Matt N

It is what it is, really. If you go there expecting anything world-beating or even UK-beating, it doesn't live up to that particular billing, but when you consider that it's a small seaside amusement park in the South West, I think it fills that role perfectly adequately. Thank you; I'm looking forward to both visits! I always enjoy my annual trip to Thorpe, and I'm particularly interested to do Chessington again seeing as I haven't been in nearly 10 years!

9th September 2023: Brean Theme Park Hi guys. Today was an exciting day; I went for my first ever visit to Brean Theme Park, near Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset! Now I know that that might not sound too exciting to many of you, but I was glad to finally tick it off seeing as it’s actually my closest semi-major theme park! Oddly given that I’ve lived in the South West of England my whole life and amassed a coaster count of over 100, I had never been to Brean Theme Park (or any theme park in my local South West region, for that matter) before today. I’d walked past the outside of it during a camping trip to Brean when I was no older than about 8, but I’d never been inside and seen what delights it had to offer. With that in mind, I was excited to tick off my closest non-kiddie +3 and finally see what my closest theme park is like! I was originally planning to do this as a solo trip via train and bus, but my mum decided she didn’t like the idea of me going to Brean alone and kindly offered to drive me there, and my nan decided that she fancied joining us. The 3 of us set off from Gloucestershire at a bit before 10am, and with the drive taking just over an hour, we arrived in Brean in very good time for the 11am opening time: After parking up, we headed into the park and got Fun Cards. As I was riding the coasters, I put 14 credits on mine, and my mum and nan put credits on theirs to play a game of Congo Adventure Golf while I rode the coasters. After paying, I split off from my mum and nan and headed into the main theme park itself: Upon entering the park, I was initially unsure whether any of the coasters were even open, as they looked very empty and showed little sign of being operational. However, I did find one coaster that was open upon closer inspection, so I headed over to it… Astro Storm Astro Storm was open and had a very short-looking queue consisting of around 6 people, so I decided to take a ride on it. This queue ended up taking around 10-15 minutes all in, which I wasn’t too displeased with, in all honesty. Interestingly, though, I noticed that the operators were very casually walking across the track and between the unload and load stations in a way that you definitely wouldn’t see at a park like Alton Towers, and it’s also the first coaster where I’ve ever had the operator push me out of the station! That’s not a criticism, but just something interesting I noticed. But enough about that; how was the ride? Well, I was interested to ride it given that it was a former resident of Blackpool Pleasure Beach, and I have to say that it wasn’t too bad at all for a ride at a park of this calibre! Sure, it’s not going to blow any minds on the world stage, and I’d argue that the claim that it’s “Europe’s best indoor coaster” is a bit debatable, but the ride was quite good fun for what it is, with some fun twists and turns! I was also quite pleasantly surprised by the theming; there were some nice effects, although there were quite a few air cannons that did make me jump! Overall, Astro Storm was a perfectly fine enclosed coaster with some surprising theming: After getting off Astro Storm, I headed over to the next coaster… Bulldog Coaster Bulldog Coaster was open and on a very short queue consisting of only 2 other people, so I decided to have a go on it. The wait was very short, only taking the time that it took for the train to negotiate the remainder of the circuit and unload the riders in it; I can’t complain about that! So, how was the ride? Well, it was the second Pinfari coaster I’ve ridden, and the first looping Pinfari Zyklon I’ve ridden, and similar to the first Pinfari coaster I rode, Creepy Crawler at Oakwood, I wasn’t a huge fan. The restraint was very uncomfortable, and although the signature loop was admittedly quite forceful, the layout was pretty rough in numerous places, with a fair amount of bracing required. It’s admittedly an impressive headliner for a park like Brean, but I’m afraid to say that I wasn’t a fan: After getting off Bulldog Coaster, I made my way to the final credit I needed… Magic Mouse Magic Mouse was open and had a relatively short-looking queue consisting of around 10-15 people, so I decided to take a ride on it. This queue, similarly to that of Astro Storm, took around 10-15 minutes, which I can’t really complain about. I did notice that they were only loading one group per car regardless of the group size, though, and it was similar on Astro Storm; I rode in a car on my own on both rides, even though I could quite easily have been batched in alongside other groups that came before me in both cases. It wasn’t really a problem today, but it was just something I noticed. That’s besides the point, though; how was the ride? Well, Magic Mouse was my 7th Reverchon spinning wild mouse coaster, so I’m quite well versed in how these coasters ride by this point, and I’m not a fan of them at all, as I’m not a fan of the wild mouse ride style in general. This was one of the smoother ones I’ve done, though, and with me being in a car on my own, it span a lot; I was a little bit light-headed getting off! Overall, Magic Mouse was pretty much par-for-the-course for these Reverchon spinning coasters; I don’t really rate them at all, I’m afraid: After getting off Magic Mouse, it was around 12pm, so as my Fun Card credits had run out and I’d ridden all 3 of the coasters I wanted to ride, I met back up with my mum and nan, who’d finished their game of Congo Adventure Golf. They both tied with each other, but said that they’d very much enjoyed their game! After meeting back up, we exited the park: Before heading back home, we took a stroll along a very foggy Brean Beach. This must easily be the foggiest I’ve ever seen a beach; you couldn’t even see the sea!: After our brief beachside stroll, we headed back to the car and headed home, stopping in Sedgemoor services for a spot of lunch on the way back. So, that concludes our day (or, more accurately, morning) at Brean Theme Park in Somerset! I know this probably hasn’t been the most exciting report, and I apologise for that, but I was very glad to finally visit my closest theme park and grab the +3 that it had to offer, and if nothing else, it made for a fun morning on a hot day like today! None of the coasters are anything particularly earth-shattering in the grand scheme of things, but I didn’t go in expecting top 10/20 candidates or anything, and for a park of the calibre that it is, I think Brean is a perfectly fine place. Now I’ve been, it’s not somewhere I’d rush back to, but I’m glad that I finally went and ticked off my closest theme park, and I had a nice morning there. Thanks for reading! Despite this probably not being the most interesting report, I hope you still enjoyed it! It won’t be long at all until you next see a trip report from me, as I’m headed to two theme parks next week; I’ll be taking my annual visit to Thorpe Park on Friday 15th September, swiftly followed by my first visit to Chessington in nearly a decade on Sunday 17th September!

Interesting thoughts; I’m glad you seemingly had a nice trip, and it is interesting to read a review of the Galactic Starcruiser! I went to Florida myself in June, visiting Universal, SeaWorld and Busch Gardens. I have to say that even though I was pretty hyped for Pipeline, I was sorely disappointed by it and had very similar feelings towards it to yourself. It’s an interesting idea, it has a good layout, and it admittedly has quite a bit of fairly strong airtime, but it’s ruined by the fact that it fundamentally is not comfortable, in my view. I didn’t like the vests, the standing position was definitely a bit uncomfortable for me in various places, and it hurt me a bit when the seats slammed back down after each airtime moment. It feels like everyone else is raving about it, so I was quite disillusioned getting off and really gutted to not overly like it. It is nice to hear that I’m not insane and someone else agrees with me! Unlike you, however, I loved Ice Breaker and thought it was fantastic; while the trains are hard to get into and out of, the restraints didn’t overly bother me when I was sat down in them unlike, say, Colossus. I haven’t actually been to Disney since April 2019, so it’s interesting to hear a more recent review of the parks. It’s interesting to hear you’re not overly plussed by Epcot; for me, that one was vying with Animal Kingdom for the title of my favourite park in WDW, although I admit that that was mostly because of World Showcase rather than Future World. I’d love to go back to Hollywood Studios; it was my least favourite of the parks at the time, but when I went, half of it was a building site. I can imagine it’s a lot better now that Star Wars and Runaway Railway are open. I do personally err toward Universal over Disney overall, though; both IOA and USF rank some way above any Disney park for me.

