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Also, which ride had more downtime this year? The #1 or #2 best coaster in the world?

2021 Top 25 Wooden Coasters El Toro - Six Flags Great Adventure (even) Outlaw Run - Silver Dollar City (+1) Wildfire - Kolmården Wildlife Park (+2) T Express - Everland (even) Phoenix - Knoebels Amusement Park and Resort (+1) Voyage - Holiday World (+2) Boulder Dash - Lake Compounce (even) Colossos Kampf der Giganten - Heide-Park Resort (+1) Balder - Liseberg (+1) Dauling Dragon - Happy Valley Wuhan (new to top 25) Mystic Timbers - Kings Island (+3) Goliath - Six Flags Great America (even) Wooden Coaster Fireball - Happy Valley Shanghai (+2) Ravine Flyer II - Waldameer Water World (-3) Coaster - Playland (at the PNE) (-2) Renegade - Valleyfair (+2) Shivering Timbers - Michigan's Adventure (even) Tremors - Silverwood Theme Park (+1) Mine Blower - Fun Spot America Kissimmee (-3) GhostRider - Knott's Berry Farm (even) Gold Striker - California's Great America (+1) Cú Chulainn - Tayto Park (-1) Troy - Toverland (even) Wodan Timbur Coaster - Europa Park (+1) Prowler - Worlds of Fun (new to top 25) 2021 Top 25 Steel Coasters Lightning Rod - Dollywood (new to top 25, changed from wooden coaster) Untamed - Walibi Holland (-1) Skyrush - Hersheypark (even) Twisted Timbers - Kings Dominion (+3) Maverick - Cedar Point (even) Twisted Colossus - Six Flags Magic Mountain (+3) Expedition GeForce - Holiday Park (-3) Steel Vengeance - Cedar Point (-6) Fury 325 - Carowinds (+2) Intimidator 305 - Kings Dominion (+3) Helix - Liseberg (-1) Taron - Phantasialand (even) Wicked Cyclone - Six Flags New England (+3) Zadra - Energylandia (new to top 25) Hyperion - Energylandia (+9) Millennium Force - Cedar Point (-2) Taiga - Linnanmäki (new to top 25) Jurassic World VelociCoaster - Islands of Adventure (new to top 25) Ride to Happiness - Plopsaland De Panne (new to top 25) Twisted Cyclone - Six Flags Over Georgia (-2) Hakugei - Nagashima Spa Land (new to top 25) Lech Coaster - Legendia (new to top 25) Superman The Ride - Six Flags New England (-1) Medusa Steel Coaster - Six Flags Mexico (-18) Nemesis - Alton Towers (new to top 25)

Yes, your enthusiast friends might have ridden it, but this year, we also made significant outreach to Theme Park Review's social media followers and casual readers, which absolutely affected the results. We anticipated that there would be some volatility in the two new big debuts - VelociCoaster and Ride to Happiness, both of which made huge impacts in their home continents. The top 100 or so are especially volatile each year and big swings / upsets can happen because, outside of the numbered rank, the difference in preference is very small. People having more non-VelociCoaster coasters in their results, for example, also lowers VelociCoaster's ranking by no fault of its own. As more people get down and ride it, its ranking will become more accurate. Same with Ride to Happiness. We are internally discussing strategies for next year's poll.

Great job putting this together! I feel like Twisted Timbers and Wicked Cyclone are higher than I would have expected. Twisted Timbers over Steel Vengeance is unexpected. I've been on Twisted Timbers a decent amount, but always when it's cold out so maybe that's why I don't entirely get it. I expected Velocicoaster to be ranked higher but #27 in the world is still amazingly good. Otherwise it seems as-expected. People like different things but it seems like mostly everything averaged out well to a pretty solid list. One other oddity that doesn't matter... I've never met anyone who preferred Ride of Steel at Six Flags America to Ride of Steel at Darien Lake but SFA #100, Darien Lake #124. ... odd Also, Candymonium dropped from #57 steel to #127 steel

