My visit to Thorpe Park yesterday made me oddly reflective about my rankings. Why a visit to a park I’ve been to many times made me feel this way, I’m not too sure, but my rides yesterday, particularly Hyperia, definitely made me think about things and definitely made me reconsider some of my ranking positions!
As of today, my new look top 10, with some justifying remarks, is as follows (movements
underlined):
- Jurassic World VelociCoaster - Universal’s Islands of Adventure: I have, for some time, been hesitant to put VelociCoaster on the top of my list. However, having thought about it, I think it’s the ride that really most deserves to be my #1, simply because a ride has never hit me quite like VelociCoaster, with my second ride being a particular standout. I was reduced to fits of laughter and awe after it like no other ride I’ve ever been on, and thinking it through, it is probably the most objectively flawless coaster I’ve ridden and there’s not really anything I would change about it. There is so much that this ride does well; it packs a great sense of speed throughout, with the second section in particular feeling ridiculously fast, there are many sublime moments of ejector airtime that really whip you out of the seat, there are some truly brilliant inversions, and overall, it's just a truly stunning, spectacular coaster, in my view! In terms of some specific highlights; it's hard to pick from the wonderful array of sensations on offer. But if I had to choose a few, the second launch is absolutely obscene, packing a euphoric thrill like few other rides I've ever experienced, the top hat is sublime, packing some breathtaking sustained ejector airtime on the back in particular, and the mosasaurus roll is an absolutely mind-blowing inversion that throws you out of the seat with some sublime sustained negative g-forces and ensures that you fly into the final brakes blown away! Overall, VelociCoaster is a truly stunning coaster, in my opinion; its blend of stunning airtime, impactful elements, fun, comfort and rerideability certainly make it a worthy #1! 10/10
- Shambhala - PortAventura Park: As someone who has always loved a B&M Hyper, and held Mako as my #1 for many years, I had very high expectations for Shambhala, and it did not disappoint; it’s an absolutely sublime coaster! As with Mako, the sustained airtime is glorious; the first drop is wonderful, and every single hill had brilliant sustained air! But there were a few little things that pushed it the distance above Mako for me. Unlike Mako, Shambhala keeps the thrills going right to the end, with every hill delivering, and as a result, I think it flows a bit better. The enhanced height and speed also really added to the ride compared to Mako and Silver Star for me, and another aspect I loved on Shambhala was the speed hill, which seemed much more notable in my mind than the similar element on Mako. Overall, though, Shambhala was just wonderful, and I loved every single one of the 7 rides I had on it while in Spain!
- Mako - SeaWorld Orlando: It may not be top dog anymore, but Mako has held a special place in my heart ever since I first rode it back in 2016, and my 2023 revisit to SeaWorld (where I had 5 rides on it) reinforced my love for it! The sustained airtime is absolutely biblical (particularly in moments like the first drop, first airtime hill and speed hill), the sense of speed is wonderful, it's blissfully smooth, and overall, it's just such a fun, thrilling and rerideable coaster that I could (and indeed tried my darnedest to) sit on all day! I truly love this ride, and on my 2023 revisit to SeaWorld, it didn't disappoint! 10/10
- Hyperia - Thorpe Park: Yes, it’s not the longest coaster in the world. Yes, it’s a little rough around the edges presentation-wise, with that splashdown and lake looking ever ugly. But my word, all of that gets put aside when I think about just how spectacular the ride experience of Hyperia is! I loved it last year, but I loved it even more this year! I love a good hyper coaster with height and speed, and I also love rides with lots of sustained negative g-forces, so Hyperia ticks all my boxes, really! For a ride that’s not that long, it packs a huge amount of highlights; that first drop is absolutely unhinged, with phenomenal sustained ejector, the drop out of the junior Immelmann also packs phenomenal sustained ejector, the outerbank packs wild sustained weightlessness, and the zero-g stall is also very potent with huge amounts of sustained weightlessness! Heck, even the final outerbank and hill deliver decent weightlessness; few rides show quite so much dedication to the art of throwing you out of your seat for extended periods of time, and every inch of Hyperia delivers, with the speed throughout also being phenomenal and the weightlessness being both impactful and sustained! Further to that, the ride is also so smooth and comfortable, with those Mack trains making it a delight to sit on and ensuring that the ride is never uncomfortable or too much. Overall, then, I absolutely adore Hyperia and think it’s sublime; it’s grown on me every time I’ve ridden it, it leaves me in fits of laughter at the end every time, and it has been a phenomenal addition to both Thorpe Park and the UK more widely! 10/10
