Hey all, I had the idea for this thread after a recent ride experience that made me emotional for all the right reasons. What I want to ask, is what was you most emotional/significant roller coaster experience? I’ll start:
A couple days ago, on May 27th, 2025, I had the most emotional experience on a roller coaster since the dreaded day of September 7th, 2009. For those of you who aren’t familiar, that was the last day ever the Big Bad Wolf was operational.
This was my first visit to Kings Island, that was not part of Winterfest (so therefore I did not get the full coaster experience the first time). My party had other priorities so it took a bit before we got to mine.
After we had managed to ride quite a bit, it was finally time for me to experience The Bat. It had been a rainy day which reminded me so much of that fateful day in September 2009, and the memory of that day came rushing back—the 3 hour wait and the tears. I may have been 5 when it closed, but it was my first ever roller coaster, and the ride that made me into an enthusiast. That memory is a memory that never leaves someone. And I finally got to ride another arrow suspended coaster, sixteen years after my last ride on the legendary Big Bad Wolf.
As I walked up the line, I could see the coaster peeking through the trees, so much like the Wolf. I started hearing a distant howl, like the spirit of the wolf was with me for this ride. As I got closer and closer, and saw more of the ride, the happier I got that this goal that seemed so close yet so far, was finally about to be achieved. I got up to the station, and naturally, I went to row 13 (second to last). When the gates opened I started tearing up knowing I was finally about to ride another arrow suspended coaster. I stepped into the vehicle and sat down, and immediately my final ride on Big Bad Wolf was replaying in my head. I pulled down my restraint, and while waiting for the operators to check it, I looked down at the cars. The cars I’d last known sixteen years prior, felt so familiar even though it seemed a distant memory.
We got dispatched and the slow climb to top began. It felt like an eternity, my heart beating out of my chest, and my tears quickly coming. They were tears of joy, however, as the ride was healing 5-year-old me. I was devastated the day the Wolf closed, and I still sometimes wish it hadn’t had to close. We crested the lift and made the right hand turn with a light swing, that sensation giving the same feeling wolf’s prelift gave.
With the (mostly) wooded and very secluded nature of the ride, it really felt like I was traveling at the speed of fright again. We start dropping, and as I’m in the back, I got a gentler version of wolf’s final drop swing in the back. We hit the turn at the bottom of the drop and I was fully crying at that point. I couldn’t hold back. The swinging, speed, and the trees felt so much like home in a way, because It was like reliving a core memory again. Then we hit the big left-hand u-turn over the station, giving some awesome swinging and then diving back down for even more high speed swinging. The whole time I have a huge smile on my face and giggling despite crying tears of joy.
We speed through the turns and helix, and then we hit the final couple hills, where the swinging is most prominent. The sensation of being on the wrong of the track as the track banks to the other side is such a unique feeling and it truly was like I was back in the original Big Bad Wolf train, doing the finale all over again. The train hit the brakes and I was no longer crying tears of joy, but rather the happiness was so great I could no longer cry, but simply smile. To finally have been able to (sort of) travel at the speed of fright again, it made an already unique ride even better. And mind you, this was in the daytime.
My nighttime ride was just as fantastic, but even better because of the secluded and wooded setting of The Bat, you couldn’t see anything, and that’s part of what made the wolf such a memorable ride experience. Night rides were on another level and The Bat provided a very similar experience. My night ride took place in the front row which made it that much more memorable.
If you’d told 5-year-old me that he’d be able to experience traveling at the speed of fright again 16 years later, he’d have said you’re crazy. But now? 5-year-old me has been healed, and that core memory from 16 years ago will live on, freshly reignited.
Picture because, yeah.
A couple days ago, on May 27th, 2025, I had the most emotional experience on a roller coaster since the dreaded day of September 7th, 2009. For those of you who aren’t familiar, that was the last day ever the Big Bad Wolf was operational.
This was my first visit to Kings Island, that was not part of Winterfest (so therefore I did not get the full coaster experience the first time). My party had other priorities so it took a bit before we got to mine.
After we had managed to ride quite a bit, it was finally time for me to experience The Bat. It had been a rainy day which reminded me so much of that fateful day in September 2009, and the memory of that day came rushing back—the 3 hour wait and the tears. I may have been 5 when it closed, but it was my first ever roller coaster, and the ride that made me into an enthusiast. That memory is a memory that never leaves someone. And I finally got to ride another arrow suspended coaster, sixteen years after my last ride on the legendary Big Bad Wolf.
As I walked up the line, I could see the coaster peeking through the trees, so much like the Wolf. I started hearing a distant howl, like the spirit of the wolf was with me for this ride. As I got closer and closer, and saw more of the ride, the happier I got that this goal that seemed so close yet so far, was finally about to be achieved. I got up to the station, and naturally, I went to row 13 (second to last). When the gates opened I started tearing up knowing I was finally about to ride another arrow suspended coaster. I stepped into the vehicle and sat down, and immediately my final ride on Big Bad Wolf was replaying in my head. I pulled down my restraint, and while waiting for the operators to check it, I looked down at the cars. The cars I’d last known sixteen years prior, felt so familiar even though it seemed a distant memory.
We got dispatched and the slow climb to top began. It felt like an eternity, my heart beating out of my chest, and my tears quickly coming. They were tears of joy, however, as the ride was healing 5-year-old me. I was devastated the day the Wolf closed, and I still sometimes wish it hadn’t had to close. We crested the lift and made the right hand turn with a light swing, that sensation giving the same feeling wolf’s prelift gave.
With the (mostly) wooded and very secluded nature of the ride, it really felt like I was traveling at the speed of fright again. We start dropping, and as I’m in the back, I got a gentler version of wolf’s final drop swing in the back. We hit the turn at the bottom of the drop and I was fully crying at that point. I couldn’t hold back. The swinging, speed, and the trees felt so much like home in a way, because It was like reliving a core memory again. Then we hit the big left-hand u-turn over the station, giving some awesome swinging and then diving back down for even more high speed swinging. The whole time I have a huge smile on my face and giggling despite crying tears of joy.
We speed through the turns and helix, and then we hit the final couple hills, where the swinging is most prominent. The sensation of being on the wrong of the track as the track banks to the other side is such a unique feeling and it truly was like I was back in the original Big Bad Wolf train, doing the finale all over again. The train hit the brakes and I was no longer crying tears of joy, but rather the happiness was so great I could no longer cry, but simply smile. To finally have been able to (sort of) travel at the speed of fright again, it made an already unique ride even better. And mind you, this was in the daytime.
My nighttime ride was just as fantastic, but even better because of the secluded and wooded setting of The Bat, you couldn’t see anything, and that’s part of what made the wolf such a memorable ride experience. Night rides were on another level and The Bat provided a very similar experience. My night ride took place in the front row which made it that much more memorable.
If you’d told 5-year-old me that he’d be able to experience traveling at the speed of fright again 16 years later, he’d have said you’re crazy. But now? 5-year-old me has been healed, and that core memory from 16 years ago will live on, freshly reignited.
Picture because, yeah.