Hey everyone! We are happy to announce that the results for the 2021 TPR Coaster Poll are now IN! https://coasterpoll.com/ The Theme Park Review Coaster Poll is an ongoing effort by myself (A.J.), Chase (Comeagain?) and Robb (robbalvey). We're continuing to work hard to develop THE definitive annual ranking of the world's roller coasters! The reason why this poll exists is because the Mitch Hawker poll, which was considered by many to be the quintessential roller coaster poll for nearly 20 years, had kind of fallen into a black hole leaving few polls or awards that exist that we would put real faith into the results. Theme Park Review is proud to have been the first website to hold a "Hawker-style" poll since the original Mitch Hawker poll ended, with the first TPR Coaster Poll being held in 2017. We are also proud to say that this year, we received over one thousand ballots for our poll! We would like to thank everyone who participated in what is the best year in the TPR Coaster Poll so far! The way the Hawker-style poll works is that instead of being a “popularity contest” of “he who gets the most votes wins”, it actually ranks and weights people’s real life riding experience against each other. It takes into account how many coasters you’ve ridden and how those rankings compare against others with similar experiences. It also means that no matter if you’ve ridden 50 or 500 coasters, the results are “fair and balanced.” There have been two significant changes to the poll listings this year. They are as follows: Despite RailBlazer at California's Great America and Wonder Woman Golden Lasso Coaster at Six Flags Fiesta Texas being "prototype" models for the Rocky Mountain Construction Single Rail Coaster, their layouts are similar enough to Stunt Pilot at Silverwood that we will be classifying all three together as a single clone entry. We are doing this to allow for more diversity in the top rankings and we will not be entertaining any questions or complaints about it. More significantly, Lightning Rod at Dollywood was given a major re-tracking by Rocky Mountain Construction for the 2021 season, which replaced the majority of the existing Topper Track system with I-Box track. The Roller Coaster Database now considers Lightning Rod to be a steel coaster. As such, Lightning Rod is now classified as a steel coaster on our poll. Unless more coasters begin to adopt this method of renovation, we will strictly be keeping the poll to wooden / steel / combined. We will not be adding a "hybrid" category at this time. As a refresher, these are the rules: To qualify for the poll, a coaster has to be the size of a wild mouse or larger, with a select few exceptions To receive a numbered ranking, a coaster must have been marked "ridden" and ranked by at least 12 (twelve) people; any with less than that are given a provisional ranking and not included in the "top" lists Individual installations of roller coaster clones (Vekoma SLC, Mack Blue Fire, etc) do NOT count in rankings; Instead, their votes are all averaged together, and they are ranked as a single entry; A clone is defined as any coaster with three near-identical installations or more Any coaster that is standing but not operating (SBNO) is not ranked To qualify for the poll, a coaster must have operated for the majority of the previous operating season (in this case, 2021) Theme Park Review reserves the right to make any exception(s) to these rules. Are you excited yet? Here come the results! 2021 Complete Results 2021 Wooden-only Results 2021 Steel-only Results 2021 Top 25 Coasters Overall El Toro - Six Flags Great Adventure (even) Lightning Rod - Dollywood (even) Untamed - Walibi Holland (+1) Skyrush - Hersheypark (+3) Maverick - Cedar Point (+1) Twisted Timbers - Kings Dominion (+3) Wildfire - Kolmården Wildlife Park (+3) Steel Vengeance - Cedar Point (-5) Twisted Colossus - Six Flags Magic Mountain (+7) Fury 325 - Carowinds (+7) Expedition GeForce - Holiday Park (+1) Helix - Liseberg (+1) Taron - Phantasialand (+6) Intimidator 305 - Kings Dominion (+6) Wicked Cyclone - Six Flags New England (+8) Zadra - Energylandia (new to top 25) Outlaw Run - Silver Dollar City (-12) Phoenix - Knoebels Amusement Park and Resort (-4) Millennium Force - Cedar Point (-1) Ride to Happiness - Plopsaland De Panne (new to top 25) Taiga - Linnanmäki (new to top 25) Hyperion - Energylandia (new to top 25) Jurassic World VelociCoaster - Islands of Adventure (new to top 25) Hakugei - Nagashima Spa Land (new to top 25) T Express - Everland (-17)

