I just noticed that I haven't posted anything in here for the past 14 months. Since my last top that I posted just as I got back from my first trip to Poland, I re-visited Phantasialand in November 2023 on an empty weekday just before Wintertraum, went to Fantasiana and Europa Park on our EURO 2024 focused family trip to Germany in June, re-visited a bunch of childhood favorite parks with some CFers in Italy in July and only just came back from a trip to Spain with
@CookieCoasters. I've also mopped up some local credits in Slovenia and Croatia - Dalmaland and some fairgrounds, though those didn't have an impact on my top 50.
Speaking of top 50, it's as follows. New stuff in bold, re-rides in italic.
1. Ride to Happiness, Plopsaland De Panne
2. Wildfire, Kolmården
3. Zadra, Energylandia
4. Shambhala, PortAventura Park
5. Taron, Phantasialand
6. Batman Gotham City Escape, Parque Warner Madrid
7. Kondaa, Walibi Belgium
8. Flying Aces, Ferrari World Abu Dhabi
9. Helix, Liseberg
10. Untamed, Walibi Holland
11. Troy, Toverland
12. Hyperion, Energylandia
13. iSpeed, Mirabilandia
14. Katun, Mirabilandia
15. Expedition GeForce, Holiday Park
16. Voltron, Europa Park
17. Lech Coaster, Legendia Śląskie Wesołe Miasteczko
18. Wild Mouse, Luna Park
19. Silver Star, Europa Park
20. Hair Raiser, Ocean Park
21. Wodan Timbur Coaster, Europa Park
22. Abyssus, Energylandia
23. Wild Train, Fantasiana
24. Balder, Liseberg
25. Giant Dipper, Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk
26. Superman / la Atracción de Acero, Parque Warner Madrid
27. Monster, Gröna Lund
28. Black Mamba, Phantasialand
29. Goliath, Walibi Holland
30. Oblivion - The Black Hole, Gardaland
31. Gravity Max, Discovery World
32. Pulsar, Walibi Belgium
33. Lost Gravity, Walibi Holland
34. Fēnix, Toverland
35. Superman Escape, Warner Bros. Movie World
36. Red Force, Ferrari Land
37. Karacho, Erlebnispark Tripsdrill
38. Hyperspace Mountain, Hong Kong Disneyland
39. Valkyria, Liseberg
40. Joris en de Draak, Efteling
41. Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars, Hong Kong Disneyland
42. blue fire Megacoaster, Europa Park
43. Formuła, Energylandia
44. Hals-über-Kopf, Erlebnispark Tripsdrill
45. F.L.Y., Phantasialand
46. Kumba, Busch Gardens Tampa
47. Goliath, Six Flags Magic Mountain
48. Colorado Adventure, Phantasialand
49. Stunt Fall, Parque Warner Madrid
50. Insane Speed, Janfusun Fancyworld
And some thoughts on what happened there:
Shambhala: While this one is merely a mover in this top, it also felt like a completely new coaster to me. I only managed to ride it twice on my first visit in April 2016. I don't think either of those rides was particularly excellent and my experience was certainly marred by having to stand in a slow moving queue for about an hour. This time round, we managed to grab a visit on a reasonably quiet (if cold) Friday and a wonderfully sunny and packed Saturday for which we bought fastpasses. We ended up riding Shambhala 13 times over the course of two days. The daylight rides were great, offering wonderful flojector on most hills and neat positive Gs in the ampersand turnaround. But the night rides were a totally different gravy. Flojector turned into proper ejector, which was felt best in that one hill straight after splashdown and the lack of lights helped giving it a very out of control feeling (for a B&M Hyper) even when I was completely familiar with the layout at that point. Honestly, Halloween is the time to visit this beast, as I can't imagine B&M Hypers getting any better than what I got here on my visit.
Taron: I'll keep this brief, as I've talked about Taron enough in the past. We visited on a very quiet November weekday, which allowed me to bag 14 rides, often without leaving my seat for a few rides in a row. My day of re-riding Taron ended with an unexpected re-ride when the ride ops gave in to the rider chants for one extra ride. This one ride allowed Taron to tie with Troy as my most re-ridden coaster and further cemented its position in my top5.