Disclaimer: This is a very long post with a fair amount of statistical talk. I'll try my best to simplify some of it a bit and explain a few things, but if you don't like statistics, this post may not be for you! There is a TL;DR at the bottom condensing the overall findings into a more concise format. Sorry to bump this particular thread, but following a really interesting topic I read on another forum earlier about 2012 vs 2023 in terms of UK theme park attendance and what effect various factors have on attendance, I was inspired to revisit this dataset and explore the relationship between UK theme park attendance and various extrinsic factors, as these have previously raised some interesting discussion points surrounding the topic of UK theme park attendance. Before I explore various different factors and their effect upon UK theme park attendance, I should firstly set out that the attendance I use is the combined attendance of all four theme parks from 1997 (the first year where all four are listed under their current guise) through until 2021. I tried all of my tests for the dataset including both 2020 and 2021, the dataset excluding 2020 only and the dataset excluding both 2020 and 2021, as I felt that the circumstances of 2020 in particular were too anomalous not to consider and I was unsure whether to even place 2021 among "normal" years, as the parks were still restricted to some degree for part of or all of the season. As such, I tested the data both including and excluding the COVID years, so that we could see the relationships exhibited pre, during and post COVID. To test out whether a significant causal relationship exists between two variables, I used a Pearson correlation coefficient test, and the two metrics I used to determine this were the correlation coefficient itself and the p-value. To explain what each is: The correlation coefficient is a number between 1 and -1 that denotes how strong the causal relationship between two variables is. A correlation coefficient of 1 indicates a perfect positive correlation (I.e. "as x increases, y also increases"), a correlation coefficient of 0 indicates no correlation (I.e. "x has no significant effect on y"), and a correlation coefficient of -1 indicates a perfect negative correlation (I.e. "as x increases, y decreases"). As it is staggeringly rare to have a perfect correlation, I will denote the strength of the correlation by using the absolute value of the correlation coefficient as follows; an absolute coefficient of 0-0.25 indicates no significant correlation, an absolute coefficient of 0.25-0.5 indicates a weak correlation, an absolute coefficient of 0.5-0.75 indicates a moderate correlation, and an absolute coefficient of 0.75 or higher indicates a strong correlation. The p-value is the probability that a relationship does not exist, and it is a decimal falling between 0 and 1. It can be represented as a percentage; for instance, a p-value of 0.55 indicates that there is a 55% chance of a relationship not existing. In hypothesis testing, you want the p-value to be low if you are wanting to prove your hypothesis (in this case, that a causal relationship exists) and disprove the null hypothesis (in this case, that no causal relationship exists). I will denote how strong the evidence for a causal relationship is by using the p-value as follows; a p-value of 0.1 or higher indicates insufficient evidence in favour of a relationship, a p-value of 0.05-0.1 indicates marginally significant evidence in favour of a relationship, a p-value of 0.01-0.05 indicates significant evidence in favour of a relationship, and a p-value of less than 0.01 indicates extremely significant evidence in favour of a relationship. Now I've explained some of my processes, let's move onto the analysis! The first external factor I tested out is one that has been particularly relevant this summer... it's that good old chestnut known as the weather! The Weather The weather is often referenced as a factor that could potentially be affecting UK theme park attendance, so I thought; why not test that theory out? Now, I hear you asking "Matt, there are so many different metrics of weather; which one did you test out?". That would be a fair question, and in answer, I tested out three different weather metrics; average rainfall in millimetres, average maximum temperature in degrees Celsius, and average number of hours of bright sunshine. To gain the relevant weather data, I took the months between April and October (the 7 months in which the parks are operating for the full month) for each metric for every year since 1997 from the Met Office weather data archive (https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-and-regional-series). I averaged out the values for the months from April-October of a given year and used that as that year's value for a given metric. I set the region as "England"; as all four Merlin parks are in England, I figured that the weather in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland was irrelevant for this particular investigation. Average Rainfall (in millimetres) So for our first metric, average rainfall in millimetres, the distribution of the data including 2020 and 2021 was as follows: And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows: P-Value 0.44 (2dp) Pearson Correlation Coefficient -0.16 (2dp) Evidence In Favour of a Relationship Insufficient Correlation Strength No Significant Correlation The distribution of the data excluding 2020 only was as follows: And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows: P-Value 0.26 (2dp) Pearson Correlation Coefficient -0.24 (2dp) Evidence In Favour of a Relationship Insufficient Correlation Strength No Significant Correlation The distribution of the data excluding both 2020 and 2021 was as follows: And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows: P-Value 0.26 (2dp) Pearson Correlation Coefficient -0.25 (2dp) Evidence In Favour of a Relationship Insufficient Correlation Strength Weak Negative Correlation So I think we can conclude that even though some signs of a weak negative correlation between the two are shown when you remove 2020 and 2021 from the equation, the overall evidence for a significant causal relationship between UK theme park attendance and average rainfall is weak; there isn't enough evidence to firmly argue in favour of a causal relationship, even if some signs point towards a weak negative correlation. Average Maximum Temperature (in degrees Celsius) For our second metric, average maximum temperature in degrees Celsius, the distribution of the data including 2020 and 2021 was as follows: And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows: P-Value 0.56 (2dp) Pearson Correlation Coefficient -0.12 (2dp) Evidence In Favour of a Relationship Insufficient Correlation Strength No Significant Correlation The distribution of the data excluding 2020 only was as follows: And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows: P-Value 0.95 (2dp) Pearson Correlation Coefficient 0.01 (2dp) Evidence In Favour of a Relationship Insufficient Correlation Strength No Significant Correlation The distribution of the data excluding both 2020 and 2021 was as follows: And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows: P-Value 0.96 (2dp) Pearson Correlation Coefficient 0.01 (2dp) Evidence In Favour of a Relationship Insufficient Correlation Strength No Significant Correlation So having tested the data both including and excluding the COVID data, I think it's safe to say that the chances of a significant causal relationship existing between UK theme park attendance and average maximum temperature are very, very slim. With a correlation coefficient of close to 0 once COVID data was removed, there is no compelling evidence in favour of a causal relationship existing. Average Number of Hours of Bright Sunshine For our final weather metric, average number of hours of bright sunshine, the distribution of the data including 2020 and 2021 was as follows: And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows: P-Value 0.53 (2dp) Pearson Correlation Coefficient -0.13 (2dp) Evidence In Favour of a Relationship Insufficient Correlation Strength No Significant Correlation The distribution of the data excluding 2020 was as follows: And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows: P-Value 0.45 (2dp) Pearson Correlation Coefficient 0.16 (2dp) Evidence In Favour of a Relationship Insufficient Correlation Strength No Significant Correlation The distribution of the data excluding both 2020 and 2021 was as follows: And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows: P-Value 0.47 (2dp) Pearson Correlation Coefficient 0.16 (2dp) Evidence In Favour of a Relationship Insufficient Correlation Strength No Significant Correlation So there is limited evidence in favour of a causal relationship between UK theme park attendance and the average number of hours of bright sunshine. The evidence there is leans positive, but that evidence is too limited to conclude even a weak correlation, and there certainly isn't enough evidence in favour of a causal relationship. So in conclusion, then, the weather seemingly has less of an effect on UK theme park attendance than you might expect. The strongest evidence for a causal relationship between UK theme park attendance and any weather metric is presented by average rainfall, which shows some signs of a weak negative correlation, but even that presented insufficient evidence in favour of a significant causal relationship. Weather is not the only external factor I explored, however. With our purse strings getting tighter as a result of the cost of living crisis, I thought that the economy would also be an interesting one to explore! The Economy With disposal incomes currently being lower across the country as a result of the cost of living crisis and rampant inflation, many have figured that the cost of living crisis may be having an effect on theme park attendance, so I thought that I'd test out some macroeconomic factors too. In terms of the economic indicators, I tested; I tested three different ones. The first indicator I tested was annual GDP growth rate, with the figures being gained from this site (https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/GBR/united-kingdom/gdp-growth-rate). GDP, standing for Gross Domestic Product, is a measure of the UK's economic output, and high GDP growth is often seen as a sign of a healthy economy. Our politicians frequently talk about "growth", anyhow! The second indicator I tested was annual CPI inflation rate, with the figures being gained from this site (https://www.rateinflation.com/inflation-rate/uk-historical-inflation-rate/). CPI stands for Consumer Price Index, and the rate of CPI inflation is a measure of how much something such as a weekly shop is rising in cost by across a given time period. It's the figure used when newsreaders talk about inflation, and high CPI inflation is often seen as a bad sign for the state of the economy. The final indicator I tested was annual unemployment rate, with the figures being gained from this site (https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/GBR/united-kingdom/unemployment-rate). High unemployment rate is often seen as a sign of an unhealthy economy. Annual GDP Growth Rate (%) For our first economic metric, annual GDP growth rate, the distribution of the data including 2020 and 2021 was as follows: And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows: P-Value 0.02 (2dp) Pearson Correlation Coefficient 0.47 (2dp) Evidence In Favour of a Relationship Significant Correlation Strength Weak Positive Correlation The distribution of the data excluding 2020 only was as follows: And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows: P-Value 0.02 (2dp) Pearson Correlation Coefficient -0.47 (2dp) Evidence In Favour of a Relationship Significant Correlation Strength Weak Negative Correlation The distribution of the data excluding both 2020 and 2021 was as follows: And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows: P-Value 0.05 (2dp) Pearson Correlation Coefficient -0.41 (2dp) Evidence In Favour of a Relationship Marginally Significant Correlation Strength Weak Negative Correlation So I think we can conclude that there is some evidence in favour of a causal relationship between UK theme park attendance and annual GDP growth. All tests yielded at least marginally significant evidence in favour of a relationship, and all tests suggest a weak-to-moderate negative correlation once 2020 is removed. Thus, we can conclude that a relationship may exist, but it might not be the strongest. Annual CPI Inflation Rate (%) For our second economic metric, annual CPI inflation rate, the distribution of the data including 2020 and 2021 was as follows: And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows: P-Value 0.02 (2dp) Pearson Correlation Coefficient 0.47 (2dp) Evidence In Favour of a Relationship Significant Correlation Strength Weak Positive Correlation The distribution of the data excluding 2020 only was as follows: And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows: P-Value 0.01 (2dp) Pearson Correlation Coefficient 0.50 (2dp) Evidence In Favour of a Relationship Significant Correlation Strength Moderate Positive Correlation The distribution of the data excluding both 2020 and 2021 was as follows: And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows: P-Value 0.01 (2dp) Pearson Correlation Coefficient 0.55 (2dp) Evidence In Favour of a Relationship Extremely Significant Correlation Strength Moderate Positive Correlation So I think we can conclude that there is pretty significant evidence of a causal relationship between UK theme park attendance and annual CPI inflation rate. Once 2020 was removed, a moderate positive correlation between the two variables was consistently exhibited, and the evidence in favour of a relationship toed the line between significant and extremely significant, so I think it's fair to suggest that there could well be a link! Annual Unemployment Rate (%) For our final economic metric, annual unemployment rate, the distribution of the data including 2020 and 2021 was as follows: And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows: P-Value 0.01 (2dp) Pearson Correlation Coefficient 0.51 (2dp) Evidence In Favour of a Relationship Extremely Significant Correlation Strength Moderate Positive Correlation The distribution of the data excluding 2020 only was as follows: And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows: P-Value 0.00 (2dp) Pearson Correlation Coefficient 0.61 (2dp) Evidence In Favour of a Relationship Extremely Significant Correlation Strength Moderate Positive Correlation The distribution of the data excluding both 2020 and 2021 was as follows: And the values returned after a Pearson correlation coefficient test to test for a relationship were as follows: P-Value 0.00 (2dp) Pearson Correlation Coefficient 0.60 (2dp) Evidence In Favour of a Relationship Extremely Significant Correlation Strength Moderate Positive Correlation So I think we can conclude that the evidence for a causal relationship between UK theme park attendance and annual unemployment rate is fairly strong. All tests produced extremely significant evidence in favour of a relationship existing, and once 2020 was removed, the correlation coefficient was quite comfortably in the realms of a moderate-to-strong positive correlation. Thus, I think we can conclude that there may be a link between UK theme park attendance and annual unemployment rate! Now we've analysed the data, I think it's about time we wrapped things up and discussed our findings... Conclusion So in conclusion, this analysis yielded some very interesting, and perhaps somewhat unexpected, results, in my view. The weather is always discussed as a big factor affecting theme park attendance, but overall, the weather metrics seemingly affected attendance a lot less than you might expect within this dataset. The biggest affector of the weather metrics was average rainfall, and even that presented only very spurious evidence of a relationship with UK theme park attendance; at best, it showed minor signs of a weak negative correlation, and evidence in favour of a causal relationship was insufficient. With that being said, much of the limited evidence of relationships that was shown among the weather metrics did point in the general direction I would have expected, with rainfall pointing towards a negative relationship and sunshine erring towards a positive relationship. I was very surprised at the profound lack of trend when it came to temperature, however; the evidence of a relationship there was pretty much zero, with no real leaning in either direction. The economy is also discussed, albeit less than weather, but unlike weather, the economic metrics seemingly affected attendance to a surprising degree within this dataset. Both CPI inflation rate and unemployment rate exhibited significant to extremely significant evidence of relationships and moderate correlations, and even GDP growth exhibited significant evidence of a relationship and a weak-to-moderate correlation. Interestingly, the evidence of relationships within the economic factors also pointed in the complete opposite direction to the one you'd initially expect, with the evidence of CPI inflation rate and unemployment rate having moderate positive correlations and GDP growth having a weak-to-moderate negative correlation suggesting that UK theme park attendance is generally higher when the economy is doing worse. That's not an outcome I would initially have expected; maybe there's something in the notion that UK parks often do well out of recessions? I should note a few things here, however. For starters, correlation does not equal causation, and it should not be treated as concrete proof that x causes y. Just because my data suggests a certain correlation, that does not mean that there's necessarily a chain of causality that works that way in reality. I should also note that these parks do not operate in a vacuum, and these are far from the only factors affecting attendance; there are a wide smorgasbord of intrinsic and extrinsic factors, and it is a phenomenally multi-faceted issue. Nonetheless, I hope you've found my investigation interesting! If you'd like me to investigate anything else, or if you think I've done something wrong, don't hesitate to tell me! TL;DR: I performed an investigation into the relationship between UK theme park attendance and various extrinsic factors, with a key focus on the weather and the economy. The weather was found to not affect attendance to a statistically significant degree overall, with even the metric with the strongest-seeming relationship, rainfall, only showing spurious evidence of a causal relationship and exhibiting signs of a weak-to-insignificant correlation. The economy was found to have a far more significant effect, with CPI inflation rate and unemployment rate in particular exhibiting highly significant evidence of relationships and moderate-to-strong correlations. Interestingly, it was also found that perhaps unexpectedly, UK theme park attendance seems to be higher when economic strength is lower.