PowerLand This was a park north of the major cities in Finland and I knew very little about it prior to my visit. The park didn't have the atmosphere of the two city parks south of it, but PowerLand was clean and well-run. The main reason for my visit was the duo of Infinity Coasters. One was Junker and the other was junk. Junker was excellent. It's one of the most underrated coasters I have ridden. The launch has some real power to it. The rest of the ride has some strong airtime and awesome hangtime. And you usually get great laterals as you're coming out of your seat as well. I got nearly a dozen rides on this coaster after a marathon at the start and end of the day. The best comparison I can give for a coaster stateside is Adventureland's Monster with the launch of TMNT Shellraiser. One of the most puzzling coaster additions of all-time is Junker. This is a Gerstlauer infinity coaster plopped right next to Junker with the exact same colors and exact same theme. While Pitts Special has some good ejector airtime on the first drop and speed hill, the rest of the ride is sort of awkward. The elements are too large and/or drawn out. Thunderbird is the coaster that was cloned for American Thunder at Six Flags St. Louis. Those who rode American Thunder in 2020 said the ride was running slower than usual. That is how Thunderbird ran. It was smooth, but it only had a few mild pops of airtime. Cobra is one of the best boomerangs. It's one of the newer ones, so it tracks very smoothly. It also has a blast of fog as you careen through the station and a unique set of trains. Joyride and Neo's Twister are the park's two family coasters. Neither were standouts, but they were fine for what they were. And I of course rode the kiddie coaster. It was a royal pain to find since it was tucked in the far corner of the park only accessible by a narrow, hidden pathway, but I got the credit! Beyond the coasters, there were a few other rides of note. Pegasus was a crazy flat ride from Technical Park. The ride program was throttled, but when it ran at its highest speed, I had no clue where I was going between all the flips and rocking. It was a delightful blend of hangtime and positive Gs at its highest speed as the seats would randomly flip. Kwai River was a bizarre log flume. After the first drop, you don't hit a splashdown. Instead, you continue speeding down this track and round an unbanked turn, getting some nasty laterals. You then go down another drop. The final plunge is pretty big for a flume and even gives a pop of airtime. Dragon Tower is a great drop tower. This is another Moser model, but the spinning seats grant a great view for everyone on the ascent. And the drop had me floating out of my seat the entire way down. One cool thing they do is that they alternate running it as a drop tower and an observation tower. There are two separate lines, so you can pick the program you prefer. Devil's Mine Hotel was a creeky dark ride, but the ride worked well enough and I really liked the western theming around the attraction. The one weird thing with this ride is that you had "ammo" so you only had a limited number of shots you could take. I've never seen a shooter limit this before. There were also some weird kiddie rides. There was a line of mechanical bulls that was chucking children left and right. And then there was this ball pit mounted on a rotating platform. I don't think we'll ever see either of these in America. PowerLand was a park I really enjoyed. Crowds were manageable and the ride lineup was pretty unique. But the reason to come here is for Junker. That ride is fantastic.

Legit surprised that Tremors made the top 20 for wood coasters and ahead of Mine Blower, Gold Striker, AND GhostRider (I'm not sure even I would agree with that...), who da thunk... Also didn't expect Untamed to rank so highly, although too bad Lightning Rod stole the steel coaster crown (lol...) Something also tells me that VelociCoaster and Ride to Happiness will have their due time very soon! Thank you so much @A.J., @Comeagain?, @robbalvey, and everyone else who worked on this year's poll! I really enjoyed the format, and think you guys do the best job out there! Your hard work is greatly appreciated, keep it up!

