What Amusement Park Rides have Frightened you Most?

Like @hollydolly, it's Ferris wheels that terrify me. I'm OK on the big enclosed cabin ones, but the smallest open-car ones fill me with dread.

It's my beloved cousin's fault. When I was about 8, we were riding one at Wrightsville Beach and brat that he was, he kept rocking it. I cried and begged, but he wouldn't stop. I love him very much but I tell him that if it's the last thing I do, I'm going to get even with him. He almost died with his heart, but I told him he HAD to live because I wasn't finished with my revenge....LOL.

I'm an "adrenaline junkie" and have happily ridden on some of the scariest rides in America, but Ferris wheels? No. I curse George Washington Ferris for his evil invention...LOL.
 
jujube said:
Like @hollydolly, it's Ferris wheels that terrify me. I'm OK on the big enclosed cabin ones, but the smallest open-car ones fill me with dread.

It's my beloved cousin's fault. When I was about 8, we were riding one at Wrightsville Beach and brat that he was, he kept rocking it. I cried and begged, but he wouldn't stop. I love him very much but I tell him that if it's the last thing I do, I'm going to get even with him. He almost died with his heart, but I told him he HAD to live because I wasn't finished with my revenge....LOL.

I'm an "adrenaline junkie" and have happily ridden on some of the scariest rides in America, but Ferris wheels? No. I curse George Washington Ferris for his evil invention...LOL.
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Thanks! I thought that my reaction to riding on that contraption was rather unusual. Now a least I don't feel that way any longer.

BTW About cousins? Trusting them because they are cousins is not a good idea. I had three first-cousins secretly planning to push me out of an apartment's fifth-floor window. Two cousins sucker-punched me, one permanently damaging my jaw, and the other my nose. The rock band-members were my cousins, and were stealing the money I was earning from the gigs.

Another cousin made my life miserable at his parents' apartment when I had absolutely nowhere else to go. Yet another female cousin sadistically played with my love for her for the better part of my teenage years. Another cousin is a veritable perpetual insulting machine. My parents were second cousins and behaved like mortal enemies. So your experience involving your cousin doesn't surprise me at all.
 

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As a kid, the more exhilarating the ride, the better I liked it. But I haven't been to any sort of amusement park (Cedar Pointe in Ohio) in 45+ years. I have to say that I have a fairly advanced fear of heights now that I didn't have as a kid. And some of those amusement park rides are orders of magnitude more "exhilarating" now then back in the day. Might be different today, but I probably wouldn't hesitate getting on a roller coaster.
 
Radrook said:
Thanks! I thought that my reaction to riding on that contraption was rather unusual. Now a least I don't feel that way any longer.

BTW About cousins? Trusting them because they are cousins is not a good idea. I had three first-cousins secretly planning to push me out of an apartment's fifth-floor window. Two cousins sucker-punched me, one permanently damaging my jaw, and the other my nose. The rock band-members were my cousins, and were stealing the money I was earning from the gigs.

Another cousin made my life miserable at his parents' apartment when I had absolutely nowhere else to go. Yet another female cousin sadistically played with my love for her for the better part of my teenage years. Another cousin is a veritable perpetual insulting machine. My parents were second cousins and behaved like mortal enemies. So your experience involving your cousin doesn't surprise me at all.
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Damn. With cousins like that, who needs enemies? Sheesh.
 
I don’t like roller coasters at all, or any ride that involves high speed, precipitous drops, or changes my normal upright bodily position. I like Ferris Wheels if I’m not herded on with someone who likes to rock the seat. Hershey Park had a Ferris Wheel where you’re put into a hanging car that could spin. Needless to say, kid riders wanted to spin the cabin as fast as possible, which ruins the ride for me.

It’s curious that so many want and demand wild rides that give the illusion of danger, but still expect to be kept perfectly safe. The laws of physics can take over if any safeguard fails, and each year a few people are thrown out of “wild rides,” and in some cases, decapitated. Driving a car on a crowded freeway is more than wild enough for me, thank you… 🙀
 
Eupher said:
Damn. With cousins like that, who needs enemies? Sheesh.
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Exactly. It's better to evaluate based on how people behave and not on whether we are related to them as family. If they behave like enemies, then that is exactly what they are-enemies, regardless of family ties. If you are on a ride and the person next to you is endangering your life with her or his antics, despite you telling the person to stop, then that person is your enemy.
 
