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Worst Coasters of the 2010s

Hutch

Hutch

Strata Poster
I was taking a look at my spreadsheet and viewing what rides I have rated the lowest. Excluding the kiddy crap, my least favorite coasters are made up of stand ups, boomerangs, SLCs, some painful woodies, Kingda Ka, and any other crap Arrow or Vekoma loopers. Thing is though, all of these have been around for over a decade, or even multiple decades. That got me wondering about any bad coasters that have opened since 2010.

I took a look again at my rankings, and pretty much all of my least favorite coasters built this decade fall in the "mediocre" or "okay" range, but not anywhere near as bad as the examples I made above. Based off what I've done, I think the closest one I can come up with is Smiler. It has a repetitive layout, bad restraints, and it's a bit shaky as well. The only decent elements it has are the two airtime hills midway through the ride. I don't hate the ride, and if I'm at Towers again I'd probably even ride it again for the novelty but also because it's in a different continent. I mean might as well ride it while I'm over there right?

So what do you guys think? Excluding kiddy creds and relocations (because we all know Goliath @ SFNE would win if that were the case), have there been any truly bad coasters that were built since 2010?
 
I've heard Thunderbolt at Luna Park rides like a lightly pushed wheelchair going down a poorly designed spiral staircase. But I think it's the only example of a coaster designed and built in the 2010s that has an actually bad reputation.

The "designed" bit is important too, I think, otherwise you could feasibly include some of the Volare clones, which debuted in 2002 and haven't been changed enough since. I haven't ridden a Volare myself, but from what I've heard it's like being locked in a sunbed placed inside an oversized tumble dryer.

Coincidentally, both of those disreputable coasters have a manufacturer in common. I guess Zamperla's coaster division hasn't quite figured out design and manufacturing yet.
 
This is a tough item for debate due to its subjectivity. It's easy to mention any smaller, mediocre ride that hardly anyone knows or has been on, but it'd be more interesting to nominate something more high profile.

Cheetah Hunt is the only ride that really sticks out in my mind. I understand what they were trying to do with the ride and I appreciate how they integrated the ride into its current surroundings, but the execution of the ride is just awful. The ride is supposed to simulate a sprinting cheetah, yet it does not feel fast...and then they have a random barrel roll? It's an odd ride for sure.
 
It is surprisingly hard to find a REALLY bad significant coaster from this decade... good sign I guess ;)

I would nominate Impulse at Knoebels. Despite having lap-bar trains, I did not find this an improvement on the more basic Gerstlauer Eurofighters. In fact, in some ways, it’s worse... The whole ride has a nasty vibration, which manages to be even more grating than the rough “shuffle/bump” that some of the Gersts have going on. Plus, my memory is you literally crawl your way through all the elements; admittedly you don’t go that fast through some of them on the Gersts, but this felt particularly awkward and dull. I also remember bashing my elbow or hip-bone or something on a part of the train, which may have just been an unfortunate incident, but yeah, my sole ride on this was surprisingly crap.

The lap-bars are still beneficial, as at least your shoulders aren’t being pinned down the whole ride. That’s about the only positive I can think of. Although there are definitely worse coasters out there, in the 2010s this one stood out for me.

The Smiler is obviously good a shout for this topic too as others have said, but at least it was ambitious...
 
The Smiler.

Not even the fact that it rides badly.
We had the track separation in 2013 and then the crash in 2015.

This coaster caused ripple effects across UK theme parks, the effects still being felt today.

Huge budget cuts across Merlin parks due to lower attendances. Merlins share price plummeted, reduced park opening hours, rides being removed for budget reasons. (Loggers/Slammer/Black Buccaneer/Ripsaw)

Seems harsh to pin all this on Smiler but all this happened post-crash. You could argue the crash was due to the human override, but the empty train shouldn’t have valleyed so easily in the bat wing, that’s due to poor design and cheaper Gerstlauer hardware.

If Alton had installed a B&M back in 2013 would any of the above Merlin cuts had happened? I doubt it.
 
Jungle Trailblazer in Zhuzhou is probably the worst modern woodie I’ve done, dunno why they put those trash trains on it.

Like everyone else has said, Smiler. Thunderbolt is trash too.

I hate the ****ing Sky Rocket IIs as well.
 
Antinos said:
Cheetah Hunt is the only ride that really sticks out in my mind. I understand what they were trying to do with the ride and I appreciate how they integrated the ride into its current surroundings, but the execution of the ride is just awful. The ride is supposed to simulate a sprinting cheetah, yet it does not feel fast...and then they have a random barrel roll? It's an odd ride for sure.
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See I thought about Cheetah Hunt as well but in reality, I would definitely ride it again, and probably more than once if the queue was short.

I won't ride the others. So while CH could be a lot better and is definitely odd, it's absolutely not the worst or one of the worst rides built this decade.
 
If I let my spreadsheet do the hard work for me, the following names jump out:
Dizz @ Bobbejobbe - Maurer's most boring spinner
Turbo Track @ Ferrari World - I would say Intamin's most boring launch coaster, but Tower of Terror and Superman exist
Sky Scream @ Holiday Park - I don't mind the model itself, but for some reason this one has some of the worst restraints ever conceived. And that's with comfort collars existing.

