Matt N

Sorry to double post, but I think it's time I did the 3rd and final part of this... today, I'll be investigating: Which coaster selections emphasise quantity over quality and which coaster selections emphasise quality over quantity? Now I'll digress that this one is possibly harder to measure statistically, but it was one I was interested to find out, so I still decided to give it a go! I used 3 different measures to try and work this out. The first measure I used was to work out the median:mean ratio, as it always appeared to me as though a higher median denoted a more consistently strong selection (thus more of a quality focus), while a higher mean denoted a less consistently strong selection (thus more of a quantity focus). To work this out, I simply did median/mean, and the results were as follows (to 2sf)... Top 5 "Quantity over Quality" (Median/Mean) Ranking Park Number of Scoreable Coasters Median/Mean (2sf) 1 Movie Park Germany 8 0.73 2 Freizeit-Land Geiselwind 5 0.74 3 Walibi Rhone-Alpes 5 0.74 4 Mirabilandia 8 0.76 5 Plopsaland 7 0.76 Top 5 "Quality over Quantity" (Median/Mean) Ranking Park Number of Scoreable Coasters Median/Mean (2sf) 1 Flamingo Land 5 1.4 2 Thorpe Park 7 1.2 3 Parque Warner 6 1.2 4 Liseberg 5 1.2 5 Heide Park 8 1.2 The second measure I used was to work out the mean:count ratio, because a park having a high or low mean relative to their coaster count would surely denote whether their coaster selection is quantity over quality or quality over quantity, no? One slight flaw with this method is that any theme park with more than 10 scoreable roller coasters automatically gravitates towards "quantity over quality" by default because you cannot have a mean above 10, although one could argue that having a coaster count of more than 10 makes you quantity-focused to a certain extent anyway... To work this out, I did mean/count, and the results were as follows (to 2sf)... Top 5 "Quantity over Quality" (Mean/Count) Ranking Park Number of Scoreable Coasters Mean/Count (2sf) 1 Freizeit-Land Geiselwind 5 0.27 2 Wiener Prater 10 0.34 3 Movie Park Germany 8 0.48 4 Blackpool 10 0.48 5 Bobbejaanland 8 0.49 Top 5 "Quality over Quantity" (Mean/Count) Ranking Park Number of Scoreable Coasters Mean/Count (2sf) 1 Liseberg 5 1.5 2 Grona Lund 6 1.2 3 Parque de Atracciones 5 1.1 4 Toverland 6 1.0 5 Walibi Holland 6 1.0 The final measure I used was to repeat the same process as above, but using the median instead of the mean. To work this out, I did median/count, and the results were as follows (to 2sf)... Top 5 "Quantity over Quality" (Median/Count) Ranking Park Number of Scoreable Coasters Median/Count (2sf) 1 Freizeit-Land Geiselwind 5 0.20 2 Wiener Prater 10 0.35 3 Movie Park Germany 8 0.35 4 Mirabilandia 8 0.40 5 Gardaland 8 0.43 Top 5 "Quality over Quantity" (Median/Count) Ranking Park Number of Scoreable Coasters Median/Count (2sf) 1 Liseberg 5 1.8 2 Walibi Holland 6 1.2 3 Grona Lund 6 1.2 4 Parque Warner 6 1.1 5 Parque de Atracciones 5 1.1 So, what did we learn from today's analysis? In terms of which park emphasises quantity over quality most; I think we can conclude that Freizeit-Land Geiselwind is the European winner for this, winning 2 out of 3 measures and coming 2nd in the only one it didn't win. And it won the measures it did win by some distance! In terms of which park emphasises quality over quantity most; I think we can conclude that Liseberg is the European winner for this, winning 2 out of 3 measures and coming 4th in the only one it didn't win. And as with Geiselwind, it won the measures it did win by some distance! That brings us to the end of our analysis of European coaster selections. I hope you've enjoyed my little look at the continent's coaster selections using data analysis techniques; I know I've certainly found crunching the numbers interesting! Although if you'd like me to ask any more questions about this dataset, then feel free to give me a suggestion and I'll happily do it for you! This won't be the last time you see me do one of these, though... I'm hoping to dive into North America's major coaster selections next, so keep your eyes peeled for that at some point in the not-too-distant future!

I'd say Thorpe is definitely a one-day park myself unless you're seeking absolutely copious amounts of re-rides, and even they might be possible in one day if you visit on an off-peak weekday. Even when not quite spending a full day on park on a peak day, I can usually get all 5 of the big coasters done at least. On most days, even peak days, I can often get all 5 coasters done with a reride in on 1 or 2 of them and 1 or 2 filler rides as well. In terms of where to start; I'd recommend the Stealth/Inferno type area. I've tried Swarm, Saw/Colossus and Stealth/Inferno in the past, and Stealth/Inferno is easily the one that has worked best for me, from experience. Those 2 rides were dead, and I got 2x Stealth, 1x Inferno and 1x Detonator in within the first hour. With Saw/Colossus, on the other hand; I joined a 40 minute Saw queue at 10am when I tried it, and Colossus was no shorter. Swarm is often quite busy in the mornings, from my experience, although it also tends to have Thorpe's highest coaster throughput, which helps. I can only speak from my own experiences, however; I don't know whether this varies at all.

