Breaking the goon barrier

[Mysterious Sue]

I've been having a conversation with my non-goon friends about when I considered myself to be a 'true goon'. It's not all about how many creds you have, some experiences carry more 'goon weight' and are more important than others. Maybe there's a coaster of historical significance that you really want to ride, or a park that you want to visit to try a whole new set of coaster types, or a trip you're planning to somewhere considered an enthusiast 'Mecca'. I came to the conclusion that I've fulfilled quite a lot of my coaster bucket list, but there's still a long way that I want to go.

So what do you consider as goon milestones? Which ones have you completed and which ones do you still want to do? Here are my ramblings.

Done:
Visit Magic Mountain - the sheer number of rides here alone made it a worthy contender. Plus, the giant flyer Tatsu and the insane looking X2 were enough to make me dream about this place until I finally ticked it off. And, of course, Revolution with the oldest operating loop.

Visit Great Adventure - again, a large number of rides and the bragging rights for Kinga Ka. Still need to return though as El Toro spited.

Visit Bakken - oldest park in the world

Ride Olympia Looping - before its appearance at Winter Wonderland, I considered the pilgrimage to Oktoberfest to be a true right of goon passage

Ride one of the remaining 7 brakeman coasters. I've actually ridden five now

Ride Dodonpa (fastest accelerating, I think)

Ride Takibisha (steepest drop)

Ride Revolution at Blackpool (oldest operating European loop) - although I didn't find this out till after I'd ridden it

Ride Boulder Dash - so much enthusiast hype but sorry, it was a big let-down

Ride all the B&M coasters in Europe - yay! To be honest, this was the moment I felt closest to ascending to 'true goon'

Still to do:
Visit Cedar Point - tbh I'm less bothered about this than I was about Magic Mountain, but it's up there with parks every enthusiast needs to visit

Visit Coney Island - I've been but the old iconic woodie was closed

Ride Formula Rossa (world's fastest)

Ride Montaña Suiza (the only brakman steel coaster in the world)

Ride Leap the Dips - oldest coaster in the world

Ride all the wooden Wild Mouse coasters

Ride Tower of Terror at Gold Reef City - it's built out of a real mine so it's just always really appealed to me

Go to IAPPA

Ride Matterhorn Bobsleds (first tubular steel coaster)

Ride all the B&M coasters in the world

Ride all the coasters in my home country (UK)

 

[davidm]

Olympia Looping last week was a bit of a milestone I guess (only didn't have it before through laziness really).

I realised I was full-goon at the point that I decided to go on a big holiday specifically to ride a bunch of coasters - 2003 (I had been to SFMM & Tokyo Disneys whilst on a previous big holiday / trip round the world kinda thing in 2002 ; which was really the start of my goon-metamorphosis).

Not sure of milestones left too much - "all the wood" perhaps, and probably just that fast one in Abu-Dhabi, everything else is just part of the grind. But I like that.

 

[Howie]

Ooh good topic. I almost created a similar thread - I was gonna call it 'The Path to Goonhood', but 'Breaking the Goon Barrier' works just as well.
I've given it some thought, tried to isolate that precise moment in my past where I caught the goon bug, but I don't think there is one single moment, more of a sequence of moments, landmarks if you will.
I guess the first stage is when you become more than just a casual visitor to your local park. In my case, that was Alton Towers. During the 90's, the likes of ThunderLooper, Nemesis and Oblivion were enough to convince me that Alton was the only park I'd ever need.
Stage 2 happens when you've visited your home park so often that you've gotten bored of it and you start to look elsewhere for something new. For me, that was when Air opened. It was a bit crap, so I made the effort to go to Thorpe Park to check out their new 10 looper, plus Chessie.
Having decided I quite liked this theme park malarkey, the next logical step was to get myself to Florida. I always knew I'd go there one day - everybody does - but all of a sudden it became a priority, which I did for the first time in 2003.
After that, the next stage for me was when I found the RCDB and started researching all these other places that had big parks and big coasters. Travelling abroad specifically to go to theme parks (that aren't in Orlando, or Paris) is quite a significant step I feel. That's when you're really starting to show some commitment, and I did this in 2006 with trips to Port Aventura and Europa Park.
Another big goon moment happens when you decide to count up how many roller coasters you've been on. Again, that was about 2006 for me, after Europa Park I thought to myself 'Hmm, I wonder how many coasters I've actually ridden?' That's it then - you're officially a cred counter now.
From cred-counter you then move on to cred-hunter - that's when you start seeking out specific creds and parks, either because they hold some sort of record or just because fellow goons say that they're dead good. I went after X2, Tatsu, Leviathan, Kingda Ka, El Toro, I305 and more recently Helix and Widfire.
The final stage is when you graduate from cred-hunter to cred-whore, when you go out of your way to ride every tin-pot, piece of crap kiddie coaster you can find, just for the count.
Sadly, I fear most of you have already reached this point, and you have my pity, for there is no turning back from here.
I'm not there yet, I'm still a cred hunter, only really looking to get the bucket list rides done that everyone else has in their top 10s.
Of course, at some point along the path to goonhood you'll join a goon forum and spend your spare time talking to other goons about goony things.
From this too, there is no turning back, and once you've signed up, your fate is sealed.

