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Park with the most extreme quality gap?

caffeine_demon

Strata Poster
Plopsaland de Panne

Ride to Happiness just feels so out of place among so many mediocre coasters, at best.
Nah - Heidi and anubis are pretty good too!

I'd also argue that walibi belgium is pretty solid after pulsar and kondaa - calamity mine is good fun, as is tiki waka, and even fun pilot is quite nice (admitedly, the SLC and woody are pretty awful though!
 
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Tonkso

Hyper Poster
I can't believe people have mentioned Port Aventura yet not brought up their Mine Train which is essentially 90% lift hill. John Wardley didn't want it built but was brought on too late, he did give us Dragon Khan though.
 

Hyde

Matt SR
Staff member
Moderator
Social Media Team
I mean, there's a quantitative way to crack this egg. ;) Sorted below is parks by gap distance in rankings. Bear in mind, a lot of these parks are reflecting kiddie coasters in the biggest gaps - I'm sure there's a further formula you could slap together to consider median or average coaster ranking, relative to outliers. (Which I can work out when not working :) )

ParkLowest Ranked CoasterHighest Ranked CoasterGap
Holiday World2552253
Cedar Point2501249
Six Flags Magic Mountain2537246
Busch Gardens Tampa2464242
Waldameer25112239
Kentucky Kingdom2415236
Islands of Adventure2363233
Kings Island25225227
SeaWorld Orlando24423221
Hersheypark2299220
Kings Dominion23011219
Kennywood23422212
Carowinds22010210
Six Flags Over Georgia23228204
Silver Dollar City2078199
Six Flags Over Texas21417197
Michigan’s Adventure25470184
Dollywood20629177
Universal Studios Florida24065175
Worlds of Fun21240172
Fun Spot America (Orlando)25789168
Dorney Park22154167
Six Flags Fiesta Texas18016164
Six Flags St. Louis19835163
Knott's Berry Farm23883155
Knott’s Berry Farm21162149
California Adventure218104114
Nickelodeon Universe (Bloomington)258144114
Six Flags America1879592
Frontier City24315786
Busch Gardens Williamsburg992178
Fun Spot America (Kissimmee)25618868
Elitch Gardens21014565
Hollywood Studios1539360
Geauga Lake24919356
WDW Magic Kingdom16613927
Camden Park21619521
Disneyland14212220
Lakeside Amusement Park1991909
 

UP87

Mega Poster
Has anyone mentioned Phantasialand yet? Taron vs Temple of the Nighthawk is a pretty stark difference in quality, don't you think?
Well Nighthawk is a pretty solid VR coaster with Crazy Bats nowadays. But if we don't look at the coasters but at the park in general I'd say Phantasialand belongs on the list. There are really top notch world class areas and then there are rather bad things like Geisterrikscha, the broken Hollywood Tour, Wuze Town kids area...
 

witchfinder

Hyper Poster
I'd have offered up SFNE as a good candidate here, with Wicked Cyclone at the top end (and Superman for that matter) and Goliath at the bottom, but they trashed that so it's not valid any more. Flashback is also pretty horrible though!

Also Kolmarden probably deserves a mention - Wildfire vs two very mediocre kiddie creds is quite a quality gap!
 

DelPiero

Strata Poster
I'd have offered up SFNE as a good candidate here, with Wicked Cyclone at the top end (and Superman for that matter) and Goliath at the bottom, but they trashed that so it's not valid any more. Flashback is also pretty horrible though!

Also Kolmarden probably deserves a mention - Wildfire vs two very mediocre kiddie creds is quite a quality gap!
Yeah but neither of the kiddy creds at Kolmarden are so awful you never want to ride them again. Like, built by satan himself as torture devices awful.
 

Hyde

Matt SR
Staff member
Moderator
Social Media Team
I mean, there's a quantitative way to crack this egg. ;) Sorted below is parks by gap distance in rankings. Bear in mind, a lot of these parks are reflecting kiddie coasters in the biggest gaps - I'm sure there's a further formula you could slap together to consider median or average coaster ranking, relative to outliers. (Which I can work out when not working :) )

ParkLowest Ranked CoasterHighest Ranked CoasterGap
Holiday World2552253
Cedar Point2501249
Six Flags Magic Mountain2537246
Busch Gardens Tampa2464242
Waldameer25112239
Kentucky Kingdom2415236
Islands of Adventure2363233
Kings Island25225227
SeaWorld Orlando24423221
Hersheypark2299220
Kings Dominion23011219
Kennywood23422212
Carowinds22010210
Six Flags Over Georgia23228204
Silver Dollar City2078199
Six Flags Over Texas21417197
Michigan’s Adventure25470184
Dollywood20629177
Universal Studios Florida24065175
Worlds of Fun21240172
Fun Spot America (Orlando)25789168
Dorney Park22154167
Six Flags Fiesta Texas18016164
Six Flags St. Louis19835163
Knott's Berry Farm23883155
Knott’s Berry Farm21162149
California Adventure218104114
Nickelodeon Universe (Bloomington)258144114
Six Flags America1879592
Frontier City24315786
Busch Gardens Williamsburg992178
Fun Spot America (Kissimmee)25618868
Elitch Gardens21014565
Hollywood Studios1539360
Geauga Lake24919356
WDW Magic Kingdom16613927
Camden Park21619521
Disneyland14212220
Lakeside Amusement Park1991909
So I did some function doodling during a work call this morning - essentially (if anyone is up to the fun and challenge of segmenting their coaster rankings park-by-park) you could organize respective park rankings and calculate quartiles, upper limit, and lower limit. With that intel, you then classify how many coasters are above or below respective limits; parks with the most "true" returns of coasters outside the limits would have the largest quality gap.

... It just means a lot of pivot tables, that I might do if I can get a few beers in me over the weekend. 😅
 
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