Luna Park at Night

Aug 15 2026

Luna Park at Night

After our chaotic pitstop in Times Square, we came back to Luna Park in time for some sunset and night rides. We still had two coasters to knock off the list in Luna Park, and then it was time to go to the Deno’s Wonder Wheel section for the first time! If you’ve never been to Coney Island before, there are actually two separate parks that are operating there–Luna and Deno’s Wonder Wheel. Both are free to walk around, but unlike Luna Park’s ride-all-day wristband, Deno operates on a pay-per-ride system, or you can buy credits to put on a card. That’s what we did and got just enough to make sure we could do all of the coasters.

But first, we had to ride this absolute piece of shit coaster called Thunderbolt at Luna Park.

Henry failed to take pictures of us even though he was STANDING RIGHT THERE as our car came out of the station and I was making the universal “CLICK CLICK MOTHERFUCKER” motion with my hands and fingers but he just continued to stand there blankly, holding my pink purse. FAILURE.

Anyway, some things to note about this experience:

there was a full-ass extended family standing in a clump, with a discarded baby in a stroller blocking the entrance to the coaster. It was so weird! I was like, “Am I going to have to push this baby out of the way?” but we were able to just squeeze past, garnering nary a glance from even ONE member of the family. HELLO, YOUR BABY IS GOING TO GET STOLEN.
I like that some of the rides here have a little “coat check” window type thing where I person sits there and you hand them your personal items in exchange for a number on an elastic wrist band. I mean, I assume this person works at Luna Park and you’re not just handing your phones and wallets to a stranger, willy nilly.
Some kid was lost and an employee was walking him back through the queue line, BARELY calling out, “Is this your kid?” to everyone — he was probably the older brother of the discarded baby!!!
Chooch and I didn’t get to ride together because we volunteered when they were looking for two extra riders to fill up the empty seats in the car that was about to be sent. I felt rushed because of this and as soon as I sat down, I SLAMMED my elbows down hard on the restraints. Just some pre-gaming for the pain that was to come!
Literally, this ride was so terrible. The profiling of that track made no sense to me and it was jacking up my spinal integrity at every turn. I just yelled, “OW” and “JESUS FUCKING CHRIST” through the whole thing. Fuck this coaster forever. It looks so cool but it is the DEVIL’S SPAWN.

Lastly, we had to ride the Steeplechase ride. There were these two girls fucking CRYING behind us because they wanted to cut the line but their mom wouldn’t let them because Chooch and I had gone all the way to the actual entrance like you’re supposed to, even though there was no line, so their mom made them wait until we got to the front of the line before letting them dip under the railing. So they were like WE WANTED TO SIT IN THE FRONT AND NOW WE CAN’T.

In hindsight, and actually if we’re being honest, immediately after it happened, I hate myself so much for what I did, but I turned to them and asked, “Do you want the front? If so, you can have it” because Chooch and I always take the back anyway. But their little bitchy reaction was SO FUCKING ENRAGING that we should have just taken the fucking front row anyway because they didn’t even THANK US. Dumb fucking little bitch kids!!!!

Chooch was SO PISSED OFF AT ME, too. I was pissed off at myself too!! Why did I do that!?! I should have made them SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES.

The ops were so slow even though they were running two trains and Chooch was still mad at me and my hair was a fucking rat’s nest.

Then it was Wonder Wheel time! You have to pay for this separately and Henry actually bought himself a ticket too. The only thing he rode at Coney Island!!

I was so sad that we didn’t get even a torn off portion of the ticket because you know me and my journaling habits.

The line was really long but then some Wonder Wheel guy made his way through the line, calling out, “SWINGING? SWINGING?” and no one was saying anything but we were like, “YES! US! SWINGING!” and we got to completely cut the line because apparently no one wants to sit in the swinging cars. Well, we did because we’ve never been on a ferris wheel with swinging cars before!

It was a lot of fun and also legitimately scary. That was some violent rocking motion!

You can see the track of the one coaster that was actually SO GOOD—Phoenix. Just a little family suspended coaster that can sometimes be super head-bangy but this one was so smooth and legit. I loved the ride attendants too because they were so chill and had their skateboards laying in the station. They also got us super hyped to ride it too and I thought they were just psyching us out for the traumatic head-banging and lumbar bruising that was to follow. But no, it was actually so much fun and when we arrived back at the station, they were like, “DO YOU WANT TO GO AGAIN???” and we were all like, “YEAHHHHHH” and so they sent us again and when we rejoined Henry I told him they only did it because one of them said, “OMG are you wearing a Johnnie Guilbert shirt?? YOU GET TO RIDE AGAIN!” Chooch knew I was going to say this and didn’t support it.

Henry actually looked like he was about to believe it though!

The world’s largest!!

I loved this iconic dark ride! But first, when we were in line, some man in front of us picked something up off the ground and then asked me, “Did you drop this?” It was a $100 bill! I said, “Nooooo!” in a tone that was better reserved for someone holding a discarded syringe for some reason!? Like he was holding an envelope of anthrax??

