Do you rate wooden and steel coasters?

I rank every park I've been to and list the great, the good, and the bad rides they have. I base the park that I most want to go to; is the park that has the most great rides. Thus, it's:
1) SFMM
2) SFGAm
3) SFOT
4) SFOG
5) CP
6) Dorney Park
And it keeps going...
The worst parks I've been to are Universal Studios (regular park), EPCOT, and Animal Kingdom only has one great ride in my opinion.

It's very hard to rank either parks or coasters. In both cases, there are so many apples to oranges comparisons. I would have to assign so many conditionals for parks that it would be nonsensical from the get go. For example, for best traditional amusement park, I would have to pick between places like Kennywood, Knoebels, Seabreeze. Best park for woodies would be Holiday World. Best thrill rides overall: Cedar Point. Best park for viewing hot chicks: KBF.

I'm very reluctant to even try. One thing I think about with woodies is there is a natural division between classic woodies and modern woodies, with KI's Racer serving as the transitional ride between both divisions. But now with all these Gravity Group et al. coasters being built, it almost deserves a third division: post-modern? I dunno.

I have never sat down and tried to rate all 300 of the coasters I have ridden. I do, however, tend to think of them in tiers: Great coasters (I will marathon on this one given the opportunity), Good (I will likely ride more than once on a day to the park), OK (probably one ride and done on any given day), Credits (one and done forever--ex. kiddie coasters), Never again (Viper at SFGAdv, SOB if they hadn't changed it).

I do find ranking coasters to be useful if you read a forum long enough. You get to know the people with similar tastes, and if you see their list of favorites you get ideas on rides to make an effort to experience.

My biggest problem when thinking of ride ratings is: do you rate the ride for the best ever experience (Several years back, no wait, trimless Georgia Cyclone, back seat, in a light rain, OMG airtime 4th and 7th drops); some sort of average ride rating; or what have you done for me lately (Georgia Cyclone this year, hold on to your fillings)? The difference between Raven in the morning and at midnight during SRM was astounding. Morning Raven is a "ride it if you are there" ride while night time Raven is a "travel across the country...it's worth it" ride; so how do I rank it?

IMO, it's not as easy as "Which one would I rather ride", as that is not a constant for me. If it were I would never leave Magnum when I'm at CP. I like to ride most all of the coasters out there instead of just the best ones over and over again.

I tend to have a bunch I love, then a bunch that are fun once in a while for a change of pace, and then just a few that I'd rather avoid (Boomerangs mostly).

I try to participate in Mitch's wood poll, but, it's never exactly accurate and changes from year to year regardless of the rides changing. I don't even both with the steel poll. How do I rate one Batman The Ride over another one? I could tell you ten of my favorites (for wood too), no way could I narrow it down to my top ten favorites. But there are some that are DEFINITELY in that list and everything else is up for consideration.

The only rankings I'm certain of:
#1 Wood = Voyage
#1 Steel = Superman New England

So I can answer the inevitable question whenever I meet someone and they find out about my hobby.

And even with Voyage as my favorite coaster, I'd still rather spend some time riding Legend and Raven instead of spending all of it on Voyage. I get bored easily. :) *** Edited 10/30/2007 8:03:10 PM UTC by Acoustic Viscosity***

^I'll take your "leftover" Voyage laps, Matt... ;)

What can I say, I'm a nice guy... :)

In general I have three categories:

Top 5 (which is actually usually around 7-10 coasters ;)), Top 25, and the rest...

Personally I do a tiered ranking system when I do Mitch's annual polls.

Take this abridged wood list for example 1's would be Voyage, Twister, Legend, Cornball, Renegade, Thunderhead and Timbers, 2's would be Raven, Phoenix, Hades, and the Boss, 3's would be the Beast, Blue Streak, and Villain, 4's would be Gwazi, Roller Coaster, and Great American Scream Machine, 5's would be Sonny, Rotting Lumber, Mean Streak and any other crap.

This makes it easier for me as a 1 is an amazing coaster, and 2 is a pretty good coaster, a 3 is average a 4 is less then average and a 5 is utter crap.

I kind of like Mean Streak. I give it a 42, but I can't dance to it. ;)

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Hopman said:

Now that's that out of the way, I have my prefences and coasters that are special to me, but seeing as I haven't ridden nearly as many coasters as you guys have (only about 30 or so), I can't rreally rank my rides too well.

For example, I will always enjoy the Yankee Cannonball at Canobie because it was the first BIG coaster I ever rode.