Hi guys. I was curious to know; have any of you ever had any theme park related dreams? I only ask because I had a very weird theme park dream last night that I couldn’t not share… Basically, it revolved around my first day at Europa Park, which is coming up in real life in 6 days’ time. And it was one of those dreams where every little thing was stopping me from getting into the park and riding any rides… but far from a regular one. Buckle up, because this dream is weird… Things got off to a good start after a wonderful sleep in Hotel Castillo Alcazar (actually, I’m not sure what hotel it even was… it certainly didn’t look like Castillo Alcazar), but then we went down into the hotel lobby… where I was greeted by my study skills tutor from university, who was armed with a cricket bat and a huge black bin bag. She then proceeded to whack me around the head repeatedly with the cricket bat and throw me into the bin bag… When I finally woke up from being knocked out by repeated cricket bat wounds, my study skills tutor had taken me out of the bin bag, and I found myself in a room that looked bizarrely like the House of Commons if it didn’t have any MPs in it. She then threw me onto one of the green seats and threw an exam paper in my face before informing me that I had to resit A Level Maths for some reason, and I wasn’t allowed into the park until I’d passed. I then started doing the exam, but for some reason that I can’t quite remember, she then came and kicked me out of the room for “acting up” before throwing me into my own private room and restarting my timer from the beginning, even though I’d completed a fair chunk of the exam. The exam was fairly plain sailing after that, but when I got out of the exam, I wasn’t allowed to leave the House of Commons-style room, as it got stranger… two team members from TowersStreet Talk then appeared out of nowhere and informed me that it was time for my “Forum Member’s Review”. They sat me down at this table where I was facing them directly, and then they began to spend a long time grilling me on my past forum posts. I don’t remember exactly what they said, other than that it started with them going “We’ve been looking through your post history… and my god, you’re a moaner!” before then shaking their heads and tutting at me in perfect unison. I don’t remember what they said after that, other than that it was definitely about my previous post history, but for some reason, my mum then appeared and reprimanded me for being rude to the two TS team members. And I again can’t remember what I did… it just came seemingly out of nowhere. After that, I finally found myself in Europa Park… except as is typical for dream theme parks, it looked nothing like I’d imagined it would. I started in this tiny indoor area with Victorian style windows and a tiny little house to navigate your way around to get into the park. It had corridors that were barely wide enough to fit me in them, and it was an absolute maze to navigate my way through. I did eventually get through it, but for some reason, my grandparents (who aren’t even coming to Germany with us in real life) then appeared out of nowhere, and we spent a few minutes exchanging pleasantries. By this point, my enthusiast anxiety was most certainly rising, and it was close to closing time. I then exited the maze with my grandparents… which led us to a massive muddy field that had Silver Star randomly plonked in the middle of it. I yelled “OH MY GOD, IT’S SILVER STAR!” and then started sprinting like I’ve never sprinted before. My grandparents initially tried sprinting with me, but then they told me to leave them behind, as they were too tired. My foot fell into a giant rabbit hole while I was sprinting, and I twisted my ankle very badly (much more badly than you’d expect for merely getting your foot stuck in a rabbit hole, for some reason), but I kept running (albeit in a rather haphazard way, and certainly not straight… I felt like I was going to keel over any second due to my ankle pain). I was very close to reaching Silver Star’s queue entrance… but then in typical theme park dream fashion, I woke up. I know it sounds weird, but that’s exactly what happened, word for word… have you ever had any theme park related dreams?

If Swarm’s old plaza audio has returned and the new station audio has stayed, then perhaps controversially, I actually think that would be my ideal Swarm music scenario, as I preferred the old plaza audio to the new one bought in last year, but I thought the new station audio was awesome!

Out of interest, is Thorpe going back to the older families market as well as teenagers & adults with their recent moves? It appears to me as though things like the playground and roaming entertainment are geared towards a younger audience than the park has targeted for the last few years, but I could be wrong there…

Thanks for the post @Inferno; I really appreciate it! I’m studying Computer Science at the University of Gloucestershire. I am starting to get a little more used to it now, although I’ll admit that rightly or wrongly, I do still tread through my course and assignments with a certain degree of trepidation. In terms of asking for help; I do often drop my lecturers an email if I need to know something for an assignment or whatever, and they always seem happy to help, but I’ll admit that I’ve never been the most forthcoming in asking for help, particularly in university what with the big onus on “independent learning”. In terms of the employment thing; I’m getting quite mixed messages about that. We were told by the employability team at the university that graduate jobs often require at least a 2/1 (albeit not always), whereas my dad, who works in a big company in a position where he deals with interviewing university graduates for jobs, said something similar to you about how the exact grade of the degree isn’t really taken into account when looking at a CV and assessing someone’s eligibility for a job.

Right; sorry to triple post, but I think it's about time I did Part 2 of this! And for Part 2, I'll be exploring... What coaster selections in Europe are the most and least consistent? Now I should clarify that this is not wishing to determine consistent strength, but merely consistency on its own, which can work both ways. So, let's dive straight in! To work this out, I used two different types of range. The first measure I used was the range between the highest and lowest ratings, which is a very simple measure where you merely subtract the lowest value from the highest value (Range = Highest Rating - Lowest Rating). The top 5 most and least consistent using that method were as follows: Top 5 Most Consistent (Using Range) Ranking Park Range Mean Rating (out of 10) (to 1dp) Number of Scoreable Coasters 1 Freizeit-Land Geiselwind 2.5 1.4 5 2 Efteling 3.9 6.5 8 3 Grona Lund 4 6.9 6 4 Flamingo Land 4.4 3.1 5 5 Skyline Park 4.7 4 5 Top 5 Least Consistent (Using Range) Ranking Park Range Mean Rating (out of 10) Number of Scoreable Coasters 1 Energylandia 10 5.7 11 2 Walibi Holland 9.8 6.2 6 3 Walibi Belgium 9.4 4.9 9 4 Mirabilandia 9 4.2 8 5 Plopsaland 8.9 5 7 The other measure I used was the interquartile range between the quartiles (IQR = Upper Quartile - Lower Quartile), which should provide a better gauge of the selection's general consistency and not be too swayed by one particularly highly or lowly rated ride. The top 5 most and least consistent using IQR were as follows: Top 5 Most Consistent (Using IQR) Ranking Park Interquartile Range Mean Rating (out of 10) Number of Scoreable Coasters 1 Blackpool 1 4.8 10 2 Freizeit-Land Geiselwind 1.1 1.4 5 3 Alton Towers 1.3 7.3 9 4 Liseberg 1.4 7.6 5 5 Grona Lund 1.7 6.9 6 Top 5 Least Consistent (Using IQR) Ranking Park Interquartile Range Mean Rating (out of 10) Number of Scoreable Coasters 1 Walibi Rhone-Alpes 6.3 4.5 5 2 Parque Warner 5.9 5.5 6 3 Plopsaland 5.8 5 7 4 Movie Park Germany 5.8 3.8 8 5 Parc Asterix 5.7 5 5 Finally, let me once again reference the boxplot from Part 1, for a visual aid to show this off: Let me once again remind you of the order the parks are in, from left to right: Alton Towers Thorpe Park Blackpool Pleasure Beach Phantasialand Liseberg Walibi Holland Energylandia Plopsaland de Panne Walibi Belgium Europa Park PortAventura Parque Warner Madrid Parque de Atracciones de Madrid Efteling Bobbejaanland Toverland Movie Park Germany Heide Park Hansa Park Flamingo Land Tripsdrill Parc Asterix Gardaland Mirabilandia Djurs Sommerland Farup Sommerland TusenFryd Linnanmaki Bellewaerde Nigloland Skyline Park PowerPark Grona Lund Wiener Prater Walibi Rhone-Alpes Freizeit-Land Geiselwind In terms of how you can visualise the ranges; you can see the range as the difference between the extreme ends of the plot, and the IQR can be visualised as the difference between the ends of the coloured rectangle in the middle. So, what have we learned from this part of the investigation? Firstly, I think I can declare Freizeit-Land Geiselwind the winner for consistency in Europe; it scored very highly on consistency using both measures! Even if the selection isn't the most highly rated, it's certainly consistent if nothing else! Secondly, I found it odd how besides Geiselwind, the results varied drastically dependant on the measure applied. Some parks did appear again besides Geiselwind (for instance, Grona Lund was quite consistently strong by both measures), but many others only appeared in the top 5 for one or the other. But overall, I think my data has concluded that Freizeit-Land Geiselwind is the winner for most consistent in Europe. And for least consistent, I think I can conclude that Plopsaland de Panne actually wins that one, as it is the only park to appear in the top 5 least consistent for both measures. I hope you enjoyed discovering which coaster selection is Europe's most consistent (according to the data) in part 2! Part 3 (which I'm thinking may be the final part) will be coming soon...