Disclaimer: This is a very long post with a fair amount of statistical talk. I'll try my best to simplify some of it a bit and explain a few things, but if you don't like statistics, this post may not be for you! Hi guys. Over the course of my many years being a Brit following the UK enthusiast scene, I've noticed that that there is a common feeling among British enthusiasts of the country being a poor relation to other countries in Europe in terms of roller coasters and theme parks. Many British enthusiasts make out that parks in Britain are being left behind by parks on the continent in the roller coaster stakes, and overall, the topic of the British coaster scene lagging behind that of other countries in Europe has been well-discussed at this point, along with many other variations on the wider point of "British parks and coasters are rubbish compared to those in mainland Europe". With this in mind, I thought that I'd put this common theory to the test and perform a statistical analysis of European countries' roller coaster selections, and attempt to answer the question of "Which European country is best for roller coasters?". I thought that it would be interesting to see which European country comes out on top in the coaster stakes when applying various statistical measures and asking various questions. As inferred above, I also thought it would be interesting to see whether that common British feeling that our coasters are lagging behind those of other mainland European countries is 100% justified, or whether it's simply a case of the grass seeming greener where we're not. I hear you asking "Hold on a second, Matt. Haven't you analysed European coaster selections before?". Well, my answer to that would be that I have indeed analysed European coaster selections before, but my previous analysis focused on parks rather than countries, so with me focusing on whole countries this time as opposed to individual parks, the analysis will be different and will produce very different results. So without further ado, let's get started on the analysis! Firstly, let me explain some of my methods... Methodology To perform this analysis, the dataset I used was Captain Coaster's World Roller Coaster Ranking for August 2023 (https://captaincoaster.com/en/ranking/?filters[continent]=&filters[country]=&filters[materialType]=&filters[seatingType]=&filters[model]=&filters[manufacturer]=&filters[openingDate]=&page=1), with the Country filter being used to discern the top-ranking coasters in each country. Captain Coaster is a site run by members of the French enthusiast group CoastersWorld.fr, but it has a very wide user base encompassing plenty of users of many different nationalities, so as far as sources on roller coaster opinions go, I figured that Captain Coaster was a pretty good, unbiased one to use with a large amount of available data. For each country, I used the top 20 extant roller coasters from the list (so the first page of the country's Captain Coaster ranking if no defunct coasters made the all-time top 20), as I figured that in most cases, 20 would be enough to get a broader understanding of a country's roller coaster selection beyond its headliners without necessarily delving deeply into the entire coaster selection to the point of reaching rides that people don't really care about. By an extant roller coaster, I'm referring to anything that has not been confirmed as permanently defunct or has some kind of potential operational future ahead of it. So for instance, I included Nemesis in the UK's top 20, as it is returning next year, but I did not include Wild Mouse, The Ultimate or Raptor Attack, as those coasters have either been demolished or left the UK permanently. There were also a few cases where travelling coasters were present, and I did not count those; for instance, Olympia Looping is listed in the lists of both Germany and Austria, but I did not include it in either country's ranking as it is a travelling ride with no permanent base. Where there were not 20 scoreable roller coasters available, but I felt that there was a sufficient amount to play with for one or both of the questions I asked, I simply included the whole selection. Two countries with scoreable roller coasters were excluded on the basis of them not even having enough to form a top 3, and those are Ireland with 1 scoreable coaster and Switzerland with 2. For each coaster, I used the score given by Captain Coaster to determine its ranking. The score is out of 100 and is given to one decimal place. While Captain Coaster has never officially revealed exactly what determines a coaster's score, I ascertain that it is determined by some combination of its ratings and rankings versus those of other rides. It should also be noted that a coaster has to have at least a certain degree of ridership to get a score in the first place, so none of the scores here are influenced by the opinions of a vast minority of riders. Coasters that the site classifies as "kiddie" are also excluded from receiving a score. For clarity, the 14 countries I investigated (and the coasters within them, along with their scores) are as follows: Austria (16) Gesengte Sau - Wiener Prater (71.3/100) Wild Train - Fantasiana (69.7/100) Rattenmuhle - Familypark (66.3/100) Megablitz - Wiener Prater (65.1/100) Fridolin's verruckter Zauberexpress - Fantasiana (59.3/100) Big Bang - Freizeitpark Familienland (55.1/100) Gotterblitz - Familypark (53.8/100) Insider - Wiener Prater (49.1/100) Boomerang - Wiener Prater (46.4/100) Hochshaubahn - Wiener Prater (40.9/100) Super 8er Bahn - Wiener Prater (36.7/100) Maskerade - Wiener Prater (29.6/100) Dizzy Mouse - Wiener Prater (18.4/100) Roller Ball - Wiener Prater (16.0/100) Wilde Maus - Wiener Prater (8.9/100) Volare - Wiener Prater (3.2/100) Belgium (20) Ride to Happiness - Plopsaland de Panne (99.4/100) Kondaa - Walibi Belgium (98.5/100) Fury - Bobbejaanland (86.6/100) Anubis The Ride - Plopsaland de Panne (80.3/100) Heidi The Ride - Plopsaland de Panne (78.6/100) Pulsar - Walibi Belgium (76.1/100) Wakala - Bellewaerde (69.7/100) Psyke Underground - Walibi Belgium (68.6/100) Tiki-Waka - Walibi Belgium (66.4/100) Vicky The Ride - Plopsa Coo (61.0/100) Huracan - Bellewaerde (61.0/100) Typhoon - Bobbejaanland (54.0/100) Revolution - Bobbejaanland (53.6/100) Calamity Mine - Bobbejaanland (51.1/100) Loup Garou - Walibi Belgium (49.8/100) Schtroumpfeur - Plopsa Coo (47.0/100) Naga Bay - Bobbejaanland (43.1/100) SuperSplash - Plopsaland de Panne (37.7/100) Bob Express - Bobbejaanland (36.8/100) Oki Doki - Bobbejaanland (33.8/100) Denmark (20) Fonix - Farup Sommerland (96.0/100) Piraten - Djurs Sommerland (94.2/100) Juvelen - Djurs Sommerland (85.7/100) Rutschebanen - Tivoli Gardens (84.3/100) Daemonen - Tivoli Gardens (78.5/100) Lynet - Farup Sommerland (78.2/100) Mine Train Ulven - Bakken (73.1/100) Orkanen - Farup Sommerland (71.2/100) DrageKongen - Djurs Sommerland (69.4/100) Polar X-plorer - Legoland Billund (66.6/100) Falken - Farup Sommerland (63.9/100) Tornado - Bakken (63.1/100) Thor's Hammer - Djurs Sommerland (54.9/100) Saven - Farup Sommerland (53.6/100) Skatteoen - Djurs Sommerland (53.5/100) Han-Katten - BonBon Land (51.6/100) Rutschebanen - Bakken (51.4/100) Vild-Svinet - BonBon Land (51.1/100) Flying Eagle - Legoland Billund (33.9/100) Maelkevejen - Tivoli Gardens (33.1/100) Finland (18) Taiga - Linnanmaki (99.5/100) Junker - PowerPark (93.4/100) Thunderbird - PowerPark (79.9/100) Tornado - Sarkanniemi (78.6/100) Vuoristorata - Linnanmaki (76.4/100) Pitts Special - PowerPark (70.0/100) Hype - Sarkanniemi (66.4/100) Salama - Linnanmaki (59.5/100) Kirnu - Linnanmaki (45.8/100) Ukko - Linnanmaki (43.3/100) MotoGee - Sarkanniemi (42.6/100) Linnunrata eXtra - Linnanmaki (35.0/100) Joyride - PowerPark (27.3/100) Cobra - PowerPark (26.0/100) Pikajuna - Linnanmaki (12.9/100) Neo's Twister - PowerPark (12.2/100) Tulireki - Linnanmaki (8.5/100) Trombi - Sarkanniemi (3.0/100) France (20) Toutatis - Parc Asterix (98.5/100) OzIris - Parc Asterix (93.2/100) Monster - Walygator Grand Est (91.3/100) Alpina Blitz - Nigloland (90.2/100) Mystic - Walibi Rhone-Alpes (88.4/100) Yukon Quad - Le Pal (85.4/100) Wood Express - Parc Saint Paul (83.7/100) Big Thunder Mountain - Disneyland Park Paris (81.4/100) Tonnerre 2 Zeus - Parc Asterix (80.2/100) Timber - Walibi Rhone-Alpes (79.8/100) Pegase Express - Parc Asterix (78.1/100) Namazu - Vulcania (75.4/100) Vertika - La Recre des 3 Cures (74.2/100) Orochi - Parc du Bocasse (74.1/100) Objectif Mars - Futuroscope (71.7/100) Twist - Le Pal (71.6/100) Crush's Coaster - Walt Disney Studios Park (69.1/100) Star Wars Hyperspace Mountain - Disneyland Park Paris (68.8/100) Timber Drop - Fraispertuis City (68.6/100) Avengers Assemble: Flight Force - Walt Disney Studios Park (67.5/100) Germany (20) Taron - Phantasialand (98.2/100) Expedition GeForce - Holiday Park (98.0/100) Schwur des Karnan - Hansa Park (96.9/100) FLY - Phantasialand (96.8/100) Black Mamba - Phantasialand (91.9/100) Wodan Timbur Coaster - Europa Park (91.6/100) Colossos - Heide Park (91.2/100) Dynamite - Freizeitpark Plohn (89.3/100) Silver Star - Europa Park (89.3/100) Karacho - Tripsdrill (88.3/100) Blue Fire - Europa Park (88.3/100) Hals-uber-Kopf - Tripsdrill (88.2/100) Flucht von Novgorod - Hansa Park (88.1/100) El Toro - Freizeitpark Plohn (87.8/100) Flug der Damonen - Heide Park (87.1/100) Star Trek Operation Enterprise - Movie Park Germany (85.4/100) Krake - Heide Park (79.1/100) Desert Race - Heide Park (78.8/100) Winjas Fear - Phantasialand (78.2/100) Sky Scream - Phantasialand (77.6/100) Italy (20) iSpeed - Mirabilandia (95.7/100) Katun - Mirabilandia (95.4/100) Oblivion The Black Hole - Gardaland (86.7/100) Storm - Etnaland (86.6/100) Raptor - Gardaland (85.4/100) Shock - MagicLand (84.6/100) Inferno - Cinecitta World (80.1/100) Freestyle - Cavallino Matto (78.5/100) Altair - Cinecitta World (75.6/100) Vertigo - Zoomarine (69.1/100) Diabolik - Movieland Park (58.1/100) Divertical - Mirabilandia (55.9/100) Eurofighter - Zoosafari Fasanolandia (54.2/100) Fuga de Atlantide - Gardaland (52.4/100) Mammut - Gardaland (51.7/100) Fun Bob - Haunold Baranci (51.5/100) Eldorado - Etnaland (50.2/100) Gioco Delle Onde - Osteria Ai Pioppi (46.9/100) Desmo Race (Right) - Mirabilandia (46.7/100) Desmo Race (Left) - Mirabilandia (46.3/100) Netherlands (20) Untamed - Walibi Holland (98.9/100) Goliath - Walibi Holland (93.3/100) Fenix - Toverland (92.0/100) Troy - Toverland (91.0/100) Lost Gravity - Walibi Holland (86.8/100) Gold Rush - Attractiepark Slagharen (86.3/100) Baron 1898 - Efteling (85.4/100) Joris en de Draak (Vuur) - Efteling (83.2/100) Joris en de Draak (Water) - Efteling (82.5/100) Dwervelwind - Toverland (74.9/100) Vliegende Hollander - Efteling (74.9/100) Formule X - Drievliet Family Park (72.0/100) Xpress Platform 13 - Walibi Holland (61.4/100) Dragon Fly - Duinrell (59.4/100) Vogel Rok - Efteling (58.9/100) Tweestryd (Duurzaam Landbouw) - Wildlands Adventure Zoo Emmen (58.7/100) Python (2018) - Efteling (57.5/100) Falcon - Duinrell (56.5/100) Tweestryd (Eerlijk Mijnbouw) - Wildlands Adventure Zoo Emmen (55.4/100) Booster Bike - Toverland (52.5/100) Norway (6) Speed Monster - TusenFryd (80.9/100) Storm The Dragon Legend - TusenFryd (79.1/100) Thundercoaster - TusenFryd (62.4/100) SuperSplash - TusenFryd (35.8/100) Western-Expressen - TusenFryd (20.1/100) Loopen - TusenFryd (12.2/100) Poland (20) Zadra - Energylandia (99.7/100) Hyperion - Energylandia (98.1/100) Lech Coaster - Legendia (96.7/100) Abyssus - Energylandia (90.4/100) Werewolf - Majaland Kownaty (84.8/100) Formula - Energylandia (82.7/100) Dragon Roller Coaster - Energylandia (70.1/100) Speed - Energylandia (61.8/100) Light Explorers - Energylandia (46.9/100) Boomerang - Energylandia (46.6/100) Roller Coaster Mayan - Energylandia (36.6/100) Frida - Energylandia (31.2/100) Rollercoaster Wikingow - Majaland Kownaty (30.8/100) Energus Roller Coaster - Energylandia (30.1/100) Devil's Loop - Legendia (29.7/100) Toboggan Run - Gorski Park Rownica (20.4/100) Dream Hunters Society - Legendia (13.7/100) Scary Toys Factory - Legendia (5.2/100) Toboggan Run - Gora Zar (3.8/100) Viking Roller Coaster - Energylandia (0.4/100) Spain (20) Batman Gotham City Escape - Parque Warner Madrid (97.7/100) Shambhala - PortAventura Park (97.2/100) Superman la Atraccion de Acero - Parque Warner Madrid (92.2/100) Red Force - Ferrari Land (91.0/100) Stunt Fall - Parque Warner Madrid (86.0/100) Shadows of Arkham - Parque Warner Madrid (84.7/100) Dragon Khan - PortAventura Park (83.8/100) Muntanya Russa - Tibidabo (75.1/100) Tarantula - Parque de Atracciones de Madrid (73.6/100) Abismo - Parque de Atracciones de Madrid (73.6/100) Furius Baco - PortAventura Park (72.8/100) TNT Tren de la Mina - Parque de Atracciones de Madrid (59.1/100) Correcaminos Bip Bip - Parque Warner Madrid (54.7/100) Tornado - Parque de Atracciones de Madrid (54.6/100) Stampida (Red) - PortAventura Park (51.1/100) Stampida (Blue) - PortAventura Park (49.8/100) Montana Suiza - Parque de Atracciones Monte Igueldo (48.1/100) Inferno - Terra Mitica (47.0/100) Tomahawk - PortAventura Park (39.9/100) Diablo Tren de la Mina - PortAventura Park (37.2/100) Sweden (18) Wildfire - Kolmarden (98.5/100) Helix - Liseberg (97.8/100) Balder - Liseberg (93.9/100) Valkyria - Liseberg (88.2/100) Monster - Grona Lund (87.6/100) Lisebergbanan - Liseberg (82.0/100) Twister - Grona Lund (79.4/100) Jetline - Grona Lund (75.7/100) Vilda Musen - Grona Lund (63.8/100) Insane - Grona Lund (50.1/100) Kvasten - Grona Lund (48.8/100) Tranan - Skara Sommarland (48.0/100) Luna - Liseberg (41.3/100) Delfinexpressen - Kolmarden (22.9/100) Gruvbanan - Skara Sommarland (22.8/100) Godistaget - Kolmarden (21.3/100) Spinner - Skara Sommarland (19.1/100) Rabalder - Liseberg (15.8/100) Turkey (7) Hyper Coaster - Land of Legends Theme Park (94.0/100) Red Fire - Korsan Adasi (93.9/100) Nefeskesen - Isfanbul (76.0/100) Typhoon Coaster - Land of Legends Theme Park (60.7/100) Family Coaster - Korsan Adasi (53.2/100) Maceraperest - Isfanbul (52.4/100) Family Coaster - Land of Legends Theme Park (46.1/100) United Kingdom (20) Nemesis - Alton Towers (95.4/100) Icon - Blackpool Pleasure Beach (91.1/100) Stealth - Thorpe Park (89.8/100) The Smiler - Alton Towers (87.7/100) The Swarm - Thorpe Park (87.2/100) Galactica - Alton Towers (83.7/100) Wicker Man - Alton Towers (82.7/100) Nemesis Inferno - Thorpe Park (80.9/100) Sik - Flamingo Land (80.0/100) Oblivion - Alton Towers (79.8/100) Megafobia - Oakwood Theme Park (79.6/100) Dragon's Fury - Chessington (74.1/100) Saw The Ride - Thorpe Park (74.0/100) Thirteen - Alton Towers (72.8/100) Rita - Alton Towers (72.2/100) Storm Chaser - Paultons Park (68.8/100) Rage - Adventure Island (65.4/100) Speed No Limits - Oakwood Theme Park (63.8/100) Mandrill Mayhem - Chessington (62.7/100) Big One - Blackpool Pleasure Beach (62.6/100) Now I've gotten that out of the way, let's head into the main analysis... Main Analysis Just as a recap, our question here is "Which European country is best for roller coasters?"! There are a number of ways in which you could answer this question, as "best" is an open-ended metric that can be assessed from many different viewpoints, but I chose two different angles to approach the question from; the overall quality of a country's top 20 (or entire scoreable selection where this was not applicable), and the quality of a country's top end (I.e. its main headlining draws). Let's start with the overall top 20 quality... Overall Top 20 Quality (Which country's coaster lineup is the most consistently strong?) My first question asks which country's lineup is the most consistently strong. To determine this, I looked at the overall top 20 (or entire selection where this is not applicable) to gauge an idea of which countries have the most consistently strong coaster selections. The first statistical measure I used to determine this is the mean coaster score per country. The mean is a calculated average where all of a country's scores are added together and divided by the number of scores; the formula is as follows: Mean Score per Country = Overall Sum of all Scores/Number of Scores When this formula was applied to all the countries used, the ranking was as follows: Ranking Country Mean Coaster Score out of 100 (to 1dp) Number of Coasters Used 1 Germany 88.5 20 2 France 79.6 20 3 United Kingdom 77.7 20 4 Netherlands 74.1 20 5 Spain 68.5 20 6 Turkey 68.0 7 7 Italy 67.6 20 8 Denmark 65.4 20 9 Belgium 62.7 20 10 Sweden 58.7 18 11 Poland 50.0 20 12 Finland 48.9 18 13 Norway 48.4 6 14 Austria 43.1 16 Using the mean, our top 3 most consistently strong countries are Germany, France and the United Kingdom. However, one key flaw of the mean is that it can be heavily influenced by extreme values on the high or low end of the spectrum, and this becomes more apparent as the dataset becomes smaller. As such, I used another statistical measure to determine the answer; the median coaster score per country. The median is the middle value within an ordered dataset, so in a dataset with 20 numbers as many countries in this dataset are, the median value will be the midpoint between the 10th and 11th values. When the median was applied to all the countries used, the ranking was as follows: Ranking Country Median Coaster Score out of 100 (to 1dp) Number of Coasters Used 1 Germany 88.3 20 2 United Kingdom 79.7 20 3 France 79.0 20 4 Netherlands 74.9 20 5 Spain 73.2 20 6 Denmark 65.3 20 7 Italy 63.6 20 8 Belgium 61.0 20 9 Turkey 60.7 7 10 Sweden 57.0 18 11 Norway 49.1 6 12 Austria 47.8 16 13 Finland 44.6 18 14 Poland 41.6 20 Using the median, our top 3 most consistently strong countries are Germany, the United Kingdom and France, with the same countries coming out on top but the UK and France having swapped places. While