Have you ever self-spited yourself out of a roller coaster?

[Matt N]

Hi guys. Of all the things that can happen at a park, a spite is probably the most gutting. I'm sure we've all had an occasion where a ride has been closed for the day, or it's broken down, that means we haven't been able to ride it. But sometimes, some might voluntarily choose not to ride something for whatever reason. Whether it's through fear or just plainly forgetting it exists, we might sometimes choose not to go on a coaster. With this in mind, I'd be interested to know: have you ever self-spited yourself out of a major roller coaster? Have you ever voluntarily not ridden something for whatever reason?

 

For purposes of limitation, I'm going to keep this to relatively major attractions. There are a number of enthusiasts who often don't ride kiddie coasters (myself among them); if I were to include all of the kiddie coasters I've denied myself by choice over the years, this would be a long list!

 

If we're keeping it to more major coasters and excluding kiddie coasters, most of my examples are fairly historical now, but I have a few I could reel off! These are:

• Rock'n'Rollercoaster at Walt Disney Studios Park - This is probably my most significant one, and the only one I am yet to receive redemption on! When I was not quite 8, I went to Disneyland Paris, and I had the opportunity to make Rock'n'Rollercoaster my first ever inverting coaster. I was over 1.2m (but not yet tall enough for Space Mountain or Indiana Jones), and I'd never gone upside down before... but I chose not to ride it. Why, you might ask? Well, it was all because a boy from my primary school told me it gave him tummy ache... so I staunchly refused to ride it all trip on that basis alone! I'm still bitter with myself about this one 14 years on... I have provisional plans to return to DLP next year, and this is one of the attractions I care most about going on purely to avenge my 8 year old self! I don't even care if it's not that good; I just want to go on it to redeem my past self-spite!
• The Dragon at Legoland Windsor - It took me until I was 14 to ride this... because when I first went to Legoland at 6 years old, my sister and I both refused to ride it due to the perceived "scary" theming! I couldn't ride it on my second visit at 10 years old either, but I had a broken arm, so that was slightly more out of my control...
• Saw: The Ride at Thorpe Park - I did not go on Saw until my 3rd visit to Thorpe Park when I was 15. On my first and second visits in 2014 and 2015, respectively, my sister and I were still in the phase of being slightly fragile around any kind of vaguely "scary" theming. We pondered Saw on our second visit in May 2015, but we caught the restrictions board outside that said "Live or die... make your choice" on it and swiftly decided to live! I was also a bit too much of a law-abiding citizen to contravene the posted age restriction of 12... I visited in May and didn't turn 12 until July.
• Scorpion and Sand Serpent at Busch Gardens Tampa - On my first visit to Busch Gardens in 2016, I didn't ride either of these... because I quite literally forgot they even existed. No, I'm not joking; when we were in the park, I simply forgot they were there and forgot to ride them, meaning that I exited the park having missed 2 non-kiddie coasters purely due to my own actions! On my revisit in 2023, I made specific effort to ride them... and I'm glad I did given that Sand Serpent shut about 2 weeks later and Scorpion swiftly followed about a year after that!

In terms of non-coasters, the only thing I generally self-spite myself out of these days is anything involving live actors, particularly scare actors, due to a personal phobia of/aversion to scare actors. For this reason, I never did Derren Brown's Ghost Train, I have never ridden Nemesis Sub-Terra, I have never done a scare maze, and I also haven't done The Walking Dead: The Ride at Thorpe Park since they rethemed it (I got the cred in 2014 when it was X, so I'm slightly less bothered about this one than the ones listed above). Coasters-wise, I'm game for pretty much anything nowadays (kiddie coasters aside)!

 

But I'd be keen to know; have you ever self-spited yourself out of a major roller coaster? Or any other attraction, for that matter?

[Mark9]

Any Hippogriff ride. I will never wait an hour for a Vekoma junior coaster. Not on your life.

I don't generally spite myself out of any rollercoaster. If I've done it before then I won't do a lot of Gerstlauer rollercoasters. Saw is awful to ride, Smiler is painful to queue for. Eurofighters are generally quite meh.

Generally I avoid Tidal Wave type rides now, there's no fun in walking abound in soggy clothes.