 5, my family took a vacation to Florida. We did Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure. I didn't want to ride ANYTHING, but somehow my parents still got me on some rides like Pirates of the Caribbean, Spaceship Earth, The Cat In The Hat, and what did the most damage, Pteranodon Flyers (a kiddie suspended coaster, but I thought I was going to fly off!). Then when I was 6, my school took a field trip to Camp Snoopy. Everyone rode Timberline Twister but I chickened out... I did ride some kiddie flats though! Before we left, everyone was allowed to take a last ride on Timberline Twister. I got myself on it and I actually liked it, but it didn't really help much as I was still terrified of coasters for some reason. I even came back to Knott's a few years later and was secretly scared to ride it again, so I gave the "eh, too long of a line" excuse.
This brings us to a new chapter... going to parks, but not riding literally anything. All I wanted to do was walk around and look at the huge coasters in awe, wondering how people rode them. It was basically torture for my parents, so that's why I only got to do it rarely, but I can understand why. I mean, what fun is going to an amusement park if you don't get to ride anything?! I was scared of kiddie coasters, log flumes, everything.
Somewhere around here we went to Disneyland pretty often. California Screamin' was one of my favorite coasters to watch, and I still love the way it looks and fits into the boardwalk. I rode Mulholland Madess once and actually cried, and it was pretty hard to get me to cry. I also have family in Las Vegas so whenever we would go there I loved watching Manhattan Express.
I went to Six Flags Magic Mountain for the first time in 2006. I didn't ride one thing, but it instantly became my favorite park ever. I had a few coaster books and I remembered bookmarking all the SFMM coasters and almost studying them! My dad would also bring a camera and take pictures of the coasters when went to parks, so I think that's what inspired me to do all the PTRs I do now. I still have those old pictures somewhere in my room (there's SFMM, KBF, Scandia, Belmont Park and the San Diego Zoo). It's really fun looking back on them now.
A year later when I returned to SFMM, my parents told me I had to ride at least one thing, so I naturally chose Canyon Blaster. It goes around twice, and I remember after the first round I was basically begging to get off. And I was like 10?! When 6th grade started, I began getting interested in the computer. I looked at www.rcdb.com and www.thrillride.com all the time and loved watching coaster videos on Youtube. As the time went on, I learned and discovered more and more. I joined my first site, www.Themeparkinsider.com, in September 2007. I loved reading the coaster reviews on there and even posted some of my own pathetic ones of the kiddie coasters I had ridden.
Then it happened in November 2007 when I went to SFMM for my 3rd and possibly last time. I had to choose between riding Gold Rusher or never coming back again. I rode it, and I was really proud that I rode a somewhat-decently sized coaster! It was all up-hill from then. In March of 2008, I got to do the Northern California parks and I rode the kiddie/family coasters at each park. The trip ended with Gilroy Gardens in which I rode Quicksilver Express (the coaster I was most scared of) 13 times in a couple hours. We went to Vegas later that month, and I rode the log flume at Buffalo Bills, so there went my fear of Log Flume's! I returned to Castle Park and rode theirs, then went to SFMM and did Revolution, Ninja, and all the log flumes. That was a big deal for me, but I loved it all. Then I just continued clibing higher and higher at each of my local parks. By July of 2008, I had ridden everything at SFMM, KBF, Disneyland, and the Northern California parks plus Lagoon... except for X2, which I was scared of because my friend told me it was horrible, not really because I had a fear of it. My coaster count was now 64 when only a few months earlier it was 7!
July was also when I joined my first forum, www.coaster-net.com. This is when I'd say I officially became addicted. I really learned a lot about coasters and they became a huge hobby of mine.
Looking back on my childhood, I can tell that I always did love coaster because of a lot of the stuff I did. I was really into Hot Wheels, and I would buy a bunch of the tracks and rearrange/mix them together and make my own huge coaster going all around my room. I also loved RCT2 and remember trying to recreate some of my favorite coasters to watch... Ahh...