CoasterBuzz turns 22 tomorrow, which means PointBuzz is closing in on 24. That's like a hundred years in Internet time. In that time, I've had the opportunity to go to a lot of media previews for attractions. The first one I ever brought Simon to was Cedar Point's animatronic dinosaurs, and he seemed to really love it. The next year, I brought him to the opening of GateKeeper. Of course, he wasn't tall enough to ride, but he still enjoyed being there. He was also there for the opening of Banshee at Kings Island, and he's been to a bunch of the SeaWorld Christmas events, too. But yesterday, he finally got to do one where he was tall enough, and we had our first ride ever on IceBreaker recorded.
Even though he's 11, and tall enough for everything, he's still a little apprehensive about a great many rides. Launches, height and inversions concern him, as he's not sure what to expect. He's even regressed on certain rides, and won't do Tower of Terror for reasons I don't entirely understand. Still, he's fascinated by how the rides work, how the control systems go, and even the operational angles as far as queues and loading and such. He's had some breakout favorites, like Hagrid's Motorbikes and Expedition Everest. Between those two rides, that covers launches and backward stuff, but I haven't been able to talk him into Mako or Rock-n-Rollercoaster. So leading up to this event, I wasn't sure if he would actually do IceBreaker. It's being a marketed as a family ride, which I think it is, but it has a pretty high thrill factor. It starts with a back-and-forth launch, and there are out-of-your-seat airtime moments.
The interesting thing about this event is that they had it set up so literally everyone could record a reverse point-of-view video of their ride. They had a pretty good system down to make it happen, too, though I was kind of bummed there wasn't time to do it a second time. What it meant was that I could see how he reacted, in a genuine first-time way. During the last backward launch, I was a little worried he was going to spew, but by the time it was over, he loved it. You couldn't tell by looking, but he was pretty excited about it. I was super proud of him, because trying new things and being uncomfortable is not his thing (and it wasn't when I was his age).
I'm not sure how long I'll get to do this sort of thing, but I'm so happy that I got to spend this time with him and experience it as we did. I hope I get to do it with him for a "big" ride at some point.
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