Fyrefox said:
I don’t like roller coasters at all, or any ride that involves high speed, precipitous drops, or changes my normal upright bodily position. I like Ferris Wheels if I’m not herded on with someone who likes to rock the seat. Hershey Park had a Ferris Wheel where you’re put into a hanging car that could spin. Needless to say, kid riders wanted to spin the cabin as fast as possible, which ruins the ride for me.

It’s curious that so many want and demand wild rides that give the illusion of danger, but still expect to be kept perfectly safe. The laws of physics can take over if any safeguard fails, and each year a few people are thrown out of “wild rides,” and in some cases, decapitated. Driving a car on a crowded freeway is more than wild enough for me, thank you… 🙀
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They don't seem to learn from what has happened to others:

 
The first time I rode the double Ferris Wheel and we stopped at the very top, I got a queasy stomach. After that, I was OK riding it from then on.
 
911 said:
The first time I rode the double Ferris Wheel and we stopped at the very top, I got a queasy stomach. After that, I was OK riding it from then on.
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You would have to hog tie me and shackle me to the seat in order to get me back up there.

 
I think I have liked them all. Being from Santa Cruz, Ca, I'd go to the boardwalk sometimes with the wooden rollercoaster.

I remember going to great America in San Jose, or the area and the loop coaster was kind of crazy.
 
The "vertical accellerator" Big Shot on top of the Stratosphere Hotel in Vegas. It's not enough that you're already over 1100 feet high, oh, no, then you can get shot upwards about 150 feet at 4G's on the accellerator. I truly thought it wasn't going to stop at the top of the tower and I was going to shoot out over Vegas in a blaze of glory. I was petrified. So petrified that I had to do it two more times.

For a while, they had another "experience", where you were suspended on a cable over the side of the top floor and then "dropped" at almost full falling speed down to the ground level (with a gentle deceleration at the end, of course). I just might have tried that one had I been visiting while they were doing it.

My "adrenaline junkie" days are over, I'm afraid. The heart is willing but the flesh is weak.....well, maybe it's the brain that's willing, the heart doesn't want to take the chance and the body says NO WAY!
 
jujube said:
The "vertical accellerator" Big Shot on top of the Stratosphere Hotel in Vegas. It's not enough that you're already over 1100 feet high, oh, no, then you can get shot upwards about 150 feet at 4G's on the accellerator. I truly thought it wasn't going to stop at the top of the tower and I was going to shoot out over Vegas in a blaze of glory. I was petrified. So petrified that I had to do it two more times.

For a while, they had another "experience", where you were suspended on a cable over the side of the top floor and then "dropped" at almost full falling speed down to the ground level (with a gentle deceleration at the end, of course). I just might have tried that one had I been visiting while they were doing it.

My "adrenaline junkie" days are over, I'm afraid. The heart is willing but the flesh is weak.....well, maybe it's the brain that's willing, the heart doesn't want to take the chance and the body says NO WAY!
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Was this it?

 
Ted51 said:
Anything that goes upside down. Followed by ferris wheels.
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Thanks! I actually was believing that my aversion to the Ferris Wheel was unusual. Maybe because people are always being shown as very calmly enjoying themselves while they are riding it. You know laughing, or else, smiling happily and conversing.
 
jujube said:
Yeah, while their brains are screaming, "NOOOOO! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!"
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So the difference between me and them, was that I was grimacing in fear, and unashamedly and repeatedly telling my cadaverously skinny cousin, who was also scared shitless: "We are going to die!" LOL!
 
jujube said:
Yeah, that about sums it up.
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Psychologically, it has been found that some people enjoy that fear sensation of imminent death or else are much less or totally insensitive to it. In fact, some need extra stimulation of that kind in order to feel fully alive. I learned that in the Abnormal Psychology course that I took as an elective. I imagine that they are not as fearful as others would be while they are plunging off a mountain or a high building to their deaths. Me? I would be kicking and screaming and desperately seeking to establish aerodynamic stability while praying fervently for divine intervention..
 
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