The Small Blue Tube That Saves Your Summer: A Complete Guide to Cooling Gel for the Rollercoaster Queue

The Particular Misery of the Amusement Park Line

There exists, in the catalogue of human sufferings one accepts voluntarily, few experiences quite as peculiar as the rollercoaster queue in the month of July. One has paid a considerable sum, one has driven perhaps two hours with the children arguing in the back seat, one has arrived at the park with the enthusiasm of a person about to do something magnificent, and then one discovers that the magnificent thing requires standing for ninety minutes on hot asphalt behind a family from Antwerp whose smallest child is screaming about a lost stuffed rabbit. The sun does its work upon your neck. The air does not move. The metal railings radiate a heat that one feels through the fabric of one's trousers. And the little screen at the entrance indicates, with a cruel optimism, that the wait is still forty-five minutes. It is in this precise moment, when the enthusiasm begins to curdle into regret, that the cooling gel becomes not a product but a philosophy of survival.

What This Gel Actually Does Upon the Skin

One must understand, without entering into the vocabulary of laboratories and white coats, what happens when one spreads this gel upon one's arms or one's neck. The sensation is immediate and rather astonishing. The gel contains substances, most often menthol extracted from mint plants or eucalyptus oils, which create upon the surface of the skin a feeling of cold that is, in truth, not cold at all. The skin is not made colder in the way an ice cube would make it colder. Rather, the gel awakens certain small receptors in the skin that send to the brain a message saying: here, there is freshness, there is a breeze, there is relief. The brain, which is a rather credulous organ when it receives such signals, believes the message entirely. One feels cool. One feels, in fact, as though someone has opened a window in a room where the heating was set too high. The effect lasts between twenty minutes and one hour, depending upon the product and the thickness of the layer one has applied.

Choosing the Correct Product for the Queue Situation

It would be a mistake to believe that all cooling gels are identical, that one simply purchases whichever tube is nearest the checkout at the pharmacy. The products differ considerably in their intensity, their duration, their texture, and their suitability for the particular circumstances of an amusement park. One must think about several things before making the choice. Will one be in direct sun or beneath a covered queue structure? Is the skin of the person who will use it sensitive, prone to reddening? Does one require a product that can be reapplied many times without leaving a sticky residue upon the hands, because one will be gripping metal safety bars within the hour? These questions matter more than one might suppose, and the difference between a good choice and a poor one is the difference between a pleasant cool sensation and a sticky discomfort that makes the waiting feel longer rather than shorter.

The Ritual of Application: How One Does This Properly

The application of the cooling gel is not a matter one should rush, standing already in the queue with the sun beating down and the children pulling at one's sleeve. The ideal moment is just before one enters the line, perhaps in the shade of a tree near the attraction's entrance, or even in the car park if one is organised. One takes a quantity roughly the size of a large coin for each forearm, a similar amount for the back of the neck, and a smaller portion for the temples if the heat is truly aggressive. One spreads the gel in gentle circles, not rubbing with force as one would with a sun cream, but smoothing it so that it forms a thin, even layer. The cold arrives within ten or fifteen seconds. One should resist the temptation to apply too much at once, because an excessive quantity does not prolong the effect but rather creates a sticky film that attracts dust and feels unpleasant against clothing.

Timing and Reapplication: The Strategy of the Long Wait

For those queues that stretch beyond the hour, and in the high season at the great parks they stretch well beyond it, a single application will not carry one through to the boarding platform. One must think in intervals. The first application happens before entering the line. The second, if the sensation has faded and the heat has become again oppressive, happens roughly twenty-five or thirty minutes later. One should keep the tube or the spray in a small bag that one carries at the waist or across the chest, not buried in a rucksack at the bottom of which one must rummage while the queue advances and the person behind one sighs with impatience. A small insulated pouch is not a foolish investment, because the gel itself, if it sits in direct sun in one's pocket, becomes warm and loses a portion of its effectiveness before it even touches the skin.

The Small Errors That Ruin the Experience

There are mistakes one observes, summer after summer, in the queues of Plopsaland or Walibi or the great parks further south, and they are always the same. The first is to apply the gel after one has already put on sun cream, without waiting for the sun cream to absorb. The two products mix upon the skin and create a white, greasy paste that is neither protective nor refreshing. One must wait at least ten minutes after the sun cream before applying the gel. The second error is to apply the gel to skin that is already irritated by the sun, reddened and hot to the touch. The menthol, in this case, does not soothe but stings, and the pleasant cold becomes an unpleasant burning that one must endure for several minutes. The third error, and perhaps the most common, is to forget that the gel is not a substitute for drinking water. One cools the skin from outside, yes, but the body still requires its litre and a half of liquid in a day of such heat, and no tube of gel will replace the simple act of drinking from a bottle at regular intervals.

A Practical List for the Bag One Carries Into the Queue

Since one cannot bring the entire bathroom cabinet into the amusement park, it is useful to establish what truly belongs in the small bag for the waiting line. The cooling gel or spray, naturally, in a format of one hundred millilitres or less so that it does not weigh heavily. A small bottle of still water, not sparkling, because the bubbles sit uncomfortably in the stomach when one is about to be thrown upside down at speed. A folded cotton handkerchief, which serves to wipe the hands after application and to dab the forehead if the gel has not yet been applied. A small handheld fan, the kind one finds in every tourist shop for two or three euros, which works in concert with the gel to extend the sensation of freshness. And finally, a sealed plastic bag in which to place the tube once it has been used, because a gel-sticky tube rolling about among one's belongings is a small misery one does not need added to the larger misery of the wait.

The Question of Children and the Cooling Gel

One hesitates, as a parent, before applying any product to the skin of a child, and this hesitation is healthy and correct. For children below the age of six, the strong menthol gels are not appropriate, because the sensation is too intense for their more delicate skin and they will cry and believe they are freezing, which ruins entirely the good humour one was attempting to preserve. For children of six and above, the gentler formulations with aloe and a small quantity of eucalyptus work very well. One applies a smaller quantity than for an adult, roughly half, and one avoids the face entirely, keeping to the arms and the back of the neck. One should test the product at home, the evening before the excursion, upon a small patch of the child's inner arm, to verify that there is no reddening or discomfort. This takes thirty seconds and saves one a very unpleasant scene in the queue where the child, instead of being cooled and contented, is scratching and wailing.

The Final Minutes Before Boarding

There is a particular moment in every rollercoaster queue when the line begins to move quickly, when one sees the station platform ahead and hears the mechanical clanking of the cars being loaded, and the excitement returns and one forgets entirely the heat and the waiting and the small sticky residue of gel upon one's forearms. This is the moment when the cooling gel has done its true work. Not because it made the temperature lower, for it did not. Not because it changed the duration of the wait, for the wait was the same whether one suffered or did not suffer. But because it permitted one to arrive at the boarding platform in a state of reasonable calm, with the children still speaking to one, with the shirt not entirely damp, with the small dignity of a person who has managed a difficult situation with a small blue tube and a bit of forethought. The rollercoaster itself will last two minutes, perhaps three. The queue lasted an hour. It is the hour that one must survive, and it is the hour that the gel makes bearable. One boards the car, one pulls down the safety bar, one feels the last trace of coolness upon one's neck as the chain lift begins its slow ascent, and one thinks: yes, this was worth the planning. The small tube in the bag has done what it was meant to do. The summer has not defeated one. One is, in this small and specific way, victorious.