Height Restrictions

And this is funny to me because it was the exact opposite. Our son is incredibly short. Shortest in his class almost every year. He waited an agonizingly long tome to ride Dragster at 52 and even longer for any B+M. I know my kid, however, and had it been up to me, I would have put him on those rides much earlier. Why? Because I know he can handle it.

I might argue against Knoebels low reqs on Twister and Phoenix. I was hesitant to put him on Twister alone on his 5th birthday. Not because I didn't think he could handle it, but because as a short kid in Ohio, it was the most intense, crazy, rough ride he'd ever been on. I could totally see a less seasoned 5 year old freaking out on these rides and wiggling out of the restraints. Funniest thing about Knoebels at the time was that Tw + Ph limits were stated as 42 inches. High Speed Thrill Coaster (the kiddie coaster) was 42 with an adult, higher to ride alone. Weird, right?

Our situation is very similar to Gonch's. Amusement Parks and riding roller coasters was what we did, so our daughter didn't really know any better. She was 3 when she rode Jack Rabbit, 6 when she rode MForce and 9 for Dragster. As soon as she was tall enough to ride, she rode. The only ride that she didn't like was Twister at Knoebels at age 4. It was one of those years where it wasn't running so good and it was a pretty rough ride. She was leery of wooden coasters after that for the rest of the year. By the next year she was fine. She's 16 now and has ridden 386, but adding new ones has really slowed since she started playing travel ball in when she was 11, so if I had to guess she had probably around 250 at age 10. So yeah, enthusiast kids probably aren't a good real world example.

My kids have had opposite experiences. Both have always been tall for their ages so they could ride various rides as younger ages than the average kid. My son has pretty much always ridden whatever they would let him ride. Though at Cedar Point, we went with the 4 ft coasters in blocks. Seems to me I wouldn't ride Gemini if MF is an option (and in reality, I don't ride Gemini). We went every year there so he was introduced to the CP coasters over 3 years. If nothing else, I figured, other than Blue Streak and Mine ride, I was introduced to them as they were built. Parks where we weren't likely to visit again soon, all rides were on the table.

Planned to take same approach with my daughter but she pretty much maxed out on Iron Dragon at Cedar Point (rode Blue Streak and Gemini once but never again). She loves Disney coasters (other than Rock n Roller Coaster). She doesn't like big drops on coasters or going upside down. Limits her to wild mouse type rides and kiddie type coasters. And non-coasters. I have a great time riding rides with her at CP and other parks. Just not looking to marathon any of those smaller rides/coasters.

Seems to me height requirements are good in that they are objective (not in terms of whether you should ride but in terms of being the minimum height). So you minimize disputes (though when kids are right at the cutoff you can have variances which I the purpose of the "official" measurements and wrist bands). Parks will vary minimum height requirement based on a number of factors. Insurance costs/issues. Other offerings in the parks for folks under the various height requirements. Age mix of target audience for the park.

So did any of you try the "creative footwear" approach? It worked well for us this year at numerous Six Flags and Knoebels with both boys. In thirty-five visits, we only got called on it once at SkyScreamer at New England.

Maybe... :)

Insurance companies and ride manufacturers care very little about whether your child can "handle" a ride. From the ride manufacturer perspective, they test to specifications and state that the restraint/seat design on a particular ride is safe for people that are X amount of height. Then the insurance company (and the state inspector) says, yes that appears to be the safe height or no, we feel like it should be height Y. The park goes with the one that the latter says and is usually in line with the manufacturer.

Jeff,
How do you think he'd do on Iron Dragon now? Have you taken him to Knoebels?

Beats me. Neither one is exactly in my neighborhood.

MF was 52" opening year. CP lowered it to 48" the following season. Never understood Iron Dragon. You could ride Big Bad Wolf at 42", then go to CP and not be able to ride the family version.

Ya, it was tough after taking him to Knoebels and Hershey for his 5th B-day. The next week we went back to CP and he was extremely upset that he could not ride things there that looked the same to him.

@a_hoffman - Of course I understand the logic behind it, and I didn't mean to insinuate that requirements should be based on whether kids can "handle it." Good luck proving that in court, right? I was simply looking at it from a different, frustrated point of view for someone who has a short kid who desperately wants to ride.

Long pants with a wide cuff at the bottom is key to avoid detection. Shorts and boots a tough combination. Strange how they justify going down to 48 for a giga and up to 48 for a stroll in the park.

Anyone else of any age wishing to get adopted by Lord G. to boost their coaster count? Pick me!

