My journey through life as an enthusiast.

I like rollie coasters, but I only like parks that can self sustain themselves without a hotel.

If this thread needed a post about hotels, it would have already existed.

Okay, I see. Then stop going to parks with the enthusiasses you don't like to enjoy spending with and go with friends that you have met over the years. If they bring their enthusiass friends, tolerate.

Don't listen to me. I'm trying to be like a coaster enthusiast version of Dr. Ruth here. :)

Anyways, you don't need a thousand friends with the same coaster interests. You just need a few. People can be nerds about coasters and still talk about something else every once in a while.

I'd hung out with Billy (CoasterDemon) at Camden Park a few months ago, and now I'd hang with him anywhere, even outside of an amusement park. (Hugs.)

That's all I got. I am spent. :)

LostKause said:
(Hugs.)

Travis, NO!

It's too late. You've become part of the cult of hugs.

I actually have no enthusiast friends. I've met a small handful of CoasterBuzzers at the two events I've attended, but other than that, any trip to a park is with family or friends, none of whom are into parks or coasters even remotely as much as I have been my whole life. Part of me wishes I had more fanatical friends to go to parks with...and part of me is happy I don't. :)

In all seriousness, I've had conversations with some hardcore enthusiasts that wound up being a lot more boring than they initially played out in my head. I tend to gravitate toward people who have other interests in life besides rollie coasters. Makes conversations much more interesting.

I swear I'll punch the next person who tries to hug me.

(and that's bad news for my kid because it's about his bed time.)

Vater said:

In all seriousness, I've had conversations with some hardcore enthusiasts that wound up being a lot more boring than they initially played out in my head. I tend to gravitate toward people who have other interests in life besides rollie coasters. Makes conversations much more interesting.

You're not kidding. I've been places and you always see that one person that's there by themselves and looks like they've got a mission to sell coaster enthusiasm to anyone who will listen. They always seem to have the same "hivemind" opinions "this ride is the greatest, Six Flags sucks etc..."

Talking coasters is fun sometimes, but I have way more interests in my life that are way more important to me, like getting back into playing music since I haven't been behind a drum set in what feels like way too long, or drinking craft beers, or shooting weddings every weekend and making money. Being an adult is way more fun when you stop doing coasters as much, IMO.

It's like this in any hobby.

3 car enthusiasts will look at a old car (my other hobby that empties my bank account faster than a Coke at Six Flags). One will say "damn this is a nice looking car". Another will say "ya know, with a good set of heads and some gearing, this thing would kick ass on the track". And the third guy will say "Nice car, but that inspection mark is wrong. That style inspection mark was done by John Smith, but the day this car was built, John Smith was out sick with the flu and his backup Jose Morales was working. If you're going to restore a car as classic as this, at least take the time to do it right."

Raven-Phile said:
or shooting weddings every weekend

Took me a minute to realize you meant with a camera. :)

I share the same general sentiment as everyone else in this thread. The only enthusiast event I attend is Coaster Mania, and I attend with the same friends every year. We make it a point to mostly avoid the other enthusiasts there because of some of the things that come out of their mouths make me feel like my head's going to explode. Not to say I haven't met some other awesome enthusiasts, but the whiny ones just kind of ruin it for everyone.

In all seriousness, my enthusiasm is being shared less with friends and more with family. The last couple of years our HWN trips included my sisters and my parents. I guess it helps that Holiday World is a pretty nice family park for that. It's fun to share the park experiences with family and its even better for us to point and laugh at the "enthusiasses." My dad calls them "Getalifes."

My coaster friends I still see from time to time. We get together and hang out, sometimes we'll talk about parks or the doom and gloom of the industry, but most of the time its about our lives, homes, jobs, and other hobbies. Like Josh said, its much more fun being an adult without the coasters and parks.

~Rob

Jason, my interest and enthusiasm for coasters (and, more specifically, amusement parks) mirrors yours to a degree. Went to Geauga Lake in the mid 80s as a guest and also hit Cedar Point for the first time (after living in Southern California where I had great experiences at Knott's, Disneyland, Magic Mountain and Universal). I got more passionate about it when I went to work for Geauga Lake and downright "geeky" when I went to work at WDW.

By the time I got to work at Cedar Point I was neck deep in the enthusiast lifestyle as evidenced in my membership in ACE and my subscription to Amusement Today (and some other magazines before that). Yes..."nerd" applies.

I left that industry as a profession but still have the flame for it and I don't expect it will ever die out.

As to how the internet, and chat rooms in particular, affect me. Well, they don't really. I like to keep up to date on what is happening and I like to engage in meaningful conversation. But...and this isn't meant as disrespect to anyone...I've been around here long enough to know the people I am intersted in hearing from and I often just ignore the other noise. It really isn't hard for me at all.