Magnum is a fav becuase I got my mom on it and scared the living tar outta her.

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I know exactly what you mean.

There is a big difference b/t the best rollercoaster and my favorite.

I used to be very apprehensive when going on rides. MF changed that in one day. It turned me into what I am now. And that experience will always be the greatest experience I will ever have at a park. B/c of that MF will always be my favorite coaster. Right now it's #1 as the best also but that could change.

If I were to rank the best 3 steel coasters for me it would be like: 1.MF 2. Alpie 3. TTD

While my favorites would be 1. MF 2. Kumba 3. Montu

I ranked them once. Since I don't add oodles of new coasters each year, there isn't a lot of changing going on. I can pretty much figure where any new coasters fit in with the established list.

The one problem I have is that my rankings include coasters I last rode years ago. Can I fairly compare something I rode last month with the memory of a ride I had in 1990-something? And is that memory representative of what the coaster's like now?

And then I slap myself in the head and say it doesn't matter.

With few exceptions, I don't really get too bothered if a coaster I like isn't as well liked by other people or vice versa. If for some reason someone has a bug up their a** about a certain coaster or park, so they decide to severely rank it low, then I have an issue.

As mentioned, the problem with ranking parks is that daily conditions can be a major factor in the overall experience.

For example, The last two times I went to Hershey, I happened to be with my family and we hit two weekdays that held massive crowds. (This was the year before Storm Runner). I knew that the park was impressive, but I still didn't have such a great time due to heat and capacity and family nagging. That doesn't mean it's not a great park, it is, but it would be hard to rank it so high based on those last two visits.

As per individual rides, I tend to get asked by normal peeps, "What's your favorite roller coaster?" The funny thing is I don't really know how to answer the question.

Nevermind. *** Edited 10/31/2007 12:41:00 AM UTC by Spinout***

I do rank mine, but there's nothing scientific about how mine are done. I simply have a top ten wood, top ten steel, and a rather tongue-in-cheek "Most painful coasters I've ridden", though all the stories are true.

My rankings are purely emotional, from my best memories on down.

I have to admit I use exactly the Gonch system -- I just ask myself, "Which would I rather ride at this time, A or B?"

Sometimes that will result in a slightly different list even if I haven't ridden EITHER recently, depending on my mood at the time. It also means the list isn't fully based on the RIDE, even if I try.

For instance, I can readily state that I'd rather ride Expedition GeForce than Superman at New England. However, if you put the two of them side-by-side somewhere, let me ride both multiple times, and THEN asked me which I preferred, I may or may not give you the same answer. But GeForce is over 8 hours by air away from me (plus transit time) at a cool German park, whereas Superman is a 7 hour drive at a crappy (IMHO) Six Flags park. Net result, GeForce has more appeal because it's less available (we always desire what we can't have), and thus a higher ranking.
*** Edited 10/31/2007 1:09:22 PM UTC by GregLeg***

"Gonch system"? He quoted me! ;)

^^I try my very best to remove all *bias* based on what park it's at or what operations are like or what friends I'm with or anything that might otherwise affect "how much do I like coaster X". Just the fact that Floorless Fan says he ranks based on the best rides for any particular ride, whereas others suggest "most recent ride" or "average ride on that coaster" should indicate the WIDE varieties of methods used.

Maybe one of these years we'll ask Mitch to include a question on "what's your ranking method"......that would yield some interesting data, which we could then use to irritate even MORE people. ;)

Although Superman New England is my #1 steel, and I generally MUCH prefer wood to steel, right now I want to ride WDW's Space Mountain more than anything (including Voyage). I guess that makes SM my "favorite". :)

^I think you want to ride it more than anything because they are going to change it up, and they might mess it up. I'm thinking the same way. I'm thinking that it better not be like Disneylands.

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matt. said:

I do it by the tier method like other people do it...

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It's really as simple as that for me. I put rides into five tiers and then rank them within their respective tiers. As Gonch said, it's nothing more than taking two coasters and deciding which one you'd rather ride. That's the way I approach Mitch's poll.

I have no problem with people that prefer not to rank coasters, but I don't understand those that think it's too daunting a task. It's really quite simple!

But how do you decide which one you'd rather ride? My preferences may change on an hourly basis. Otherwise, if I'm at a park with five coasters, why would I ride all five if there is just one I prefer over all others? I am constantly choosing one over the other.

I also completely fail to understand the purpose of making a list for everything. My own list wouldn't be interesting to me, let alone somebody else's.