Coasting And Karting In Florida
To round out my review of Florida attractions (see parts 1 and 2), there are just a couple more to mention. On Tuesday, we returned to Boomers to try out a couple of things we’d missed the previous week. The first of these was the wooden roller coaster, the largest of its kind in Florida. As we approached, I could see the weathered planks of wood and it looked like it had been there for centuries. However, it turned out that the Dania Beach Hurricane was opened in 2000, so it’s much newer than it looks.
Riding the Dania Beach Hurricane
There were only three of us on that first roller coaster ride, so I sat at the front with my daughter as it rolled slowly out of the station. Our excitement soon turned to terror as the coaster inched up an incline then shot down the other side. It just didn’t feel that safe. Yes, we were locked in the usual manner, but everything rattled, and there was far too much room to bounce about in our seats. In fact, it felt like we could go flying into the air at any second. There were a couple more of those twists and turns before we returned to the station. Unfortunately, the guy in charge had offered us back to back rides (because we’d had to wait a bit), so off we went again. At this point, my hubby and daughter left the coaster, and I took the third ride alone (I didn’t want to throw the offer back in his face). As I tottered out, I decided I’d had enough of roller coasters to last me quite a while, something with which we all agreed.
Our other Boomers experience was much more fun. As well as the small karting track we’d seen the previous week, there was a full sized track on the other side of the road, full of twists and turns. There were parent and child karts, so my daughter rode with her dad while I chose to go it alone. It took a while to get used to the track, but once I’d done a couple of circuits, I was able to go hell for leather, and even managed to overtake them on a tight bend. This is an experience everyone in the family can enjoy.
Go-karting at Boomers, Dania Beach
To round out the week, we went to the Rapids water park, about an hour’s drive up I95 from our hotel. Again, it was virtually deserted, so we could take our pick of rides without spending too much time in lines. The worst ride was the one where somehow we fell out of our raft and ended up underneath it. We were only in three feet of water, but we didn’t know that as we were literally in the dark. The best family ride was the Big Red, where you shoot through a tunnel on a raft in the dark, then emerge into a big bowl, swirl round a couple of times, then go down another slide before blasting out into the pool. For adrenalin junkies, the best ride is the Pirate’s Plunge, two twisty yellow slides where you plunge through dimly lit narrow tunnels and breathtaking speeds. By the time you reach the end you are gasping. Well worth the ride.
Tags: Attractions, dania beach attractions, Destinations, florida attractions
September 29th, 2009 at 4:31 am
[...] has been an interesting month. I’ve spent a lot of it visiting first Florida and now New Jersey, but today my travel will be virtual, as I look at some of the posts that caught [...]