What's new

Shocking First Rides

I'm surprised to see not that many members have mentioned Nemmie. It maybe because you have rode it a million times and know each section off by heart. :)

It actually wasn't that shocking for me; as at the time of my first ride I believed that it was "The worlds most intense coaster", and found out it wasn't actually that intense at all; just fun :p
 
Coasters that blew me away

1. Nemesis, Alton Towers
2. Air, Alton Towers
3. The Hulk, IOA
4. Dueling Dragons, IOA
5. Kumba, Busch Gardens Africa
6. Montu, Busch Gardens Africa
7. Kraken, Seaworld Orlando
 
El Toro- that airtime is RIDICULOUS!
Kingda Ka- especially my night ride on 10/13/07 (Fright Fest)
Maverick-Indescribable. Simply a maverick in its own right.
Superman's Pretzel Loop- not exactly an entire roller coaster, but still pretty intense

When I wasn't well-experienced...

El Toro- ""
Kingda Ka- ""
Nitro- B&M floater... not as intense anymore, but at the time, it blew me away!
Superman's Pretzel Loop- and that was my first inversion. Ever. Imagine that! It's still intense, so imagine how freaked out I was!

Edit: 20th post!
 
I think, Like Furie, I'll do a pre and post enthusiast list since expectations really are hugely different.

Pre-enthusiast

Corkscrew at Flamingoland. Crap now, but my first "big" coaster and my first inversions. The drop scared me **** less.

Nemesis. Yes, I know, overated blah blah blah, but that first ride in 1994 was unlike anything I'd experienced before.

Bullet. One of the biggest "willie lift" moments of any coaster on the launch/drop.

Atlantis Adventure. I had no idea it was launched. Surprised the hell out of me and made it my favourite coaster instantly.

Post-enthusiast

This is much more difficult to think of since it's hard to be surprised anymore.

Space Mountain at Hong Kong Disney. Vastly superior to the Florida version I'd ridden years earlier, with the most amazing effects I've seen before or since on a coaster.

Dodonpa. You can read as many reviews as you want, but nothing will prepare you for that launch.

Kawasemi. I knew it would be good, but having read no reviews of it, or Piraten, I didn't expect it to jump into my top 5.

T-Express. Yes, I knew it would become one of my favourites, and I knew it would have a **** load of airtime, but I didn't know just how strong airtime could be until I rode this.
 
The first real amazing experience was probably my first ride on Expedition GeForce. I was still pretty new to coasters, i'd only joined here about 4 months previous, and I think the most airtime i'd experienced at that point was Big Dipper at Blackpool. I knew Intamin airtime was a bit more extreme than that, but until that first ride, I didn't know quite how mental it actually was, and it just blew me away. Best ride of my life at that point.

The other one that really surprised me was Dragon Khan last summer. I'd expected it to be good, and we'd been in the queue twice in the day, only for it to break down. The final time we joined the queue, it was late, it had gone dark, and we finally got to the front of the queue. The subsequent ride was stunning, and really exceeded my expectations. I still don't know whether the ride was actually THAT good, or whether it was just the build-up and the night ride that made it seem better.
 
I must say the best way to get a coaster to blow u away, is before u go on it ignore the hype about it, that way you should be able to see the ride as it is and not how you believed it would be.
 
Not a first ride, but as a first ride in a long time, I have to give mention to BPB's Big Dipper.

It used to be sooooo bad, but last week it was freakin' mental, with so much airtime! Loved it!
 
br00kes123 said:
The first time I went on Rita. With little experience of rollercoasters this really blew me away!


Yeah same. It was my first ever launched coaster and it seems to me to be more intense than Stealth....
 
I would have considered myself to be an enthusiast for as long as I can remember, but obviously when you're younger smaller rides have a bigger impact on you.

Crazy Loop (PI) - My first vertical loop. I absolutley loved it! Everyone always said it was so rough, but I was so small my head couldn't bang against the harnesses, so I loved it! The height restriction soon went from a 1.2m to a 1.4m, so I had to wait a couple of years to ride it again!

Hyper Blaster (PI) - My first S&S tower ride, and still the best I have been on. This was my first experience of airtime, and I thought it was incredible!

Oblivion - I've ridden it so many times nowadays it just doesn't do much at all, but back when I used to go to Alton on the odd occassion, it was bloody terrifying!

Apolocolypse - This ride still does a lot for me, because I've only ever been to Drayton twice. Nothing really attracts me there except this. But I have never come of a ride with so much of a rush after standing up on this thing.

Kumba - Now, when I first came off Kumba I absolutley loved it. It was my favourite coaster I had been on at the time. But I went back a few years later and it wasn't actually that good. Either I hyped it up in my head too much, or it got overshadowed by SheiKra, or a bit of both. Nevertheless, my first impressions of this ride was that it was absolutley incredible. I like something a bit different from consistant, intense positive Gs now though, but it's still cool.

Top Thrill Dragster - Just to hit that speed so intensly is enough to get anyone who hasn't done anything like that before excited! An absolutley incredible sensation.

