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Amusement Parks that leave you feeling dissappointed

Dorney, every time I go, I feel like I've been ripped off. the rides aren't all that great, only one is even top 10 worthy, the water park is small despite being included in the ticket price, and the food is insanely over priced. I leave Dorney feeling like I deserved a little bit more.
 
Jer said:
Dorney, every time I go, I feel like I've been ripped off. the rides aren't all that great, only one is even top 10 worthy, the water park is small despite being included in the ticket price, and the food is insanely over priced. I leave Dorney feeling like I deserved a little bit more.
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Hi, welcome to the wonderful world of coaster enthusiasm. Are you new here?

I haven't been to Dorney, but I've seen it driving by and it looked pretty impressive, but that was before I was an enthusiast, so I really can't tell you any different. I'm not nit-picky about coasters, really, as long as I'm having a good time, it's a good ride.
 
Hyde244 said:
Eh, not really.

If I have heard that a park is going to not be good, I just set my bar of expectations low, and am pleasantly surprised if nothing catches on fire while I am there!

And yeah, O-H. I'm particularly jealous of you bentcookie, you are closer to Hot Dog Shoppe in Warren than I am. Skyline is good, but Hot Dog Shoppe is better.
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I have to honestly say I have never been to either one :(
 
BBH said:
Jer said:
Dorney, every time I go, I feel like I've been ripped off. the rides aren't all that great, only one is even top 10 worthy, the water park is small despite being included in the ticket price, and the food is insanely over priced. I leave Dorney feeling like I deserved a little bit more.
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Hi, welcome to the wonderful world of coaster enthusiasm. Are you new here?

I haven't been to Dorney, but I've seen it driving by and it looked pretty impressive, but that was before I was an enthusiast, so I really can't tell you any different. I'm not nit-picky about coasters, really, as long as I'm having a good time, it's a good ride.
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Heh let's make a witty comment and then totally beat around the bush with a post.

If you ever go to Knoebels you'll honestly think different about the prices of food in every park you visit from then on, even ones that you've been to constantly throughout your life. I mean where else can you get a 4 person meal for literally half the price compared to a major park and with better quality, too?

I've passed by Dorney a few times, especially looking down on it from the highway. It does look like it's worth the three-four hour stop but if you don't have a way of getting in entirely free (Platinum Pass) it's not worth the stop at all. The only thing I really give it is that it's a great weekday park to visit, it's almost entirely empty and the employees are more than nice enough to let you move around the trains as you wish when they stop in the stations.

Also Jer, Dorney Park may not have the greatest water park in the world but Patriot's Plunge is still one of my all time favorite slides for that huge air time drop :D
 
Jer said:
the rides aren't all that great, only one is even top 10 worthy
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Out of the 70+ parks I've been to, I've thought that about all but around 10 of them ;) :p
 
I was left disappointed after Europa Park.

Yeah, it's a pretty park with well themed areas, loads of different rides and had a great feel to the place - but the rides are average (with the exception of blue Fire).

Half of the problem was I expected far too much. I couldn't wait to ride Wodan, Silver Star, Euro Mir and I've heard so many positive comments about the park but the rides turned out to be average. The park is billed as an European Mecca for enthusiasts, but I founds the rides and park to be "good", not exceptional as I thought.

After bigging up a park in my mind for so long and ending up disappointed, Europa Park briefly killed my enthusiasm for parks. I began to think if such a highly rated park was so mediocre, then surely there would be no parks left in Europe that could spark the excitement and satisfaction usually found on a first-time visit.

My theory was proved when I subsequently visited Walibi Holland. Again, it's a fairly highly acclaimed park with a (on paper) decent selection of rides. With the exception of Goliath, the park was lackluster.

Thankfully I visited Toverland the next day and fell back in love with theme parks. Toverland had been praised until it's balls dropped off so I was expecting another "Europa Park moment". However, the rides, sense of adventure and personal, non-corporate touches wiped away all negative thoughts.
 
Knotts Berry Farm. Totally atmosphereless, disgusting concrete mess and the coaster I was most looking forward to riding (Xcelarator) was down for maintenance in the middle of summer, despite only having been fully open for a few months. Stupid place.

Bobbejaanland. I was looking forward to this place because it had a fairly big selection of coasters, and with so many you'd expect at least one to be good. Nope. The place is DIRE, there is nothing there. It sucks so hard.
 
Universal Studios Florida.

After 4 hours, we had done everything, including multiple rerides on HRRR and the Mummy. And we never returned during the entire trip to Orlando.