the median is not overly influenced by extreme values on the top and bottom ends of a dataset as the mean can sometimes be, it arguably goes too far in the opposite direction in that it doesn't consider what's happening on the top or bottom at all; it is purely the middle value, and it will stay the same whether the top or bottom value is 5 above/below it or 50 above/below it. Seeing as both the mean and the median are arguably imperfect measures in their own different ways, I used a final statistical measure that I invented myself... The Matt N Consistent Strength Coefficient. As the mean can be overly influenced by extremely high and low values and the median completely ignores what's going on outside of the midpoint of the dataset, I decided to try and create a coefficient that combined the best of the mean and median and cancelled out the flaws of both methods. The formula for this coefficient is as follows: Matt N Consistent Strength Coefficient = ((Highest Value + Upper Quartile)+(Lowest Value + Lower Quartile))/2 It considers the top and bottom values, similarly to the mean, but also considers the upper and lower quartiles (the values that are higher than 75% and 25% of the dataset, respectively), so considers the more centralised focus of the median too. When I applied the Matt N Consistent Strength Coefficient to all the countries used, the ranking was as follows: Ranking Country Matt N Consistent Strength Coefficient (to 1dp) Number of Coasters Used 1 Germany 177.1 20 2 France 161.9 20 3 United Kingdom 156.8 20 4 Netherlands 148.3 20 5 Italy 139.2 20 6 Turkey 138.9 7 7 Spain 135.4 20 8 Denmark 130.2 20 9 Belgium 129.5 20 10 Sweden 114 18 11 Poland 105.4 20 12 Finland 101.8 18 13 Norway 96.0 6 14 Austria 81.0 16 Using the Matt N Consistent Strength Coefficient, our top 3 countries were Germany, France and the United Kingdom. Finally, here is a boxplot showing the distribution of all 14 countries' top 20(ish) lists, created using Python's MatPlotLib library: That should be clear enough to see which country is which, but if you have trouble, the countries are listed in alphabetical order from A to Z. So if we're working based on consistent strength across a wider cross-section of a country's coaster selection, I think it's fair to say that Germany is our comfortable winner, with some combination of France and the United Kingdom taking 2nd and 3rd place. However, this is not the only metric by which you can assess which European country is "best" for roller coasters. And indeed, one flaw of this metric is that to some extent, it is a bit biased towards countries with more roller coasters; the top 20 of a country with over 100 scoreable coasters will likely be very different to the top 20 of a country with 25 scoreable coasters. I would personally argue that although I accept and agree with the "quantity isn't everything" point, I do think it should still be a factor when deciding which country wins out over another, so to some extent, I would argue that having a lower quantity of scoreable coasters could make the country "worse" for roller coasters overall. Nonetheless, the flaws of this metric should still be taken into account, and I will approach the question from another angle for some balance. Let's now move onto the other way in which I'm going to try and answer the question... Top 3/Top End Quality (Which country has the strongest top end/strongest headline draws?) Ultimately, I know that it's the headline draws that encourage enthusiasts to visit a country, so I feel that another important metric to assess these countries by is how strong their headline draws are. To do this, I applied various statistical measures to the countries' top 3 most highly scoring coasters, as well as the general top end of the lineup. The first statistical measure I used was the mean coaster score of the top 3. As explained above, the mean is a calculated average, and when applied to the top 3s of each country, the ranking was as follows: Ranking Country Mean Top 3 Coaster Score (to 1dp) Top 3 Coasters 1 Poland 98.2 Zadra - Energylandia (99.7/100) Hyperion - Energylandia (98.1/100) Lech Coaster - Legendia (96.7/100) 2 Germany 97.7 Taron - Phantasialand (98.2/100) Expedition GeForce - Holiday Park (98.0/100) Schwur des Karnan - Hansa Park (96.9/100) 3 Sweden 96.7 Wildfire - Kolmarden (98.5/100) Helix - Liseberg (97.8/100) Balder - Liseberg (93.9/100) 4 Spain 95.7 Batman Gotham City Escape - Parque Warner Madrid (97.7/100) Shambhala - PortAventura Park (97.2/100) Superman la Atraccion de Acero - Parque Warner Madrid (92.2/100) 5 Belgium 94.8 Ride to Happiness - Plopsaland de Panne (99.4/100) Kondaa - Walibi Belgium (98.5/100) Fury - Bobbejaanland (86.6/100) 6 Netherlands 94.7 Untamed - Walibi Holland (98.9/100) Goliath - Walibi Holland (93.3/100) Fenix - Toverland (92.0/100) 7 France 94.3 Toutatis - Parc Asterix (98.5/100) OzIris - Parc Asterix (93.2/100) Monster - Walygator Grand Est (91.3/100) 8 Italy 92.6 iSpeed - Mirabilandia (95.7/100) Katun - Mirabilandia (95.4/100) Oblivion The Black Hole - Gardaland (86.7/100) 9 United Kingdom 92.1 Nemesis - Alton Towers (95.4/100) Icon - Blackpool Pleasure Beach (91.1/100) Stealth - Thorpe Park (89.8/100) 10 Denmark 92.0 Fonix - Farup Sommerland (96.0/100) Piraten - Djurs Sommerland (94.2/100) Juvelen - Djurs Sommerland (85.7/100) 11 Finland 90.9 Taiga - Linnanmaki (99.5/100) Junker - PowerPark (93.4/100) Thunderbird - PowerPark (79.9/100) 12 Turkey 88.0 Hyper Coaster - Land of Legends Theme Park (94.0/100) Red Fire - Korsan Adasi (93.9/100) Nefeskesen - Isfanbul (76.0/100) 13 Norway 74.1 Speed Monster - TusenFryd (80.9/100) Storm The Dragon Legend - TusenFryd (79.1/100) Thundercoaster - TusenFryd (62.4/100) 14 Austria 69.1 Gesengte Sau - Wiener Prater (71.3/100) Wild Train - Fantasiana (69.7/100) Rattenmuhle - Familypark (66.3/100) Using the mean, our top countries for top 3 strength are Poland, Germany and Sweden. However, as I did above, I will also use the median top 3 score. The median value of a dataset is the middle value, so in this instance, the median value is the 2nd highest-scoring coaster in a given country. When the median was applied to the top 3s of each country, the ranking was as follows: Ranking Country Median Top 3 Coaster Score (to 1dp) Top 3 Coasters 1 Belgium 98.5 Ride to Happiness - Plopsaland de Panne (99.4/100) Kondaa - Walibi Belgium (98.5/100) Fury - Bobbejaanland (86.6/100) 2 Poland 98.1 Zadra - Energylandia (99.7/100) Hyperion - Energylandia (98.1/100) Lech Coaster - Legendia (96.7/100) 3 Germany 98.0 Taron - Phantasialand (98.2/100) Expedition GeForce - Holiday Park (98.0/100) Schwur des Karnan - Hansa Park (96.9/100) 4 Sweden 97.8 Wildfire - Kolmarden (98.5/100) Helix - Liseberg (97.8/100) Balder - Liseberg (93.9/100) 5 Spain 97.2 Batman Gotham City Escape - Parque Warner Madrid (97.7/100) Shambhala - PortAventura Park (97.2/100) Superman la Atraccion de Acero - Parque Warner Madrid (92.2/100) 6 Italy 95.4 iSpeed - Mirabilandia (95.7/100) Katun - Mirabilandia (95.4/100) Oblivion The Black Hole - Gardaland (86.7/100) 7 Denmark 94.2 Fonix - Farup Sommerland (96.0/100) Piraten - Djurs Sommerland (94.2/100) Juvelen - Djurs Sommerland (85.7/100) 8 Turkey 93.9 Hyper Coaster - Land of Legends Theme Park (94.0/100) Red Fire - Korsan Adasi (93.9/100) Nefeskesen - Isfanbul (76.0/100) 9 Finland 93.4 Taiga - Linnanmaki (99.5/100) Junker - PowerPark (93.4/100) Thunderbird - PowerPark (79.9/100) 10 Netherlands 93.3 Untamed - Walibi Holland (98.9/100) Goliath - Walibi Holland (93.3/100) Fenix - Toverland (92.0/100) 11 France 93.2 Toutatis - Parc Asterix (98.5/100) OzIris - Parc Asterix (93.2/100) Monster - Walygator Grand Est (91.3/100) 12 United Kingdom 91.1 Nemesis - Alton Towers (95.4/100) Icon - Blackpool Pleasure Beach (91.1/100) Stealth - Thorpe Park (89.8/100) 13 Norway 79.1 Speed Monster - TusenFryd (80.9/100) Storm The Dragon Legend - TusenFryd (79.1/100) Thundercoaster - TusenFryd (62.4/100) 14 Austria 69.7 Gesengte Sau - Wiener Prater (71.3/100) Wild Train - Fantasiana (69.7/100) Rattenmuhle - Familypark (66.3/100) Using the median, our top countries for top 3 strength are Belgium, Poland and Germany. I'm also going to apply the Matt N Consistent Strength Coefficient to the top 3 of each country. As said above, this is a formula I invented that tries to integrate elements of both the mean and the median and cancel out their respective flaws, and when applied to the top 3s of each country, the ranking was as follows: Ranking Country Matt N Consistent Strength Coefficient for Top 3 (to 1dp) Top 3 Coasters 1 Poland 196.4 Zadra - Energylandia (99.7/100) Hyperion - Energylandia (98.1/100) Lech Coaster - Legendia (96.7/100) 2 Germany 195.3 Taron - Phantasialand (98.2/100) Expedition GeForce - Holiday Park (98.0/100) Schwur des Karnan - Hansa Park (96.9/100) 3 Sweden 193.2 Wildfire - Kolmarden (98.5/100) Helix - Liseberg (97.8/100) Balder - Liseberg (93.9/100) 4 Spain 191.0 Batman Gotham City Escape - Parque Warner Madrid (97.7/100) Shambhala - PortAventura Park (97.2/100) Superman la Atraccion de Acero - Parque Warner Madrid (92.2/100) 5 Netherlands 189.8 Untamed - Walibi Holland (98.9/100) Goliath - Walibi Holland (93.3/100) Fenix - Toverland (92.0/100) 6 France 189.0 Toutatis - Parc Asterix (98.5/100) OzIris - Parc Asterix (93.2/100) Monster - Walygator Grand Est (91.3/100) 7 Belgium 188.8 Ride to Happiness - Plopsaland de Panne (99.4/100) Kondaa - Walibi Belgium (98.5/100) Fury - Bobbejaanland (86.6/100) 8 Italy 184.5 iSpeed - Mirabilandia (95.7/100) Katun - Mirabilandia (95.4/100) Oblivion The Black Hole - Gardaland (86.7/100) 9 United Kingdom 184.5 Nemesis - Alton Towers (95.4/100) Icon - Blackpool Pleasure Beach (91.1/100) Stealth - Thorpe Park (89.8/100) 10 Denmark 183.4 Fonix - Farup Sommerland (96.0/100) Piraten - Djurs Sommerland (94.2/100) Juvelen - Djurs Sommerland (85.7/100) 11 Finland 181.3 Taiga - Linnanmaki (99.5/100) Junker - PowerPark (93.4/100) Thunderbird - PowerPark (79.9/100) 12 Turkey 174.5 Hyper Coaster - Land of Legends Theme Park (94.0/100) Red Fire - Korsan Adasi (93.9/100) Nefeskesen - Isfanbul (76.0/100) 13 Norway 147.0 Speed Monster - TusenFryd (80.9/100) Storm The Dragon Legend - TusenFryd (79.1/100) Thundercoaster - TusenFryd (62.4/100) 14 Austria 138.1 Gesengte Sau - Wiener Prater (71.3/100) Wild Train - Fantasiana (69.7/100) Rattenmuhle - Familypark (66.3/100) Using the Matt N Consistent Strength Coefficient on the countries' top 3s, the top-ranking countries are Poland, Germany and Sweden. I tried one final statistical measure on the top ends... and I say "top ends" because I widened the scope slightly beyond simply the top 3s to invent another coefficient, the Matt N Top End Strength Coefficient! This measure is a calculated average of the highest value and the upper quartile, and I invented this to apply to this dataset because I felt that examining a country's top 3 alone was perhaps too limiting to gauge a perspective on its wider headliners, as some countries arguably have more than 3 headliners. The formula for the Matt N Top End Strength Coefficient is as follows: Matt N Top End Strength Coefficient = (Highest Score + Upper Quartile)/2 When this formula was applied to all the countries, the ranking was as follows: Ranking Country Matt N Top End Strength Coefficient (to 1dp) Number of Coasters Used 1 Germany 94.9 20 2 Netherlands 92.7 20 3 Sweden 92.4 18 4 France 92.3 20 5 Poland 91.5 20 6 Spain 91.4 20 7 Italy 90.3 20 8 United Kingdom 89.9 20 9 Turkey 89.5 7 10 Belgium 88.1 20 11 Finland 87.2 18 12 Denmark 87.1 16 13 Norway 77.9 6 14 Austria 66.0 16 So when looking at "top ends" rather than solely top 3s, the top-ranking countries are Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Finally, let me insert a boxplot showing the distribution of each country's top 3, which was once again created using Python's MatPlotLib library: As I said about the boxplot further up; this should be clear enough to see which country is which, but if it isn't, the countries are listed in alphabetical order from A to Z. Now we've done our analysis, I think it's about time we drew some conclusions from it... Conclusions So now we've done the analysis, we can begin to draw some conclusions to answer our original question of "Which European country is best for roller coasters?". And I actually think that there are some very interesting conclusions to be drawn from this particular analysis, personally! In terms of a country to nominate for that top spot of being the creme de la creme of European roller coaster countries; based on the data I have, it's hard to argue against Germany, in my view. In terms of consistent strength across a broad cross-section of the lineup, it consistently ranked on top across all 3 measures, and its headline draws also consistently ranked towards the very top of the continent. As far as I can see, Germany is the only country that consistently ranked in the top 3 or higher through both consistent strength across a broad cross-section and the strength of the headliners alone, and I'd say that that gives it a very robust claim to the top spot, personally. It's the only country that consistently ranks highly on both fronts. Most other countries rank highly in either one or the other, but not both. For instance, Poland has stellar headline draws, but there's not much consistent strength across a broad cross-section of the lineup once you probe beyond those few headline draws. On the opposite side of the coin, the UK stacks up very favourably in terms of consistent strength across a broad cross-section of the lineup, but its headliners are comparatively lacking compared to those of other European countries. Finally, let's go back to my original motivation for doing this analysis and ask ourselves; do the results of this analysis suggest that the UK's coaster scene is lagging behind that of mainland Europe, as is so often stated by UK enthusiasts? Well, I think it's a very mixed bag. In terms of consistent strength across a broader cross-section of the lineup, the first angle I approached this question from, the UK actually compared very, very favourably, scoring in the top 3 for all 3 measures of consistent strength. If you want a broad, plentiful selection of decent coasters, my data actually suggests that the UK is one of the strongest countries in Europe in this regard; you could certainly do a lot, lot worse than the UK in terms of consistent strength across a broad cross-section of the lineup, anyhow! On the other hand, the UK does not compare so favourably in terms of its headline draws, with the country consistently scoring in the bottom 50% of European countries on the merit of its headline coasters alone. And I think that a large part of it scoring as highly as it did in many of the metrics was Stealth being a fairly solid 3rd place coaster; only Norway and Austria had lower-scoring second place coasters than Icon, and even Nemesis, which is often revered as the crown jewel of the UK, was only the 11th highest scorer of the 14 first place coasters, with only Turkey, Norway and Austria having lower-scoring top coasters. All coasters in the top 3s of Poland and Germany scored higher than Nemesis, and a number of other countries had 2 of their top 3 coasters being more highly scoring than Nemesis. So in essence, the UK's performance against other European countries in the coaster stakes is very mixed; the country stacks up very favourably in terms of having a broad selection of consistently decent coasters, but the UK's headliners are definitely on the weaker side compared to those of other European countries. So in conclusion, my data suggests that Germany is the winning country for European coasters overall, with it being the only country to score consistently highly in terms of both its headliners and the consistent strength across a broader cross-section of its lineup. I should stress that that is not the answer to the question, though; it is simply an answer that my chosen methods drew from a certain dataset. You may hold a completely different opinion, and a different analysis with a different dataset may yield completely different results. If you're interested to read more, here are the Google Sheets for both the top 20s and the top 3s: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1s6VBT_p4nsYIIqbFMR1pqvA22Z8BarTrS98GNMt_P_Y/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1w2U6LkVl_nQ2WJybb3V2icnCYm4Mdw7TD2iH0_JxFus/edit?usp=sharing I hope you've enjoyed my deep statistical dive into the coaster selections of European countries; I know I certainly enjoyed carrying out the analysis! I'd be really interested to know your thoughts, good or bad! And don't hold back in that regard, either; if you think my analysis is a load of rubbish, do tell me! If you'd like me to explore this dataset more or ask any further questions about it, I'd also be very open to suggestions! TL;DR: When I analysed the coaster selections of 14 different European countries to work out which European country is the best for roller coasters, my analysis revealed that Germany came out on top, as it was the only country to score consistently highly in terms of both consistent strength across a broad cross-section of the lineup and its headline coasters alone. I was also interested to see whether the common feeling from Brits that the UK's coaster scene lags behind that of mainland Europe was justified. My analysis found that the UK's performance was a mixed bag, with the country comparing very, very favourably to other European nations in terms of consistent strength across a broad cross-section of the lineup, but not comparing so favourably in terms of the headline coasters; the country consistently scored in the bottom 50% of European nations on the merit of its headline coasters alone.