If you are caught, I hope that you say sorry and give it up for the day and not argue with the ride op that you think your kid is ok to ride.

I understand your thoughts, but this is cheating the system.

I'm not an idiot...

Although sometimes I may act like an idiot...

The one time we were "caught," we simply walked away without saying a word. I would not berate someone making close to minimum wage for doing their job, but in no way do I feel that I am "cheating the system." Not paying taxes is a better example of that statement.

You're intentionally cheating the system, so I'm not sure how you can "feel" that you're not cheating the system. You can rationalize it to your heart's content, but saying "this rule does not apply to me and my child" doesn't make what you're doing right.

It's big of you to not berate employees for doing their job. It would be bigger of you to respect the rules of the business you've chosen to enter.

You know, that's one of my societal pet peeves, where people think that just because a rule is, in their estimation, stupid or irrelevant, they're entitled to disregard it. It annoys me to no end. What exactly makes anyone so special that they get to pick and choose which rules are good enough for them? (Apparently, this idiot I encountered last year goes so far as to declare victimhood.)

In my experience working on rides height restriction was suggested by the manufacturer implemented by the park. It has absolutely nothing to with who is the appropriate age to handle the ride, but everything to do with body size. If someone is smaller than the size requirement they obviously may not be properly restrained but also can get injured by the restraint.

I worked on an Vekoma looper years back and kids do sneak on rides occasionally and one of the signs we'd see that someone wasn't tall enough is they'd have swollen or sometimes scraped up ears. Everyone complains about headbanging on those but for a smaller person, where their head is at in the restraint, it's really bad. A ride operator can usually eyeball it as to how low the kid is sitting in the restraint but occasionally they still get through.

When having to check height at rides, one of the really frustrating things was parents would insist that "they can handle it" or "it's ok I give him permission" or stuff like that. You hear that stuff all the time and have to explain that the reason for the height restriction is about the risk of injury rather than them being ready for the ride.

What Jeff said. I work in the box office for Blue Man in Chicago and we get a lot of people who want to bring their toddler into the show. They tell us their precious snowflake can handle it. We know how many toddlers, back in the day, ended up in the lobby with a parent, not enjoying the show, because the toddler was screaming in fear at the sight of the blue guys.

Once years ago, at Six Flags Over Georgia, I witnessed a man cause trouble on the platform of GASM by insisting that his child would ride or they weren't budging. So somehow they wound up in the train and after a huge delay and much arguing with the manager, the ops finally dispatched. Many of us who had heard the whole thing were shocked about that until the ops stopped the train about a quarter of the way up the lift. They sat there until the cops came (I believe it was the sheriffs office responding) and as they ecsorted the man and his kid away the entire queue and station burst into cheers and loud applause. The guy flipped everyone off.
I was clapping too, mainly because the guy was a dick, but to me the saddest thing was the message that father was sending to his kid. Entitled parents make for entitled kids, and sadly, that child is likely still to this day growing up with the notion that rules (and eventually laws) don't apply to him if he doesn't want them to.

One of my dad's frequent sayings was "No, because that wouldn't be the right thing" and it's something I've carried with me my whole life. Ethics has never been a grey area for me. I'm more than willing to stand against unfairness, but whenever there's a rule that applies to all for the good of all I'm happy to follow. And I know if I don't like it I can always leave.
As for Cedar Point, they post rules about height restrictions and insist that children be measured in their socks. Seems they're already quite hip to the cheaters and their lift shoes.

RCMAC said:

They sat there until the cops came (I believe it was the sheriffs office responding) and as they ecsorted the man and his kid away the entire queue and station burst into cheers and loud applause.

I wonder if the guy was actually charged or just escorted out. That could be possibly child endangerment since he's insisting on putting the kid on something that professionals are trying to restrict him from for safety reasons.

What a jerk and you're dead on about the entitlement thing, that's really disturbing. Unfortunately, I think the general public genuinely thinks the height restriction is a "can they handle it" thing.

I did group sales work at a waterpark years back and a fairly distant family member I see once every year or two contacted me to ask for some exception on the height restriction on a slide for their son. I explained about how the forces and elements of the slide were designed for a specific body type and he could end up getting hurt. The other crazy part is both parents were lawyers and I pointed out that if he got hurt they'd naturally try to sue the hell out of the park and possibly me for arranging some sort of exception (which I couldn't do even if I wanted to). I was nice about it but they really thought it was just a "he can handle it" thing rather than a safety issue.