I like the first plan better. You're going to Cheetah Hunt first and unless it Intamins itself it will be open with the park. Does Ice Breaker open with the park? It's new, so I assume the answer is yes but it's also SeaWorld, it's in the back of the park and last year their idea of "Park opens at 9" meant "Manta opens at 9 or you can look at dolphins or flamingos for an hour I guess".

Did you think they were going to remove it? Like how CP is removing Dragster?

I want to be optimistic, and there are obvious pros to this but I’m definitely worried about a lack of competition driving prices way up. If all they need to do is be cheaper than larger carriers, they could double their prices and still pull that off.

Whew, glad I got that credit before they scrapped that roller coaster.

The big, bad disclaimer section Regarding the rankings of brand new coasters Roller coasters such as Jurassic World VelociCoaster and Ride To Happiness are brand-new for the 2021 season and their rankings should be treated as such. They have significantly less ridership than their peers, and it may take several years before their rankings "settle" in the poll. If you feel that a coaster's ranking is inaccurate, but you have not ridden that coaster, you should go ride it and participate in the poll. This is true for all coasters with lower ridership - the more people that rank a coaster, the more accurate its ranking will be. Regarding differences in ranking between the "Overall" and the "Wooden / Steel" rankings The Top 25 overall rankings may not be consistent with the Top 25 wooden and steel coasters - the wooden results only count wooden coasters, and the steel results only count steel coasters. Some steel coasters are preferred over high-ranking wooden coasters, and vice versa. Regarding the increase in completed ballots Some results may be different from previous years due to the large increase in completed ballots this year. This is due to outreach, social media demographics, etc and does not invalidate any posted result. Coasters that did not meet the ridership requirements The TPR Coaster Poll requires a coaster to have twelve (12) rankings, or "riders", to qualify in the results each year. This is to help get to a consensus - and to prevent single ballots from skewing results in one direction or the other for a particular coaster. Coasters that do not meet this requirement are given a provisional result but are not included in the official ranking. If you want to see any of these coasters ranked on the poll, be sure to go out and ride them next season! Notable coasters that did not meet the requirements for 2020 include but are not limited to: Python in Bamboo Forest - Nanchang Sunac Land Starry Sky Ripper - Joyland Junker - PowerLand Ultra Twister - Rusutsu Resort OCT Thrust SSC1000 - Happy Valley Wuhan Gravity Max - Lihpao Land Bullet - Selva Magica Extreme Rusher - Happy Valley Beijing Soaring With Dragon - Hefei Sunac Land Wood Coaster - Knight Valley Jungle Dragon - Happy Valley Chongqing Coaster Through the Clouds - Nanchang Sunac Land Wood Express - Parc Saint Paul Timber - Walibi Rhone-Alpes Jungle Trailblazer - Oriental Heritage Wuhu Wild Train - Fantasiana Phaethon - Gyeongju World Jungle Trailblazer - Fantawild Dreamland Zhengzhou Mystic - Walibi Rhone-Alpes Fjord Flying Dragon - Happy Valley Tianjin More top lists are coming soon! Now... DISCUSS!

^ Wait, they did what on 4th of July?

at first I was surprised that Hakugei was not in the top 10 (not to mention top 3). . . but I totally realize that just not a lot of folks have gotten to ride it. I'm sure will move up in next year's poll as more folks get to ride it (once travel restrictions further relax).

no worries.. it's coming soon. . can't wait for this place to be year round operations! the amount of new stuff coming? it's very exciting!

Without giving away all the info, I will say that VelociCoaster had significantly more riders than Ride To Happiness. Next year, we will probably see VelociCoaster move less and Ride to Happiness move more in terms of rankings.

