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Is once enough?

Mr Nash

Mr Nash

Hyper Poster
How many times should a coaster be ridden,before you "think" it can be given a proper judgement?

Do you think riding something just once is enough to say how good or bad it is?

Have you ridden something once,but thought,I need to ride it again/multiple times to pass judgement?,or has just the once been enough.

Have you slated or hyped up a ride,even though you've been on it just the one time?

Loads of questions,but,how many times do you think is enough,to be able to give something a fair enough rating?
 
Depends on how deep you want to rate things...

It is difficult to give a complete judgement based on one ride, but the basis of a good ride is it providing a good ride regardless of your seat, not having to sit on the inside seat of row 4 to get the best experience...

In some cases, once is more than enough to judge the ride... And sometimes you have no option but to base a full opinion of a ride on one go...
 
UC said:
If I ride and like it, I like it.

If I don't, I don't.

Honestly...I really don't spend too much time analyzing these things any more. I just ride for fun nowadays.

I don't need to spend ten rides on something to pick out what I do/don't like about it.

I'm at the point now where I think the only "proper" judgment a ride should be given is if it was "good and fun" or "bad and not fun" or anything in between. I could tell you why it is/isn't fun, but beyond that...it's just so trivial.
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See,I'm kind of with you on this.

I hate sitting there picking out the good or bad points.I like to ride for fun.

But,one coaster that springs to mind is Furius Baco.

Ever since I've ridden it,I've slated it,even though I rode it just once.

Maybe I had a bad seating position,maybe it was running crap that day,maybe I was wearing the wrong underpants :lol:

But I judged it on just one ride,and thinking back,that's wrong.

I'd liked to have had another go,to at least compared it to the first ride.

But didn't,that's why I'm saying maybe one ride isn't enough.
 
Nash said:
How many times should a coaster be ridden,before you "think" it can be given a proper judgement?

Do you think riding something just once is enough to say how good or bad it is?

Have you ridden something once,but thought,I need to ride it again/multiple times to pass judgement?,or has just the once been enough.

Have you slated or hyped up a ride,even though you've been on it just the one time?

Loads of questions,but,how many times do you think is enough,to be able to give something a fair enough rating?
Click to expand...


1. I believe a few rides should cover the basic full on assessment.

2. It all depends on the quality of coaster. If it's a coaster with great reviews, one bad ride doesn't mean it is bad ALL the time. Of course, you could have ridden it on a bad day, in a bad seat, ect ect. As I said, more then once or twice should be enough.

3. Again, depends on quality. Sometimes once is enough, but if it's a good one, riding it multiple times is almost a given.

4. Not really. I try to ride something more then once if I like it. If I don't like it, I'll usually ride it again unless it was THAT bad. Funny thing, the opposite has happened before.. as I rode Raven at Holiday World 23 times in a row my first visit, and it failed to live up expectations on my next ride, possibly because of the simple fact I rode it more.

5. 3-4 times, all around the bad boy, is usually enough. Of course, I always say ride it on different days during different times of the day to get a true feel for a coaster.
 
Mr Nash said:
How many times should a coaster be ridden,before you "think" it can be given a proper judgement?

Do you think riding something just once is enough to say how good or bad it is?
Click to expand...

Nope...it just isn't. You could have ridden on a bad day, in a bad seat, etc. Or there could have been a few things you didn't notice. For example, the first time I rode Tatsu, I was amazed. It was the greatest thing ever. Automatic #1, loved it. As I rode it more and more, I realized it made me really sick after and during the ride, and I can hardly enjoy it. Now the ride is just simply not fun to me and I try to avoid it (unfortunately, my friends love it so I'm stuck riding it at least once a visit).

Mr Nash said:
Have you ridden something once,but thought,I need to ride it again/multiple times to pass judgement?,or has just the once been enough.
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Yes. I try to put a disclaimer in my opinions or trip reports that I only rode the ride once or twice, so my opinion might not be fair. This is what makes ranking coasters so difficult. Going back to my Tatsu example, if I lived far away from SFMM and only rode it that one time, it would still be in my Top 10. I try and take this into consideration when ranking coasters; "If I rode this 10 more times, would I still love it?".

Mr Nash said:
Have you slated or hyped up a ride,even though you've been on it just the one time?
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Of course, but again, I know my opinion isn't really fair and I try to go for another ride if possible.

Mr Nash said:
Loads of questions,but,how many times do you think is enough,to be able to give something a fair enough rating?
Click to expand...

