Theme Park Weariness

From late 2002 through 2006 I was an avid thrill ride fan, enjoying theme parks like Busch Gardens, Universal Studios Orlando, Disney World, Wild Adventures, Cypress Gardens, and Dollywood. Before this time I had been afraid to ride any roller coaster, and any ride that flipped me over or dropped me quickly? Forget it! It took my two fearless children to shame me into gutting it out through some scary rides, and before I knew it I was hooked on them. But my children have since been growing up and now have other interests. The rides never did take hold with my wife, so it often seems that I am the only one left with a real desire to visit a theme park. And even with me, I am not 100% on board with it, either.

For one, just to get to one of the relatively close parks involves some tedious long-distance driving for 100-140 miles. That, simply put, is not a fun ride for me! Then, when I'm finally at the park, there is the chronic problem of having to wait in long lines just to enjoy a ride that often lasts only a couple of minutes. On top of that, it seems that usually several of the rides are in disrepair at any given time, and some of them are my favorites.

So when I read about some of the new rides coming out at places like Busch Gardens, Sea World, and Universal, I wonder to myself whether I really want to invest the time, effort, and expense to go try them out. Shoot, I haven't even tried out any of the rides at Sea World, but I don't see any visits there in the foreseeable future.

Years ago I saw a promotional show on TV about Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia. They had a wonderful steel coaster called Alpengeist (similar to Tampa's Montu), and a man who liked this ride so much he had ridden it more than 500 times rode it again for the cameras. I bet that dude probably lived across the street from the park!

When I occasionally go to South Florida for family reasons, I check out a place in Dania called Boomer's, which is primarily a large arcade building with a whopping giant wooden roller coaster towering over it. I just drive over there during my visit, park my car for free, buy my coaster ride ticket, and walk right up and get on the coaster with nary a wait nor hassle.

Why can't other places be like that? They wear me down.