Some of the areas are really well done, and as a 'studio' park, it probably looks the best (in certain areas). But to put it bluntly, it's full of crap and lacks any kind of atmosphere. I think the main issue with regards to the attractions is how they've wanted to be strict on the studio theme (the complete opposite to Disney, who seem to stray off in any direction, but they then end up with a pretty fun park).

But in saying that, Universal are now drifting away with the new Potterland, which will no doubt make the park a little bit better.
 
Movieland Park, Lake garda Italy.

Didnt have the time to check it out fully, the website made it look like an ok day out but we spent about 2 hours in there and that was dragging it out.
 
bmac said:
The only thing I really give it is that it's a great weekday park to visit, it's almost entirely empty and the employees are more than nice enough to let you move around the trains as you wish when they stop in the stations.
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This. Only time I've been there was mid-week in May, and my friend and I had the run of the place (although we did have to go around the queue each time we wanted to re-ride something). Despite the relative lack of size and number of rides, it was probably one of the most enjoyable afternoons I've spent at a park. Dorney's a relatively small park & I don't think it pretends to be anything other than that, so if you don't go into it with overblown expectations, it shouldn't disappoint.
 
Martyn B said:
Universal Studios Florida.
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I'm in this boat, too.

USF may have some "good" roller coasters but the two times I've gone they've had severe upkeep issues in terms of quality of their rides appearances. Beyond the roller coasters there are only a select amount of other rides and its off to the next hamlet, USO is the lesser violator of this thanks to a wider selection of rides. In two visits in 2007 and 2009 I plowed through both parks in 2 separate days, if I remember right I did both parks in about 4-5 hours each.
 
Busch Gardens Tampa and Disneyland Resort Paris. I've had a bad day in both, although I think I should give BGT a second chance, I believe it isn't that bad as my experience was :/
 
I know I will prolly receive some hate for this, but Kennywood dissappointed me. No, I did not have high expectations. I kept my expectations at the level of going to a county fair... and I still left thinking mehh. Phantom's Revenge, Jack Rabbit, and Thunderbolt were all really fun, but they weren't enough to counteract the poor surrounding area and atmosphere. I just could not stand looking at all those darn factories and such across the river. It was kind of an eyesore. It seemed like a lot of the clientele were trashy-ish as well (no offense to anyone on here). I feel like Kennywood is a place you have to grow up in for you to love it.

I did have hopes for The Potato Patch though, but my fries were gross. They were flimsy and cold and I was bitterly dissappointed considering the praise that place has received. That just compiled on top of an already "blahh" day.
 
Oh yeah, forgot about Busch Gardens!

There's no denying that Busch Gardens Tampa has *some* brilliant coasters (Montu, Shiekra, Scorpion, Kumba, and possibly Gwazi), but it lacks in every other department. There's just nothing else to do there, and when the big coasters are super intense, you dont really feel like riding them over and over - so I soon got bored. No dark rides at all and only a couple of acient/boring flats.

Even though there's animals, there just wasn't enough diversity to the park. It lacks imagination.
 
Park Asterix.

Was expecting this really heavily themed park with great rides.

Well the theming is skin deep, near enough all the rides are not themed. The rides are all average to poor and the rapids its the worst I've ever been on.

Just don't get the love for this park.

Sea world Orlando.

Looks like something from the 70's, old run down with poor ride ops. It has no atmosphere and its just a mess.
 
Tragic Mountain and Cedar Point.

6FMM was pretty awesome in the early-mid 90's, but after I moved from CA about 97, each visit back has been a let down with how bad the operations had become. It should be awesome with that coaster lineup, but everything else, from cleanliness and staff attitude to the lack of non-coaster rides and dismal operations just sucks all the life out of the experience. It was all downhill once they took out the full service Chinese restaurant on top of Samurai Summit.

Cedar Point was built up to be such an amazing place by so many enthusiasts, that when I finally made it there, there was no way it could live up to the hype. Now, having been to so many other parks, I'm even less impressed with America's roller coast.
 
Michigan's Adventure is a massive concrete dump though I can't say my expectations were that great either. Same with Carowinds, like, I thought it would be a lot nicer but it was horrible and the weather didn't add to that either.

As much as I had a good time at Universal Hollywood, I was just kind of disappointed at how fast we went around the park and ran out of things to do by the time 3pm rolled around. Sea World San Diego was pretty crap as well and I dislike sea life so maybe that's my fault for even going in the first place.
 
rich210uk said:
Movieland Park, Lake garda Italy.

Didnt have the time to check it out fully, the website made it look like an ok day out but we spent about 2 hours in there and that was dragging it out.
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Sounds like HKDL. We were there three hours on a semi-crowded day and did everything except Philharmagic, including a couple laps on Space Mountain.
 
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