How would you rank these three European woodies?

[ThomVD]

The most interesting thing about this thread is not people's ratings... It's the vastly different rides that different people have had on these GCI's

GCI must be one of the most 'moody' coaster types out there. I already know Wickerman can be entirely different one week to the next, an airtime machine last week, a complete dud this week, with no rhyme or reason to it.

But it seems the same can be said for the other GCIs too. I know I caught Wodan on an off week, because despite being excellent, it wasn't even close to my rides on Troy... There just wasn't any competition. But judging by some of these answers I seem to have caught Joris on a moody day too. As it literally did nothing for me at all, not even a hint of air time (and yet still one of the best coasters in the park!!!) And yet others report vastly different experiences.

One thing's for sure, I need to get back on Wodan and Joris... And I should probably learn to reserve judgement on GCIs until I've visited the park a couple of completely different times, (not consecutive days.)

Yeah that's definitely a thing with GCIs. For example, I don't seem to think of Heidi and Thunderbird (in Finland) quite as highly as other people seem to, makes me wonder if I just caught them on a bad visit. I live quite close to Joris, Troy and Wodan though and have ridden them during many visits, during day and at night, during good days and bad days. So for these three at least I'm fairly confident in my opinion. Joris has been the most consistently great for me for a long time but seemed to run a little worse last times I rode it (and others seem to agree). Hopefully that's not a continuing trend. Wodan on the other hand seems to just get better and better every visit. Troy is a bit hit/miss in my experience, though last two visits it was certainly a hit.

 

[Serena]

1. Joris
2. Wodan
3. Troy

 

[Matt N]

The most interesting thing about this thread is not people's ratings... It's the vastly different rides that different people have had on these GCI's

GCI must be one of the most 'moody' coaster types out there. I already know Wickerman can be entirely different one week to the next, an airtime machine last week, a complete dud this week, with no rhyme or reason to it.

But it seems the same can be said for the other GCIs too. I know I caught Wodan on an off week, because despite being excellent, it wasn't even close to my rides on Troy... There just wasn't any competition. But judging by some of these answers I seem to have caught Joris on a moody day too. As it literally did nothing for me at all, not even a hint of air time (and yet still one of the best coasters in the park!!!) And yet others report vastly different experiences.

One thing's for sure, I need to get back on Wodan and Joris... And I should probably learn to reserve judgement on GCIs until I've visited the park a couple of completely different times, (not consecutive days.)

See, I've ridden Wicker Man a lot over the years, and I'd say it's fairly consistent on the whole.

However, I will agree that inconsistency can be a factor. And I don't think it's just GCIs that are "moody", as you put it; I think it's woodies in general.

I may have mentioned WM being fairly consistent above. However, I have noticed that while it's always fantastic, there are some days where it doesn't seem to hit quite as hard as others. In 2021, I'd say that my September rides didn't seem to be hitting quite the same height of fun as my June rides (although they were still phenomenal, and easily 10/10 tier; WM doesn't vary much). And let me also just say that in April 2021, it provided what was quite possibly one of the strangest coaster rides I've ever had; it was a front row ride, and up to the final wicker man pass through, everything was fine and usual. But in that final pass through, the ride jolted me incredibly hard and gave me an absolute thumping headache. And I don't just mean a bit of brain rattle; we're talking a "Saw The Ride on a bad day" level headache. When I got off, I could feel my head pounding with each step I took away from the ride, and it didn't subside for a good amount of time after I got off. In 14 total rides on Wicker Man over the years, I had never had that before and I have never had that again since (and I've had 8 rides in various seats since then,; they've been pretty consistently fantastic, as well as pretty consistently smooth). Very weird!

I know it's not a GCI, but I've also found Megafobia at Oakwood to be wildly inconsistent based on my two experiences with it. In 2016, when I first rode, I was sat on the front row at the end of a warm summer's day, and the ride was flying; the airtime was awesome, and the pacing felt fast! Fast forward to 2019, when I rerode on a dreary morning in May, and it was a very different coaster even in the front; the front row ride was fun, but the airtime seemed notably weaker than I'd remembered, and there were numerous dead spots around the layout. And that's before I even get onto the inconsistency between rows in 2019; each row I rode in felt like a totally different coaster. Front row was my favourite row, and this was fun enough; not overly rough, with some fun pops of airtime. The middle was still not overly rough, but it just lacked sensation; the ride felt like it was desperately trying to give fun airtime, but couldn't quite muster it up. The back certainly had 1 or 2 more forceful ejector airtime moments that the front & middle didn't, but it was pretty rough, and I came off feeling very bashed about.

 

[MestnyiGeroi]

The most interesting thing about this thread is not people's ratings... It's the vastly different rides that different people have had on these GCI's

GCI must be one of the most 'moody' coaster types out there. I already know Wickerman can be entirely different one week to the next, an airtime machine last week, a complete dud this week, with no rhyme or reason to it.

