Visiting parks with non-enthusiasts

[Fluorineer]

I thought it would be funny to collect some of the experiences you make when visiting parks with non-enthusiasts.

I'll start: my girlfriend finds it absolutely bizarre that coasters have names. When we visit any park, she mostly refers to coaster with their colors. For example, in Toverland Fenix is the blue coaster, Booster Bike the green coaster, but alsoTroy is the wooden coaster, Toos-Express is the locomotive, and so forth.

There is a few things she can get used to, like calling Baron 1898 "the Baron" (close enough ) but most of the time the color is all that retains in her memory.

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

What happens at Ferrari World?

 

[VikingsAf]

With my gf it's partially the same.
Rollercoasters she likes get their name. Others just "The minetrain from X and the Hanging coaster from Y"
But isn't that the same with people? I call people I like with their name and people I don't know well with their Characteristics.

 

[Sandman]

I love my non-enthusiast friend's coaster opinions - they're so unfiltered and straight forward, no complicated bs. Love coming off new coasters and hearing their thoughts.

 

[Snoo]

I love my non-enthusiast friend's coaster opinions - they're so unfiltered and straight forward, no complicated bs. Love coming off new coasters and hearing their thoughts.

This mostly. I've been filtered through the enthusiast lens for so long that hearing someone who isn't a coaster fanboy is always refreshing.

The "coaster name" is always fun though. I've heard about The Millennium Force too many times.. lol

 

[toofpikk]

I feel like a god when I take them round parks I know too well. 'you finally have a bloody use, we've got on everything AND avoided all the long queues!' is all too familiar when I visit parks with my mates and when they start fighting about how quick/tall stuff is I smirk and stand quietly at the back of the group waiting for them to use me as the referee of the debate. And as has been said, their opinions are so unfiltered and beautifully untechnical it's refreshing rather then going with a bunch of borderline autistic keen beans.

 

[Ethan]

Going with non-enthusiasts is great when they're just enjoying it, giving their opinions and speaking their mind. However I think its terrible when they make up stories about how they fell out of a roller coaster one time, or how they saw a ride accident (that never actually happened). The trouble is, I tell them that it could never happen, but not everyone believes that. I also don't want to be "that guy" who ruins all the fun by calling out people on their bs.

 

[b&mfanboy123]

Honestly I get bored when going to a park with my fam, so normally I travel with one of my cousins, while not GP, one of them i guess counts as one. The other is a full on credit counter. They make it fun to ride with someone and have fun on a ride. After all, isn't a ride supposed to make you have fun? Which is something that I feel that many of us forget these days as enthusiast. So just have fun!
Sorry for my terribly written rant.
Also if you read the whole thing,
Have a good day!

 

[Thekingin64]

Most of my recent park visits have been by myself. While I love the independence and freedom of being by myself, I do love any sort of accompaniment to parks I've been to before as I can often show them around. My recent America trip was mostly with family at new-to-me parks and it was great to hear their opinions on otherwise average coasters and made the days a lot more interesting. Think I spouted so much coaster knowledge I almost turned one family member into an enthusiast though! Had I had the time to show him these forums and RCDB, I think I would have!

I once tried taking a non-enthusiast friend on a cred run round North Wales once. While successful, he couldn't get the idea of why I put so much effort into an alpine coaster and a few big apples... It did make the car journeys a lot more interesting though as had the company to talk to.

 

[MestnyiGeroi]

Say what you want, one thing most GP parkgoers lack that most fellow enthusiasts have: stamina.

 

[b&mfanboy123]

Say what you want, one thing most GP parkgoers lack that most fellow enthusiasts have: stamina.

It depends on the person really.....

 

[Gavin]

Honestly I get bored when going to a park with my fam, so normally I travel with one of my cousins, while not GP, one of them i guess counts as one. The other is a full on credit counter. They make it fun to ride with someone and have fun on a ride. After all, isn't a ride supposed to make you have fun? Which is something that I feel that many of us forget these days as enthusiast. So just have fun!
Sorry for my terribly written rant.
Also if you read the whole thing,
Have a good day!

A paragraph is a "rant" now and we're surprised if people have the attention span to read the whole said paragraph? I despair at the youth of today.

I'll only go to parks with non-enthusiasts if it's somewhere I've been before and I'm not too bothered about getting everything done. My first visit to Magic Mountain was so full of cred anxiety because the friends I was with thought nothing of arriving after 1pm and insisted on standing in a one-hour queue for a f**king log flume, the absolute cretins. Never again.