Hi guys. In a Thorpe Park trip report thread I was just reading over on CoasterForce, Serena from CoasterForce made this really interesting post: “Okay, I'll bite. Families with young children who go to Thorpe Park simply don't do their research. It's not the parks fault if they have a disappointing day. It's like going to a vegan restaurant and moaning there's no meat options. If you look at their marketing, Thorpe don't bill themselves as a family park. It's almost always groups of young adults / teens in their photos. That's their target demographic, clearly. When talking about "what is there to do for families" at Thorpe - I also think we forget that many older kids love thrills. When I worked there last year, the majority of the best feedback was from 10 - 13 yr olds loving the big coasters. Again, families who do their research and bring thrillseeking kids over 1.4m in height will likely have a fantastic time. So when we ask: what is there for families to do - the question is too broad. What type of families? Families with 4yr olds? 8yr olds? 11yr olds? The southern UK Merlin park trajectory for families is clearly intended to be Legoland then Chessington then Thorpe. Thorpe isn't a massive cater-for-all place like Alton Towers, in the same way that Chessington and Legoland aren't there to cater for thrillseekers. We don't criticise Chessington for having no thrilling rides. So why do we criticise Thorpe for having a small selection of tame rides? Parks that are only 30 miles apart are supposed to be different from each other and have contrasting ride offerings. It's a bit like critising a horror movie for being too scary. Thrills are the purpose of Thorpe, that's why they're building the UKs tallest coaster. And families with thrillseeking 1.4m kids will LOVE it. As will the majority of their teenage / young adult / groups of mates clientele too. Celebrate it for it's purpose.” Now I didn’t just cite Serena’s post for no reason. To a degree, I do agree with her, and her post did get me thinking; why is it that thrill parks often don’t seem as successful, and often receive a lot of stick compared to parks that go solely for young families, for instance? Why is it that enthusiasts constantly bemoan the fact that Thorpe lacks family rides, but never bemoan the fact that Legoland and Chessington lack thrill rides? And why is it that thrill parks often seem to struggle compared to solely family-focused parks? Why is it that thrill parks aren’t simply accepted as another genre of theme park with a different target market in the same way as children’s parks are, and are often told that they need to change and appeal to young families more? I’ll admit I’m a bit stumped, and I’d be intrigued to know your thoughts. I’ve often heard it said that families have more disposable income and money to spend on park than thrill seekers, but the more I think about it and the more I hear, the less I agree with that statement. As another poster in that same thread mentioned when I raised that point, a lot of families visiting the Southern Merlin parks are working off of a tight budget; many of them will be MAP holders who visit on a regular basis with their own packed lunches and don’t buy any merchandise or extra goodies, and even if they aren’t MAP holders, many families are on a tight budget, and whatever they buy on park will naturally cost more due to an increased group size, thus possibly deterring them from making the spend. The park gets no money at all from those MAP guests, and less money from those types of families even without MAPs. With thrill seekers, on the other hand; while there are of course plenty of thrill seekers who fit the description of “MAP holder who visits every weekend and doesn’t spend any money”, this audience might have less of a tight budget for a theme park day, and things will naturally cost less for them due to them usually paying for less people than a family group, so they might be more inclined to spend that little bit of money on in-park food, for instance. Yes, I know that a big family group would generate more money per purchase than a smaller thrill seeker group or single thrill seeker, but if the families aren’t making those purchases and the thrill seekers are, then the smaller thrill seeker purchase is financially preferable to the non-existent family purchase. As Serena also says, thrill seekers and families are not necessarily mutually exclusive groups, so that makes the struggle of the thrill park all the more interesting. What do you guys think? P.S. Here’s the thread I’m referring to, in case you’re interested: https://coasterforce.com/forums/threads/thorpe-park-how-crap-is-it.45495/