There obviously isn't an exact number, but definitely more than one, and honestly, probably more than/about 10...which usually isn't possible when you travel to a park for a day. All these factors just make ranking coasters more and more difficult. I'm kind of beginning to hate Top 10's. :?
 
Front, middle, and back. Ride it in all three of these places, or at least in just the front and the back, and you're golden.

Seriously though, most of the things in my top ten, I've ridden more than once, with the exception of Ka. So you might say that yes, you need more than one ride, but looking back on it, all of these things were in or around my top ten before my second ride anyway, so the second ride didn't have that much influence.

A good example though, of why you need to ride something more than once, is El Toro. I rode it in the front and I was fairly underwhelmed, especially with the hype surrounding it. Rode it twice and it instantly became my number one, simply because the back was a better ride.

All in all though, if it's truly that good of a ride, it'll be good no matter where you ride it. If you want to be super critical though, ride it in the front, back, and middle.
 
A great ride should be good no matter where you sit, no matter what train, or what time of the day you ride it.

So once.
 
I've only found two coasters, out of 129, to be good whenever or wherever, and I only rode them three times each, and not even in every part of the train.

It's very rare that one coaster is good all the time, in any seat.
 
I'm kind of on both sides here. I feel that if you come off a coaster loving it after your first ride, then you'll know it was good. However, as people have said you could have had a bad ride on it, when it could actually be really good. For example, when I rode the Hulk, I came off the first time slightly disappointed, as it didn't give the force or the fun I had expected. So I was determined to ride it later in the day, and when I did it was much better and I loved it. So sometimes once is enough, but others not so much.
 
Some times you can get a feel for a coaster after 1 run and sometimes it takes longer to make a decision.


With me though it depends on if I am in a hyper mood or not. If I am hyper I tend to ride till I get bored.
 
I don't think It's a simple number.

I think you can just as easilly overide something, and null your opinion of it.

Scientifically we'd all have to ride the exact same coaster in the same seat at the same time in the same day to make a just comparison, but this would be silly.

A think the opinions of individuals who've ridden once and had an unsually good/bad experiance are important, because they illustrate extremes. But In reality, a few rides in different locations on different days at different times of the year when you were in different moods is preferable, but I don't think it renders the opinions of the one off riders irrelevent.
 
For me it takes a few. With alot of rides, differnt experiences can be found on differnt seats on the train. For example, with Rita, I first rode it in ther middle. I loved it, but didn't really get much air time. However, I rode it on the front later, and I found loads of air time.

Also, with Nemesis. I'd also first rode that in the middle, and it was very intense. It was my favourate ride. And again I rode at the front later, and it became even better. I've also noticed that the edge seats on Nemesis can change the experience a little bit too.

It really is best to ride at the front, back, and maybe even the middle. As doing this could change your opinion about a coaster!
 
I do try where possible not to judge on just one ride,but sometimes thats just not possible.

Another good example for me was Dragon Khan,my first go was awesome,I placed it as my #1 coaster,however,my second ride,I got very back row,and found it had a rough side,and this kind of took the edge off it for me.

So if I had ridden it just the once,my opinion would have been that it was flawless,the second go kind of blurred the edges.

I know that a coaster should be good,no matter where you sit,weather conditions etc,but I'm just wondering if one ride,is enough to give an honest opinion.
 
I rate coasters of the "wow-factor" they give me. If it gets my adrenaline pumping it's a good ride! To ride it once is enough.
 
Personally, I feel that:

A truly epic ride ought to give a truly epic experience in any seat on any day.

Very good coasters may be better in some seats than others.

Good coasters may have off days.

Mediocre coasters are uninspiring, every day, no matter where you sit.

Bad coasters are painful or boring, all the time, no matter where you sit.
 
It depends on each individual ride and coaster to be fair.

On an initial ride, I'm either blown away first time or disappointed, generally. I can usually make my mind up instantly but before going to a new park I usually have a look on CF, or other sites etc to see what the general consensus is on it - if my opinion initially is different to the rest I'll have a few more go's, just to make my mind up.

Of-course sometimes, there's the odd occasion where you just can't make your mind up. Case in point being Anaconda in South Africa. I've rode it about 14 times now and about half of them I've been blown away and thought 'Wow, far better than B&M Inverts of a similar type, good on you Giovanola', but plenty of other times I've thought 'Meh, that was a bit of a disappointment tbf'. So for example, I don't think I'll ever be able to pass proper judgement, no matter how many times I ride it.
 
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