Height requirements

Has anyone noticed they dropped the eight requirements on some rides? I would have sworn up and down that SteVe was 56" but online its 52" and I thought Raptor was 56" also.

SV never had a 56'' requirement. It was announced with a 48'' requirement but was changed to 52'' prior to opening. As for Raptor, I believe it's always been 54'' (the standard for non-vest B&Ms).

Millennium Force opened with a 54" height requirement which was dropped to 48" in the post-season of 2000.

Iron Dragon was never at 42" so far as I know; in fact there have been very few if any rides that used the 42" height requirement. It was 46", along with Thunder Canyon and it wasn't too long ago that it went up to 42".

I think Power Tower was the first to have a 52" requirement. Now we see that on Dragster and Steel Vengeance.

What I remember is the prevalence of rides that once were '48" or accompanied by an adult'. Cedar Point also defined "adult" as someone 16 or older, as I recall. I remember being surprised when I learned that they had recently harmonized their Supervising Companion policy with ASTM F2291-19𝜀1:6.4.2.2(2) ("Meet all criteria for riding alone and be approximately 14 years of age or older.). These rides technically had no minimum height requirement and included most of the flat rides and a few other gems. Carousel, Cedar Downs, Calypso, Matterhorn, Mine Ride, Sky Ride, Western Cruise, CP&LE RR... a too-short kid could actually ride quite a lot. Not quite like Disneyland (which I think has 1 ride with an absolute minimum height requirement). I also remember the 60" height requirements on Witches Wheel and Jumbo Jet...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Millennium Force was 54 inches. There was a video about the round the clock day of Cedar Point (from the very early morning of the day to end of the night). Part of the video has the ride host with the green 54 height stick. Now it is 48 inches.

Iron Dragon was 46 inches, but it was increased to 48 before the 2014 season.

I also thought that a 60 inch height requirement was kinda odd. Some adults don't hit the 60 inch mark in their lifetimes.

Many of the flat rides have had their height requirements adjusted in different ways over the years as well. Here's the brochure from 1998 which lists many of the requirements at that time.

http://www.rollercoasterfreak.com/CP_Brochures/1998_pg_outside.jpg

Ocean Motion still has a 48" requirement, but accompanying riders must now be 39".

Matterhorn still has a 46" requirement, but accompanying riders must be 42".

Super Himalaya now has a 52" requirement, up from 46" in 1998. However, it still has no requirement for accompanying riders.

Unrelated to CP but a curiosity to me is the height restrictions of B&M's at Dollywood and Silver Dollar City. Both being 2" less than any other B&M with similar restraints.

Wild Eagle a wing coaster with vest restraints has a 50" requirement.

Wildfire a floored sitdown looper with their standard over the should restraints has a 52" requirement.

I have yet to find any other B&M outlier that doesn't have the usual 54" requirement for 52" for vests. Curious as to why these 2 coasters have different requirements, was it the parks choice? Are the restraints designed slightly but un-noticeably different? Could other B&M's such as the 4 at Point lower their requirements by 2" respectively if the park chose to?

It seems that most European B&Ms (vest, traditional, and clamshell) have a 55'' requirement. And given that Dollywood and SDC are both Herschend parks, my guess is that it just depends on preference.

^Thanks, I never checked European B&Ms, stuck mostly to coasters in the US.