Batman Gotham City Escape: My 400th, as seen in my post in the Milestones topic. And it's a really excellent coaster, so I'm happy to report that all of my milestones are still sitting pretty in my top 40. The ride starts with an extremely punchy, if brief, launch into a nice little corkscrew. This is then followed by the 2nd launch into the top hat, the exit out of which still offers some nice ejector despite the holding brake on the top. The next hill offers what's quite possibly the best ejector airtime moment anywhere in the world, simply because the restraints on this coaster are far more gentle on thighs compared to the RMCs. Another inversion follows mostly as a turnaround towards the next bits, followed by another abrupt pop of ejector, some sideways airtime and the 3rd launch that gives the ride just enough inertia for the impeccable Zero G-Stall over one of the main paths in the park. The ride ends rather unceremoniously with a reverse spike and a turnaround table back to the station. All in all a truly excellent coaster with some of the best airtime moments out there, though I felt its pacing was a bit off and the layout was more like a patch-up of great elements rather than a well rounded coaster. The ending on the final spike is also kind of anticlimactic, even if it made sense thematically. We ended up getting 5 rides, with the last of them being an extra bonus ride on the last train of the day as no-one ended up queuing for our 2nd-to-back row.
iSpeed & Katun: Ah, some childhood faves that I managed to re-ride for the first time in 12 years. iSpeed was better than I remembered and I bumped it up a bit, though not much due to the odd neck-banging restraints that it has. Katun is as good as I remembered, though I also feel that the immense positive Gs it offers aren't as much of my cup of tea anymore compared to back when I was 15.
Voltron: Oh, this can of worms. An absolutely excellent attraction and easily the best coaster in Europa Park. But and it's a big but, I ended up getting two rides on it, but of which made me feel really sick from the rattle and my dad gave up on it after one ride, saying that it hurt his back. I honestly can't really talk about the layout as much as some others already have, but what it does, it does really well and if it tracked somewhat similarly to how Ride to Happiness did in April 2022 (even though I have heard of others having rattly rides on it too), it would've been an easy contender for at least my top 5 if not higher. The turnaround and swing launch in the middle are kinda naff and could be greatly improved if they cared enough to enclose that bit. It's a shame that they didn't.
Silver Star & Wodan: Only got one ride on each this year, but they were as good as I remembered from 2022, so these remained in their place.
Wild Train: Oh, joy. Sadly the one that we lost yesterday, but it was really awesome for the small thing that it was. We shoehorned a visit to this place on our way to Germany and boy, oh, boy, I'm happy that we did. We visited on a relatively crowded Saturday, though Wild Train remained a walk-on through most of our short 2 hour stop. I ended up bagging 6 rides on it, most of them in the back or towards the back, as I thought the front had a rather noticable and uncomfortable jolt in the helix, while the difference in the airtime strength didn't noticeably differ. There's some absolutely insane ejector for such a small coaster and I couldn't help but smile and clap every time we got back to the station. Shame that it's on its way out, but at least it's getting replaced by something that has potential to be even better.
Superman: This was really great. Long layout with hardly a dead spot, some rather decent airtime and great inversions. We only managed to get 2 rides on this, as Batman took priority on the day, but I'd be happy to return for a lot more if given more time.
Black Mamba: Well, I really liked this when I first visited Phantasialand back in 2015 when it was still the headline coaster. 8 years later it lacked that oomph and felt much weaker compared to the similar B&M inverts elsewhere, so it ended up dropping a bit after 2 rides I had on it.
Oblivion The Black Hole: Well, one of the more fun smaller Dive coasters, though I only got a customary re-ride on it as we scrambled to grab all of the coasters in the park during our short 3 hour visit. I left it where it was.
Red Force: This was some hilarious fun. It's a one trick pony, but its one trick is fairly big. It offered some decent airtime off the top hat and shuffled a lot towards the end of the launch track, though only enough to make it funny rather than outright bad. Decent stuff and I'm happy to report they moved the single rider queue to the start of the main queue rather than it splitting off somewhere towards the end.
Blue Fire: Alright, only got one ride on it as well, though it was a much better one compared to the ones I had in 2022. I guess a part of my poor experience in 2022 had to go down to the fact we only ever rode it during the morning ERT, while this time round, it was somewhere during the day, when the ride was already properly warmed up. Still not exactly a world beater, mind.
F.L.Y.: A brilliant attraction, but a rather underwhelming coaster. Sure, it's quite novel with being a launched flying coaster, though most of the layout feels rather meander-y and I can't really see what people see in it when they talk about airtime and other noticable forces.
Colorado Adventure: I feel this gets more fun every time I ride it and manages to squeeze itself back in the top 50 every single time. Has to be done in the back car, though.
Stunt Fall: Simple, good fun and somehow still absolutely terrifying. I'm not sure if it was how cramped together the rows are or something else, but somehow this ride still managed to unnerve me to an extent. I've only done Deja Vu (SFMM) once ages ago and I don't remember that one being quite as terrifying as Stunt Fall. Still, not a world beater, but we had a couple of very entertaining rides on it.
...and breathe. I guess this might be enough for this year. See ya all again in 2025.