Hi guys. I'm sure that many members on here are seasoned visitors to Thorpe Park, and I wouldn't be surprised if some members have "gameplans", if you will, of how to best tackle the park. With this in mind, I'd be interested to know; in your view, which Thorpe Park coaster or group of coasters is best to start the day on? I only ask because I'm headed back to the park next month for my third solo day there, and I'm wondering whether to stick to my usual strategy or divvy it up. On my previous two visits, I've always found Stealth/Inferno to be a good duo to start on, as I've found that you can take a ride on both of those two as well as Detonator early on with a minimal or walk-on queue, which gets a fair few rides in early. However, I've wondered whether Saw/Colossus might be a better duo to start on, as both rides can sometimes amass long queues later on in the day. What do you guys think? Which Thorpe Park coaster or group of coasters do you find to be best to start the day on?

Hi guys. Over the years, I’m sure that most of us have visited quite a few different theme parks; each year, I personally visit a mixture of old favourites alongside trying to mix the odd new park or two in there as well to enhance my repertoire and increase my coaster and park counts. Trying to visit new parks can sometimes mean that there isn’t enough time to revisit some previously visited parks, however, and as the years rattle on, a park can sometimes get pushed down and down the list until you realise that you haven’t visited in a number of years. With this in mind, my question for you today is; which major theme park have you gone the longest without visiting? Which major park have you not visited in a ridiculously long time? For clarity, I say “major” because I’m aware that the hardier credit counters among us will likely have a number of “one-and-done” type parks where the main draw is the +1 from a Wacky Worm, Go-Gator or similar that they visited years ago and will probably never revisit. I’ll get the ball rolling with my answer. Personally, the major place I have gone the longest without visiting is Disneyland Paris. I have not been back to Disneyland Park or Walt Disney Studios Park since 27th March 2011. I’m not actually sure why we never went back after our first visit (although I imagine our discovery of Florida in 2012 could have something to do with it), but for whatever reason, I have not been back to DLP since 2011. Other than the two DLP parks, there is only 1 other park where my last visit was more than 5 years ago, and perhaps surprisingly given my general level of enmeshment with the UK Merlin parks, that is Chessington World of Adventures; my last visit to Chessington was on 26th July 2014. It was actually one of my first ever parks as a young child when I first visited in 2009, with Vampire and Runaway Train (as it was then known) being my 4th and 5th coasters respectively, but I’ve only ever been back twice more, in 2013 and 2014, and I have not visited for close to a decade now. My parents never had much desire to return once my sister and I passed a certain age (I was talking to my dad about parks the other day, just before our visit to Flamingo Land, and he described Chessington as one of only two UK parks he’s ever considered “a bit lame”, with the other being Drayton Manor), and to be honest, the park hasn’t tempted me as much as some others. The addition of Mandrill Mayhem did make it more tempting, however, and I’m revisiting for the first time in close to 10 years next month! After those two, the park I’ve gone the longest without visiting jumps all the way up to 2019, which I’d still consider relatively recent… But which major park have you gone the longest without visiting? Which major park have you not visited in a really long time? I’d be really interested to know!