Chooch was like, “WHY DID YOU SAY NO?”

Because it wasn’t mine!!!! I don’t want that bad karma hanging over my head on a weekend we’re going to be putting our lives in the hands of hopefully competent amusement park maintenance crews and ride operators!!

If I had lied and said yes, I would not have been able to sleep that night.

Although I could have put that toward my salon budget. JFC MY HAIR. This summer has bruised and abused it but don’t worry I’m finally getting it done this week. These pictures were the fire I needed under my ass.

LOL, this was SO AWKWARD. We only got on it because NO ONE ELSE WAS IN LINE. But as soon as we usurped the two front seats, suddenly EVERY PARENT IN THE BOROUGH was in line with their children, so many that they had to wait for the next train and it felt like everyone was GLARING at the two adults who took up two perfectly good seats meant for children. I was actually so embarrassed because the train just sat there forever, with more and more parents and children entering the line, it was just growing longer and longer and I was desperate for it to just START already so they could all stop staring.

Meanwhile, there was a Michael Jackson impersonator working double duty as a Tilt-a-Whirl operator. Chooch spotted him while our muscles were atrophying from sitting in wait for so long on the Sea Serpent coaster so we decided that riding teh Tilt-a-Whirl after this was a must.

But first, we had to go and look at our Sea Serpent pictures at the kiosk and it just so happened that the lady who was behind me with her kid also were looking at the pictures and I was like OMG, OH SHIT because I was in EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEIR PHOTOS.

LOOKING LIKE A FUCKING CREEP.

Like the neighborhood hoarder recluse who comes out once a year to ride things meant for small children.

That was me. In every picture. Smiling like a deranged woman looking for a child to steal for tomorrow’s stew.

Chooch was like, “HOLY SHIT YOU RUINED EVERY ONE OF THOSE PHOTOS!” and the funniest thing is that SHE STILL BOUGHT ONE.

Actually, I’m kind of glad that I gave the most hideous photobomb of my life at this moment because she was encouraging her small kid to SCREAM AS LOUD AS YOU CAN even though the kid didn’t want to, so then finally the kid was like, OK HERE SHE BLOWS and by that I mean she was referencing the fact that she was seemingly to BLOW MY HEAD OFF with the force of her shrill AF shrieks. It was like military-grade auditory weaponry. I had an instant headache after that. Worse even than ANY kpop concert screaming I’ve endured.

We left the bubble of both parks to stroll the boardwalk for a bit (actually it was to walk down to the separate carousel that was included in our Luna Park wristbands BUT IT WAS CLOSED!!!) and we saw this totally random and exotic animal chilling with its person. I have no idea what this is—COMMENT DOWN BELOW IF YOU KNOW. (lol, comment farming)

This was supposed to be Milano cookie gelato and it was gross. Chooch ended up taking most of it off my hands (after making Henry use a spoon to scrape off the layers I touched. I AM HIS MOM AND THIS IS SO OFFENSIVE TO ME).

Not pictured because Grampa Henry wandered off somewhere with my purse and phone but Chocoh and I rode the Tickler again and some kid cut us!!! It was the only time all weekend that we experienced cutting. He was probably 9 or 10, and riding alone which was even more irritating because it meant he was going to take an entire 4-seat car to himself.

While we were in line, the fireworks started so I was trying to use that distraction as a way to edge past him and reclaim our rightful spots in line, but there was a group of Korean girls in front of him who were super engrossed in the taking pictures of the fireworks (WHICH I COULDN’T DO BECAUSE HENRY HAD MY PHONE) so they weren’t moving up in line and we had no room to try and squeeze past the cutter.

Long story short, he made it all the way to the station without us being able to cut him back. Chooch was cracking up because we were being so ridiculous and passive aggressive, playing petty mind games with a child. But you guys, why am I such a softie these days—when it was his turn, the ride attendant (A SUPER CUTE YOUNG KOREAN GUY) was like, “You’re back!” and the kid totally lit up and nodded. When he was sitting in the car getting ready to go, he looked so stoked and excited and then I looked at Chooch and said, “OK, now I feel bad. This kid clearly wants to ride this way more than we do. Ugh.”

OMG this cute little girl (and you know she was charming if I am saying that!!) was in front of us in line and kept telling her mom she wanted to ask someone if she could sit with them because she was riding by herself and kept eyeing us up but her mom was like, “Just chill.” I wanted to tell her she could sit with us in a car-thingie but didn’t for some reason, I guess I used my daily allotment of “being a good person” on those two spoiled bitches on the Steeplechase and didn’t want to get burned again!

But it worked out that she and some random guy who was also a single rider needed somewhere to sit so the ride attendant brought them over to us! I asked the girl if she wanted to sit in the front and she said YES with actual excitement so I sat in the back with the random guy. It was so adorable because she was chatting away with Chooch like they were old buds and he was pointing out that Xenobia flippy ride and told her that he rode that and she was like WOW.

Props to her for riding this alone though because it flips you upside down pretty aggressively!