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Non-goon friends & family's favourite coasters

My brother was telling me about the good-value wristbands at Tir Prince and Knightley's, clearly not understanding the concept of a 5-minute +1 visit, the basic bitch.
 
The Big One at PBB and Stealth seem to be popular with my friends. The latter I can see, but I'm convinced most people associate height and number of loops with how much they like a coaster.
 
My sister found all rides at Phantasialand boring, yet she complained about getting sick after Colorado Adventure (and everything after that). She was disappointed that there were no big rides like Silver Star at Europa-Park (which made her puke). I am still trying to figure out what she actually likes. She likes roller coasters but also none of them.
Apart from them, many of my friends seem to like hyper coasters the most. While I prefer Blue Fire, most of them prefer Silver Star because of it "calm" but intense layout. (Europa-Park is the closest park, so that's the park I've been to with the biggest number of different people)
 
Ah that reminds me, I've been to Europa with 2 different colleagues on 2 separate occasions, one of them loved Silver Star, and the other loved Wodan. Silver Star because of the sheer size and airtime, Wodan due to the out of control feeling.
 
"Raptor is the best at Cedar Point. It feels like your flying!"
 
My Dad used to really like the Big One at Blackpool. I also remember his amusing dislike of Space Invader II as well as Flight Deck in Canada. He also described Chessington's Vampire as 'no Nemesis'.
I think my brother's favourites are Nemesis and Leviathan. Unsure about my other brother, as being wheelchair bound has made riding more difficult for him the last few years, and Balder beat the hell out of him as he couldn't brace for it properly - oddly, he had no issue with Helix or Lisebergbanan.

The first few times I took my best (non-goon) friend to Alton, he really liked Black Hole. But obviously, that's going back a fair while. I know a fair few non-goons who really rate Smiler as well; this causes disagreements :p
 
Sorry to bump the thread, but I thought this might be an interesting thing to do with my own family, so I asked them all to give me their top 5. And here are the results!:
My Mum
  1. Mako (SeaWorld Orlando)
  2. Big Thunder Mountain (Disneyland Paris)
  3. Expedition Everest (Disney's Animal Kingdom)
  4. Wicker Man (Alton Towers)
  5. Thirteen (Alton Towers)
My Dad
  1. SheiKra (Busch Gardens Tampa)
  2. Incredible Hulk (Islands of Adventure)
  3. Oblivion (Alton Towers)
  4. The Smiler (Alton Towers)
  5. Nemesis (Alton Towers)
My Sister
  1. Icon (Blackpool Pleasure Beach)
  2. The Smiler (Alton Towers)
  3. The Swarm (Thorpe Park)
  4. Mako (SeaWorld Orlando)
  5. Oblivion (Alton Towers)
So, those are my family's favourite coasters!
 
Always interesting actually seeing what gets people going. I have a lot of conversations in work and such. Alot of the time I find it's when someone is really scared of a ride or a ride gives you alot of "bang for your buck" .

I went to efteling with some of my friends kids and even though they rode everything, they were OBSESSED with Python. Even when I took them to Phantasialand the other week and got them on Black Mamba and Taron, they insisted that Python was their favourite.

The Smiler gets alot of love I find, also Rita. Nemesis never gets mentioned as a favourite amoung my friends, if anything Galactica/Air gets more attention.

Also another interesting thing I found is Wickerman has had more love than Icon, which I didn't expect.
 
My friends are odd. Couldn’t give a monkeys arse about the B&M’s but love a bit of Colossus, Saw and Smiler stating that the roughness adds to the intensity and that they thought these rides were designed with that in mind. Makes you wonder really!
 
bob_3_ said:
Also another interesting thing I found is Wickerman has had more love than Icon, which I didn't expect.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I can relate to this. When we rerode Wicker Man in August after having been to BPB and ridden Icon 5 days earlier, my parents both came off and said "That's so much more fun than Icon!"

My mum, for example, said that Wicker Man was "great fun" and that she "laughed the whole way round", whereas she described Icon as "boring", with "no moments that made her laugh or scream".
 
I'm starting to wonder if maybe enthusiasts have it all wrong. The impression I get from all these responses is that in general people are won over by coasters that are pure dumb fun, rather than being massively intense, or special.

For what it's worth my other half loves The Smiler.
 
Living in Orlando... where there are coasters everywhere you look, I feel like most of my friends, even if they aren't enthusiast can still tell rides like Mako or say, Everest are better than some of the more junky coasters in the area like say... Primeval Whirl, a coaster I can't find anyone here who actually likes.. Or even Rockit. I feel like people I know here who have been to most if not all the Central Florida parks all seem to love Hulk, Mako, and Cheetah Hunt. Although since the number of parks here seems to be a reason a lot of people move here (I mean, I did it...) there do seem to be more than your average amount of local enthusiasts. Back home I'd never really find anyone who had even heard of Cedar Point, let alone had been... But down here, I'd say at least 20 people I work with have been, 7 or 8 used to work there!
 
To start; I'm living in Belgium, all following persons have ridden (almost) all of the coasters in the following parcs:
Walibi Belgium, Bobbejaanland, Bellewaerde (nothing there though), Phantasialand. If they did any other noteworthy parcs I'll add them in bold
My two brothers have Taron on their n1.
My girlfriend likes anything that launches (It's in fact a tie between Psyke Underground, Pulsar and Taron) Europa Park
2 random friends like the Star Trek coaster a lot Disneyland Paris, Movie Park Germany and Europa Park, but didn't do Taron yet

I feel a lot of the above mentioned things are indeed true. All the coaster Enthusiasts are wrong (please don't kill me)! And I think my taste is somewhat similar to the so-called non-enthousiasts (Please don't kill me a second time for what I'm going to say), for example they all don't find Vampire (SLC) to hurt, and neither do I.
 
I’ve had pretty much all my non-enthusiast mates say that their favourite coaster at Alton is Wicker Man (poor Nemesis ☹️).

But the one that really stands out was when I went to Walabi Holland with two mates and one said that Robin Hood (RIP) was his favourite and the other one said his favourite was Speed of Sound! (On the same day we did LG and Goliath multiple times, both running well). So it does make me think that both the analysing/anticipation you do as an enthusiast definitely has an effect on ride experience.
 
Not a question I've asked many of my friends. I do remember asking my uni friends their favourite ride from the day at Alton Towers. Where we seem to have settled on "Nemesis or bust" there was a big mix of opinions, with Smiler, Nemesis, Rita and Th13teen all getting mentions.
 
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