 

[J Rod]

Say what you want, one thing most GP parkgoers lack that most fellow enthusiasts have: stamina.

This.

I always go to parks with non-enthusiasts and it's always a great time but they do tend to get worn out towards the end of the day or on consecutive days. For example, my visit to Cedar Point with my family was great, but on day 2 it was evident they didn't care to go back. My brother loves to go on everything with me, but that whole day he was dragging and had an "I don't care, whatever you want to do" attitude.

 

[Zek_Teh_Kek]

However I think its terrible when they make up stories about how they fell out of a roller coaster one time, or how they saw a ride accident (that never actually happened).

Same here. I even have a friend who's like "oh hey what ride is that and what park" and I say "oh it's X ride from Y park" and then the other person says "oh i've ridden that", and then a few years later I ask them if they've ridden the same X ride at the same Y park and they don't even know what it is. Same with rides at the park that you and your non-enthusiast friend are at, they say that they've ridden X ride Y many times, even though a few years later that they've only ridden it <Y number of times.

But that's just my one main complaint, other than that I echo pretty much what everyone has said about the whole "nice to hear thoughts from people who aren't enthusiasts" perspective.

 

[EpochEmu]

My family is pretty good about the names of rides, stamina, etc. And I do prefer to go with them, I would definitely prefer to be with someone at a park rather than a lone cred run. However, going with the “fresh opinion” idea, I find it interesting when none of them notice brake runs or anything that enthusiasts seem to hate. Upon riding Rip Ride Rockit with my dad, I remarked on the jarring bake runs- he had no memory of them. Also, none of them seem to remember any sort of detail about the layout, but I can understand that.
Some of my GP friends actually seem to have an innate knowledge that the front and back cars are special, but they have no idea that there’s more air.

 

[Hyde]

I have noticed a correlation of "GP" friends who grew up close to amusement parks vs. not in terms of stamina. Some favorite friends to visit parks with are those who went to Cedar Point, Geauga Lake, Kings Island, etc. on the regular. Maybe it is a part of a spectrum of perseverance for coaster riding from being more engrained in the culture, but these friends would never visit a theme park outside of my inviting them to join, still making them squarely "GP" for our purposes.

 

[Y. Kim]

Planning to go to my home park after mid-term test, I have GP friend to go with. As he is afraid of 100+feet coasters, I'd like to ride 206.7ft dive coaster with him, and he says too high overall.And when I went to Everland with him, he ran away directly before the entrance gate of T Express... And he said NO again and again
....

 

[Antinos]

I typically find the difference in perspectives between my non enthusiast friends and myself. I've ridden The Voyage with people who thought it was great and with others who thought it was too much. I rode Storm Chaser with a guy who thought it was extremely comfortable. Most people look for rider comfort, and we enthusiasts are a rare breed, but there's a few out there who have surprising ride preferences.

 

[Edward M]

I think that visiting a park with a non-enthusiast is great... if you've been before. I like the slower pace that non-enthusiasts have. Rides are more spread out and there's a focus on eating, walking, and just kinda hanging out. I've had a few amusement park visits with GP friends, but I mainly have visited with family at Orlando parks. For some, like my sister, she rides the FP+ rides and, that's it. She prefers hanging at the hotel. Then, there's my cousin. He hates standing in any line over 30 minutes, but he also is constantly wanting to get on more and more rides, which I certainly don't mind. A good friend of mine grew up in Mexico City and even at Medusa Steel Coaster opening day. Still, he says Batman is his favorite coaster there. The SLC Batman. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

However, the thought of being with non-enthusiasts at, say, Europa Park would stress me out. Credz credz credz. I gotta get the credz. What? You want lunch? It's 10:45 am. We just got here. No, no, we knock out the wild mouse first because of capacity. I wanna ride the kid's coasters because it brings up my count. Sure, I mean... I guess it's kinda stupid but c'mon. We just ate; why do you want popcorn? Dude, the line for that popcorn is like 30 minutes. Alright, alright, we'll get popcorn.

 

[Zek_Teh_Kek]

I have to say, the other 3 members of my family are anything but coaster enthusiasts, but when we went to Kings Dominion, I could've sworn my mom, dad, and sister were all going at most 3 feet/second. I could've sworn it took them 3-5 minutes to get from the Eiffel Tower to the carousel, which probably should not have happened as I was on a mad dash (aka a very fast walk; I'm a very fast walker anyways) for Twisted Timbers, and it was still pretty early in the morning so I was pretty ticked. But hey, we still got on!