Golden Tickets, 2008.

Jeffrey Seifert said:

Charles Nungester said:WAY TOO OFTEN they insert their own choices over the voters.

I've tried to stay out of this, and everyone is entitled to their opinions, but to make a completely uneducated and blatantly incorrect statement like this is going too far. With the exception of the publisher's pick, the AT staff does not participate in the selection of the Golden Tickets, it is left entirely to the voters. The winners are not determined by who buys an ad, the parks are not even contacted until after the voting is complete and the results tabulated. There have been many Golden Ticket winners who have not purchased ads.

Yet you can't refute that getting a golden ticket necessaraly mean it is the best of the best of whatever catagory unless they are matched head to head with riders or visitors of the same catagory. It's a poularity contest. No where on there will you see Seabreaze or Rye but they are awesome parks but because a park gets two million more visitors. It's the best?IM not saying any of the parks or attractions are necessaraly bad. Even in Mitchs poll the longer a ride is around the more it is recognized for its good or bad points.IF i was wrong about the Advertisers statement then I apologize. It still doesn't hurt them keeping them in the fold though.I think a park should be proud that THE PEOPLE WHO VISIT THEM consider them the best, Why doesn't AT use a formula to make it more fair and actually determine the real best vs total number of votes?Chuck Who don't think the AT GT is a bad thing. I just have a problem with how it's tablulated a person who's only visited CP, Kennywood and KI's vote for one of those as best has as much merit as someone who's been to 20-50-100 parks??????? Of course their vote should count but only on the best of those three parks not best in the world

You keep bringing up the parks that YOU like, these are the parks THEY like.

I'm curious to see when a park will topple CP or Schlitterbahn. Haven't they been the top parks (thrill & water) for a decade now?

I believe CP is the only park to have ever won the "Best Park" golden ticket. I'm haven't been here long enough to know if there was another accepted industry poll prior to AT.

rollergator said:In no way do the GT ballots attempt to replicate what Mitch's poll does, but the ballots do come from "well-travelled enthusiasts" and are representative of regions from around the country.

I just wanted to quote myself from a couple pages back. AT ballots generally come from people who've visited WAY more than "a handful of parks"...and no, I don't advertise there... ;)

But that can't be because the results did not come out the way I wanted them to!!! ;)

rollergator said:

rollergator said:In no way do the GT ballots attempt to replicate what Mitch's poll does, but the ballots do come from "well-travelled enthusiasts" and are representative of regions from around the country.

I just wanted to quote myself from a couple pages back. AT ballots generally come from people who've visited WAY more than "a handful of parks"...and no, I don't advertise there... ;)

That still don't mean the majority of those well travelled have visited say Nagashima but certainly the majoity have visited CPSee my point? 5000 or 500 votes for CP. 50 for Nagashima based mostly on those who've visited both.Personally I think Hershey blows CP out of the water in total number and variety of things to do and number of above average rides but hey, thats just me. It still wouldn't matter if 5000 had visited CP and only 4500 had visited hershey.Chuck

^Clearly. The methodology also helps explain why older rides like, say, Beast have an advantage over something new like, well Ravine Flyer II. It's not "scientific"...but Seabreeze's Bobsleds did get at least one vote. :)

No matter how many times we hear (and say) that the Golden Tickets don't mean anything...I guess to some, they do. I wish I had so few concerns that the Golden Tickets were something I could bring myself to gripe about.