2009 Golden Tickets

When they called asking to buy an ad, if I were Holiday World, I'd say, "Bite me." That's friendly!

Seriously, I'll never understand why parks play this game. Manufacturers, perhaps, but not the parks.

Well, the operative word there, Jeff, was large. Or am I wrong in assuming that Coaster Con drew more people than Ride Warriors? (I didn't go to Coaster Con, but I did go to Ride Warriors and I thought attendance seemed low- read: quite doable and very enjoyable)

Couldn't tell you. I wasn't there. But the number of new club memberships around that time was uncharacteristically high.

Coaster Con was around 350 this year I believe. I don't know what the attendance for Ride Warriors was.

^^I see. (Wasn't I one of 'em?) Anyway, then you have to figure out amongst those groups who's voting and who's not, and that's impossible and, really, not worth the effort.

Personally I can't see how DB loses over Prowler, unless they just didn't have the voters in attendance, that's all.

Maybe parks buy into the whole Golden Ticket thing as a way toward good, honest, and perhaps in the end, cheap publicity. What better than to be able to say in your advertising "once again, voted the World's Best Yadda-yadda"? GP doesn't know or care who or how, they just hear "voted" and "world's best". And it's all true - these parks won the award, no matter what we think about it, and they can run with it. The extended free exposure they can get out of it may be worth the couple/three ads they take out in AT, I don't know. If I have a park on the list, do I owe AT something for using their image on brochures, banners and signage at my park? Or do rights to the award automatically come with the award?

I've had friends come up to me and say "Hey, did you know Cedar Point was voted world's best park?" and I always say " Sure did -and do you know who does the voting? People like me who subscribe to one particular publication!"

Wow Biazzaro and MF were really close!

Jeff said:
It's an exercise in advertorial, mutual inappropriate touching...

*raises eyebrows and looks around.... then goes back to find out what the hell Gonch linked to*

RCMAC said:
and do you know who does the voting? People like me who subscribe to one particular publication!

That's not true. I know many people who vote in the poll and none of them subscribe to AT. Including myself. The only copies of AT I have are the free copies of the results I've received for having voted in the first place. If your interested in voting, e-mail the publisher. I know at least one person who got on the list by talking to him.

BTW, in regards to Diamondback vs. Prowler. I voted for Prowler. I rode both many times during park hours and during ERT sessions. To me Diamond back was fun, but it was just another B&M. Prowler on the other hand was one of the best GCI's I've ridden. It's a new and very different design they came up with and I enjoyed it very much.

In regards to who votes, I don't think it would be much of a stretch to say that there is probably a higher percentage of ACE'rs voting than other enthusiast communities. I guess AT is really the only one who knows though.

<edit to add>

In all honesty, for Diamondback & Prowler to have been ranked so high in their particular categories surprises me. To get enough exposure/ridership to have 2 brand new rides rank in the top 10 is difficult. That just tells me that most everyone appreciates a good B&M or GCI.

RCMAC said:
Maybe parks buy into the whole Golden Ticket thing as a way toward good, honest, and perhaps in the end, cheap publicity. What better than to be able to say in your advertising "once again, voted the World's Best Yadda-yadda"?

Agreed... but why bother giving money to AT? People reading that don't care if you have the best whatever. Unless they're offering huge discounts, that one issue probably banks more ad dollars than several other issues combined. Frankly the mere presence of these ads calls into question the validity of the poll. It's a huge conflict of interest.

And before anyone accuses me of being a hater, my degree is in journalism and I worked for a huge business-to-business media company trying to get one group's Web properties up to speed. The industries my group catered to (supply chain) dwarfed the amusement industry. Make no mistake, there were constantly editorial favors occurring for advertisers.

Is AT innocent? Probably. But as someone who wants more than ever for some shred of integrity to be restored to the profession of journalism, I still think the entire arrangement sucks.

Janice Witherow...wow, brings back great memories of all the new rides she helped introduce to enthusiasts and the world at Cedar Point. Good times, good times.

Meh...let me know when Cedar Point doesn't win. Then I'll be excited.

I agree.

Meh...let me know when Cedar Point doesn't win. Then I'll be excited.

Ditto with Schlitterbahn.

Let me know when somebody build a steel coaster that can wrestle the top two spots away from Bizarro & MF too.

^Intimidator 305 might just do it for me.

Seriously though, what waterpark is better then Schlitterbahn. Ive been to most of their competition (Disney, Noah's Ark, Water Country USA, Waterworld in Denver) and none of them is close to Schliterbahn.

^Until someone builds another spring-fed waterpark, New Braunfels *is* waterpark central. Noah's Ark impressed Jill so little that the next Dell's trip will involve at least one day for Mt. Olympus' waterpark (which is quite good). Poseidon's Rage is everything I had hoped it would be. WC USA was really well-done, and I loved the landscpaing, etc., but Hubba Hubba Highway seemed like an exceptionally long walk from the front of the park.

We used Noah's as our "home base" on our trip last time, getting season passes there but just the two-day ticket at Mt. O. Next time, we'll probably reverse it, now that the kids are full-on go-kart freaks.

I don't really care for Mt. Olympus' water park. The old part is nice and condensed but lacks good waterslides. The new attractions (River Troy, Poseidon, Big Slide tower) are all pretty good, but lack the theming, and overall character. River Troy is a down and back river, in a hot-dog like shape, rather than encircling anything. Poseidon's rage is awesome, but unfortunately due to the excessive undertow, you can only swim out to where the waves crest, and not ride them all the way. The indoor park is well-themed and quite nice, but the place is really an outdoor park, and more attention should be focused outdoors. Another problem I have found is the lack of locker rooms. It's VERY inconvenient to try to change in a bathroom stall straddling a toilet.

Now what I think they can do, is build a **HUGE** play structure between the New slide tower and the indoor park, and add a lot of seating around the river troy. Landscaping would help the place a lot too!

I still havent been back to Mt. Olympus since it merged, I just have no reason to go there (Hades is not worth the entire price of admission) I love Noah's Ark, its the waterpark I grew up at. If I were to rank the waterparks they would only fall behind der Bahn and WCUSA. Black Thunder, Bermuda Triangle, Kowabunga, Congo Bongo, Jungle Rapids, Stingray (especially with the short wait it has for single tubes) and the Adventure River are just way too good for me to think about going to antother park that I was never impressed with (either half) and have to see Noah's on the horizon.

I'll wait for Mitch's to care, thank you.