As discussed above, there seems to be nothing particularly terrible in the last decade, thankfully. The worst offense is either being very mediocre or hurting my shins a bit.


Ben said:
Jungle Trailblazer in Zhuzhou is probably the worst modern woodie I’ve done, dunno why they put those trash trains on it.
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I'd be interested to know more specifically what happened here. I imagine the trains are just laziness because they go with the original design (which I found to be amazing).
 
See, I don't hate The Smiler quite as much as most of you seem to, I think it's alright, but even I gotta admit, in the grand scheme of things it's probably been the worst investment of the 2010's. I still don't quite trust it to be honest. Not so much because of the accident in 2015 - I'm fairly confident that won't happen again - but it was that track separation in 2013 that worries me the most.
Like... Hellooo - 2 sections of track came apart!! :eek:

Volares, Zacspins, 4D freefly's etc... are all bad rides, but at least they're put together right.
 
Twist Coaster Robin has probably won this thread.

Worst one's I've done are Thunderbolt at Coney Island, all the Sky Rocket II's, and Huracan at Belantis.
 
The Smiler incident did leave an undesirable legacy, but for me at least 1/2 the ride is fun unless somethings changed over the past few years.

Its such a shame that Merlin apparently view Swarm as a flop and are letting it cloud future judgements. Doesn't help they chose to build it the length it ended up but I have heard a GP view that 'its too smooth'. People are weird.

I personally did not care for Storm Chaser. Until I saw positive comments on CF I didn't understand why the entire state of Kentucky wasn't demanding RMC had another go at the second half. I found the joy of the initial drop and larger swoops are violently shaken out of you moments afterwards.

Also, Soaring Eagle at Luna park, just like all the other Volares I've done, can p*** off. Not done the original Thunderbolt but have ridden the clone at OWA and apart from a couple of really, really bad moments its not the worst. Actually looks really pretty in its setting.
 
spicy said:
The Smiler.

Not even the fact that it rides badly.
We had the track separation in 2013 and then the crash in 2015.

This coaster caused ripple effects across UK theme parks, the effects still being felt today.

Huge budget cuts across Merlin parks due to lower attendances. Merlins share price plummeted, reduced park opening hours, rides being removed for budget reasons. (Loggers/Slammer/Black Buccaneer/Ripsaw)

Seems harsh to pin all this on Smiler but all this happened post-crash. You could argue the crash was due to the human override, but the empty train shouldn’t have valleyed so easily in the bat wing, that’s due to poor design and cheaper Gerstlauer hardware.

If Alton had installed a B&M back in 2013 would any of the above Merlin cuts had happened? I doubt it.
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You see, I think Smiler hid some of the problems that Merlin already had in this respect.

In 2015, and even 2014, we were already seeing budget cuts, with opening hours being reduced, closures of food outlets, etc (moreso at Towers, but it was at other parks too). Smiler obviously hit profits and attendance majorly, and that had to then be reflected in budgets.

Who knows how different the parks would be now if the Smiler incident didn't happen. But I do think that the cuts were inevitable, and in some way, would have been worse without the ability to justify it by means of the incident.


As for mine, Smiler does jump out as an option. I never enjoyed the ride, and I find it too rough to ride now. Really don't enjoy it. Another good option...
HeartlineCoaster said:
Dizz @ Bobbejobbe - Maurer's most boring spinner
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I'd forgotten about this till you mentioned it, and for good reason I guess. Though the ride itself is completely inoffensive, it's the worst spinner I've done, and just generally feels like a waste of space (which is impressive in a park like Bobbe). Such a shame.
 
HeartlineCoaster said:
I'd be interested to know more specifically what happened here. I imagine the trains are just laziness because they go with the original design (which I found to be amazing).
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By original do you mean Flying Fjord Dragon? Because yeah, that one is fab, so when I went on JT I was super excited - until it jackhammered it down the drop.

Those rides need a lot of maintenance or they get trash fast, so I’m going to say that the hot, humid climate where that one is, combined with bad maintenance has led to an absolute disaster.

It rides like a woodie ten times its age I hated it.
 
Ben said:
By original do you mean Flying Fjord Dragon? Because yeah, that one is fab, so when I went on JT I was super excited - until it jackhammered it down the drop.

Those rides need a lot of maintenance or they get trash fast, so I’m going to say that the hot, humid climate where that one is, combined with bad maintenance has led to an absolute disaster.

It rides like a woodie ten times its age I hated it.
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It was an early build, but a late open as well. Newer Jungle Trailblazers, with better trains, opened before that one did. So, while it seems newer based on opening dates, it isn't.

And yeah, it's s**t.
 
Smiler has grown on my a lot, it doesn't seem *as* rough as it used to be.

The thing is though it shouldn't be rough at all considering it's age. It's just poorly designed and was perhaps too ambitious for Towers/Gerst to take on.

I cba with rough coasters, and thankfully we do seem to be moving into an era where all manufacturers have improved massively on comfort. Intamin with Taron, Vekoma with Lech for example.
 
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