I had Ride to Happiness ahead of Velocicoaster (and all but 4 rides), but both were very high in my ranks. I know three others who rode both (not sure if they voted). Two preferred Ride to Happiness slightly and one preferred Velocicoaster. Darn, Coaster Express was just one spot away from its rightful place at the bottom of the list. Maybe next year it can claim that title (although with the retracking this may have been its best shot).

scroll back a page. . it's been talked about, and they also told us about it at Winterfest. they have an exclusive contract. . it will be the only one in Texas. it's a skycoaster but instead of 2-3 folks "flying" it's a "Disc-o" type seating for up to 24, i think they told us. it free-spins during the ride (after the free fall, while it's swinging)

Do we know how many people rode both Ride to Happiness and Velocicoaster? I'm assuming with travel restrictions, the answer is "Probably @Canobie Coaster and like 1 other person. lol" I'd be interested to see what happens when there are more mutual riders between the two.

23??!?!?! An absolute travesty. Overall, I'm not mad at all about these results, really baffled that VC ranked so low. I know its because of low ridership, but I feel like all the thoosies I know have been down there and ridden it already and I don't know if I'm just blinded by its sheer brilliance, but it seems most share my opinion that its one of the best of all time. Wasn't Vengeance super high on its debut year? I'm not doubting the math behind this, its just wild to me that it didn't even crack the top 10, let alone the top 20. Otherwise, it's nice to see Skyrush still kicking ass and taking names. It's so f*cking good and rightfully deserves its high placement in these results year after year. And I LOVE that Maverick beat out Vengeance on the Steel AND overall lists, as it should. Thanks, as always, for putting this together every year!

The 2021 TPR Coaster Poll results are now LIVE!

I can't recommend rope-dropping BGT. When I was there the same week last year, the only thing operating at opening was Cheetah Chase - everything else had a sign posting an opening an hour or two later. That was on a mid-week day though, maybe weekends are different. I think option B is probably your better choice.

Yeah, I’m confused as to how this is news, honestly. They’ve been doing tons of visible track work ever since the ride closed so we knew that the ride was reopening. When Six Flags says that something is “expected to open in the Spring” we all know that means little-to-nothing, especially since with the wording of that they’re gearing up to make it the state’s fault if it doesn’t. Plus “Spring” could mean late June. Lol

Our sunset dumpster ride on it was really pretty elite… 10/10

looking SO damn good. . that's a steep lift hill: and adding one from his twitter from ground level. . this thing is gonna DOMINATE the park skyline

^ shhhh. don't TELL everyone!

Had a great day at BGT Thursday. I knew going in that Sheikra and Montu would be closed. But my vacation is "use it or lose it" so I went for it. I got Cheetah Hunt x4, Cobra's Curse, Tigris, Kumba x3, Scorpion x3, Sand Serpent, Falcon's Fury, and took the train ride. Cheetah Hunt was a blast. Park was pretty dead. I have been easing in to dark ride and flat rides. Falcon's Fury was my first drop tower. I have never researched drop towers, so I was surprised by the face down drop. I sat down by the entrance to Iron Gwazi to take a break and they started testing, first empty cars, then with what I assume were employees. Why must they torture an enthusiast with 199 coasters under his belt so? lol Guess I'll have to go back later this year. Photo trip report will follow eventually.

Yes. Even if you get past the phone tree, you can't get anyone who speaks English well. Tech support is terrible and they always tell you to do a power cycle and consult the owner's manual.

Take a ride on the awesome Kumba roller coaster at Busch Gardens Tampa! VIDEO:

Cheer up, I'm sure Valleyfair's Howl O Scream 2022 will be lit...

Bacon now costs as much as lobster, yet people are more concerned about Six Flags raising prices and cutting costs.

Since I'm home with COVID now, I have nothing but time! I have started transferring old video tapes to digital format. Here is one I shot at Kings Island in May 2000 right after Son of Beast opened. There are 3 defunct coasters in this video: Son of Beast, King Cobra, and Vortex. Enjoy! 2088453902_KICoastersMay2000.mp4