Where could a Single Rider Queue on Stealth go, out of interest? In terms of removing Stealth; there are plenty of other development plots that the park could fill before touching Stealth, so unless the ride develops maintenance issues any time soon, I think we should be good for now!

I think Pleasurewood’s main problem versus somewhere like Drayton is location. Suffolk is pretty remote, with the nearest major population centres being some distance away, so its draw will naturally be limited. As much as the phrase “If you build it, they will come” is often a favourite, people won’t travel miles to the park, so its feasible catchment area is probably limited by that. By comparison, Drayton Manor is in Staffordshire, so has quite a considerable number of the major population centres within easy reach. It’s pretty much in Birmingham, some boroughs of North London are less than 2 hours away, and some of the big population centres in the North like Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and Leeds are less than 2 hours away. As such, its feasible catchment area will be much larger. I get that the East Anglia seaside is a holiday destination, but that will probably only be the case for a certain cross-section of the population that lives reasonably near to East Anglia. For much of the country, another seaside destination is closer. People living overly far west, south or north probably aren’t going to holiday in East Anglia in the same way that people who live overly far east, south or north probably aren’t going to holiday in Pembrokeshire and visit Oakwood. It’s also worth noting that Drayton was already a pretty established park with over 1 million visitors per year at the time of the buyout, whereas I’d hazard a guess that Pleasurewood Hills probably gets under 500,000 visitors per year and isn’t an established national brand in quite the same way.

As someone who's never been, Pleasurewood Hills looks broadly comparable to somewhere like Oakwood, but with weaker major coasters. Don't get me wrong, I do have a soft spot for Oakwood, but I wouldn't like the park nearly as much if it didn't have a great major coaster like Megafobia at its centre and a decent-scale unique thrill coaster like Speed. It's a little hidden gem of a park, but it is definitely made by its coasters for me. I could be being overly presumptuous, but to me, Pleasurewood Hills' coaster draws look vastly weaker than Oakwood's (the main draw I can think of is Wipeout, as I am mildly intrigued to ride a traditional Vekoma Boomerang, but I can get the same experience at numerous parks in Europe and ride numerous more compelling headliners in the same park). And when the park is a 4.5 hour drive away from me on a good run, it does make it a tough sell, unfortunately.

The park confirmed 81mph in response to someone’s tweet:

Exodus will be the UK’s tallest and fastest roller coaster, then!

On a different note, have Thorpe Park added a single rider queue to Stealth yet, as they suggested they might at the beginning of the season?

I think Inferno is a really decent coaster, personally; it’s definitely grown on me over time, and often, I think I’m one of the ones who actually prefers it to the original Nemesis these days! (Although it is admittedly pretty close, and can change if I reride either) For me, it’s intense without being excessively so, and it packs a nice sense of speed and has some good inversions. It’s also pretty smooth, too! If pushed, I’d possibly say that it was my favourite of Thorpe’s coasters, although I’d say that it vies for that position with Stealth. I can never quite decide which one I prefer; I’ll have to make a decision when I go back to the park in September! My favourite in the past was always Swarm, and indeed, it actually spent a 2-year stint as my number 1 coaster before I rode Mako, but I’m increasingly going off that one a bit; I still enjoy it, but I’m increasingly not a fan of the vest restraints, and I’ve also found it to be getting a bit bouncy on the outer seats in particular as of late. As for Inferno, though; it’s not a top 10 or 10/10 tier coaster for me, as inverted coasters aren’t necessarily a ride style I rate at that obscenely high level these days, but it’s definitely a top 20 coaster for me, and a solid 8/10 or 9/10. I really enjoy it; of the 5 B&M inverts I’ve ridden, I’d probably say it’s my 2nd favourite behind Montu.

