Carousel Craziness
For a couple of years when my girls were small we bought season tickets to a farm park near to where we live. This has pigs and cows and the types of general farmyness that you would expect, plus some small rides and bouncy things to keep those of short stature and matching attention span amused.

Now at August bank holiday or on the first fine weekend in April the place is absolutely rammed but on a cold February afternoon only those who are truly desperate to distract their kids, or who have already foolishly paid for the whole year, ever attend. Falling into both categories we huddle our way around for a while feeding goats and chickens and, somewhat bizarrely, alpacas before the girls want a ride on the carousel. The farm is such a desert that nobody is manning the rides that day and we have to ring a bell and wait for a staff member.

Eventually some kid slouches up and we are assaulted by flashing lights and the sound of a knackered barrel organ as the 30-or-so seater carousel bursts into life. The girls mount their favourite badly-painted chimeric nightmares and after casting around forlornly for any other riders our joyful helper starts the ride.

Now one ride on this pedestrian, shuddering musical abomination would be ample for most right-thinking humans but children have a different sense of amusement to most of us and the girls want to ride this thing again and again. The rules require, however, that each time the ride ends they are ordered off their chosen genetic atrocity and forced to run around and "join the end of the queue". Obviously, during the dozen or so rides that they indulge in, not a single other soul is seen, far less risks losing their place on their favourite monster, but each time the girls dash around the ride to the entrance again only to re-occupy the still-warm seat that they have just vacated.

Why? Really. Just why?
( Ugi , it's a game of give and cake, Fri 28 Mar 2014, 12:55, 6 replies)

So you let your kids make the rules?

( BraynDedd Natasha Kaplinsky's labia majora, Fri 28 Mar 2014, 13:09, closed)

Not usually
The rules imposed by the operator required that the kids dismount, run pointlessly around the ride and re-occupy the same spot in order to "give others a chance to ride". Sorry if that was unclear.
( Ugi , it's a game of give and cake, Fri 28 Mar 2014, 13:13, closed)

Although, to be fair, it probably saved them from freezing to death.
( Ugi , it's a game of give and cake, Fri 28 Mar 2014, 13:14, closed)

You would deny your kids the fun of running round the queue guides
as fast as they can (on a cold day) and getting back on again?
What sort of monster are you?
( joefish It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks, Fri 28 Mar 2014, 18:05, closed)

My sister and I
...had a very similar experience at Alton Towers in 1980. Although, to be fair, the Corkscrew did have 2 other kids around that day and they would scamper zig-zag fashion through the wiggly queue barriers while we rode, and vice-versa.
( Amish Information Systems hates misplaced, commas, Mon 31 Mar 2014, 13:48, closed)

Sounds like a good arrangement!
Daft though these petty rules are, theme parks are a lot of fun when they are nearly deserted!
( Ugi , it's a game of give and cake, Tue 1 Apr 2014, 10:22, closed)