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What impressed you the most in the past year?

My return visit to Efteling on my own this year really surprised me. My 2016 visit left me feeling lukewarm, but visiting on a quiet day and having fallen in love with the soundtracks, the "Efteling magic" really won me over. In particular, I fell in love with Symbolica. Just, the whole choreography, the music, the sets and effects were all wonderful.

On the whole, not much else except for that one night ride on Troy. Jesus, I've not been left buzzing like that since my first ride on Kärnan.
 
Hixee said:
Dinoconda: I was expecting X2 ramped up a little bit. This thing makes X2 look like a little bitch.
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Yes. That's the eloquent phrasing I failed to come up with. I did X2 last of the 3 and it was such a little bitch in comparison.

Also while I think of it - completed FujiQ on a first visit. That's supposed to be impressive.
 
Lightning Rod was the best coaster I rode last year, but that's not surprising so I wouldn't say it was the most impressive thing. I'd say from the stuff I did, Dollywood in general impressed me the most, especially with the landscaping, staff, and overall feel of the place. You go to Dollywood for Lightning Rod, but stay for the atmosphere (or...maybe you go for the atmosphere... stay for Lightning Rod :p).

Beyond parks and ride experiences though, I think Intamin's IAAPA announcements might've impressed me the most. I mean, those rides SHOCKED a lot of us!
 
I suppose it's fairly predictable in my own mind, but to experience the spectacle of Europa Park as a resort was very enjoyable and fulfilling. Particularly after hearing and seeing so much about the place for years. And although the day itself was fairly unimpressive and whatnot, seeing Icon for the first time was great purely because of how often I've visited BPB (it being my local park for years). I'd only ever seen one coaster in my lifetime constructed there which was Infusion and I'd already been on that at Southport (I don't specifically remember Big One, was too young). So it's just quite surreal to see a multi-launch plonked in the centre of the park... even though it's fairly old news now haha.
 
Of new parks I visited this year, Typhoon Lagoon at WDW wins by default. Really nice waterpark!

Of new rides I rode, Splash Mountain at Magic Kingdom really took the cake. Such quick dispatch, such great capacity, such theming, that catchy song ...and the fact that they managed to make such a great and iconic ride out of the one film Disney is actually ashamed of. I'll have to give a shout-out to Flight of Passage too. The concept itself might not be the most solid (when Disney picked a new IP to compete with Harry Potter as a knee-jerk reaction, they could probably have picked a better one than Avatar), but the ride is really impressive.

And @Hutch made a very good observation about Intamin's IAAPA announcements. Those are perhaps the most hype-worthy announcements I've seen. Steel Curtain was another nice one. It's not every day we see a 67 m tall coaster with nine inversions being announced, and I'm really excited to see whether it will deliver.
 
Oooh, good topic!

Coaster-wise, Hyperion blew my socks off. What a ride! I love how the first and second half are so different from each other, but in a complimentary way. First you've got the huge, sweeping, floaty elements. Then you've the snappy, forceful transitions of the second half. It just all works so well together and gave me that burst of joy everytime I rode it. Plus, the first drop is phenomenal!

Toverland's Halloween Event was incredible. I've been craving to go back to it ever since! The park looked beautiful, the scare zones were full of atmosphere and the nightrides were top notch.

I also really really loved the cable car safari at Kolmarden.
 
Obviously Steel Vengeance is the most impressive thing I rode, but there are others which left a big impression.

  • Silver Dollar City - The park is fantastic, excellent food options, loads of vegetation, different experiences all over the park with a mix of top end quality(Outlaw Run and Thunderation), innovative ideas(Time Traveller), historical rides (Blazing Fury and the cavern), excellent food options, flats, water rides, landscaping, merch and good ops as well as great customer service. It's fab, I was really impressed with the park from top to bottom.
  • The Beast - Screw the haters, the Beast is amazing.
  • Lech Coaster - I'm very happy to see Vekoma's trajectory recently, Mayan, Formula and Lech have all delivered better and better ride experiences, I really want a Vekoma hyper.
  • The Americans - o_O Yeah, those boys(and girls, including a Canadian ;)) we met in June are great guys, and I was really impressed with their kindness and acceptance, I loved those couple of days.
 
DelPiero said:
Silver Dollar City - The park is fantastic, excellent food options, loads of vegetation, different experiences all over the park with a mix of top end quality(Outlaw Run and Thunderation), innovative ideas(Time Traveller), historical rides (Blazing Fury and the cavern), excellent food options, flats, water rides, landscaping, merch and good ops as well as great customer service. It's fab, I was really impressed with the park from top to bottom.
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Food so good it gets mentioned twice! Silver Dollar City is the best. I love it so much.
 
For Coasters: Cedar Point's tenacity at keeping Steel Vengeance up and running really blew me away. It would have been easy enough to keep the coaster to one train operation after the brake run failure; but I give the park tons of credit for working to get things back to regular operation.

For Parks: I finally made it to Busch Gardens Williamsburg, and absolutely loved the park design and appeal. While I had heard how beautiful and well-laid out the park was, it really surpassed my expectations!
 
Joey said:
Could be a new park you went to, a new cred you acquired, a piece of news, some cool theming that was built, a new flower bed at Busch Williamsburg. What has impressed you the most in the past 12 or so months?

For me it was Flight of Passage, which I was expecting to not be a fan of. Pandora itself was about how I expected, but woah did I enjoy Flight of Passage something special. It has plenty of flaws, but I think the ride experience itself is the closest I've ever been to a true willingness to suspend disbelief. It was breathtaking and thrilling and in spite of some glitches, gelled together the physical elements with the events on screen. They took something I hated - Avatar, screen based attractions, flying theaters and made me like them. So yeah, I was hella impressed.

Kings Dominion's Twisted Timbers was the most impressive new cred for me of 2018. Both in terms of new acquisitions and new for 2018 coasters. I guess mostly because it's so refreshing to see KD get something legitimately good and fun and not just good in a "well, it's WEIRD and that's cool?" way. Wonder Woman at Six Flags Fiesta Texas impressed me way more than I was expecting - another thing I was prepared to hate, but nope! It was weirdly intense and thrilling and the seating made it vulnerable.
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2 words: Steel Vengance
 
I'm quite new for coaster enthusiast, and impressed with Everland's food offer&fastpass system.
Everland is family-based theme park, so it should have different kinds of food. So it has Chinese restaurant, burger cafe, KFC, themed coffee shop, some Japanese food, and premium food course ($200 per 2 people, 10 guests per day).

And that park started using mobile phone-based fastpass system(almost no park do that in America) called Lenny's Chance. EP is collected 1 per 30 minutes, and we can get max 18 EP and, we can buy fastpass with these points. (ex. T Express equals 5 EP to buy 1 fastpass) That made the park much more convenient than normal ticket-like fastpass.Screenshot_20190309-201238_Everland.jpg
 
Intamin's double whammy announcement at IAAPA 18 was the definite jaw-dropping moment for me. So thrilled to finally get a groundbreaking ride at my home park! Also, Walibi Belgium's Mega looks like Expedition GeForce upgraded with RMC-like funkyness.

For moments during park visits, besides the obvious Steel Vengeance experience, discovering X²'s drop was a definite 'wow' moment for me!
 
Holiday World and how well it's run. I have every faith in Matt the amazing Park President to continue its legacy for far into the future.
 
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