But it seems the same can be said for the other GCIs too. I know I caught Wodan on an off week, because despite being excellent, it wasn't even close to my rides on Troy... There just wasn't any competition. But judging by some of these answers I seem to have caught Joris on a moody day too. As it literally did nothing for me at all, not even a hint of air time (and yet still one of the best coasters in the park!!!) And yet others report vastly different experiences.

One thing's for sure, I need to get back on Wodan and Joris... And I should probably learn to reserve judgement on GCIs until I've visited the park a couple of completely different times, (not consecutive days.)

Good points. The wildly different opinions I hear about these three coasters are what prompted me to ask the question.

And I seem to be squarely in the caught-Joris-on-an-apparently-phenomenal-day camp.

 

[Nicky Borrill]

See, I've ridden Wicker Man a lot over the years, and I'd say it's fairly consistent on the whole.

However, I will agree that inconsistency can be a factor. And I don't think it's just GCIs that are "moody", as you put it; I think it's woodies in general.

I may have mentioned WM being fairly consistent above. However, I have noticed that while it's always fantastic, there are some days where it doesn't seem to hit quite as hard as others. In 2021, I'd say that my September rides didn't seem to be hitting quite the same height of fun as my June rides (although they were still phenomenal, and easily 10/10 tier; WM doesn't vary much). And let me also just say that in April 2021, it provided what was quite possibly one of the strangest coaster rides I've ever had; it was a front row ride, and up to the final wicker man pass through, everything was fine and usual. But in that final pass through, the ride jolted me incredibly hard and gave me an absolute thumping headache. And I don't just mean a bit of brain rattle; we're talking a "Saw The Ride on a bad day" level headache. When I got off, I could feel my head pounding with each step I took away from the ride, and it didn't subside for a good amount of time after I got off. In 14 total rides on Wicker Man over the years, I had never had that before and I have never had that again since (and I've had 8 rides in various seats since then,; they've been pretty consistently fantastic, as well as pretty consistently smooth). Very weird!

I know it's not a GCI, but I've also found Megafobia at Oakwood to be wildly inconsistent based on my two experiences with it. In 2016, when I first rode, I was sat on the front row at the end of a warm summer's day, and the ride was flying; the airtime was awesome, and the pacing felt fast! Fast forward to 2019, when I rerode on a dreary morning in May, and it was a very different coaster even in the front; the front row ride was fun, but the airtime seemed notably weaker than I'd remembered, and there were numerous dead spots around the layout. And that's before I even get onto the inconsistency between rows in 2019; each row I rode in felt like a totally different coaster. Front row was my favourite row, and this was fun enough; not overly rough, with some fun pops of airtime. The middle was still not overly rough, but it just lacked sensation; the ride felt like it was desperately trying to give fun airtime, but couldn't quite muster it up. The back certainly had 1 or 2 more forceful ejector airtime moments that the front & middle didn't, but it was pretty rough, and I came off feeling very bashed about.

I think Wickerman’s inconsistency might be a bit more noticeable to me purely because my definition of riding it regularly is weekly, sometimes multiple days a week…

Wickerman is ‘the’ most inconsistent ride I’ve ever ridden. You can ‘almost’ always guarantee a bit of airtime in the back at the end of the day, but that’s about it when it comes to consistency, and even that isn’t ‘always’ the case. And yet I’ve had days / weeks where it’s been operating so good that you get airtime all over the train, from early on in the day.

A few weeks ago it was operating so well that it was giving good airtime all over the layout, even in middle seats, in particular strong ejector off boring corner, (the drop into that final pass through the structure that I think you’re referring to as being rough last year) which was a completely new level of awesomeness for me in regards to Wickerman. But it seems that she’s ‘calmed down’ a bit again now sadly. Thankfully I had other CF / Towers regulars with me who experienced, and commented, on the same, or I’d honestly think I was going mad, it was ‘that’ good for a couple of weeks.

Then there’ve been times when it was so slow through the layout, and noticeably rough in areas, that you don’t even get airtime in the back seats late in the day. Most notably the weeks in the run up to the time when they had to retrack a section of the ride mid season.

Wickerman is the only GCI I’ve ridden regularly enough to say for sure that it’s extremely inconsistent. The only other one I’ve ridden across multiple days / visits was Wodan. And that was excellent, but not nearly as good as Troy. With those multiple days being during the same week, and knowing how WM can run hot for a few weeks, then be naff a few weeks later, I’m starting to think that if I rode Troy, Joris and Wodan once a month, I might have different opinions of the rides.

It would be interesting to hear from somebody, local to one of those parks, with ‘real’ experience riding one of those European GCI’s regularly, as in weekly, or monthly at least, how inconsistent they find their GCI to be.