 

[gavin]

Ride Wild Mouse at Luna Park - the only other wooden wild mouse after Blackpool's.

Only if you ignore the two in Indonesia, you racist.

 

[Mysterious Sue]

Only if you ignore the two in Indonesia, you racist.

Ha, I totally didn't know about those (probably because they aren't called 'Wild Mouse'). I knew there were some other things listed as Wild Mouse layouts on RCDB but thought they were all just ghost train things. Edited accordingly.

Goon points deducted!

 

[Thekingin64]

SFMM, CP and Orlando are definitely milestones for enthusiasm. Always feel ashamed to call myself an enthusiast but have never been to Orlando (or any Disney park for that matter...).

I also consider OL to be quite a milestone as well so quite happy to have that now.

 

[Ian]

The one milestone I want to achieve is to ride every coaster type there is. It is a milestone to reach, for example, 500 creds, or to ride all the record breaking coasters in the world, but for somebody like me who loves the experience more than the numbers, it's about experiencing a wide variety. I think my goon breakthrough happened when I rode many different types...and significant, renowned creds along the way. I would consider somebody a true goon if they have a count of 100 creds of varying types than somebody who has the same but mainly caterpillar coasters.

 

[NeoXIII]

A year ago I didn't even know what a goon was, and now my closest friends are calling me that!
I'm not sure if any of my bucket list items can be considered goon milestones, but I consider them personal milestones (like riding Lethal Weapon in Movie World before it was taken down, or riding Lost Gravity in its first year). Like Ian, it's more about the experience and atmosphere than counting down how many creds I have on my list (which is still above 100 though!). That, and being together with other goons!

 

[DelPiero]

I'm pretty sure that my barrier breaking was just before The Smiler Live in 2013, I specifically put plans together for my honeymoon later that year based on parks and had a pitiful 33 coasters to my name. I also did my first solo cred run after the Live and ended the year with over 100 creds.
As soon as I'd been to Hershey I was totally hooked, and within a couple of days had been to CP, then ticked off most of Orlando.
Main Milestones I have still to do;
- Visit DLP and WDW as an adult enthusiast
- Magic Mountain
- Dubai including Formula Rossa
- Go to China
- Japan including Steel Dragon 2000
- Ride an Aquatrax
- The Beast at night
- Fury 325
- Shambhala (and the naff ferrari thing) for the European Height record
- First launched woodie
- Complete all the B&Ms in Europe, then work on the Intamins
- T Express to complete the Intamin Plug N Play collection

 

[Rachel]

Most goony thing I've ever done was join a rollercoaster forum and then meet up with a load of other goons from said forum.
I've ticked off a few I guess - Florida, gone away solely for creds, spent a weekend riding kiddie creds, asked to be let into a place for free just to ride a kiddie cred.
I think the big goal for me now is to do a road trip in the US, ticking off as many parks and coasters as I can. Probably East Coast as there's more coasters there on my "Must Do" list than anywhere else. I'll feel like I've really broken the goon barrier once I've done that.

