Gabrielle Russon
Marlon Scott, a hardcore roller coaster aficionado, confessed something surprising.
He is scared of heights.
But that hasn’t stopped the Orlando resident’s quest of riding more than 1,000 different coasters across the world.
Scott is in a group of the most intense coaster fans who travel to obscure destinations to ride a wooden coaster or visit an amusement park off the beaten path.
Coasters are the ultimate escapism, said Derek Perry, a spokesman for the American Coaster Enthusiasts (ACE), the world’s oldest and biggest group of thrill-seekers with more than 7,000 members that’s helping fuel the fandom.
For May Reinert, jumping on a roller coaster brings a rush of endorphins after an emotionally taxing job as a mental health counselor helping ex-offenders in the prison system.
“In kind of a dark world that we live in, and the uncertainty of it all, we go on a coaster,” said Reinert, 42, an Orlando resident. “It just brings laughter to us. It pumps up our heart rate, or it does something. It’s like a release of all the negativity.”
So far, Reinert has ridden more than 840 different roller coasters. Any chance she gets, she plots her next visit to a theme park, driving through the night to maximize the daylight ride time hours. An invitation to a baby shower in the Midwest is turning into a road trip to hit up Kings Island and Cedar Point. And what about Dollywood?
“You never say no to Dollywood,” said Chris Kraftchick, Reinert’s friend, who often joins her on her coaster adventures and is also a fellow ACE member. “That kind of sets us apart. … We might hit three, four or five states in one trip. … We don’t do anything on vacations, typically, unless it includes a lot of roller coasters.”
Kraftchick, an Orlando technology consultant, tracks his roller coaster rides (more than 650 different ones) on a spreadsheet that breaks down the unique styles and the memorable moments. What makes a coaster great is when it has the “unfettered speed where once it leaves the lift hill, it just goes nonstop,” he said.
Outside of ACE, not everyone in their lives understands their love for theme parks or wants to tag along to feel g-forces. “So we refer to them affectionately as the bag holders,” Kraftchick quipped.
For Scott, his love of parks brought him to Orlando, where he landed the ultimate job working for the biggest theme park company in the world. Scott, 64, is a stage tech at Disney World and works behind the scenes on the theme parks’ shows.
In his off time, he leaves Orlando and vacations to see the other parks around the country and the world.
Scott’s next big target is Six Flags Qiddiya City in Saudi Arabia that is constructing what’s supposed to be the world’s longest, tallest and fastest coaster, estimated to reach up to 155 mph. The park is scheduled to open later this year.
“It is the craziest roller coaster I will probably see in my lifetime,” Scott said.
Already checked off Scott’s list are traveling to Japan, China, Denmark, Finland, and even a spontaneous trip and last-minute visa to Russia.
Scott also visited Texas, which is an ACE hotspot home to a large contingent of devoted coaster enthusiasts. Out of more than 7,000 ACE members worldwide, about 550 are from Texas and the South Central region. They are among ACE’s most active members, regularly meeting at events in the parks, Perry said.
Scott compared it to regular people meeting up for bowling leagues. That’s just what they do for fun and camaraderie, he said.
Scott’s fandom began at about 13 years old when he rode his first big coaster at the 1974 World’s Fair in Spokane, Washington.
“I screamed so loud, my voice changed,” Scott joked. “I was fascinated by them at the same time. … That feeling of butterflies in the stomach as you rose out of your seat was just a sensation that I’ll never forget, and I wanted to repeat it over and over again.”
Back in a pre-Google, pre-social media, pre-influencer world, a young Scott learned about theme parks the old-fashioned way: He wrote them letters. It was like a kid writing notes to Santa Claus. And the parks wrote him back. They sent him brochures and pictures, snapshots of the new rides that only fueled Scott’s curiosity. It made him desperate to visit these places someday.
Now an adult, he is living his dream. Scott holds passes to all the major parks in the country.
His favorite places are the old-school amusement parks, especially those running rickety wooden roller coasters. The adrenaline and whipping through the air takes him back to being a kid again.
“It’s wrapped around childhood nostalgia … when thrills were small, but were big in your own mind,” said Scott, who earned the name “Happy Hour” at Fun Spot America because he snuck in coasters regularly after work. He often stopped by between errands and grocery store trips for a coaster.
Last year, he spent his birthday visiting San Antonio and going to Six Flag Fiesta Texas, home of the “Iron Rattler” designed by the beloved Rocky Mountain Construction, the same manufacturer that converted Iron Gwazi at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay.
Scott was excited to ride and pay homage. “We tend to laud coaster designers and builders like people who celebrate artists,” Scott said.
The Iron Rattler, with wooden supports and a steel track, ascends to a rock quarry as high as nearly 180 feet in the air, then whips passengers on fierce turns, topping at 70 mph.
“For me, it was Iron Rattler 100%,” Reinert said when asked which ride casts a dominating presence at the park. “When you actually got on it, and you were kind of going around that quarry wall, it was like, I don’t know, nothing I could ever describe.”
The Floridians also visited the city’s other major park, SeaWorld San Antonio, which is owned by an Orlando-based company that’s been aggressively opening new thrill rides across its parks for years. Scott rode another gem: the Texas Stingray. Scott described it as not too rough, but a nice and smooth wooden coaster with plenty of thrills. It was another coaster to add to his tally.
Riding coasters has been his excuse to travel and explore new cities, so he also saw the Alamo and The Pearl, San Antonio’s hip new downtown redevelopment, and Hotel Emma, the upscale hotel that’s become a favorite watering hole for locals. The city is developing a foodie reputation for its famous Tex-Mex and award-winning chefs opening local restaurants and cafes.
Scott, Reinert and Kraftchick aren’t alone in their coaster trips. These days, it’s becoming increasingly common for theme park fans to travel and explore different other areas of the country. That’s especially true after a recent industry shake-up when rivals Six Flags and Cedar Fair merged last Summer, said Dennis Speigel, a parks consultant at International Theme Park Services.
Now, Six Flags sells an all-park pass good for not only all of its parks, but also the legacy Cedar Fair parks too. United Parks and Resorts also sells a national pass good for its SeaWorld properties around the country for under $400.
“So for those real fanatical theme park goers, they will travel. We’ve seen that for years, particularly with the ACE-ers,” Speigel said.
Speigel points to the global boom of theme parks, as more than 340 million people visited parks last year.
“We’re still the most wholesome form of family entertainment on the planet, where the family can still go as a unit and enjoy it all together,” Speigel said.
Scott, leery of heights, said his hobby has pushed him to be braver as he ventured around the world in pursuit of more dizzying thrills.
“Maybe it’ll give me a little bit of a scare,” he said of his next adventure. “And, you know, nowadays, a scare is good.”
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Editor’s note: Florida Politics recently visited San Antonio’s theme parks this Summer with other travel writers on a press trip sponsored by Visit San Antonio.
