The waltzers are, in my town at least, the staple of any fun-fair. For those poor souls who have never seen , much less ridden on them, I will give you a description:

First the cars. These are round booths with reasonably high sides. Imagine a cylinder about one to one and a half meters tall and around two meters wide, painted in weird purple swirls, with an open top and three fifths of it cut away at the front. Now imagine around the tall side a black padded seat, made of some leather like substance, this is the seat. In front of you is a metal rail which is hinged in such a way that it can be pulled closer to you but cannot be pushed further away unless one of the people who work at the fair (usually men in their early twenties) unlocks it. Each car holds two to four people.

There are approximately ten to twelve cars attached to a surface on a pivot, this pivot allows the cars to spin around an axis which is positioned just in front of you. This means you are flung around the outside of the axis at quite impressive speeds. The surface you are attached to is more of a conveyer belt, it is circular and moves around the centre of the ride (like the centre of a roundabout/merry-go-round over evenly spaced dips and peaks of about one to one and half meters in height.

When the ride begins you and your friends are secured in the car by the rail. The ride then begins to move, slowly at first, getting faster, around the centre, going up and down over the dips and peaks. After around one circuit one of the men working on it will come up behind your car and spin it. Suddenly the tame ride you were on becomes exhilarating, your spin increases as you go accelerate down dips and up peaks, the g forces feel huge, it is difficult to move, but it is great fun. After about five circuits the announcer will call “scream if you wanna go faster” at this point everyone screams and, true to his word, the controller makes the ride go even faster. If you close your eyes at this point you feel very much as if you are being thrown around space, going up-side down, round and round, slamming into the soft thing next to you (usually your girl-friend/little sister/brother). In fact you are simply spinning whilst going up and down whilst travelling not very fast around a central point about three meters to your right.

WARNING this ride is more nauseating than any rollercoaster I have EVER been on, not bad for a small town fair!