Asking me to be critical about Walt Disney World is like asking me to breathe: it’s something I’m going to do anyway. So when Estelle and Melissa at This Happy Place and Mouse on the Mind, respectively, asked me to play along in this week’s round of Kill Refurb Marry, it was a no brainer. Be critical of WDW, you say? What took you so long to ask!

Today’s topic is thrill rides, and the general premise for the uninitiated is this: you pick one ride you would kill, one you would refurbish, and one you would marry (so to speak). It’s basically armchair Imagineering, and it’s awfully fun – give it a try and let us know your thoughts. Here are my picks:

Kill:

Primeval Whirl. Okay, technically this barely qualifies as a ride, let alone a thrill ride, but I think it nods in that direction and therefore I think it’s fair game for a takedown. Truthfully, if I’m singling out a wild mouse coaster I could also have easily killed Space Mountain, but it lives another day on account of nostalgia. Primeval Whirl just sucks. It’s ugly, only mildly thrilling, and nausea producing. It’s also in a terribly themed area of Animal Kingdom, so I’m knocking it down a peg for that, too. Full disclosure: I’ve never been on Primeval Whirl, and I never will be on it. Kill it now, kill it good and dead.

I’m barfing just thinking about this ride.

Refurb:

Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster. After visiting WDW for several years with someone who was quite thrill ride averse, I rode RNR in November for the first time since maybe 2008. After screaming my head off hurtling from 0 to 60, I quite enjoyed myself..for maybe ten seconds. This ride is just too short. Double – or better yet – triple the length of this ride and we’ll have ourselves a ballgame. But as it is, it’s a bit like being with a lover who finishes a tad too quickly. Oh, have I said too much?

It feels a little like cheating to pick RNR for my refurb pick, because the fix is simple: same premise (okay, maybe we could find a new band that isn’t Aerosmith. But if we keep Aerosmith, I’m okay with that, too.), just lengthen the existing ride to something for which it’s worth waiting 80 minutes in line. RNR has the potential to be very thrilling. Truly! But as a kid who grew up on the real roller coasters you find at a place like Cedar Point, RNR just doesn’t hit the mark as a very thrilling thrill ride.

I searched through five years of photos and can’t find a single photo I’ve taken of RNR. You get this seasonally appropriate photo of Duffy instead.

Marry:

Twilight Zone Tower of Terror: Listen, I hope you’re ready to listen to me wax romantic about this attraction for the next couple of hours. Oh, yes, I could do it. Trust me. I’m in love with this ride.

Maybe it’s because when I was in college, five of my friends and I went on a WDW trip together in the month of January, back when WDW actually had a slow season. The parks were dead. It was also cold, which further suppressed the crowds. All this is to say, two of my friends and I went to MGM one night a couple of hours before closing time, and we rode TOT over..and over…and over again. For our last ride of the night, a very nice cast member named Vin (ahh, Vin) gave us our own elevator, and helped position us most effectively for the best possible on-ride photo. It remains to this day maybe the only on-ride photo I’ve ever purchased.

Or maybe it was the time that my aunt, cousin, and I rode together and schemed about how to get the most interesting ride photo. My cousin, a very talented athlete and cheerleader, decided to showcase her flexibility by lifting her feet up in the air when it was time for the photo. We didn’t realize it at the time, but this was a big no-no, and we ended up stopped in the elevator shaft, suspended in eerie silence for several minutes. The fear was palpable, and it was one of the best rides on TOT ever. (Of course, my cousin got a friendly talking to at ride’s end, but totally worth it.)

Or perhaps it’s that my grandmother and I share a deep love of this ride, and of Disney, and that feels special. I know, I know, I’ll stop with the sap.

Whatever the reason, I can’t get enough. From the thoughtful themeing to the typically-really-in-character Cast Members to the incredible physical sensations of being pulled both downward and upward faster than the speed of gravity, I remain over the moon about Tower of Terror. Pro tip: riding a few times after consuming a Brown Derby Lounge martini flight is even more fun. Do with that what you will.

Come to mommy.