- Silver Star - Europa Park: I had quite low expectations for this coaster given that it's not overly well liked, but I have to say that I was blown away; I absolutely adored this coaster! It has wonderful sustained airtime, it's smooth and comfortable, it has an awesome sense of speed, the ending is absolutely brilliant, packing some phenomenal ejector airtime (particularly the MCBR exit), and overall, this is a stunning coaster that I absolutely loved! I do rank this below Mako and Shambhala due to my feeling that its airtime, while stunning, never has quite the same impact as some of Mako or Shambhala’s strongest moments, in my view, with the first drop in particular definitely being weaker than Mako or Shambhala’s. While smooth in its own right, it also isn't quite as blissfully smooth as Mako or Shambhala, and further to this, I felt it to be slightly less consistent, as I did have 1 or 2 slightly weaker rides on it during my trip to Europa. Nonetheless, Silver Star is a stunning coaster with phenomenal sustained airtime, and I love how it is incredibly rerideable and keeps the thrills going right to the end with that awesome post-MCBR section! 10/10
- Iron Gwazi - Busch Gardens Tampa: This ride is phenomenal! In terms of some key strengths, it’s absolutely relentless in pacing and has some of the strongest ejector airtime I’ve ever experienced, and some of the big hitters in the layout like the first drop, outerbanked turn, death roll and wave turn are truly sensational elements that are right up there with the best, in my opinion! The first drop in particular is insane; whipping you far out of the seat with ejector airtime for a surprisingly sustained period of time never gets old! There are also some absolutely top-drawer moments of ejector airtime elsewhere in the layout, and the ride is smooth and rerideable! In retrospect, I think I was overly harsh on Iron Gwazi at the time I rode it, fixating on its very tiniest imperfections to try and quantify the slight disappointment of it not quite living up to my wildly high expectations on the very first go. This is going to sound odd, but Iron Gwazi is a coaster where the more I sit back and think about it, the more I actually love it. Thinking back, it grew on me considerably the second and third times I did it once the weight of expectation was off its shoulders, and it is genuinely a top tier ride that is more than deserving of a top 10 placement for me! I do wonder if it would go up a few spots with a future reride. 10/10
- Wodan Timbur Coaster - Europa Park: Wodan strikes the perfect balance between pure demented insanity and amazing fun factor and rerideability, in my view! It’s an absolutely relentless coaster, with phenomenal pacing right to the end, and it has quite a few really surprising pops of ejector airtime, including an excellent first drop, but it’s also a really smooth and comfortable wooden coaster, and it just manages to be a ridiculous amount of fun! Overall, Wodan is such a fast, airtime-filled and fun coaster that I absolutely loved on my visit to Europa Park! 10/10
- Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure - Universal’s Islands of Adventure: Dismiss this as a “family” coaster all you want, but I think such quick dismissal would be a huge mistake, because this ride is phenomenal, in my view! Of the rides in my top 10, I’ll admit that this one probably has the least tangible reason to be there. However, the key reason why Hagrid’s ranks so highly for me is that purely and simply, it is a phenomenally, impeccably fun roller coaster! In terms of some specifics, the low-to-the-ground turns were a lot more thrilling than I expected and the launches were surprisingly punchy and great fun, but unlike many coasters, my love of Hagrid’s is for a much broader reason than any specific features of the ride layout. It is just so, so fun, and the ride will always leave you laughing hysterically and smiling on the final brake run, and that for me is really important. Riding Hagrid’s taught me a crucial lesson about my taste in coasters; it taught me that a coaster does not necessarily need greatness in the form of tangible elements for me to love it, and that fundamentally, all a coaster needs to be is fun. Hagrid’s is not the most intense ride by any means, but if you want pure fun, I’d struggle to recommend many better coasters than this one! 10/10
- Icon - Blackpool Pleasure Beach: Going back to Icon after 6 years, I did wonder whether I’d still love it as much as I did in 2019… but if anything, I only loved it more! Icon is not a massively intense ride, but I just find it a huge amount of fun! There’s a great amount of airtime to be had on the ride, for a start; the top hat at the beginning really shines, but the other great moments like the twisty sequence down into the second launch and the junior Immelmann also stand out, amongst others! There’s also some lovely hangtime, with both the first roll and the junior Immelmann providing just the right amount of floatiness without feeling sickly! The twisty layout also keeps the ride feeling interesting, in my view; I ride Icon feeling like I’m twisting and floating all over the place, and I find it so much fun! It’s also so smooth and rerideable with comfortable restraints, and overall, I just find it an immensely enjoyable coaster that definitely remains deserving of a top 10 spot despite me having previously demoted it out of the top 10! 10/10
- Ice Breaker - SeaWorld Orlando: I went into Ice Breaker with low expectations in 2023, but I have to say that these were hugely exceeded; Ice Breaker is ace, in my view! For such a small ride, it packs surprising ejector airtime in numerous places; the swing launch is great fun and has airtime in spades, the top hat is brilliant, the junior scorpion tail has some absolutely lovely floaty airtime, and the main layout is punctuated with other fun ejector pops! As well as this, the ride is really smooth, keeps a good pace throughout, and is generally a really fun and rerideable coaster! 10/10 Ice Breaker was more of a beneficiary of Wicker Man going down slightly than something I actively chose to move up.