Hi guys. I was reading a Merlin-bashing thread over on CoasterForce earlier, and I noticed a really interesting series of posts that a poster made in that particular thread talking about their recent trip to Alton Towers, in which they made numerous comments inferring that Alton Towers is not an especially relaxed park visit for them: The full series of posts I'm referring to begins here: https://coasterforce.com/forums/threads/wtf-merlin.38748/post-1132260 Their post really inspired me, and it got me thinking about some of the more relaxed and more stressful theme parks I've ever been to. So with that in mind, my question to you today is; what are the most relaxed and most stressful theme parks you've visited? What parks feel like a nice Sunday stroll, where you're as chilled as you can be? What parks feel really stressful to be in (for any reason)? I'll get the ball rolling with my choices... For most relaxed, I'm going with Paultons Park. We visited this park during the summer holidays, yet we surprisingly got on 14 rides within a park day of a little over 6 hours. And that was with at least 2 hours of that, possibly getting on for 2.5-3 hours, spent not riding anything; I can't remember exactly, but my photo history from the day suggests that we spent a good hour just aimlessly strolling about taking in the surroundings, we spent a good hour eating a sit-down meal in the Tornado Springs restaurant, and we probably spent another solid 30 minutes in downtime when you add on the good few minutes we spent having drinks and cakes outside Cobra while we watched the ride go round, as well as the stroll we had through the gardens later in the day. We got in a pretty incredible ride count (my second highest ever!), yet it never once felt like we were rushing; the whole park just felt so relaxed and stress-free to be in the whole time we were there! For most stressful, I'm perhaps controversially going to go with Disney's Magic Kingdom. Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely park, but I wouldn't say I felt overly relaxed in there at all. I can't pinpoint one particular thing that made me feel this way, but there were a number that could have contributed. The sheer crowd levels in the park made me feel pretty anxious; it feels like you're packed in there pretty tightly, and I felt like I had to remain hyper-aware of where I was stepping for the entire time I was there. Queues were sometimes pretty long (often approaching, or even at times exceeding, 2 hours), and I felt like I was slightly rushed trying to get on everything, although FastPass+ was admittedly a big help here. And something about the whole atmosphere made me feel a bit stressed, and I can't quite place my finger on what. For some reason, I'd also say that MK felt more stressful than even the other 3 Disney parks; I'm not even sure why, it just did for some reason. But what are the most relaxed and most stressful theme parks you've visited?

Right; apologies for the double post, but I decided to have another go at Part 1. But this time, I did what some people suggested and calculated the mean and median using only the park's 3 top-rated coasters. When I did this, the results were as follows (to 1dp): Mean Park Mean Rating of Top 3 (1dp) Energylandia 9.6 Phantasialand 9.5 Liseberg 9.4 Walibi Holland 9.3 Alton Towers 8.8 Europa Park 8.8 Plopsaland 8.6 Parque Warner 8.6 Toverland 8.5 Heide Park 8.4 Median Park Median Rating of Top 3 (1dp) Energylandia 9.8 Phantasialand 9.6 Mirabilandia 9.6 Liseberg 9.4 Walibi Holland 9.3 Toverland 8.9 Hansa Park 8.7 Europa Park 8.7 Tripsdrill 8.6 Parque Warner 8.6 I hope you find that interesting! I promise that is the last time I will faff around with part 1... part 2 will be coming soon! Do you guys have any questions you'd like me to try and answer using this dataset? I've got a couple in mind of my own, but I'm happy to take suggestions!

I did wonder why Detonator felt less forceful than Venom at WMSP, in spite of it being the same ride type… didn’t stop me from riding it twice on my last visit, though, and it also doesn’t stop it being my favourite Thorpe flat and quite possibly one of my favourite overall Thorpe rides! I love a good drop tower, and I’ll admit that I have a definite soft spot for those Fabbri towers…

Nemesis’ retrack has been approved: https://riderater.co.uk/9610/nemesis-rollercoaster-track-replacement-approved/?fbclid=IwAR06_AdjQ5o75HJOLzcl08ypB1zF9al4PomaYMItoRvMKqtuPCm66eAE9gc Great news!

Land clearing has started for the B&M Surf Coaster: I can’t wait to see what this is like!

I played around with altering the Matt N formula. I tried doing three alterations. Altered Matt N Formula 1 The first altered Matt N formula I tried was as follows: Altered Matt N Formula 1: Score = (Highest rating + upper quartile)^2 + (Lowest rating + lower quartile) I squared the bracket containing highest rating + upper quartile in an attempt to give the higher ranked coasters slightly more weight. And the results were... Ranking Park Altered Matt N Formula Score Original Matt N Formula Score Rank with Original Formula Change 1 Phantasialand 3646.7 191.7 2 +1 2 Liseberg 3612.7 188.2 3 +1 3 Alton Towers 3524.5 196.9 1 -2 4 Grona Lund 3049.4 183.2 4 0 5 Efteling 2747.1 164.5 5 0 6 Europa Park 2297.3 141.4 6 0 7 Toverland 2279.2 128.8 7 0 8 Tripsdrill 2029 120.2 8 0 9 Djurs Sommerland 1933.9 112.8 9 0 10 Parque de Atracciones 1620.7 110.3 10 0 Altered Matt N Formula 2 And the second formula I tried was: Altered Matt N Formula 2: Score = (Highest rating^2 + upper quartile) + (Lowest rating + lower quartile) I squared the highest rating to try and make that have more of an impact, and the result was as follows: Ranking Park Altered Matt N Formula Score Original Matt N Formula Score Rank with Original Formula Change 1 Alton Towers 1085.2 196.9 1 0 2 Phantasialand 1060.5 191.7 2 0 3 Liseberg 1033.3 188.2 3 0 4 Grona Lund 975.2 183.2 4 0 5 Efteling 792.4 164.5 5 0 6 Europa Park 767.8 141.4 6 0 7 Toverland 677.6 128.8 7 0 8 Djurs Sommerland 620.3 112.8 9 +1 9 Tripsdrill 609.3 120.2 8 -1 10 PortAventura 577.4 94.5 11 +1 As you can see, doing those first two formulas changed... very little. I then decided to consult a final alteration... Altered Matt N Formula 3: Score = (Highest rating + Upper quartile)/2 For the final formula, I eliminated the lower ends of the coaster selection entirely, focusing only on the highest rating and the upper quartile. I calculated the mean of these two values so as to gauge an average quality of a park's "top" coasters. The results were as follows: Ranking Park Altered Matt N Formula Score Original Matt N Formula Score Rank with Original Formula Change 1 Liseberg 9.6 188.2 3 +2 2 Walibi Holland 9.5 82.3 15 +13 3 Phantasialand 9.5 191.7 2 -1 4 Energylandia 9.3 61.1 19 +15 5 Plopsaland de Panne 9 57.3 20 +15 6 Alton Towers 9 196.9 1 -5 7 Toverland 8.9 128.8 7 0 8 Hansa Park 8.9 87.6 13 +5 9 Parque Warner 8.8 49.6 26 +17 10 Djurs Sommerland 8.6 112.8 9 -1 Interesting to see how things change quite a bit when the lower coasters are removed from the equation... Phantasialand and Liseberg remain in the top 3, but for the first time, Alton Towers has been ousted from the top 3, landing at #6 when only their top coasters are concerned.

