At present this environ seems geared more towards families and younger children, plus it contains the main amphitheater where all the headlining musical acts play. Just past the welcoming billboard you’ll find the midway splits with a shortcut to the front of the British Invasion section and the Gibson Guitar shop along the back side of the lagoon to the left, and all the rest of the action straight ahead. This plaza was also used as a stage for a BMX stunt show later in the day.
Moving forward on the left side of the midway is our next coaster, Slippery When Wet. I think this is technically part of the Kids Rock! State Park but it has a separate entrance connecting to the main midway closer to when you first enter the environ. 
Unfortunately, as with Premier’s other contribution to the park, this one was DOA. It was tested once later in the afternoon, and then continuously throughout the evening, but by that point it was getting late in the day and they clearly didn’t have attendants on standby to run it for the public, so we were out of luck. From what I heard in the park they were making some modifications to the lift hill so that operations would run more efficiently than they had during the couple of weeks it was already open for the public. This was a big disappointment as with those two coasters out of commission it basically left us with all the same attractions that were available at the start of the soft opening, which I have to admit, coupled with the light crowds this visit felt more like one of their ‘sound checks’ than a standard operating day.
The station area appeared very nice with plenty of stonework and rich, varnished wood in an open air design. There were some geysers as well as other water elements like a water curtain and mist effects along the course. I think I would have liked this as a water ride, offering more of a sprinkling of water rather than an outright drenching like many parks have their water rides do simply because they can, as spending the rest of the day wearing clinging, soaked cotton doesn’t exactly scream ‘fun times’. One thing that sets this one apart from other similar suspended water coasters is it has a fast, quiet elevator lift system that takes the cars up to surprisingly
tall heights for this type of coaster.
You will next encounter the very blue Main Street Gas & Gifts which looked to be a smaller sized gift shop featuring a photo opportunity for you to pose on a surfboard in a tidal wave. Right past that is the rest of Kids Rock! State Park, which features a mini-ropes course along with a large rock climbing wall as well as other various play structures.
Up on the right is the Born in the USA’s other roller coaster, the Shake, Rattle ‘n’ Rollercoaster. The ride is designed to look like it is on a seaside pier, set entirely above sand dunes. The queue looks like a wooden dock that’s longer than it probably needs to be but it goes in and around the coaster allowing for some more interesting perspectives. Actually being on the coaster it felt larger than it did from the ground, and the long train relative to the ride’s size makes for some different experiences if you try it front or back. The 8-car, 16 passenger train features comfortable, 
hydraulically set lap bars and individually molded seats with padding.
It starts with a left turn out of the station and into the tire drive lift hill. The first ‘drop’ is a gradual right turnaround that rises back up to cross under the lift hill to make another left turn/dip combo alongside the station. If you’re in the front of the train you’ll be nearly to the bottom of the first drop before the rest of the train catches up to you, but you’ll also get more of a push up the subsequent hills.
SR&RC feels a lot like a miniature version of the Eagles. There’s a couple more shallow turns and hills that end with a clockwise helix before sliding into the magnetic brakes. (Interestingly of all the coasters in the park the only one that doesn’t feature magnetic brakes was their most ‘advanced’, Led Zeppelin.)
Overall the ride lasts, from the top of the lift hill to the beginning of the brakes, no more that 15-20 seconds, and unlike other family coasters of this size they don’t give multiple circuits around the course, although on my first ride that morning when no one else was in the area the ride attendants did insist that I try it in the back row without having to exit and go around again.
All in all it’s probably worth a ride even if you’re not interested in riding everything just for the sake of riding everything, but don’t go in thinking there’s somehow more to this ride than what can be seen from the ground.
One final note, you may have noticed that the last row of seats on both this ride and the Eagles are just an empty platform. I believe there was a rumor that this is a “wheelchair row”, which would certainly be one hell of a scary ride if you ask anyone. That’s half-true; while they are for wheelchairs, they’re actually so that way the wheelchairs (or anyone else that needs to) can cross the tracks easily while in the station, since I think the queue lines for both of these are handicapped accessible.
Exiting Shake, Rattle & Rollercoaster you’ll find yourself in a small area known officially as KidsVille, which so far features only a mini train ride and a small children’s spinning ride. I think these were both brought in late in the construction process when park management realized they had very few mechanical rides for kids, especially when they’re paying the same price as their parents. In fact I believe this area was also home to that mysterious Zierer Flitzer that was brought in from a Jolly Roger Amusement Park in Maryland apparently also as a last minute effort to increase their ride count. Just as quietly as it appeared, it is currently nowhere to be seen. Presumably Hard Rock decided against it although I have to wonder if there’s more to the story of this 6th ghost coaster.
Further up on the left again is the area’s main eatery (you’ll notice each section contains one sit down and one walk-up eatery plus one gift shop), the Great Meals Diner. If you’ve read any other of the countless Hard Rock Park reviews floating out there on the internet you’ll know that neon sign contains a cheeky joke at night. The restaurant itself looked pretty big with plenty of indoor (and outdoor) seating room, although the menu seemed a bit too basic to choose eating here over the Rockabilly BBQ or other places. Across from the diner sporting shades and a Zippo lighter is the Liberty Kiosk which houses a mini gift shop that sells merchandise for whatever
concert is playing behind it in the Live Amphitheater. The midway also splits again, with the FunkyTown Midway and the entrance to Lost in the 70’s straight ahead and the One World Place and British Invasion off to the left.
Situated it between this cross is the all-too 80’s Love Shack Snacks which sells various kinds of sandwiches a la Subway. While I didn’t get any food there I did find out more about the park’s drink policies. Unlike most other parks that give out small cups of ice water for free, which I have depended
on many times during hot summer days, your only options are bottled water (no thanks since I prefer having the ice cubes to chew on more than the water itself) or a 22oz. cup of soft drinks for $3.75, which is the only size cup they have. If there are any good deals to be found in the food they make up for it in their beverages. Funny, since I always figured it was some sort of law that a closed gate, outdoor summertime attraction like an amusement park need to supply its patrons with some form of free water to prevent cases of dehydration, but I guess the occasional drinking fountain is enough.
The FunkyTown Midway features some interesting spins on classic games, most notably the devilishly amusing Whac-A-Boy-Band. One of the unfortunate things about these 
midway games is how rarely I ever see them in use any more, after all who would want to separate themselves from $3.00+ to only get to play
a game once, especially in this era of video games and other cheap entertainment. I’d like it if parks offered a ‘no-stakes’ way to play these games, in which the price to play is mere pocket change, but you don’t stand to win anything other than the thrill of winning (or possibly something small like a candy bar).
Continuing up on the left is the Garage Jam!, a foam ball shooting play area for the kids, and, along with Kids Rock! State Park and Maximum RPM!, constitutes one of three excessive uses of an exclamation point in a ride name. The area looked kind of fun but also somewhat lacking in balls, if you’ll pardon the expression.
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