Jackdude101

Their carousel is pretty decent. It and the Giant Dipper are National Historic Landmarks. Plus, the carousel was made by Charles I.D. Looff, who was more or less the equivalent to B&M in the carousel making industry a 100 years ago. It's also a rare example of one that still dispenses metal rings for riders to grab as they ride and it has the added bonus of presenting a target at which you can throw your rings.

Based on a special spreadsheet I made, the ultimate steam railroad operation in the English-speaking world appears to be the Queensland Rail Heritage Fleet, based near Brisbane, Australia. The best ones in the US are the two surviving narrow gauge lines originally built by the Denver & Rio Grande Railway in the 1880s: the Cumbres & Toltec and the Durango & Silverton. Those are located in southern Colorado/northern New Mexico.

Busch Gardens Tampa outside the Summer months never seems to be crowded. I can't remember the last time that I didn't walk on to Kumba.

I guess the main goal of all of this is to take my own personal experiences with rides and which ones I like the most (favorite non-looping coaster: Millennium Force, favorite looping coaster: Montu, etc.), apply tech data towards an overall score in such a way that these rides I like are at or near the top, and from that determine which rides are EQUALLY as good, which I have never ridden before or probably will never ride in my lifetime. As a specific example of what I mean, I might ask the following, "I like the Greenfield Village living history museum. I wonder how well it ranks to other living history museums that I have never been to that have similar attractions I like and whether any of those other locations would have a higher score (Greenfield Village turned out to be the top-scorer for living history museums, as it has a steam railroad AND a classic carousel)." So yes, the scoring system is subjective, but the data used is not, and in many cases the scoring is close to or matches several of the better-known subjective top attraction lists. In essence, it allows me to get a general idea of what a location has to offer in terms of attractions without actually visiting it. We can't all be blessed to have the time and means to travel the world just to visit theme parks (I would if I could), so, for me at least, these spreadsheets are the next-best thing to being there.

Here is the same table from the Attraction Rankings spreadsheet showing the Top 50 locations that have scores in more than one category (locations that have a score for roller coasters, but no scores for railroads and carousels are not included, for example):

All right, so ever since I saw a post here about the mysterious chicken and waffle sandwiches at the Sleepy Hollow Inn in Magic Kingdom, I had to try them and when my family and I went there several days ago, we did. HOLY CRAP THEY ARE AMAZING! Even my finnicky wife was intrigued and got one, and she loved it. We'll have to try the ham and cheese waffle or the Nutella and banana waffle next time we go.

Finally...for now...here is the Top 50 from the Attraction Rankings spreadsheet, which combines the scores from the roller coaster, railroad, and carousel spreadsheets. 529 separate locations in the US and Canada are represented on it. If you can't be bothered to open the image, the supreme overlord of this ranking by a gigantic margin is Cedar Point. That place just has everything and then some!

Meanwhile, on the carousel spreadsheet, here is its top 10 (only the US and Canada are on this one, as info for carousels in other countries is scarce): Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk Charles I.D. Looff Santa Cruz California USA Knoebels Kremer's Carousel Works Elysburg Pennsylvania USA Flying Horses C.W. Dare & Co. Oak Bluffs Massachusetts USA Crescent Park Looff Carousel Charles I.D. Looff Riverside Rhode Island USA Logansport Riverside Park Dentzel Carousel Co. Logansport Indiana USA Conneaut Lake Park T.M. Harton Co. Conneaut Lake Pennsylvania USA Spokane Riverfront Park Charles I.D. Looff Spokane Washington USA Nassau County's Museum Row Artistic Caroussel Mfg. Co. Garden City New York USA San Diego Balboa Park Herschell-Spillman Co. San Diego California USA Castle Park USA Dentzel Carousel Co. Riverside California USA Interestingly, on the 2014 Golden Ticket Awards issued a few days ago, the Knoebels Grand Carousel was #1 and the Sanata Cruz Looff Carousel was #2.

Okay, I updated the railroad spreadsheet to include all the known railroads in the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand (in addition to the US and Canada). Here is the top 10 from that: Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad Chama New Mexico USA USA & Canada Rio Grande Scenic Railroad Alamosa Colorado USA USA & Canada Queensland Rail Heritage Fleet North Ipswich Queensland Australia Oceania Bluebell Railway Sheffield Park England UK Europe Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad Durango Colorado USA USA & Canada SteamRanger Heritage Railway Mt. Barker South Australia Australia Oceania North Yorkshire Moors Railway Pickering England UK Europe Statfold Barn Railway Tamworth England UK Europe Grand Canyon Railway Williams Arizona USA USA & Canada Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad Garibaldi Oregon USA USA & Canada Also, as expected, when all the scores are grouped by state/province, England is way the hell out in front; however, when grouped by country, the US is just ahead of the UK by a nose.

It will be neat seeing Fury 325 open and have a new world record holder for tallest un-launched roller coaster. This by itself may drive down attendance in Nagashima Spa Land where the current record holder resides (Steel Dragon 2000); however, next year Nagashima Spa Land will also be getting a new B&M (its first in fact) named Acrobat. Perhaps they got wind of the Fury 325 plans and did this to offset the inevitable loss in attendance from not having that record anymore. It looks like it is going to be a near-exact copy of Manta.