Sorry to double post, but I had a thought while in the shower this morning about these results and why they might have been so weird when I applied my own formula. As much as I tried to make high ratings and low ratings carry equal weight in terms of how a coaster selection is rated, I failed to take into account some real-life bias that exists when evaluating coaster selections by doing that. That real-life bias is that enthusiasts naturally gravitate more towards highly rated rides when evaluating a park’s coaster selection, whereas my formula assumed that highly rated and lowly rated would be equally weighted in the minds of enthusiasts, which isn’t really how it works. For instance, this formula assumes that removing Viking Roller Coaster from Energylandia and removing Zadra from Energylandia would have exactly the same level of impact on the rating of its coaster selection. However, I’d wager that most enthusiasts would see Energylandia’s coaster selection quality as being far more impacted by the removal of Zadra than by the removal of Viking Roller Coaster. As such, I’ll play around with an altered version of the Matt N Formula when I get some time later today, one that weights the score more towards the higher rated rides, and see what I come out with.

Disclaimer: This post is extremely long, and if you don't like data analysis and geeky maths talk, I'd suggest you run for the hills and don't look back, because this post has quite a bit of it! Hi guys. There are a lot of theme parks in Europe, as well as a lot of roller coasters. So naturally, people (myself included) tend to ask questions like “which park has Europe’s best roller coaster lineup?” or “which parks are quality-over-quantity and which parks are quantity-over-quality?”, amongst others. As such, while it’s not really a discussion thread as such, I thought it might be fun to try to take a quantitative look into some of these questions and try to answer them using some data science techniques. So join me as I attempt to perform a quantitative, multi-part analysis of Europe’s major coaster selections! I'll split my investigations into a couple of posts, one for each question, to make it a little more digestible. Before we start, let me set out a few prerequisites and explain some of the facts regarding the investigation… Prerequisites of the Investigation I am using the coaster ratings on Captain Coaster (https://captaincoaster.com/en/) as of March 2022 to perform this investigation. If you look at each ride’s page on CC, it has a % score out of 100; this is what I have used and converted into ratings out of 10. For the rating out of 10 of a ride, I converted the percentage into a rating by dividing by 10 (so for instance, a ride rated 87% would have an average rating of 8.7/10). Building upon the ratings stuff; all ratings are rounded to the nearest 0.1 (so to 1dp). As a rule of thumb of what’s considered major, I went with; to be considered, a park must have 5 scoreable roller coasters. If you’re wondering why I get so specific in saying “scoreable roller coasters”, it’s because Captain Coaster does not score what it considers to be “kiddie coasters”, so not every ride in a park's lineup is scored. As such, this means that parks with 5 kiddie coasters wouldn't be eligible for this investigation; my rule ensures that a park in the study has 5 family/family thrill coasters, at the very least. It also doesn't score rides where the ridership is too low, but that doesn't really affect this investigation; even the newest major coasters in Europe like Ride to Happiness and Kondaa were ridden enough to be scoreable. However, one inconsistency is that Captain Coaster has a somewhat inconsistent definition of what it considers a kiddie coaster. For instance, things like the Steeplechases at Blackpool are considered kiddie coasters, but Blue Flyer in the same park, which I personally would consider a kiddie coaster, isn't. The site also has rides listed on it that some probably wouldn't count as roller coasters, but some do, such as SuperSplash at Plopsaland and Fuga de Atlantide at Gardaland. I just decided to go with the site's scores and the rides that the site scored, as even though I could calculate the mean rating of some unscored rides, I don't think CC's scoring system only uses mean rating, as I seem to remember it being mentioned that members' rankings are also factored in, so me attempting to meddle with CC's system risks introducing bias and skewing the data the wrong way, which you definitely don't want in a data investigation. However, I did think this was something I should raise before we begin. The most important prerequisite of all is that the results of this investigation are not necessarily the final answers to the questions I raised in my introductory paragraph by any stretch. All of this still comes entirely down to personal opinion, of course. Right then; I think that's everything, so let's dive into the dataset... The Dataset When applying my criteria and thinking of parks in Europe that might qualify for this, as well as searching through RCDB just to check that I hadn't missed any obvious ones (as it turned out, I had missed a few on the first check...), I came out with approximately 36 theme parks to analyse in total, with 253 scoreable roller coasters between them. The theme parks being studied are as follows, with the number of scoreable roller coasters each park has being listed in brackets: Alton Towers, UK (9) Bellewaerde, Belgium (6) Blackpool Pleasure Beach, UK (10) Bobbejaanland, Belgium (8) Djurs Sommerland, Denmark (6) Efteling, Netherlands (8) Energylandia, Poland (11) Europa Park, Germany (12) Farup Sommerland, Denmark (6) Flamingo Land, UK (5) Freizeit-Land Geiselwind, Germany (5) Gardaland, Italy (8) Grona Lund, Sweden (6) Hansa Park, Germany (6) Heide Park, Germany (8) Linnanmaki, Finland (8) Liseberg, Sweden (5) Mirabilandia, Italy (8) Movie Park Germany, Germany (8) Nigloland, France (6) Parc Asterix, France (5) Parque de Atracciones de Madrid, Spain (5) Parque Warner Madrid, Spain (6) Phantasialand, Germany (8) Plopsaland de Panne, Belgium (7) PortAventura Park, Spain (8) PowerPark, Finland (6) Skyline Park, Germany (5) Thorpe Park, UK (7) Toverland, Netherlands (6) Tripsdrill, Germany (6) TusenFryd, Norway (5) Walibi Belgium, Belgium (9) Walibi Holland, Netherlands (6) Walibi Rhone-Alpes, France (5) Wiener Prater, Austria (10) I think that just about covers everything, but if you feel I’ve missed an obvious one, then don’t be afraid to tell me. Let's move on to some fun stuff now... I'll start analysing some different common questions and see what answers I come out with. I'll use this first post to do... Which European theme park has the strongest coaster