Theme Park Karma Strikes Again!

I have an interesting history with theme parks. At first I thought the randomness/weirdness was limited only to Disney (see here and here for examples of what I'm talking about), but on Saturday, I discovered that it extended to Universal's Islands of Adventure as well.

I love theme park rides, but I've always had this fear of getting stuck on one, particularly during a part in which I'm hanging upside down, going down a steep hill, going up a steep hill, or at the top of the highest part of the ride. So when my friend Arleen and I got stuck on the Jurassic Park river ride, I was a little concerned. To be fair, the ride is pretty calm, the most exciting part being the drop at the end, but what had me worried was that it stopped a few feet before we dropped. I automatically assumed it was experiencing technical difficulties, and was a little uneasy at having to go through with the drop after it just broke down. I mean, what's to stop it from breaking down again while we're in mid free fall? I could just imagine the scenario: going over the edge and being in that moment where you experience a bit of weightlessness, your heart jumping into your throat. All of a sudden, there's a loud SCREEECH! and the ride comes to a jolting stop, slamming you forward into your lap bar. You get the wind knocked out of you, and find yourself staring straight down to the bottom of the pool, feeling like you're going to fall out of your seat, and white-knuckle the lap bar like it's the only thing separating you from death.

Okay. That might sound a little far-fetched, but still. I wasn't looking forward to going down a drop right after the ride had just (presumably) broken down. Being the awesome friend that I am, I couldn't keep these worries all to myself; I had to bring someone else into my world of irrational fear. So I voiced my concerns to Arleen, whose face then clouded over with anguish as she considered possibilities that had never even crossed her mind before I opened my pie hole.

Luckily, when the ride started back up after about thirty seconds or so, we went over the drop without any problems, and continued our theme park journey. It was at The Hulk roller coaster where we got another surprise. It was our second ride on that coaster and we were in the second row. We had just boarded and were about to buckle up, when the employees manning the ride told us we had to get off briefly. Turns out there was a "Code 5" (hand to God, they used that phrase), which meant that someone puked in the first row. Not only was the puker in the first row, he (or she) was in the seat directly in front of Arleen. We frantically checked our clothes for any sign that we had sat in splash-back, and watched as workers cleaned up the first row, filling a whole trash bag with Code 5. We held our breaths to see if they and their cleaning equipment would migrate to where we had been sitting, but luckily our row was bypassed. However, we still had to sit out that particular trip while the first two rows aired out.

Theme park karma. Gotta love it. Until next time...