The high & low points of your trips - how often are they park-related?

[Rob Coasters]

On my park trips, when I look back, I think to myself that most of the standout moments of my trips are entirely unrelated to parks and end up being the moments that I look back on the most. However, is this actually true? Are the best/worst moments of my trips park related?

Let's look at my 2024 trips and see what the main takeaways were.

A "trip" is defined as a getaway that involved the following:
-at least 1 night away from home
-at least 1 park or fairground visited

Phantasialand 01/24
Highlight: Taron night rides (park related)
Lowlight: No standout negative moment

Alton Towers 03/24
Highlight: Getting back on Nemesis after six years (park related)
Lowlight: Denial of Nemesis night ride (park related)

Belgium 04/24
Highlight: Lapping Revolution at Bobbejaanland (park related)
Lowlight: British Airways losing my bag (not park related)

Netherlands 05/24
Highlight: Droomvlucht (park related)
Lowlight: Drievliet & Duinrell nightmares (park related)

South West Germany and France 08/24
Highlight: Toutatis night rides (park related)
Lowlight: Hotel problems (not park related)

Walibi Rhone-Alpes 08/24
Highlight: Exploring Lyon (not park related)
Lowlight: Extremely hot hotel (not park related)

Aarhus and Copenhagen 10/24
Highlight: Lapping Rutschebanen (park related)
Lowlight: Bakken (park related)

Austria & Slovakia 10 & 11/24
Highlight: Exploring Bratislava (not park related)
Lowlight: Airplane problems (not park related)

Madrid 1 11/24
Highlight: The tapas restaurant and the unrelenting chaos of Madrid (not park related)
Lowlight: The tiredness that ensued (not park related)

Madrid 2 11 & 12/24
Highlight: Gotham City Escape ERT (park related)
Lowlight: No standout negative moment

Poland 12/24
Highlight: Hyperion front row laps (park related)
Lowlight: Cred running Energylandia (park related)

Belgium & France 12/24 & 01/25
Highlight: The Dunkirk credit (park related)
Lowlight: Sleeping rough at 2am waiting for a train at 4am (not park related)

Out of my 12 trips in 2024:

9 of the highlights were park related.

2 trips had no standout negative moment.

As a result, 10 of the 12 trips had a standout negative moment, and out of those 10, 4 of them were park related.

I am surprised by these results. I thought there were going to be a lot more non-park trip highlights.

My realisation

However, I made a realisation with this thread - the non-park events end up being what I bring up the most in a conversation about the trip, positive or negative.
-If I'm talking about my Belgium trip, I will bring up the British Airways bag incident before bringing up how many times I rode Revolution or whatnot.
-If I'm talking about my Austria & Slovakia trip, I will bring up seeing Bratislava before anything else coaster related, although Wild Train was also fantastic and definitely the next thing I'd bring up.
-If I'm talking about my trip to Lyon, I might bring up exploring the city before talking about my day at Rhone-Alpes (despite that being the original reason for going).

Ultimately, most of these trips are just "a day at a theme park" even if it is halfway across the continent, so naturally there won't really be that much to say about the actual parks themselves, which is why I naturally turn towards bringing up the non-park events instead unless something major happened on a park visit.

A general summary of the thread and a few questions for the reader to answer
1) What were the standout best & worst moments from your trips that involved parks?
2) How often are they park related?
3) If you were talking about a trip to someone who wasn't as passionate about coasters as you are, would you feel more inclined to bring up the non-coaster parts more?

Bonus question: How do you feel about the idea of visiting a country or location only for parks, with nothing else involved? Or is this a case-by-case basis that has no real concrete answer to it?

 

[Graeme]

When I was younger, the parks and coasters were definitely the highlights of my trips. The lowlights were the traffic and the actual journeys to get there. Just going by 2024 though:

Great Yarmouth
Highlight: Whilst I really enjoyed Pleasurewood Hills on Day 2 and could easily say that was my highlight, in all honesty I'd have to say the best bit was a pizza party on Day 1. (non-park related)
Lowlight: Some illness on Day 3. (non-park related)

Paultons and New Forest
Highlight: Days 3 and 4 in the New Forest itself. (non-park related)
Lowlight: A bout of nausea. (park related)

As to which bits I'd bring up when talking to someone who wasn't interested in coasters, I'd probably talk about it all equally. Regarding the bonus question, I have certainly visited parts of Britain just for parks, and it's fine if there's enough there, but I probably wouldn't do it nowadays. To my mind, there are no longer enough parks close together. I used to combine Blackpool with Southport, Fantasy Island with Pleasure Island, Rotunda with Dreamland etc.

...

I guess the truth is, what matters the most is your state of being, not what's around you. There's nothing as good as having youth and health. It's not much of an exaggeration to say you could probably enjoy yourself more by walking down the street when you're 25 than by riding a coaster when you're 45. Sometimes, it's more about how you feel, rather than what's actually happening. Exciting things aren't always the best.

Quite honestly, the passion for coasters, like any other hobby, fulfils a need in some of us for something to be interested in, something to talk about, something to analyse... However, there is a limit. Whilst some are great fun, there are days when I'd rather be viewing a castle, cathedral or sculpture. There are some YouTube channels that I started watching because of the theme park content, but I prefer some on the non-ride related stuff. Any kind of walk, hike or adventure interests me.

Coasters are remarkable, but they're probably not as much of a big deal compared to how rare they're becoming (perhaps that's another topic). It's becoming the case that you have to spend more and travel further to ride a significant one. And when you do... well, there are other things nearby that seem just as good.