I’ve also made a few changes to my wider top 30, and it is now as follows (changes in
italics):
- Jurassic World VelociCoaster - Universal’s Islands of Adventure (10/10)
- Shambhala - PortAventura Park (10/10)
- Mako - SeaWorld Orlando (10/10)
- Hyperia - Thorpe Park (10/10)
- Silver Star - Europa Park (10/10)
- Iron Gwazi - Busch Gardens Tampa (10/10)
- Wodan Timbur Coaster - Europa Park (10/10)
- Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure - Universal’s Islands of Adventure (10/10)
- Icon - Blackpool Pleasure Beach (10/10)
- Ice Breaker - SeaWorld Orlando (10/10)
- Wicker Man - Alton Towers (10/10) (While I will always love Wicker Man, and it still reduces me to fits of laughter every time, I think the weight of some genuinely top-tier rides above it now makes it hard to justify putting Wicker Man much higher than this. I also realised on my most recent visit to Alton Towers that it suffers a little from what I call “magic seat syndrome” in that a ride on the back 3 or 4 rows is quite markedly better than a ride elsewhere on the train. I like a ride to be reasonably consistent and deliver something reasonably close to its best experience in any seat at any time, so this “magic seat syndrome” does lose Wicker Man a few points for me, as much as I love it.)
- Oblivion - Alton Towers (9/10) (As much as I’ve said for years that I preferred SheiKra to Oblivion, my most recent Alton Towers visit made me realise that Oblivion is absolutely my preference out of the two; while Oblivion is short, the speed in that tunnel is insane!)
- Stealth - Thorpe Park (9/10) (Short though Stealth is, my recent visit reminded me just how much I can’t get enough of that hydraulic launch! The top hat airtime is also brilliant!)
- SheiKra - Busch Gardens Tampa (9/10)
- Nemesis Reborn - Alton Towers (9/10) (Some of my recent rides on Nemesis have made me feel that it deserves to be my highest ranked B&M invert ahead of Montu. The sense of speed is awesome, and the layout design is truly inspired, with that first drop-corkscrew-helix-zero-g roll sequence being absolutely legendary! The front row ride in particular is also absolutely wonderful!)
- Montu - Busch Gardens Tampa (9/10)
- The Swarm - Thorpe Park (9/10) (My ride on Swarm yesterday was absolutely excellent; it packed great speed, it had some wonderfully floaty inversions, it had good forces, it was smooth, and the restraints were also a lot less bothersome than they have been on some previous rides. I was certainly reminded why The Swarm spent a 2-year stint as my #1 coaster prior to me riding Mako in 2016!)
- Red Force - Ferrari Land (9/10)
- Revenge of the Mummy - Universal Studios Florida (9/10)
- Mine Blower - Fun Spot Kissimmee (9/10)
- Megafobia - Oakwood Theme Park (9/10)
- Blue Fire - Europa Park (9/10)
- Kumba - Busch Gardens Tampa (8/10)
- Kraken - SeaWorld Orlando (8/10)
- Nemesis Inferno - Thorpe Park (8/10) (As much as Nemesis Inferno is a really decent coaster in its own right, with very little not to like about it, it didn’t seem to be hitting quite as much for me on my recent Thorpe visit, and I do think it lacks a certain… special spark that makes the original Nemesis so good compared to other looping B&Ms)
- Rock’n’Rollercoaster - Disney’s Hollywood Studios (8/10)
- Cheetah Hunt - Busch Gardens Tampa (8/10)
- Sik - Flamingo Land (8/10)
- Thirteen - Alton Towers (8/10) (My most recent visit to Alton Towers made me realise that I enjoy Thirteen more than I often think I do, and that it deserves to be a few spots higher than I previously had it!)
- Gold Rush - Drayton Manor (8/10) (Gold Rush was such a pleasant surprise when I rode it in 2024, and I’d have it pegged at a similar level to Thirteen, so I decided to move it up a touch as well!)
Gringotts and Uncharted were reshuffled out of the top 30.
In general, I am a firm believer that intensity is not the sole arbiter of ride quality, and I rate coasters based on how fun, thrilling and rerideable they are, and how much I enjoy them.
Interestingly, I make this the first time since at least 2014 that I have not had a B&M as my #1 coaster!
Although knowing how indecisive I am, I’m sure I’ll want to reshuffle the list again at some point…
