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5 Disney Rides for Seniors and the Motion-Challenged
By Chuck
Jones
This topic is for those that love the Disney rides,
and particularly love the thrilling extreme rides but are unable to ride them
because of advancing age or being afflicted with a medical sensitivity to
motion. I am one of those people. I am 61 years old now, but as a young kid I
used to ride every extreme ride that came along. In Atlanta, Georgia, every fall we used to
have a big traveling carnival called the Southeastern Fair come to town for two
weeks. They had to assemble every ride
from the first plank to the last nail, and had a huge roller coaster that
seemed to teeter and tremble to the point of collapsing at every turn and
dip. But I rode that thing with vigor
and excitement too many times to count.
Then, in high school I played football and got several concussions (this
was years before they realized the danger in this that the NFL is now
fighting). The first time I decided to
do a ride after these concussions was in college. Me and three of my college buddies were
commuting back to campus one early fall Sunday night after a weekend at home,
and came upon one of those shopping center carnivals. They thought it would be great fun to stop
and do the rides, and I went along hesitantly.
The first ride was the Tilt-A-Whirl.
It was also my last ride. I told
them I was sick and had to go back and wait in the car. I barely made it to the parking lot when I
stopped and threw up so much that I swore I could taste the cranberry sauce
from last Thanksgiving Dinner. I made it
to the car and crawled into the back seat and closed my eyes. The next thing I remembered was waking up in
my dorm room bed. Somehow they had
gotten me out of the car and into the dorm.
After that, I knew I couldn’t do the thrill rides anymore, and to
further establish that, about five years ago, I was diagnosed with
vertigo. So, being 61 years old with a
history of concussions and vertigo, I have to choose my rides very
carefully. This is hard because I still
love the excitement of the best thrill rides, so I have come up with this list
of the very best ones that people like me can ride. I promise you that these rides are sure to
thrill, but not make you sick, so give them a try on your next Disney Vacation.