lineup? Let's start with the big one; which European theme park has the strongest coaster lineup? There are many different ways you could measure this, but I'll start with the simplest one; the mean coaster rating of each park... Mean Coaster Ranking of each Park If I look at the Explore function of this spreadsheet, the top 10 highest mean ratings come out as follows: Ranking Park Mean Rating out of 10 (to 1dp) Number of Scoreable Coasters 1 Liseberg 7.6 5 2 Phantasialand 7.5 8 3 Alton Towers 7.3 9 4 Grona Lund 6.9 6 5 Efteling 6.5 8 6 Toverland 6.3 6 7 Walibi Holland 6.2 6 8 Tripsdrill 6.1 6 9 Europa Park 6.1 12 10 Djurs Sommerland 6.1 6 Those certainly aren't the answers I'd have expected, I'll admit, but that's what the data says for that particular method. However, it should be said that the mean is far more easily swayed by outliers in any particular direction than some other methods (for instance, it's very easily swayed by one coaster rating much more highly or lowly than the others on average). Let's explore a different method... Median Coaster Rating of each Park Instead of using the calculated average (mean), I'm going to be using the median, the middle-ranking value for each park, this time. Using Google Sheets to explore the median values instead of the mean, the top 10 median values are as follows: Ranking Park Median Rating out of 10 Amount of Scoreable Coasters 1 Liseberg 8.9 5 2 Alton Towers 7.7 9 3 Phantasialand 7.7 8 4 Walibi Holland 7.2 6 5 Thorpe Park 6.9 7 6 Grona Lund 6.9 6 7 Parque Warner Madrid 6.3 6 8 Heide Park 6.3 8 9 Tripsdrill 6.3 6 10 Toverland 6.2 6 Interesting to see that we have quite a few differing results when we change to the median; in spite of the top 3 staying consistent, 4-10 have actually changed a fair amount! I guess the median is possibly a better gauge of a consistently well-rated coaster selection than mean, because it isn't as easily swayed by one particularly highly rated or lowly rated attraction. But at the same time, it also doesn't really take into account those more highly rated or lowly rated coasters either; if a park's highest rated coaster is rated more highly than a median of 7/10, for instance, it makes no difference whether it's an 8/10 or 10/10. With that in mind, I have concocted my own formula (of sorts) that I think offers the best of both worlds... My formula for coaster selection quality The formula that I propose seems to me like a good way to take into account both a park's highly rated coasters and the consistent quality of their selection. It is as follows: Matt N's Formula for Coaster Selection Quality: Score = (Highest rating + upper quartile)*(Lowest rating + lower quartile) Now I don't know if I've got my assumptions 100% correct here, but my assumption was that the use of the highest rating and lowest rating would ensure that any standouts at either end are adequately accounted for, but the use of the quartiles would ensure that the consistency of a park's coaster selection is also accounted for, and that the two metrics cancel each other out and make the playing field level. The higher the score, the higher the rank. Using the Matt N Formula, the top 10 was as follows: Ranking Park Matt N Formula Score Upper quartile Lower quartile Highest rating Lowest rating Amount of Scoreable Coasters 1 Alton Towers 196.9 8.4 7.1 9.5 3.9 9 2 Phantasialand 191.7 9.2 7.1 9.8 3 8 3 Liseberg 188.2 9.4 8 9.8 1.8 5 4 Grona Lund 183.2 7.7 6 9 5 6 5 Efteling 164.5 8.2 5.3 8.5 4.6 8 6 Europa Park 141.4 7.3 4.9 9 3.8 12 7 Toverland 128.8 8.5 4.9 9.2 2.4 6 8 Tripsdrill 120.2 8.1 5.3 8.8 1.8 6 9 Djurs Sommerland 112.8 7.9 5.3 9.3 1.3 6 10 Parque de Atracciones de Madrid 110.3 7.1 4.9 7.6 2.6 5 I'll admit those aren't the results I expected, and I know they probably look a bit weird to some of you, but that is what the data came out with. So, in conclusion... Well, that produced some interesting data! I'll admit that the results weren't quite what I was expecting, but I do think they make sense when you look at the data. In terms of the answer to the initial question of "what is Europe's highest rated coaster selection?"; even though the parks in the top 10 for each method varied, the top 3 stayed consistent every time, and that top 3 was Liseberg, Phantasialand and Alton Towers. In terms of an order for those top 3; I'd probably go with something like this based on the data: Liseberg (won 2/3) Alton Towers (beat Phantasialand in 2/3, while Phantasialand only beat Towers in 1/3) Phantasialand However, I should stress that just because my data analysis put these parks on top, that is not "the correct answer" to the question by any stretch. As with most things, it all boils down to your own personal opinion and personal preference. You might think these results are hogwash, and that's fine; your personal answer to this question is entirely down to your opinion. Before we end, here's the Google Sheet with my calculations, for your viewing pleasure: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_GaPx5r61Qlv7Irka92VrjFbQy-nhiJYRjeAOkNyDE8/edit?usp=sharing And here is the dataset shown in visual form using a boxplot, coded in Python using MatPlotLib, Seaborn and Pandas (Python libraries). This shows the median, upper quartile, lower quartile, highest value, lowest value and any outliers (values more than 1.5 times the interquartile range from the upper or lower quartile) for each park: I know that the x-axis is a bit of a jumbled mess, so let me clear up the order in which the parks appear so that you can more clearly see which park's boxplot is which. The boxplots appear in the following order, from left to right: Alton Towers Thorpe Park Blackpool Pleasure Beach Phantasialand Liseberg Walibi Holland Energylandia Plopsaland de Panne Walibi Belgium Europa Park PortAventura Parque Warner Madrid Parque de Atracciones de Madrid Efteling Bobbejaanland Toverland Movie Park Germany Heide Park Hansa Park Flamingo Land Tripsdrill Parc Asterix Gardaland Mirabilandia Djurs Sommerland Farup Sommerland TusenFryd Linnanmaki Bellewaerde Nigloland Skyline Park PowerPark Grona Lund Wiener Prater Walibi Rhone-Alpes Freizeit-Land Geiselwind So, I hope you found my first dive into European coaster selection data interesting! I'll certainly be answering more questions about this dataset at some point in the near future; I've got some ideas of my own, but I'm also happy to accept suggestions from any of you of questions you'd like answering. I apologise for the ridiculously long post, I hope you find this interesting, and if you have any questions or feedback, or if anything isn't clear, then don't be afraid to ask me!

Sorry to double post, but the videos are now in properly. I apologise, as I didn’t embed them properly earlier.

