Written by Robert Niles
Published: May 26, 2004 at 8:13 PM
Best Theme Park
Universal's Islands of Adventure is the defending champ in this category, having won both previous awards.
Best Theme Park for Kids
Legoland California won the inaugural award in this category last year.
Best Attraction
Islands of Adventure's Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man captured this award in 2002 and 2003.
Best Family Attraction
This award will be presented for the first time this year, and will go to the highest rated attraction without a height restriction.
Best New Attraction
Also debuting this year, the award will go to the highest-rated new attraction (no clones) opened to the public after June 1, 2003.
Best Restaurant in a Theme Park
Islands of Adventure's Mythos won this honor last year, taking the award from the 2002 winner, Disneyland's Blue Bayou.
Best Hotel at a Theme Park Resort
Disneyland's Grand Californian Hotel was the winner in 2003, besting previous winner Universal Orlando's Portofino Bay Hotel.
Website members rate may each attraction, restaurant and hotel at the world's major theme parks on a scale from 0 to 10. They may rate each only once and all votes expire after 12 months.
Locations are eligible for the annual awards once they have been rated a minimum number of times. The highest rated eligible location in each category on June 30, 2004 will be crowned the winner in that category.
ABOUT THEMEPARKINSIDER.COM
ThemeParkInsider.com is one of the leading sources of information online for planning a theme park vacation, attracting more than 200,000 unique readers and serving more than 1.2 million page views per month. The site is independently owned by its founder, operated by its members and not affiliated with any theme park or entertainment company.
In 2001, the site won the journalism industry's highest honor for websites, the Online Journalism Award, for its coverage of theme park safety. The Online Journalism Award was given by a jury of news professionals from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, the same organization which awards the Pulitzer Prizes to newspapers.
The Point has little theming, but good rides and great service, and besides, any "theme" park site that talks this much about Magic Mountain can surely bend the rules in this contest for those "non theme" parks outside of California and Florida.
All I was saying was that a site named Theme Park Insider tends to attract more fans of themed attractions than a site named Thrill Ride something-or-other, or whatever. And those fans tend to vote for the themed rides.
But it is up to you, collectively, to decide who the winners this year will be.
you know mk is bound to pick up the most ison't it after all it fits in to all the catagories perfictly doson't it
Disney and Universal tend to get higher ratings because more people go to them. WAY more. We talk about SFMM a bit, because SoCal is a big theme park area. But we do mostly talk about it in a negative light. And we tend not to talk about Cedar Point because not that many people outside of Ohio really give a damn, and there are just too many CP fans out there who are complete and total morons. For example, a couple years back when we were getting slammed by some Pointyheads, I checked out their rating systems and the vast majority tended to rate the coasters all 10s and not rate any of the crappier rides. (BTW, such ballot stuffing is tolerated on lesser sites, but will just get all your votes dumped on TPI. So rate many rides and rate them fairly!)
Furthermore, and most important, TPI gets its votes from people of all ages. CP voters tend to fondly remember puberty, if they have, in fact, reached it yet.
Ballot stuffing? CP's ranked seventh on this site! I know many people look for different things in a park than I do, but what does Sea World Orlando deliver? I've been to Islands of Adventure and MGM at Disneyworld, and I thought both were great, but CP beats the stuffing out of both of them. Perhaps--if people stop giving 9's to Popeye and Bluto's Bilge Barges or whatever it's called, which is barely more entertaining than its line--the park rankings would be a little more accurate.
Nonetheless, I think it's a horrendous shame that CP isn't raking in cash because it's in northern Ohio rather than SoCal or Florida. I am one of six college students who just spent two days there, and we all had a blast. MF and Dragster define the ranking of 10 in my book, and I'm not the only one who thinks so. And yes, I am of legal voting age.
Well see what the results turnout to be
I don't mean to whine, but I don't enjoy being accused of this crap. Maybe other CP fans close their eyes and give Mean Streak a 10, but I don't. I never told anyone how to vote, I never implied that my rankings should count more than anyone else's, and I never said that anyone blindly gives Popeye's a 10 like I'm being accused of with CP. I said that CP would rank much higher on this site if people would just consider trying it out, and I said that I, personally, just think Bilge Rat Barges is a joke. There, I said it. Now how many of you are going to show up outside my house with pitchforks and torches?
BTW, stop using the term pointyhead. It's not funny, it's not clever, it's just stupid. I find it difficult to argue with somebody while I'm laughing at them.
Hmm, kinda weird how Cedar Point doesn't win anything on here, but yet holds the most records every year everywhere else!!! Bias maybe???