Can I be the first to say what a waste of time this tournament is going to be? We already know what the results are going to be….the Golden Tickets were awarded 6 months ago and it’s not like anything has changed over the winter. The fanboys are going to come out in droves and pit Cedar Point and Europa Park and since few Americans are brave enough to venture over the pond to ye olde country, Cedar Point will either win because more people have been there or Europa Park will win because Americans like to take the exotic choice when they don’t have a clue what they are talking about.
That being said…
YAWN
I’ve heard about the great parks, we all know quite a bit about the great parks, we endlessly tease each other over what qualifies as a park and endlessly try to out-geek each other on esoteric knowledge on the great parks. Again… YAWN
What I really want to know about is the BAD parks. The ones that are SO bad they are worth a visit just to witness the sweet sweet awfulness. Maybe some will choose to use this as an indicator of what parks to avoid…but I would venture to say that you can’t really put things on a spectrum until you know the worst of the worst as well as the best of the best.
This, my inferior friends, is a question I don’t believe I can answer on my own, and will need some nominations to seed the voting. Will it be a place like Magic Springs and their policy of only having 7 rides open at a time but insisting that you pay full price? Is it any of the Six Flags parks where the most thrilling thing is trying to find your car at the end of the day while attempting to not be knifed to death? Or SeaWorld and their blind reliance on a mascot that kills trainers (but, to be honest, I have had a couple of trainers in my life that I would have liked to have killed) and lack of more than 15 minutes of content that would retain the interest of a Millennial. While I’m an equal opportunity basher, let’s limit the scope of this down to parks that have at least 4 roller coasters.
And rides….I’m sure there are some rides to thoroughly bash. I would nominate Mean Streak if it wasn’t currently under the knife. What about some of those violently rough Dark Knight rides or anything by Vekoma? What about the coaster at Magic Mountain themed to a crumbling parking lot? Or the endlessly changing name coaster on top of New York New York in Vegas?
Drop in your nominations for bad parks and bad rides below and give us a little background as to why you are nominating them. Hopefully we can get El Capitan Niles to help us put together a small tournament vote for this.
Your Friendly Neighborhood PoolBoy
I'd probably put Six Flags America here. There have been very few truly terrible parks I've been to (been to over 40 in North America or perhaps over 100 if you asked TH), and SFA (the closest theme park to where I live) is not necessarily a bad park. Perhaps I give the park the benefit of the doubt because I know they don't get much in the way of support from Corporate and they have been sincerely trying to improve over the past years (after years of trying under the Snyder regime, I finally have a reliable media contact with the park). However, there is something fundamentally flawed with a theme park that has 4 of their best rides on a dead end (Batwing, Superman: Ride of Steel, Joker's Jinx, and Wonder Woman Lasso of Truth). The Gotham City addition was a product of the Snyder era when Wild/Adventure World was bought by Six Flags. Not only are the best attractions on a dead end, but all but Joker's Jinx are at least a 5 minute walk from a bathroom (an undersized one at that). Yes, that's right, if you feel queasy after a spin on Batwing, you have to walk almost half a mile to reach the closest facilities. Not only that, the park brilliantly placed a kids area (formerly Thomas the Tank Engine land, now generically-themed Whistle Stop Park) back in this dead end as well with a similar 3-5 minute walk to the closest bathroom. Nothing like telling your kids that suddenly realize they "need to go" that they have to walk 2 football fields to reach the potty.
La Ronde
Don't feel like ranting right now but its bad.
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I'm nominating Elitches.
I just heard this last week that the 25 year plan for Elitch Gardens is to shut it down and convert it into high rise condos. And that is not speculation, but coming from half the team that currently owns it. They are already working on rezoning it...
Good Riddance.