Right then; sorry about the long wait, but the first area of Sinister Springs is finally ready! So without further ado, let me welcome you all to… Sinistra’s Lair: I’ll confess that I struggled a little with this area. The entrance area of a park, regardless of how you tackle it, has to be quite all-encompassing, and effectively has to summarise your entire park in one area. With a thematic archetype as broad as horror, I’ll admit that was quite tough. I opted for a crypt-style building style, with bits such as skeletons and gargoyles around the area, but there are so many other ways I could have tackled it, and I’ll admit that finding stuff to fill the space was quite hard in areas. That’s besides the point, though; I hope you like it! Now, Sinistra’s Lair has 4 attractions (well, 3 if you amalgamate the 2 that are different experiences of the same ride type together), and they are as follows: Sinistra’s Spine-Tingler, an S&S 4th dimension coaster themed as Sinistra's most terrifying torture device. The ride is 237ft tall, reaches 79mph and has 3,751ft of track. The ride’s story is as follows: “Now Sinistra has you under her spell, she’s ready to give you your first physical test. And she feels that her Spine-Tingler is the perfect way to test you. It’s a torture device that provides the ultimate endurance test, separating the strong from the weak… and alas, some are too weak for the Spine-Tingler, but that’s a sacrifice that Sinistra is willing to make. The Spine-Tingler feeds off the flesh of its victims… survive, and prove your true strength, or die trying, and become its next meal. It’s time to show Sinistra how much you can take… live or die, make your choice.”: I also filmed a POV and some cinematic shots: I apologise for the slightly janky track profiling in places... I smoothed it, but those bits wouldn't budge. Sinistra’s Hellraiser, an S&S Screamin’ Swing. The ride is themed as a torture device giving you a taste of hell, and has a timed special effects sequence, including fire, water and smoke. Hellraiser’s story is as follows: "Hell is a terrible place... you'll be headed there if you lose the game, so Sinistra feels as though she may as well give you a taste of it. Her Hellraiser is the perfect device; it offers a taste of hell you won't forget anytime soon. That should be enough to scare you into submission...": Sinistra's Horror Crypt, a duo of drop tower dark rides. The storyline for the whole ride is as follows: "Sinistra may have tested you physically, but you still need a psychological test. When you enter the Horror Crypt, Sinistra has two terrifying tales up her sleeves to put you directly into, and your job is to escape them alive. Good luck, mortals...". I know that the previous drop tower dark ride I did, Doomsday Temple, only had one tower, but I decided to go for two here, as I later discovered that the throughput of one tower was only around 500-600pph... here, I decided to go for two towers, with each offering a different experience, to increase both throughput and rerideability: I'll introduce each of the two Horror Crypt towers separately, as each has its own separate storyline and POV. The first tower is Drop Dead. The storyline of Drop Dead is: "You have been invited on a ghost hunt at the house of Dr Derek Von Doom, a scientist experimenting with the dead. Will you find more than you'd bargained for? Or worse, become his next test subjects?". Here's the POV: The second tower is Terrorestrial. The storyline of Terrorestrial is: "It's 2089, and you've been summoned to the lair of Zorgor, a hostile alien... will you survive the encounter of a lifetime?". Here's the POV: P.S. Horror Crypt POVs contain strobe lighting That's all the attractions in Sinistra's Lair. But the area also has various amenities, which I decided to give some thematically fitting names. Conventional names like "Box Office" and "Souvenirs" aren't the name of the game here; in Sinister Springs, all of the information stands will be named Clues for Survival, all of the drink stands will be named Bloodbath, and the park's main gift shop is called Sinistra's Scars. There is also a buffet restaurant named Sinistra's Banquet. Here's one of the facility buildings I did: Finally, here's some area overview shots, taken at both daytime and nighttime: As well as an area overview video: I apologise for the slightly plain area surroundings at present... I'm going to jazz up the edges of the park a bit more when I've completed the entire park, so that is still a work in progress at present. So, I hope you like Sinistra's Lair! I would appreciate any constructive feedback, and I hope to be back with more Sinister Springs content, or content from a different park, within a much quicker timeframe than my last break!

Sorry to double post, but I decided to have a bash at building the alternative layout in Planet Coaster, if anyone's interested. Here's what I came up with based on what Thorpe have provided: For some idea, this ride is 236ft/72m tall, the exact same height as Exodus. It hits 82mph/132kph, has 4,446ft/1,355m of track, and has 2 trains with 7 cars/28 riders. I managed to get 4 airtime hills in there (2 big camelbacks, 2 lower hills), alongside a hammerhead turn, a mini version of Mako's turnaround, a mini treble clef, and what I guess you could call a mini hammerhead (of sorts). I apologise for some slightly off profiling in places (I smoothed the hell out of it, but some parts wouldn't budge), but I hope that gives you all a basic idea of what it could have been like. If you're wondering why I varied the colour scheme in places, it's because the planning application mentioned the high points being painted light colours, so I did a bit of a Stealth on anything above about 80ft, as the application mentions. I hope you find this interesting!

Good to finally have this locked into a full planning application! I've got to say, I have personally warmed to this coaster a fair amount since it was first unveiled. I was initially a bit skeptical, as I'll admit that I was a big advocate for a more airtime-focused ride during the rumour stage (you'd have heard "B&M Hyper" come out of my mouth a lot...), but having let the layout sink in a bit, I actually think it's an excellent-looking layout with some really great-looking elements, and I'm thoroughly looking forward to riding! Some particular highlights of mine include the drop and the overbank into an inversion, but to be honest, most of the elements look really fun! Yes, this probably won't win any awards for the most airtime on earth or anything (while I'm sure Exodus will have some airtime, and some quite strong airtime at that, it doesn't look to have an overtly airtime-focused layout; I think the airtime will be more sprinkled in there as a side dish alongside other types of forces as opposed to being the main focus of the ride like some were perhaps hoping for), but it looks like a really fun, unique layout in my opinion, and certainly a phenomenal use of the space and Merlin's limited budget given the presumed brief (tall with lots of high elements)! In terms of the planning application; I find the alternative layout interesting, as to me, that suggests that the B&M Hyper rumour might not have been such an outlandish rumour after all... that layout looks like a B&M Hyper layout if I ever saw one. I'll admit that that alternative proposal is more what I personally had in mind for this project (I was a keen advocate for a B&M Hyper during the rumour stage), but the jury's out on whether it would have been more well received than the Exodus we got. It's hard to tell what it would have been like from an overhead view, even though you can get some ideas. Putting aside alternate realities, though; bring on 2024! I can't wait to ride Exodus!