I look for Gonch, Carrie, Jeff and...yes...you Jason (as well as others) when I'm skimming through the threads and I simply disregard many of the usual suspects who I don't believe add anything to the conversation. It is easy for me to do that because I really do have other priorties in my life.

I was starting to question my "passion" last week when the Toledo Blade actually grabbed one of my critical responses to the CP announcement. I was thinking...wow...I've really got to get a life. But, then it occured to me...this is part of my life. And, I have no reason to be embarassed about it. Cedar Point was a critical part of my life as a seasonal employee, as a full time employee, and even now as loosely connected "former insider" who still wants what is best for his beloved park and his friends and associates who are still working there.

So, if I have to summarzie, I'd simply say this. It is fine to be an enthusiast. There is no need to be an enthusiass and if you choose to be one...fine...but I've got no time for that.

I came late to the 'enthusiasm' game. I first rode a roller coaster at age 14, could count on one hand the number of times I went to an amusement park between then and age 25 when I got my first Cedar Point pass, and didn't keep track of which coasters I'd ridden until my first enthusiast event two years later (PPP). So, I'm still getting a bit of it out of my system; tomorrow I'm leaving for a 6-day tour of various east coast parks, the first such trip I've ever done.

But I also think it's possible to be "into it" and enjoy it without being a nutjob about it. One of the reasons I settled into CoasterBuzz is because it seemed to be the least fanatical of the message boards I lurked. My primary enjoyment is thrill rides and coasters, while also soaking in the atmosphere of a park -- even with Cedar Point, the time I spend moseying around and people-watching is limited (thanks, Josh ;)). That said, I also fully acknowledge that my limited budget and lack of children makes me the polar opposite of any given park's target demographic, so I try not to whine if a new ride or policy doesn't fit my desires personally.

That's a long way of saying... I'm not burnt out yet. Maybe that will change after this weekend. :)

LostKause said:
Maybe that's the cure for the coaster enthusiast blues.

Or maybe the cure is getting a Flash pass...preferably at Great Adventure.

The cure is def inside jokes on coaster forums or Maverick.

I thought the cure was an overnight stay at Great Adventure on Muslim gay day.

What a great thread!

I've belonged to this and a couple other forums for a few years, but rarely post for several reasons - most of which have been covered above. I couldn't care less about the politics in parks or their parent companies. Hearing about financials and ROI bores me - I get enough of that at work. Like most of you, I'm turned off by the almost constant negativity and complaining. And finally, I guess I'm somewhat of a lurker by nature. :)

Coasters and parks have been a huge part of my life since my first trip to Cedar Point in 1984, at age 8. I've been fortunate to always have had somebody or bodies to share this with... cousins, friends, my wife, and in a few years my kids. (My daughter is 45" tall, so close...) Basically it was refreshing to read what you all have posted. I don't feel like my enthusiasm for this hobby is diminished at all just because I don't know or care about how many RPMs Magnum's lift hill motor operates at under foggy conditions in May. Thank you!

You know, I do spend a lot of time dissing enthusiast culture, and probably will continue to do so, but if living in the Northwest has done anything, it's made me realize how much I enjoy visiting the parks, mostly by the total lack of availability in this part of the country.

But it is interesting to me how I do feel a little more like a park enthusiast than a coaster enthusiast. I think in part this comes from my frequent visits to the Orlando theme parks, where the rides are not entirely the primary goal, as much as the experience is. I enjoy the environment, and I enjoy it even more with my toddler.

Maybe I need to make a life adjustment and get closer to where the parks are.

Having kids has definitely changed my perspective on parks. On my trip to BGT two weeks ago, I was really disappointed that I didn't end up getting to ride the train with my son and would have gladly traded all my non-Cheetah Hunt coaster laps to do so. For better or worse, I was playing coaster guide for other members of the family, so I didn't get to spend much time with the non-riders in the family.

"Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."

-EB White

In another life, I research humor (and roller-coaster phobia as some of you know). But my main area of research is humor. What it is, what is does, what it is capable of, etc...

EB White's quote sums up the dilemma of my field, as there is a certain irony in what we enjoy studying. Obviously, I love humor, but when I study it, there is sometimes a picking apart, a dissecting, and a purposeful "over-analysis" of a joke, pun, or humorous interaction.

In short, I pick apart something that is naturally intended to be inherently enjoyable.

The same happens with the enthusiast community. I'm not sure I would actually fall into a true roller-coaster enthusiast "box", but on the surface the same principles seem to apply. You purposefully (and no doubt enjoyably) dissect an activity that is meant to be inherently enjoyable. Cognitive dissonance kicks in, and you rationalize your over-analysis, but every once in awhile you look around and see all the perceived negativity about something that used to bring about only child-like glee.

I'm with Jeff and others, for similar reasons. Once our daughter arrived my eyes were opened back up, in a way, to the full experience parks offer, and in many ways it has rekindled a lot of the simple joy.

^ I need some prozac after reading this...