Hi guys. In the UK theme park industry, Merlin theme parks are a very dominant force, and this is arguably most apparent in the arena of roller coaster hardware. If you were to ask an average enthusiast what their favourite UK coaster is, there’s a good chance that it would be at a Merlin theme park, and I dare say that most people’s UK top 10s would be relatively saturated with Merlin-operated coasters, with parks like Alton Towers and Thorpe Park in particular arguably having two of the UK’s most revered thrill coaster selections. With this in mind, I’d be intrigued to know; what is your favourite UK coaster not located at a theme park operated by Merlin Entertainments? Of the coasters at independent UK parks and UK parks owned by smaller chains such as Blackpool Pleasure Beach, Drayton Manor, Oakwood, Paultons Park, Flamingo Land, Fantasy Island, and numerous others, which is your favourite? As for my own answer to this thread, my recent first visit to Flamingo Land, and my first ride on Sik in particular, got me thinking about what my favourite non-Merlin UK coasters actually are. My favourite non-Merlin UK coaster is quite comfortably Icon at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, which is actually my favourite UK coaster even including Merlin parks, as well as my #8 overall out of 107 ridden coasters. I love the airtime, I love the fun twists and turns, I love the inversions, I love the smoothness and comfortable restraints… I just think it does a number of things very, very well! I know that liking Icon is a somewhat unpopular opinion, but I absolutely love it! After that, though, only two other non-Merlin coasters actually slot into my UK top 10, meaning that non-Merlin coasters make up 3 of my UK top 10. With this in mind, my top 3 non-Merlin UK coasters, and the 3 that make my overall UK top 10, are: Icon - Blackpool Pleasure Beach (10/10, UK #1, #8/107 overall) Sik - Flamingo Land (8/10, UK #8, #22/107 overall) Megafobia - Oakwood Theme Park (8/10, UK #9, #25/107 overall) If you’re interested, my overall UK top 10 (with non-Merlin rides highlighted in bold) is: Icon - Blackpool Pleasure Beach (10/10, #8/107 overall) Wicker Man - Alton Towers (10/10, #10/107 overall) Oblivion - Alton Towers (9/10, #11/107 overall) Nemesis Inferno - Thorpe Park (9/10, #17/107 overall) Rita - Alton Towers (9/10, #18/107 overall) Stealth - Thorpe Park (8/10, #19/107 overall) Nemesis - Alton Towers (8/10, #20/107 overall) Sik - Flamingo Land (8/10, #22/107 overall) Megafobia - Oakwood Theme Park (8/10, #25/107 overall) Thirteen - Alton Towers (7/10, #28/107 overall) But I’d be interested to know; what is your favourite non-Merlin UK coaster?

No problem! I certainly had a nice day, but I would be conscious of the operations and throughputs if visiting on a day busier than Monday was.

That’s a good point that I forgot to pick up on. I noticed that Pterodactyl appeared to be missing arms, and I’m guessing that’s why Flip Flop looked more like one of the KMG frisbee-style rides with gaps between seats when I thought that it was supposed to be one of the Zamperla rides with a continuous ring of seats all the way around? I was perfectly content with the queues on the day I went; 40 minutes is no worse than I’ve encountered in many other places, and most queues were no longer than 30-35 minutes or so. Had the day been busier and the queues been longer, I can see how the operations may have been more problematic, and I can also see how my day may not have been as fruitful had I not followed prior advice on which rides to do first, but if considering my own day in isolation, I was satisfied with the amount I personally got on. Breakdowns were a minor issue, as Cliff Hanger remained closed all day and Zoo Monorail and Pterodactyl both broke down as I was waiting for them. However, I’m not sure if that’s entirely the park’s fault; things break down, and that can’t really be helped.

I’m back! This time, I have readings from my first ever visit to Flamingo Land, and this is one that I was quite interested to time the throughputs of, seeing as it reputedly has throughputs and operations on the other end of the spectrum compared to somewhere like Europa Park or Universal Orlando. I was led to believe that if Europa has famous operations, Flamingo Land has infamous operations. Here are the readings I managed to gain today: Hero (Theoretical: 600pph with 6/7 cars) - 167pph (2 cars, 7th August 2023, average of 10) Kumali (Theoretical: 1,125pph with 2 trains) - 214pph (1 train, 7th August 2023, average of 2) Mumbo Jumbo (Theoretical: 480pph with 5 cars) - 171pph (3 cars, 7th August 2023, average of 6) Sik (Theoretical: 1,250pph with 2 trains) - 373pph (1 train, 7th August 2023, average of 4) Velocity (Theoretical: 518pph with 1 train) - 252pph (1 train, 7th August 2023, average of 4) These are some of the slowest operations I have ever personally witnessed, but in fairness, I managed 9 rides, and the longest queue all day was 40 minutes, so I can’t really complain too much. The operations didn’t seem overly disproportionate to the crowd levels at the park, for the most part; they could have been faster, for sure, but a park of Flamingo Land’s calibre is never going to be hammering trains out at light speed and getting 1,800pph on every ride, and I honestly don’t think they really need to be given their visitor numbers. One thing I did notice, though, is that the people batching the rides were the same ones who checked the restraints and dispatched the rides. I don’t know if this is par for the course at Flamingo Land, but the number of staff operating each ride seemed low compared to most other theme parks I’ve been to. Maybe the operations would be faster if the rides had more staff?

7th August 2023 (Flamingo Land) Hi guys. Today, I visited a new theme park that I’d never previously visited before; I visited Flamingo Land in North Yorkshire for the first time! This visit was a present from my parents for my 20th birthday last week, and I was interested to see what the park had to offer; prior to today, Flamingo Land was probably the most major UK park I was yet to visit, and Sik was probably the most revered UK coaster I was yet to ride! We’d actually made the 4.5 hour journey to North Yorkshire yesterday afternoon, so as we’d stayed in a local hotel only around 5 miles away the night before, we set off for the park at around 9:20am to get in just after the 9:30am park opening time: After getting into the park, we headed to the back of the park to ride our first coaster… Mumbo Jumbo Mumbo Jumbo was a coaster that I’d been advised to tackle first due to low capacity, so me and my mum decided to give it a go (my dad steered clear as he thought that the tight-looking turns might not do his back much good). There was pretty much no one in front of us waiting for the 10am ride opening time, which was definitely a good thing given that we saw a sign while negotiating the queue indicating that two switchbacks into the queue took an estimated 60 minutes to navigate, which definitely shocked my mum a bit… but how was the ride? Well, I’d never ridden an S&S El Loco before (or an S&S coaster, for that matter), so I was interested to try Mumbo Jumbo, but I’m afraid to say that neither of us were huge fans of it. I’ll admit that it’s a novel ride with the repeated slow hangtime, and a beyond vertical drop is always good fun, but I really wasn’t a fan of the shoulder bars on there. When the shoulder bars were combined with the repeated slow hangtime and tight wild mouse-style turns, I didn’t find it a terribly enjoyable experience, I’m afraid, and my mum seemed to echo my thoughts: After Mumbo Jumbo, we decided to try the coaster directly next to it… Kumali Kumali had a relatively short-looking queue, so we decided to give it a go while we were nearby. This queue was short, and only took about 10 minutes or so; I couldn’t complain too much about that! But how was the ride? Well, I had pretty low expectations given that my least favourite coaster was Infusion, a fellow SLC at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, but it was actually OK! I was seated in row 9, and it was a bit rough in places, which did detract to an extent, but it was not nearly as bad as Infusion, and the ride had some pretty decent inversions and was well-paced and reasonably intense without being excessively so! Overall, I still wouldn’t have said that Kumali was one of my absolute favourite coasters, but it was a perfectly all right ride that was only somewhat rough, unlike the very rough Infusion, and had some decent elements, so I couldn’t really complain too much: After Kumali, we headed towards Metropolis to ride a unique and highly notorious ride… Hero Hero didn’t look to have an overly long queue, so me and my mum decided to give it a go (this was another one my dad steered clear of). When we entered the queue, it became apparent that this not overly long queue could be longer than we’d previously thought, as I’d logged a throughput of 167pph, and it ultimately took 35 minutes. But how was the ride? Did Hero live up to its notorious reputation? Well, I have to say… yes, it did. It’s certainly a novel ride, but it wasn’t one I was keen on at all. The car and position are very weird; I’m not a huge lover of flying coasters at the best of times, and this car was extremely uncomfortable with the stepladder and how unrestrained you were, and it was very, very rough throughout for me, throwing you around a lot. I’m sorry to be negative, but I didn’t like Hero at all, and I’m very tempted to say that it’s usurped Infusion as my least favourite coaster: After getting off Hero, we got some ice cream before heading to our next coaster… Velocity Velocity was another coaster we were interested to do, so we decided to give it a go. Like numerous coasters at this park, I hadn’t really done anything quite like Velocity before; my closest comparison would have been Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure at Universal (which I loved!), and even that is a very chalk-and-cheese comparison given that Hagrid’s has a normal seat and is on a vastly grander scale. The queue here took around 30 minutes, which I didn’t think was too bad at all, personally! So, how was the ride? Well, I thought that it had a fun layout, with a few nice pops of airtime, a punchy launch and some nice fast-paced turns! However, I did find the actual motorbike position a bit odd and uncomfortable compared to a ride like Hagrid’s, what with how it has you riding so that all your weight is placed on your chest, and that was a big detractor for me. Overall, I thought that Velocity had a fun layout, but I wouldn’t have said that it was one of my favourite coasters due to the discomfort of the riding position being a fair detractor for me: After getting off Velocity, we headed around to the final big coaster that we hadn’t done yet, as well as our most anticipated… Sik Sik was on an advertised 30 minute queue time, so we decided to take a ride on it. The advertised queue time ended up being pretty accurate, so we couldn’t complain too much! But how was the ride? Was Sik… sick, as its name suggests? Well, I was personally intrigued to see how Sik rode, as I’ve never liked Colossus, but I’ve always felt that my biggest issues with that ride were the trains and the roughness, which were both issues that Sik looked to have solved. I have to say that I thought it was great; it was a thoroughly decent coaster, in my view, and the comfort of the overhead lap bars make a big difference! I also really liked the altered first drop, with the steep turn to the left being a definite enhancement compared to the original Colossus’ drop, in my view! The first half was much the same as Colossus elements-wise, and I’ve always felt that this is a pretty good first half; it works really well here. I’m still not 100% sure on the second half with the successive heartline rolls, as they are definitely a bit dizzying, but I’ll concede that the overhead lap bars do make them more comfortable than they are on Colossus. Overall, then, I thought Sik was a really decent coaster, with the lap bars and altered profiling being a definite game changer; it definitely lived up to my expectations, and I definitely enjoyed it! It’s not a top 10 coaster for me or anything, or one of my absolute favourite UK coasters, but that style of ride doesn’t tend to rank phenomenally highly for me anyway and I’ve never liked Colossus, so I wasn’t really expecting that to begin with. On its own merit, I thought Sik was a very good coaster that I definitely enjoyed overall, and my dad, who’d never ridden Colossus before due to being too tall for the restraints, thought pretty highly of the ride: After our ride on Sik, we got some lunch in the Muddy Duck Cafe before heading to look around the zoo for a bit. We initially decided to head onto… Zoo Monorail The Zoo Monorail was nearby and looked to have a short queue, so we decided to give it a go to get a panoramic view of the zoo and its animals. We hadn’t been in the queue very long, and had only narrowly missed the first and second monorail trains that went after we joined the queue, but we’d noticed that the first train had come to a stop not very far after the station, and the operator later noticed, abruptly stopped the second train, and told us that “the battery’s gone flat”. As such, we left the queue; I think we made the right choice given that everyone else left shortly afterwards, with even the operator swiftly abandoning the scene: After our ill-fated attempt at riding the Zoo Monorail, we headed around the zoo on foot for about an hour, looking at animals such as lemurs, the park’s namesake flamingos, kangaroos, wallabies, penguins, black rhinos, zebras, camels and giraffes, amongst numerous others. The animals seemed a bit inactive and not too keen to come out, likely due to the current British summer we’re having, but it was nice to walk around the zoo nonetheless. It looked like quite a nice zoo, and it was fairly big; have a few pictures I took: After leaving the zoo, we initially headed to try and do Twistosaurus, as I had thought that this and Zooom! might be two nice bonus family coaster +1s that didn’t look like embarrassing bonafide kiddie coasters (Runaway Mine Train, Dino Roller and Go Gator were all conclusively ruled out beforehand on this basis). We did get in the queue briefly, but it was quite long, the throughput didn’t look overly high, and my parents were put off after seeing a particularly spinny car containing a very perturbed-looking woman going around for a second lap… I ultimately decided that I wasn’t that bothered about doing Twistosaurus or Zooom!, so we decided to leave that queue: After we bailed on Twistosaurus, my parents decided that they didn’t fancy riding anything else, so they headed around the zoo while I headed for some rerides. I started off with a reride on Kumali. I was seated in row 9 once again (I’d initially gone to sit in row 7, but row 9 was empty, the operator later noticed this and moved me up, and the lady I had been batched next to said “let’s go to the back; it’s faster!”), and it was similar to how it had been earlier, with possibly a touch of additional speed from having warmed up: I then headed for a reride on Sik using the single rider queue, which was very useful as I pretty much walked straight on there! I was seated in row 2 this time, and as with earlier, it was a thoroughly decent coaster that I really enjoyed, although I think I preferred it towards the back of the train: After my reride on Sik, I went for a reride on Velocity. I was seated in row 2 this time, and it was similar to earlier, although I think I found it a touch more uncomfortable: After my reride on Velocity, I headed to try out a ride I hadn’t done yet… Pterodactyl Pterodactyl appeared to have a relatively short queue, so I decided to give it a go. I was interested to try Pterodactyl, as even though I’m not generally huge on flat rides, I’d never ridden a Star Flyer-style ride before. As with a number of rides at Flamingo Land, the “relatively short queue” was longer than expected, ultimately taking around 40 minutes, and I ended up not getting on Pterodactyl. I nearly did, as I was initially batched into a cycle that went as usual, but the operator realised they’d overbatched without considering exit riders and abruptly ushered me back into the queue. The cycle that I was then batched into looked promising, as I fastened my restraint and the operator went into their booth as normal to send it with no sign that anything was wrong, but they abruptly came back out and said “Ride’s broken, get off!”, so I was ultimately unable to ride Pterodactyl: After my ill-fated attempt to ride Pterodactyl, I went for one final single rider queue reride on Sik. I was seated in row 7 this time, and it was once again a very good ride: After my final Sik reride, I headed back towards the Muddy Duck Farm to meet back up with my parents. It was about 5pm by this point, so we decided to bid Flamingo Land goodbye and head back to our hotel: So, that just about covers my first ever visit to Flamingo Land in Yorkshire! I had a nice day; I was really pleased to get 9 rides in, I got on many of the things I’d hoped to get on, including all 5 big thrill coasters, and overall, I really enjoyed visiting somewhere different! There really is no feeling quite like going to a new park for the first time, and I had a really nice day discovering all that Flamingo Land has to offer! In terms of the park itself; sure, it’s not the greatest theme park I’ve ever been to, but I don’t think the park deserves some of the hate it gets, personally, and I certainly had an enjoyable day. The operations are slow (some of the slowest I’ve ever personally encountered), and the park is not the most cohesively themed in numerous areas (although I thought that some others were reasonably nicely themed), but overall, I think it’s a nice enough park that I certainly had a nice day at, and I do think that there is something to be said for the breadth of the park’s offering and the relative strength of its coaster selection for a park of its calibre. Sik is a very decent headliner, and while I wouldn’t have said that I rated any of the other coasters overly highly (I’d probably say that only Kumali makes my top 50% out of the other 4), they are certainly novel experiences that add good variety to the lineup and help to flesh it out. There are also quite a few other rides that I didn't do; for instance, Cliff Hanger was unfortunately closed today, but had I done it, I imagine that that would have been a really decent headline flat ride for me (I love a good drop tower!). The zoo was also nice and surprisingly expansive, and overall, I had a nice day at Flamingo Land! You can talk about the operations and such, but given what I got on, I don’t think I can really complain; the longest queue I waited in all day was 40 minutes, and I managed 9 rides in 7 hours, which I was pleased with! Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this report! My next report will probably be from Thorpe Park at some point in early September!