Riddler's Revenge - I actually thought this was awsome, and the only stand-up roller coaster I would actually do again. It was element after element after element, and the forces on your body, since you're stood up, are absolutley insane.

But, as a side note, Dragon Mountain at Marineland was so strange. I have never, in my entire life, come off a roller coaster so confused. I didn't know if it was awsome, or complete rubbish. It was as if someone, with no consideration for finance, just built this riddiculous coaster on RCT. It made no sense! In terms of jacking off to coaster design, this coaster was no winner at all, but yet, it had something that was slightly awe inspriring. Very strange.

There are also a few others, such as Batman, Rita, Raptor, Blue Streak, Goliath (La Ronde), SheiKra, Irn-Bru Revolution ( I used to love that when I was younger) and Villian at Geuaga Lake ( I love a rough woodie), but those stating before are the ones that stand out the most.
 
gavin said:
Dodonpa. You can read as many reviews as you want, but nothing will prepare you for that launch.
So true.

Other coasters worth mentioning.
Balder: I wasn't expecting what it delivered when I rode it for the first time.

Eagle Fortress: OMFG what an awesome ride it was, and it only gets better.

Fantasia Special: I never knew that an Arrow coaster could be so smooth, compared to all the other I have ridden.

Eurosat: I wasn't expecting this to be so cool, we spent most of the day re-riding it.

Piraten (Kawasemi): After being let down by EGF, I wasn't really expecting all that much of it, but boy was I wrong.

Milky Way (Mitsui Greenland): The stand up side just blew me away, you haven't really experienced massive ejector airtime until you have ridden this, and the fact that it's a stand-up just makes it so much better. (And by the way the sit-down side is pretty crap though.)
 
^I'd forgotten about Fantasia Special. Add that to my list definitely. I was dreading it going up the lift hill, but it's unbelievably smooth. Definitely up there with my favourite loopers.
 
Rita
stampida
Detonator
Furius Baco
Stealth
Colossus
Slammer
Ben 10

This is my list because I found that all of these ride amazed me on my first ride.
 
Are you **** joking? Why have you bumped this topic? It's over 3 years old. You may as well have just started a new one...
 
There's nothing intrinsically bad in necroposting, to be fair. I'd prefer people used search to find existing topics about stuff, and contribute to them over people making new topics because it's 3 pages down...


The most recent coaster that truly took my breath away (much like everything else there...) was Black Mamba, which given its marmitey record I was a little surprised at feeling. I guess it's a testament to riding utterly blind, and a well-hidden/confusing-from-the-queue layout. The difference between 11am and 8pm was astonishing, and I don't think it would be my number 1 had I not ridden it the second time, and having it blow me away twice in one day...

Going further back, I remember loving how BTMR at DLP got better as it went along, and how the trick drop caught me completely by surprise.

Megafobia always seems to surprise me when I'm least expecting it. Occasionally I'll go and yeah, it's pretty good, but I wouldn't want to stay on it all day. I'd get bored of it. Other days and it's hard to get off it at all. The planets seem to align, and the first/second/third drops are so absolutely, perfectly how they ought to be that I think it's going to take quite some time, and I assume a couple hundred more coasters, to move it off my favourites.

EDIT: ruddy autocomplete.
 
Re:

gavin said:
Space Mountain at Hong Kong Disney. Vastly superior to the Florida version I'd ridden years earlier, with the most amazing effects I've seen before or since on a coaster.
Just reading back through some of these. So glad someone else was blown away by this cute little ride. It really does have a wow factor and I remember smiling right down to my boots and running straight back round to the entrance for another go!

Other more predictable entries I suppose were Stealth (I was not expecting that rush!) and Megafobia (that drop just took my breath away). Also, Black Mamba gets a deserved mention, simply becasue I wasn't expecting that much intensity. :--D
 
Ah, **** it, seen as it's been resurrected:

Just recently went on 6G at Allou! It's the first time I've ever been on a Bungee Ball/Reverse Bungee. I didn't expect it to be as amazing as it was. The sudden feeling of the release from the magnet is just unreal. It really took my breath, then all of a sudden you're hit with ejector at the top. It was really phenomenal.
 
It got to be Nemesis for me. When I first rode it when I was about...12ish, I was unbeleivably excited. I mean, I had been looking at this rollercoaster online since I was little and playing RCT1, and the fact that I was riding it was just out of this world.

I was on the front seat, and everything was going well. It banks abit, turns around getting faster and faster... It dips down into the first drop... And that is when it just goes insane. I had been obsessed by the ride and then the fact that it was better than any of my expectations. I had never ridden anything like it before. Just the sheer out of control feeling of accellerating into that first corkscrew, and then going even faster into the 270 turn, going faster and faster, then swooping into the 0-G roll getting even faster, and then...and then...

That ride is just incredible...

...Ahem, sorry what were we talking about again? I got a bit carried away there :p
 
Valhalla, first time I rode this I wasn't into scary rides, I thought it was just a smaller version of POTC at Disneyland. Was I wrong... Absolutely insane drops and intense effects! Really shook me up.

Shame it doesn't feel the same way now, but it's stil a great water ride!
 
Top