Also, researching railroads and carousels has been interesting because it widened the scope of the types of locations ranked beyond simply amusement parks. Here is an example of what I mean: this is the master spreadsheet with only the locations shown that have railroads and carousels, but no roller coasters (#1: Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan). If I continued to only focus on roller coasters and other thrill rides, I would never have known that some of these places even existed.

After recent research, SFStL seems like one of the more "balanced" Six Flags, in that they have a solid assortment of different types of rides, such as their legit steam train and legit carousel. It's actually kind of rare for a park to have a great selection of coasters, a legit steam train, AND a legit carousel all at the same time. Plus, they have the second-tallest traditional Ferris wheel (open air gondolas) in the US (#1: Texas Star at the State Fair of Texas) and it looks like they are going to get a decent dark ride next year. Is this an accurate assessment, in you opinion?

Well, it's been nine months since I last posted in this topic, so here is the most up-to-date top 50 on my spreadsheet (I made a handful of tweaks under the hood as well). Also, over the past month or two, I have been exploring the idea of enhancing these park rankings using numbers by ranking other types of rides. I now have spreadsheets for steam railroads (US and Canada only; main source: steamlocomotive.com) and classic carousels (US and Canada only; main source: carousels.org). I may expand those two to include UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, but probably no further than that, as the type of info I need is not covered that well for non-English-speaking places. Anyway, I also created a small, master spreadsheet that combines all three grand total scores from these types of rides and ranks all the US and Canada locations with their overall score. In a nutshell, the overall winner by a huge margin is Cedar Point, followed by Hersheypark and Knoebels (the original Disneyland is also in the top 10). I also created a spreadsheet for Ferris wheels worldwide over 40 meters (131.23 feet) tall, but I decided against including this in the master spreadsheet, as there are only 70 on that list and only 16 of those are in the US or Canada. I will post any and all of these new data rankings I made if you are interested.

Last I heard they were planning on bulldozing the whole thing to make way for a completely different ride. The humidity and storms in Florida can really take their toll on wooden structures like roller coasters (rot, warping, etc.), so it has probably been a nightmare for Busch Gardens to maintain that ride. Fun Spot America in Orlando made a great decision to have their new GCI woodie be a hybrid woodie. It will be much easier to maintain and be around for a much longer time, I bet.

I would expect this ride to get the RMC treatment when Six Flags wants to get around to doing it. Either this or Wild One. Ummm, not sure about that one. The fact that that coaster dates back to 1917 is a big draw for the ride and radically changing it RMC-style would take that away. Actually, despite not being in its original location and having layout mods in the past, it's the 2nd oldest roller coaster in the Americas. Too bad it's in a sub-standard park.

Roar in SFA (also known as Six Flag's roller coaster clearance bin), is the only GCI without Millennium Flyer trains. Just add the trains and BOOM!..."brand-new" ride.

Meh...both of their roller coasters were ordinary portable/carnival coasters and one of those was a wacky worm. ...and nothing of value was lost.

Where are your favorite places to ride trains for recreational purposes (including those outside of theme parks)? Where are your favorite places to see old historical trains on static display? Which upcoming or in-progress railroad-related project are you most excited about? Also...steam vs. diesel vs. electric vs. maglev...which is the one true "ultimate" type of train?

If line jumpers don't give a damn about anything to the point that they will cut in line (and risk getting kicked out of the park) they aren't going to care if they get posted on Twitter for it.

I eagerly await my next visit to Universal to see all the new stuff that opened since the last time I visited two years ago, primarily to try all of the more exotic foods at the Leaky Cauldron restaurant (Scotch Egg, for example) because I have this fear in the back of my mind that the GP aren't going to be interested in all of the neat exotic offerings and pressure the park, through a lack of sales, to replace them with cheeseburgers and chicken fingers, or something.

Tyrloean Tubtwist in the UK is the only Virgina Reel type roller coaster left in existence. Steeplechase in the UK is the only...well...Steeplechase type roller coaster left in existence. Gravity Max in Taiwan is the only roller coaster in the world with tilting track (not drop track). Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain in Indiana is the only wood roller coaster in the world with an elevator lift (the half-assed execution of the ride themeing makes it even more weird). Veil of Dark in Japan is the only roller coaster on Earth that spins, has a launch, and goes upside down all in the same ride. You also play an interactive video game for the first part of the ride. Bandit Bomber in the UAE is currently the only roller coaster with water cannons that you can fire while riding. Leap-the-Dips in Pennsylvania, besides being the oldest roller coaster still running (built in 1902), is the only roller coaster that has the combination of no upstop wheels and no brake system outside of the station. You are literally at the 100% mercy of gravity and the ride's questionable structural integrity for the entire ride!

#1: Rain

GateKeeper at Cedar Point last October. It's kind of hard to justify going to a park and ride a roller coaster when your wife is more-or-less indifferent towards big thrill rides and having a one-year-old son on top of that. Magic Kingdom is great for that, though, because my son can ride pretty much all the rides except the mountains. I've even taken him on Maelstrom at Epcot. Fun times.

On a related note, there should be a law that says any roller coaster built in the US must have the restraint systems designed in the US. Apparently in Europe where most of the best ones are designed, everyone must have a 30-inch waist and only weight 110 pounds.

Roller coaster with underwater phases where it goes below the water level through transparent, acrylic tubes.