Hi guys. Thorpe Park may have arguably one of the UK’s most well-known and well-liked selections of thrill coasters, but another aspect of the park that is commonly revered is its lineup of flat rides. Thorpe’s flat ride lineup is arguably one of the most expansive and varied in the UK, or dare I say the world, with quite a plethora of thrilling flat rides on offer. There have also been some intriguing past residents within Thorpe Park’s flat ride lineup. With this in mind, I’d be interested to know; which past or present Thorpe Park flat ride is your favourite? Personally, I’m not the biggest lover of flat rides overall, and I’ve only actually done 3 of Thorpe Park’s flat rides, but I am a big fan of drop towers, so of the ones I’ve done, I would personally vote for Detonator. I love a good drop tower, and Detonator is a great one; for a smaller drop tower, the drop is so punchy! I do have to say, however, that I also really enjoy Rush and would place that firmly in a close second. It’s not too nauseating, and I love the speed and sustained floater airtime it provides! The only other Thorpe flat ride I’ve ridden is Samurai. I found it OK, and surprisingly not too bad nausea-wise given the reputation of Mondial Top Scans as intense flat rides, but it’s not one of my favourites, and definitely a peg below the other two for me. But I’d be keen to know; which past or present Thorpe Park flat ride is your favourite? P.S. I included every Thorpe flat ride, past and present, listed on Wikipedia within the poll, but if I missed your favourite, there is also an “Other” option you can vote for.

But surely if this were the case, Hex wouldn’t have opened alongside The Curse at Alton Manor at the start of the season? At the start of the season, the two did operate alongside each other (albeit very briefly, as Hex was down again by April).

I realise that I haven't posted a top 30 in a while, as I only did a top 10 with descriptions when I initially got back from Florida. My current top 30 is as follows: Mako - SeaWorld Orlando (10/10) Jurassic World VelociCoaster - Islands of Adventure (10/10) Silver Star - Europa Park (10/10) Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure - Islands of Adventure (10/10) Wodan Timbur Coaster - Europa Park (10/10) Iron Gwazi - Busch Gardens Tampa (10/10) SheiKra - Busch Gardens Tampa (10/10) Icon - Blackpool Pleasure Beach (10/10) Ice Breaker - SeaWorld Orlando (10/10) Wicker Man - Alton Towers (10/10) Oblivion - Alton Towers (9/10) Montu - Busch Gardens Tampa (9/10) Revenge of the Mummy - Universal Studios Florida (9/10) Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts - Universal Studios Florida (9/10) Blue Fire - Europa Park (9/10) Mine Blower - Fun Spot Kissimmee (9/10) Nemesis Inferno - Thorpe Park (9/10) Rita - Alton Towers (9/10) Stealth - Thorpe Park (8/10) Nemesis - Alton Towers (8/10) CanCan Coaster - Europa Park (8/10) Kumba - Busch Gardens Tampa (8/10) Kraken - SeaWorld Orlando (8/10) Megafobia - Oakwood Theme Park (8/10) Rock'n'Rollercoaster - Disney's Hollywood Studios (8/10) Cheetah Hunt - Busch Gardens Tampa (8/10) Thirteen - Alton Towers (7/10) The Swarm - Thorpe Park (7/10) Slinky Dog Dash - Disney's Hollywood Studios (7/10) Arthur - Europa Park (7/10) I should also say that after discovering some exact dates and confirmation of early theme park visits, I decided to change my coaster counting methodology and ditch my "enthusiasm start date", increasing my coaster count to 102. I had initially hesitated to rank and rate the added +3 from Disneyland Paris in March 2011, but when I sat down today and properly gave it some thought, I realised that my vague recollections of the rides I did at DLP are better than I had previously given myself credit for, and that my vague recollections of some of the rides I already had ranked and rated weren't much better (mainly a fair amount of Chessington, which I haven't done since 2014), so I decided to have a go at ranking and rating them. I did these coasters many years ago, so my recollections are vague and I can't remember too much in the way of specifics, but thinking about it, I do remember a vague hierarchy of enjoyment, and based on my vague recollections, I have decided upon the following placements and ratings: My highest-ranked coaster from DLP is Big Thunder Mountain at Disneyland Park. This is the ride I remember most, and I remember thinking it was pretty fun at 7 years old; it was the only coaster I rerode, and from vague memory, I rode it 3 times or so. I figure that it was fairly similar to the Florida version that I did in 2019, but I do remember enjoying this version a little bit more at the time than I later enjoyed the Florida version, so I opted for #34/102, one spot higher than the Florida version, and a 7/10 rating. On a fun aside, this ride was of one of only 3 coasters I've ever been evacuated from (with the other two being Wicker Man in 2018 and Hagrid's in 2023)! My second highest-ranked coaster from DLP is Crush's Coaster at Walt Disney Studios Park. I remember it being pretty good at the time, and possibly more fun than Spinball, but it probably wasn't quite as good as Dragon's Fury, so I opted for #45/102, one spot below Dragon's Fury, and a 6/10 rating. My lowest-ranked coaster from DLP is RC Racer at Walt Disney Studios Park. I don't remember it being anything especially spectacular even at 7 years old, so I opted for #69/102, just below the similarly unremarkable Atlantica SuperSplash, and a 4/10 rating. I know it's weird that I suddenly counted these rides as part of my count and ranked them, but I finally felt able to add them to my count and visit log after finding out the exact visit dates and ride counts and such, and discovering that I hadn't ridden anything I didn't vaguely remember riding. I'd never rated and ranked them as I thought that my recollections were too vague for me to rate and rank them, but after giving it some thought, I realised that my recollections were better than I'd previously given myself credit for and that some of the rides I'd already ranked were things I had relatively vague recollections of. If you're wondering why I only have Big Thunder Mountain from Disneyland Park and Crush's Coaster and RC Racer from Walt Disney Studios Park: I wasn't tall enough to ride Space Mountain or Indiana Jones. I was tall enough to ride Rock'n'Rollercoaster, but I refused to ride it because someone from primary school told me it would give me tummyache... I have no memory of ever having ridden Casey Jr, and I found no evidence to the contrary, so it's not counted. If you'd like to view my full, exhaustive ranking, here it is: https://captaincoaster.com/en/tops/192

Each to their own, of course, but I think one thing that’s important to remember is that The Curse at Alton Manor is a very different proposition to The Haunted House or Duel, so things like a lack of unique ghouls/characters in the ride probably doesn’t matter as much, or could even be a conscious choice. Unlike its predecessors, Curse has a storyline centred around the personal narrative of one central character (Emily Alton), so there’s bound to be less distinct “characters” in it than were featured in the ride’s predecessors by virtue of that. I’d also say that in terms of how scary the ride is, I don’t necessarily think that the ride is unduly dark for a family or family thrill ride. Many family rides have rather dark themes and elements of fear; things like Tower of Terror and Revenge of the Mummy are very popular family or family thrill rides with pretty dark themes and horror elements, and even The Haunted House itself was pretty scary, from what I can ascertain from anecdotes. In terms of personal choices for improvements, the main things I would change are the Hide and Seek scene and the Screaming Heads scene. Both scenes definitely lack something for me.

Interesting question… I’d never really considered that there was much of a difference between the two! I’d probably say I’m indifferent in that case, then…

For some additional context, the ride is replacing the long-gone Antarctica dark ride, and plans discovered by ParkFans unearthed that the layout will be something along these lines: I'll admit that B&M seem like an unexpected choice, but I think that that looks like good fun, and exactly what the park needs!