Wild or Mild?

Why take your family to the amusement park to ride on roller coasters that are going to leave you and your 8-year-old puking on the exit ramp afterward?

The wild is being replaced by the mild.

Amusement parks once staked their livelihood on drawing would-be thrill seekers to their hot new roller coasters. Bigger. Steeper. Faster. These rides had more loops than a corkscrew, wringing your adrenal gland out like a wet sponge.

Not anymore. Hair-on-fire rides may create big buzz at theme park gates, but they often leave people feeling nauseous or carry height restrictions that prevent little junior from riding. Rides creating sick and marginalized kids aren’t exactly what Mom and Dad were hoping for after paying $200 to get the family in for a day of amusement.

So theme parks are attempting to become more young family-focused. Consider a couple of the newest rides that were released last year.

Hershey Park in Pennsylvania unveiled a real thrill-crawl in Reese’s Xtreme Cup Challenge, sponsored by the peanut-butter and chocolate confectioners. This ride-game combination features 8 Xtreme sports competition zones where riders shoot...