 

[Hyde]

My biggest goon goals are just visiting those larger US amusement parks that I still have hanging out there. I do have an affinity for any historic roller coasters - we tried to catch Leap the Dips at Lakemont Park this summer, but sadly struck out due to rain.

Overall, I wouldn't say I feel like I am missing any specific goon highlights; just those fun experiences on random roller coasters that remain.

 

[Bat Fastard]

My summer vacations are planned around coasters. However, that's like most of us on here so that isn't too goony. I do plan on going to Silver Dollar City alone here in a few days possibly, just to marathon the **** out of Outlaw Run. So yeah, make a 4 1/2 hour drive alone just to ride a single ride (not really, I'd still hit the other stuff but my day would be like 80% Outlaw Run) excessively, so that could break the goon barrier.

 

[Benenen]

I think the big one is when you plan a holiday based entirely on theme parks that aren't Disney.

 

[Edward M]

I would say when I walked a mile to Central Park and paid almost $20 for a mini mouse. It was the first time I felt like this coaster thing may be going a bit far.

 

[tomahawk]

My moment was when I went to a camp out for Tatsu for the media day. Overnight with RCPro (rip) and TPR (ugh). I had been goony before, but that's still the gooniest thing I've ever done.

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[Will]

Just having a to-do list like that is in essence, fairly 'goony'

Aside from times I've had to ride kiddy coasters alone, or gone to parks alone, going to a birthday party for a rollercoaster stands out as one such 'shameful' moment for me. Having a picture with the designer and then an a heated debate with the park boss

 

[nadroJ]

Good topic!

There's a few for me. Ride every coaster is the main one, but it's not exactly an achievable goal so here's a few others:

- Visit every Disney park
- Visit Cedar Point
- Do every 'good' park in the world (and by that I mean substantial places)
- Visit Ai Pioppi
- Ride the oldest coaster in the world
- Ride the fastest coaster in the world
- Go to IAAPA
- Ride the Vekoma Stingray
- Ride the Vekoma Tilt Coaster
- Visit an Oriental Heritage park
- See Orphan Rocker
That's all I can think of off the top of my head, but I think that's a testament to how many personal goals I've actually achieved!

 

[gavin]

The actual point of no return would've been Space World about 10 years ago. I'd been to a few UK parks and all the ones in/around Seoul and had found the park guides and forums on here while bored at work and looking into local theme parks. Obviously, there was nobody at that point with jack s**t experience of Asian parks, so I was well and truly on my own with that one.

I had to do a Visa run to Fukuoka and gave myself an extra day to head out to Space World, so that was the first time I made a concerted effort to getthecredz.

In terms of "must-do", I don't really think about it that much. There are various parks/areas that I want to get to, but I don't really think in terms of checking off boxes for individual experiences. Fastest coaster maybe?

I guess I quite like it when I get a full collection of something, so maybe more of that, but that just tends to happen rather than any specific effort getting made for it.

 

[Howie]

This topic makes me feel basic.
Sure, the path to goonhood is a slippery slope and in one way or another, we're all on it.
What amazes me is, for some of you, how fast it all happens.
DelPiero for example - 33 creds in 2013, and now, 3 years later, 334! That's going some that is, kid!
And then there's the likes of Ben, Jordan and the others - still in their 20's with cred counts getting on for four figures.
I mean... whaaaat?

And then there's me. I've been at it since the day I rode Nemesis waaay back in '94, that's 22 years ago, and I've only this year cracked the big 200.
At this rate, even the likes of Chav Chris will be overtaking me within a matter of months. :-(
My only saving grace is this - I'm proud to say that I don't whore the kiddie creds. No sir. 207 creds, but not a single one of 'em is a wacky worm or a go-gator. I could jump in the car on any given weekend and go and get 20-odd creds without travelling too far from my house, but I can guarantee you that they'd all be s**t.
Nah man. I've made it this far without turning to 'The Dark Side' of goonhood, you ain't gonna change me now, ya hear me?
I'll never turn...etc.

 

[nadroJ]

This topic makes me feel basic.

That's because you ARE basic, but we like you anyway




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