[arby]

I searched Carowinds Connection and don't see this topic so I'll start it...

As the subject says, the topic is on rating coasters. I don't want to get into the politics of what organization rates what coaster, how they do it, etc. I want to know your personal opinion based on your experience. Some people have more experience than others, but everybody has some experience and an opinion. So here are some questions to help get this started...

What criteria do you use to rate good coasters? What makes a coaster good? or bad? Do you rate coasters overall or based on wood versus steel (or some other factor)?

I've seen plenty of comments on where people rate coasters, but now I'm looking for personal opinions on what makes your top X coasters your favorite.

[Edwardo]

I dont' really 'rate' coasters, per se, I just love, like, tolerate, or hate individual coasters. I do rank mine, though.

So many things go into it. Basically, does it have speed and airtime? If it has lots of airtime, is it floater air, ejector air, or violent ejector air? How smooth/rough was it, and did that detract? Were there any breaks in momentum or pacing, and how much did that detract? Was there theming? If so, did it add to the ride? (If it does nothing for the ride, I usually discount the theming and not rate based on any bad theming, but if it makes the ride better, I'll rate the ride higher).

Also, I look at what I'd rather ride. When I'm adding a new coaster, after deciding all of the above (and some more), I look at something similar on my spreadsheet, then I start deciding if I'd rather ride the new credit I'm adding, or the one similar. If I'd rather ride the new credit, then I apply that to the next coaster, going up with each decision, until I find a coaster I would rather ride more than the new credit. I do the opposite going down, if I'd prefer to ride a bunch of coasters other than the new credit.

For instance, last year when I rode El Toro, it reminded me of Phantom's Revenge with violent moments of airtime, speed, and was a lot of fun. Phantom was at the time my #1 coaster. I'd rather ride El Toro, so I rank it #1 now. But when riding Bizarro @ SFNE this year, I moved it up to Phantom, which I liked similarly, but I still prefer Phantom, so I knocked it down and pitted it against my #3 overall coaster, Voyage. I like Bizarro over Voyage because while Voyage air is ejector, it isn't as violent as Bizarro, Voyage isn't as re-ridable to me as Bizarro, and so I ranked Bizarro as #3 and moved the rest down.

YMMV.

As an aside, I don't count relocated coasters as a new credit, but I may re-rank a coaster regardless of if it's been moved or not. I do count each side of a coaster like Thunder Road as a credit, and I count powered coasters as a credit (which at this point only 'pads' my count by less than 10, so it isn't to pad my credit count).

[Skycoastin Steve]

My ranking system is all over the place, but what it all boils down to is if there was only one coaster that I could ride for the rest of my life, which one would it be? And if my #1 wasn't available, what would be the next one I would pick? And so on and so forth. I also separate wood and steel, just because the ride experiences on both are obviously vastly different.

As far as what I like on a coaster, it just depends on 1. what it delivers and 2. what it is trying to deliver. Prime example: my #1 steel is (and might always be) Millennium Force. It's fast, it's out of control, it's smooth, and yes, it has some pretty good moments of airtime. Is it meant to be an airtime machine like Bizarro or a B&M hyper? Absolutely not. So I don't compare it as such. Does any B&M hyper on Earth make me feel like my face is peeling back for 60 straight seconds like MF does? Not even close. If a coaster does what it was built to do, then that's all I can ask for.

Ride length is another huge factor for me. In fact, El Toro and I305 are never going to pass Voyage or MF because they are so much shorter than those two. Do they have more holy **** moments? Probably. But both of those rides are over before you know it. Voyage and MF don't even let up for a second and are marathon rides. As far as forces are concerned, I think that's the most overrated way of deciding how good a coaster is. Schwarzkopfs all have ridiculous positive g-forces, but I think most of the layouts are pretty boring. Batman clones have a ton of positive g's, but the layout puts me to sleep.

So my methods might be a little confusing, but rankings honestly don't matter to me that much, they're pretty much for me to keep track of when I'm bored. As long as a coaster is fun and doesn't beat me to a pulp, I'm happy with it.

[arby]

Thank you for the input. It is really interesting to get some input from people I consider to be experts on interpreting coasters. I was debating whether to use 'rating' or 'ranking' for this topic but then figured you had to rate a coaster before you could rank it. You gotta love the semantics of the English language...

Anyway, I don't have anywhere near a scientific approach to ranking a coaster and based on the small amount that I have ridden so far, I really don't have a rank list. I hope to change that over the next couple of years.

My only rating of coasters up to now has been that it's a good one if I feel better (exhilarated) after riding it than when I got on and it didn't beat me to death.

[Jonathan]

The first paragraph of Steve's post is basically how I do it. If I could only ride one coaster, which would it be? It's really just a gut feeling thing, and I waffle all the time.

[Skycoastin Steve]

^Except for my top 5 or 6, I definitely waffle all the time on the rest.

[arby]

Oh well, I was hoping someone had a more scientific approach to it. It sounds like it's quite subjective. Thanks for the additional comments!

[Skycoastin Steve]

^Any rating system for any walk of life is going to be subjective and based on opinion. My best advice would be just don't get caught up in what everyone else says about a coaster. If you like it a lot, rank it high even if other people don't like it. If you don't like it that much, don't rank it high even if other people like it. My old boss had Rattler and Son of Beast in his woodie top 10, and no matter how much I called him INSANE for having those two in his top 10, he kept them in there. And this is a guy that's ridden 550 coasters.

[arby]

Yeah, I don't have a problem forming my own opinion. Sometimes I have a harder time listening...