My apologies… I didn’t really consider that. It’s been added!

Sorry to double post, but for those who have absolutely no idea of what I’m talking about, here’s a documentary by Expedition Theme Park, for a bit more info on what Crinkley Bottom actually was: https://youtu.be/Prr59WolXv4

Hi guys. While it’s probably one of the lesser known defunct UK theme parks these days, I’m led to believe we have quite a few people on here who grew up in the UK in the 1990s, or were more generally around in the UK in the 1990s for that matter, and know about Mr Blobby and Crinkley Bottom in Cricket St Thomas, Somerset. So I was intrigued to know; did anyone ever visit this park in the brief period it operated? And if so, what did you think? I must say it’s a park that looks intriguing, and quite a strange one to imagine as someone who wasn’t alive in the 1990s. As someone who mainly knows Noel Edmunds as the host of Channel 4’s Deal or No Deal, I can never imagine him being a big celebrity with a huge TV show and theme park like that, but him and Mr Blobby were apparently huge in the 1990s! I mainly posted this thread, though, because I’m currently staying in a lodge complex in Chard that’s only around a mile’s walk from the former site of Crinkley Bottom. As such, my dad and I took a walk down there today to see what we could find, and while the site is now a Warner hotel and no longer looks remotely theme park-like, like most other stately homes in Britain, there are still a few little oddities there to find if you know where to look. I mostly took pictures of stuff that I thought looked vaguely theme park-y, and like it could have been part of Crinkley Bottom, but having consulted a Crinkley Bottom park map and looked online after getting back to our lodge, I actually wasn’t far off. I did take a few photos that I thought might be of interest to you guys. For reference, here’s the map me and my dad used, as a point of reference: (Credit to dunblobbin.com for this image: https://www.dunblobbin.com/park-map) Firstly, here are a few oddities I found that looked like they might have been from when it was a wildlife park: And then we came to what was unmistakably the former railway bridge: And I also photographed this building that was apparently home to the Animals of Farthing Wood attraction according to the map: After that, we crossed what was marked as the Flamingo bridge on the park map, walked along the former railway line, and walked back to the other side along the Crinkley Bridge, at which point I photographed a distinctly colourful looking building, which I later ascertained was the Crinkley Bottom Art Gallery, with what looked like the Extremely Nice Thingy Shop next to it (possibly not in the photograph): (It looked more colourful and stood out more in person… I was zoomed in a lot here) We then came to the Holey Tree, listed on the park map: And finally, we then took a walk up to Cricket House itself: But that’s not all! As it turns out, the very track we walked down to get there used to be the track for the safari (which you can see once you know that was the case), and we also saw a tunnel that used to be Mr Blobby’s Lair, supposedly! (I didn’t photograph that because my dad thought it looked too new to be part of the park) So I definitely had a very productive and interesting afternoon here in Chard; I hope you like my photos of remnants of this slightly more obscure piece of UK theme park history! Did anyone ever get to visit this interesting attraction, or do you remember it?

Hi guys. If you do coaster counting, one means that many enthusiasts tend to resort to in order to up their coaster count is riding kiddie coasters. One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that enthusiasts tend to have different mentalities towards riding kiddie coasters and the level of care they have about getting kiddie coaster credits. Some have the mentality of “cred’s a cred”, and will travel very long distances to get the latest big apple or go-gator added to RCDB, while others tend to confine their kiddie coaster riding to when they’re available in larger parks, or even don’t ride kiddie coasters at all in some cases. So my question to you today is; what’s your mentality towards riding kiddie coasters? Tell you what, I’ll split this into some categories: Category A; I’ll always ride kiddie creds, regardless of distance or surrounding attractions. I want the +1s! Category B; I’ll ride kiddie creds if they’re close to my location or a location I’m visiting, but I wouldn’t travel any long distance for them. Category C; I‘ll ride kiddie creds if they’re in a larger park I’m making a broader visit to, but I would never visit a park with the sole purpose of riding a kiddie cred. Category D; I don’t generally ride kiddie creds at all. Which category do you fall into? Personally, I’m going to be controversial and say that I actually fall into Category D; I don’t generally ride kiddie creds at all. I think “never” is a strong word, but these days, I practically always avoid them. I did try taking a Category C mentality for a bit, hence why things like Troublesome Trucks and Octonauts sit in my count, but I was discouraged from this after various embarrassing experiences on kiddie coasters, and I now sit firmly in the camp of “I don’t do kiddie coasters”. In fact, when totting up the potential credit tally from a new park, I exclude kiddie coasters by default these days. For instance, while Europa has 13 credits in total, I’ve always done my cred maths assuming I’ll be getting 12 coaster credits on my April trip (assuming no major reliability issues or crowds or anything, of course), because I just remove B-a-a-a from my mind. I get why people do kiddie coasters, and I have no objection to people doing kiddie coasters, but I personally find that the embarrassment outweighs the good feeling from the +1 for me, and even excluding that, I’ve personally settled into the mindset that I’d rather do a more significant non-coaster within a park, or a re-ride on a coaster I particularly liked, than do a kiddie cred. And even if I had less issue with doing kiddie creds, I wouldn’t ever see myself edging higher than Category C or B, personally; I’m not sure I ever see myself doing long road trips with the sole intention of riding kiddie coasters. But I don’t judge those who do; each to their own, of course, and you will always have the upper hand over me cred count-wise! But which category do you fall into when it comes to your mentality towards riding kiddie coasters?

Perhaps if the Locke and Key thing is being pursued, the park is trying to give Fright Nights a broader appeal beyond all-out adult horror? I admittedly don’t know much about Locke and Key aside from having heard the name, but if it isn’t overtly a horror IP like the others the park have pursued, then maybe the park is trying to attract a broader demographic to Fright Nights? Going back to an IP would also be an interesting move; they haven’t had any IPs for a few years now, have they? Is it known why the Lionsgate-themed Fright Nights mazes ever went? I apologise if I’m not exhibiting much knowledge here; I must admit that FN and horror stuff in general isn’t my thing at all.