How old were you when you became an enthusiast?

[JJLehto]

Okay, good jobs with plenty of holidays help

Well, that may be slightly important... ; )

Guess it's just even more motivation to try and get a great job.
And I guess I'm just an enthusiast and not fanatic, that is intense stuff.
Though I'm unemployed at the moment and funded a trip to Cedar Point by selling some things I really enjoyed so that must count for something

 

[Nic]

I've always loved coasters and used to visit Thorpe or Chessington at least once a year throughout my childhood. Sue and I went to Alton in 2006 which was my first visit since 1994. That prompted me to start making more park visits. However, it wasn't until I went to the states in 2007, and was researching which park to choose as my token park visit that I got hooked. Discovering the existence of SFMM and X got me excited and made me want to find out more. Between then and the end of the season, my interest had only increased, so I joined CF. Therefore, my answer would be 23 years old.

 

[ava1enzue1a]

I think I was 13 when I gained my full enthusiasm for roller coasters. I rode my first coaster, Magnum XL-200 at the age of 12, but it was too startling an experience. A year later at 13 (2002), my dad pretty much coerced me on Goliath @ SFMM, which had finally dissolved my fear of huge drops and I loved roller coasters ever since. That's what got me hooked. Roller coasters are like drugs - they DO provide a rush of dopamine in the brain, which is why everyone is usually all giddy and talkative when the train has stopped in the final brake run!

 

[bmac]

Been riding roller coasters since I was a tiny tike. Got the enthusiast bug at the age of 15 in Busch Gardens Williamsburg after riding Apollo's Chariot and Big Bad Wolf for about 4 hours each. The next day it was announced Big Bad Wolf would be closed.

 

[Twister Zone]

Not sure if it was my first rollercoaster but the one that sticks in my mind was the old wooden one at Great Yarmouth but i didn't become an enthusiast til i went to Blackpool Pleasure Beach a few years later which was about the same time i rode the Coca Cola Rollercoaster at the Glasgow Garden Festival & bought the t-shirt & it went from there.

 

[Luxornv]

I first went to an amusement park when I was about 6. It was Six Flags Great America and I think it was the opening year for Viper. I rode my first coaster that day, the Whizzer. However, I wasn't hooked. I was still scared of coasters, and was actually terrified of the Whizzer. I didn't want to even ride anything with an inversion. My family took a lot of vacations to Vegas while I was young, and the early and mid 90s saw a lot of the hotels with parks and small coasters. We toured around the parks in Vegas and I picked up small credits like Lightning Bolt and Canyon Blaster and log rides here and there. I was beginning to like the thrill of those smaller rides and the feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you go down the drop on those. I think it finally hit me in 2001, when I was 12. It was the opening year for Vertical Velocity and Deja Vu at SFGAm. At school, we occasionally talked about the new rides and many people said you'd have to be insane to ride either of those. I was the only one who thought, "Yeah, I think I'll ride that." I went to the park later in the summer with my parents and loved V2 even though I screamed the whole time on that first ride. Since then, I had been watching the random shows about coasters that come up on Discovery Channel or Travel Channel. In 2006, I made my first trip to Cedar Point and really started to expand my track record. It was my building anticipation that summer that lead me to find coaster forums online and begin posting. It was then I was finally hooked on this. I was lucky in college to find a few friends who were as much enthusiasts as I was and wanted to travel to parks. I went on trips with them when I could afford it. Now I have a decent paying job and can pay for my own trips. While this probably isn't an impressive number to anyone here, I'm now looking at my 3rd coaster trip this year to visit the 4th and 5th different parks I've been to this season. I have the freedom to travel where I want and when I want, and I'm always thinking, "Where can I go that has more coasters?"

 

[KristofWB]

I don't know exactly when I became an enthusiast, but I remember it was pretty early. When we were toddlers, we used to visit about one or two themeparks per year. Mostly parks nearby Belgium, such as Efteling, Bobbejaanland, Bellewaerde Park, Meli Park (Plopsa before Plop) and Phantasialand. I think I became an enthusiast after I had my first inversion on a rollercoaster, which was Wervelwind in Bobbejaanland at the age of 6. I remember I used to cry when the park almost closed and we had to leave. When I was 6 years old, I was talking about rollercoasterrides and themeparks that much I annoyed people. And I couldn't shut up about the experiences I had for weeks after.

In 1996 I visited my last themepark, I was 10 years old, we would visit the last park for ages. I think it was Efteling and Villa Volta opened a couple of weeks before. Six years later I went to Bobbejaanland and was looking for information about new an removed rides since our last visit in 1994. I surfed the internet and discovered the Theme Park Vision website. I found out there was a Six Flags park in Belgium, I even didn't know it used to be Walibi Wavre. I visited Six Flags Belgium on May 10th 2002 and was so interested in the park, I became a member of the discussion board of TPV and was re-born as a themepark enthusiast. And I still am after 10 years.