Description: Of all the brilliant ideas I have ever had, going on the roller coaster at NY/NY after eating dinner probably wasn’t the best one. But the kid in me just could not resist the thrills on the tracks after hearing the high-pitched screams of the patrons as they whizzed by overhead.
The roller coaster at NY/NY operates until late at night making it a nice evening diversion from typical Vegas gambling activities. Their hours are seasonal I believe, but when I was there in November it was open until midnight. However, I would not go on this if you just ate or have already imbibed a bit. This roller coaster may not seem like much from outside views, but it really whips around.
The roller coaster ride itself is short, but exciting. In the 3-4 minutes that it lasts it manages to overturn riders several times, imposes several different directional forces, and shows a spectacular view of the strip before plunging down a steep incline. My hair was definitely a bit wind-blown upon getting off and made me wish that I hadn’t spent so much time getting ready for our evening out.
The most annoying part of the roller coaster experience at NY/NY was perhaps finding the roller coaster experience entry. First you have to go into the casino to find the boarding area. Once inside, the signs that point to the direction of the coaster seem to become fewer as you get close to where you’re supposed to go. This is probably an intentional business strategy of the casino to confuse patrons and encourage them to gamble on the way to the coaster. The staircase that you go up to get to the amusement park area looks like it might be the wrong way, but is it how we eventually got to where we wanted to be.
Once you do find the path to the roller coaster, it’s a fun trip. The carnival-style games and arcade-like alleys lead you to the waiting line. The amusement park atmosphere is slightly cliché, but fun nonetheless. All the typical games are there- the mechanical claw, the whack-a-mole, and skee ball are all accounted for.
For $14 per person you can take a single trip on the coaster, or for about $30 per person you can buy a pass to ride all day (or all night) long. When I visited there was about a 20-person-long line waiting to board and it only took about 10 minutes for everyone waiting to get a chance to ride. This was later in the evening on a Friday, but I would expect that it wouldn’t be that long during other times as well.
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