Matt N
CF Legend
Hi guys. Two European parks that have been quite heavily visited among CoasterForce's members are Alton Towers in the UK and Europa Park in Germany. The two parks are very different parks in many ways, but one way in which they are similar is that they both have pretty extensive roller coaster selections. Europa Park has 13 roller coasters and Alton Towers has 10, and both parks are among the most roller coaster-heavy theme parks in Europe. With this in mind, I thought it might be interesting to ask; do you prefer the roller coaster selection of Alton Towers or Europa Park? Which of these parks do you feel has the stronger coaster selection?
I thought this might be interesting to ponder because I don’t think the results would be quite as predictable as if I did a simple “Alton vs Europa” poll. If I simply asked “do you prefer Alton or Europa?”, I can sense that most people would vote for Europa, as it's generally a lot more revered than Alton Towers as an overall product. However, I think talking exclusively about the parks’ roller coasters levels the playing field a tad more. Roller coasters are widely considered to be one of Alton Towers’ greatest strengths at present, whereas they are sometimes considered to be a relative weakness of Europa Park.
I’ll get the ball rolling with my own opinion.
Personally, I'm actually not too sure. My pick could easily depend on my mood, I think, as both parks' coaster selections have points of strength over the other for me.
The points in favour of Europa are:
So that actually returns quite an emphatic win for Europa Park, with Alton Towers only winning 1 out of 9 comparisons. However, you only need to look at how closely matched some of the rankings are to see how the winner could quite easily be determined by my mood on a given day.
I'll vote Europa for today, though I think it's quite a close call. But which park do you think has the stronger coaster selection?
I thought this might be interesting to ponder because I don’t think the results would be quite as predictable as if I did a simple “Alton vs Europa” poll. If I simply asked “do you prefer Alton or Europa?”, I can sense that most people would vote for Europa, as it's generally a lot more revered than Alton Towers as an overall product. However, I think talking exclusively about the parks’ roller coasters levels the playing field a tad more. Roller coasters are widely considered to be one of Alton Towers’ greatest strengths at present, whereas they are sometimes considered to be a relative weakness of Europa Park.
I’ll get the ball rolling with my own opinion.
Personally, I'm actually not too sure. My pick could easily depend on my mood, I think, as both parks' coaster selections have points of strength over the other for me.
The points in favour of Europa are:
- Europa's top 3 averages a little stronger than Alton's for me, with Wodan and Silver Star both being 10/10s and usurping any coaster at Alton for me and Blue Fire rounding it off at a solid 9/10, thus averaging a rating of 9.7/10 and a ranking of #9/111 overall. Whereas, only Wicker Man is a 10/10 at Alton for me and Oblivion and Nemesis are both 9/10s, so Alton's top 3 averages a rating of 9.3/10 and a ranking of #11.7/111 overall for me.
- Europa has more coasters to pick from.
- The mean rating and ranking of the overall selection at Alton stand slightly higher for me. Even including Octonauts, Alton averages a rating of 6.6/10 and a ranking of #43.1/111 overall for me, while Europa only manages a rating of 6.3/10 and a ranking of #44.9/111 overall even with me not having ridden Ba-a-a Express (Ba-a-a would probably drag the average down further if I had ridden it).
- Among the non-kiddie coasters, I don't think Alton has anything I rate quite as lowly as Poseidon or Euro-Mir. Although as said above, that could be offset by Europa simply having more coasters.
| Ranking | Europa Park Coaster | Alton Towers Coaster | Winner |
| 1 | Silver Star (10/10, #3/111 overall) | Wicker Man (10/10, #8/111 overall) | Europa |
| 2 | Wodan (10/10, #6/111 overall) | Oblivion (9/10, #11/111 overall) | Europa |
| 3 | Blue Fire (9/10, #18/111 overall) | Nemesis Reborn (9/10, #16/111 overall) | Alton |
| 4 | CanCan Coaster (8/10, #24/111 overall) | Rita (8/10, #26/111 overall) | Europa |
| 5 | Pegasus (7/10, #29/111 overall) | Thirteen (7/10, #31/111 overall) | Europa |
| 6 | Arthur (7/10, #32/111 overall) | Runaway Mine Train (6/10, #40/111 overall) | Europa |
| 7 | Alpenexpress (7/10, #39/111 overall) | The Smiler (6/10, #42/111 overall) | Europa |
| 8 | Schweizer Bobbahn (6/10, #44/111 overall) | Galactica (4/10, #77/111 overall) | Europa |
| 9 | Atlantica SuperSplash (4/10, #73/111 overall) | Spinball Whizzer (4/10, #85/111 overall) | Europa |
I'll vote Europa for today, though I think it's quite a close call. But which park do you think has the stronger coaster selection?
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Oh I dunno, maybe I missed something, maybe the weather didn't help, maybe I'll enjoy it much more next time... I did find it considerably better on the front row.
For some reason I always forget how much I enjoyed that coaster...
It's fun enough, but I wouldn't have even ranked it, instead grouping it in with the rest of the family 'filler.'