When I start with something new, though, I try to connect to experienced people in that area and learn from them so that some day I can also be experienced. Even if I don't agree with them, I like to hear their perspective.

Anyway, I don't have a top 10 yet. Of the few coasters I have been on so far, only two are memorable enough for me to want to go back and make sure I ride them any chance I get. I'll continue to build my list moving forward, though, as I'll be going to numerous parks this coming year with my platinum pass.

[Edwardo]

Sadly, the only way to get 'experience' in this hobby is to get out and ride coasters. When I first really got into it, around 2002, I had ridden maybe 40 different coasters. It's an expensive hobby, only because most parks are regional. You don't have to have a high coaster count to be into the hobby. Before I even hit 100 (in 2005), I was so into it, I had most of the N. American census on RCDB memorized, lol.

I've learned that there is an ebb and flow for most people. Some years I take a lot of trips to new parks, some years I end up staying close to home and may only get a new credit or 2 if close by parks get new coasters.

I'd imagine it's tougher with a family.

The 'bad' thing is that there really aren't a lot of major stand out coasters in this particular area. Goliath in GA is great, Intimidator and Afterburn are great, Dollywood has some awesome coasters. I haven't done I305 yet, but KD, while it has a decent amount of coasters, really doesn't have much in the way of standout coasters.

But once you realize what it is you like, once you've been on enough coasters and several of each type, you get a handle on what you like, and can plan accordingly.

I think that once you hit the 150 mark, you'll probably know what you like and know your prefrences pretty well. A few of my friends who have upwards of 500 seem to consider anyone who has ridden 200 as being 'legit', meaning you know what you like, and you have enough coasters under your belt to be able to give an honest and informed opinion.

But as always, YMMV.

[Jonathan]

Then the more you ride, the harder it gets to ride new coasters, because you have to go farther and farther from where you live.

This made me interested to go see how many new rides I rode each year...

1988: 1
1992: 1
1994: 5
1995: 2
1997: 12
1998: 1
1999: 3
2000: 11
2001: 21
2002: 33
2003: 29
2004: 60
2005: 52
2006: 16
2007: 11
2008: 32
2009: 33
2010: 20

I guess I kind of hit my peak in 2004 and 2005. Part of this is because I have farther to go now to get new rides (although now that I have moved that changes), part of it because I don't spend as much time or money on coasters as I did in the past.

[Skycoastin Steve]

I was at 125 at the beginning of 2009. At the end of 2009 I was at 212. As of right now I'm at 269. My views on coasters have VASTLY changed in the last year and a half. You definitely get a much better appreciation for coasters (and parks) the more different ones you experience.

These days I'm forced to have to go to places like the Chicago area, New England, San Francisco, and Canada to get a large number of new credits. Of all the parks in the southeastern United States that have 3 or more credits, I've been to every single one except Dixie Landin' in Louisiana. I'm going on the TPR trip to the northeast next year, so that will at least take care of that area!

[arby]

Thanks again for all the great input. I'm in the same boat as you were when you got 'started,' Edwardo. I'm at 45 right now but hope to start catching up next year. It can be expensive but we like to travel anyway, so now we're just going to start including stops at parks as part of our trips.

I was thinking of a career change but my wife said I better stay at this job if I want to travel around to all these different parks. The kids love it and my daughter is old/big enough to ride all the coasters, now. It can be a budget challenge, although with what it cost us for Walt Disney World a couple of years ago, we could hit all the Six Flags and Cedar Fair parks this side of the Mississippi for the same amount of money.

Nice break-down, Jonathan. I may get that organized some day although I can't remember back that far- Geauga Lake, the park where I rode my first coaster, is no more (well, no more than a water park, now). Perhaps I'll keep better records moving forward.

[Jay]

Over the years I have found myself becoming more of a "park enthusiast" than "coaster enthusiast." Back in the day where I would marathon a coaster if it had little to no line, now I will only ride a coaster 2-3 times and then explore the rest of the park for flat rides and other unexpected goodies.

While the larger parks (Six Flags, Cedar Fair etc) tend to have the more stand out coasters, the smaller hole in the wall parks will generally be more fun because everything there is so unexpected and fairly laid back. I still have not been to California which has probably over 50 new coasters for me and big parks like Magic Mountain, Knotts, Great America, and Discovery Kingdom. Yet I passed it all up for going on trips to smaller parks.

This year I have been on 44 new coasters, along with 23 new parks (I use the term park loosely as I did credit whore quite a bit ) and the largest park was Lagoon in Utah. A park I had never really given much thought about until a year or so ago, a park that you really hear nothing about because it is so isolated, with "only" 8 coasters. I'm not going to say it is "one of the best parks in the country" or anything, but I had such a great time there.

I forgot my point. Maybe I should write a TR, and then get distracted by football and forget about it after taking a nap.

I like parks.

[Edwardo]

Don't tempt a TR like that, we all know you don't follow thru . (At least I know where to look at the pictures)

I, like Jay, have found that I'd rather spend a day at the park (if possible) and enjoy the park instead of just doing credit runs. I only did 2 credit runs this year, one to Six Flags St. Louis, and the only reason I wasn't there longer was because I was with other people, who were starting and ending at the park on our HWN trip, so I got about 4 hours in (Loved the park, though, will go back), and spent about an hour at Quassy just to get the mouse that is leaving. I'd much rather go and enjoy a park for the day than go in, hit all the credits, and move to the next park. Thats one of the reasons that a TPR trip has never appealed to me.