Holiday World wins six Golden Ticket Awards

As it turns out, Holiday World did not win all six. The fifth Golden Ticket was claimed by one Alberto Minoleta, of Paraguay.

;)

I'd like to say that Holiday World, while extremely clean, doesn't keep up with the Disney parks for me. Considering the amount of people that cross through the gates of WDW and DLR daily, that's quite a feat.

I guess they're kind of a given, though.

I think the staff at Holiday World are really great, but I have to say that I think the Friendliest park I've been to is Dollywood. Not only are the staff nice, but go out of their way to talk and interact with guests. To me, there's really great, and then there's Dollywood.

Disney too, but that, again, is totally a given.

I have to concur with the opinion on Dollywood - While Dollywood was in need of maintenance and a general cleaning (might have just been the time I was there) the staff was really friendly. I didn't mind getting nickled and dimed every 20 feet with that level of service.

"Little press release"? Wow, that's getting personal. Do you guys really mean to belittle what I do that way?

Paula

Good thing Gonch isn't coming to Fall Affair. I happen to find your press releases larger than life. :)

No. I don't think there was any personal connotation to the comment.

It would be my observation that press releases do in fact vary in size, both literally and figuratively in terms of the information being presented within.

It was not at all a value judgment toward your work.

Sounded worse than it should have.

Meant to belittle the process of mutual masturbation between the mag and the parks, not the press release writing.

But if you want to keep playing me and Paula off of each other, it's cool. :)

I refuse to buy a $7000 pass though...

$7000 is a lot of pretending.

Lord Gonchar said:
Sounded worse than it should have.

Meant to belittle the process of mutual masturbation between the mag and the parks, not the press release writing.

But if you want to keep playing me and Paula off of each other, it's cool. :)

That sounds even more dirty....

I was looking through a past thread about the 2000 Golden Ticket Awards, and came across this quote from Jeff:

Jeff said:
I give the awards a lot of credibility, especially when you consider Raven at the top of the wood list. Let's face it, most people don't even know Holiday World exists, let alone has two of the best woodies (so I'm told) on the planet. That goes a long way in proving to me how balanced the survey really is.

I realize a lot has changed in in the past decade, and I think it's interesting how opinions have changed as well. For what it's worth, I tend to agree with Jeff's current take on the "awards".

I personally don't get how Milli is number one. I love the ride, don't get me wrong, but I've gotten all but 2 coasters in the top 10, and as much as I like speed and height, MF just isn't that great, to me, among the 10 listed. Which isn't to say I don't think it could/should be top 10, it and TTD fall just out of the top 10 for me.

In fact, aside from AC, all of those coasters are in my top 15 steel coasters, but I just can't understand so much love for Milli, when Phantom provides a much better experience with better seating.

The more interesting thing to me about 2000 is that I felt the poll was more "GP" oriented than it is now. I'm not sure if I still think that. I do recall at that point also being OK with it being more of a straight popularity contest, though I'm not sure I'd feel that way now.

Incidentally, Millennium Force is #2 on the CoasterBuzz 100 if you break out the steel from wood. The top 15 or so have been very stable now for several weeks.

^Ah, but that is where I have an "issue" of sorts with the AT methodology as opposed to CB's, or Mitch's. Look at the sheer volume of riders ranking the two CP rides on top, Maggie and Mille. In the CB poll, there's obviously going to be a larger-than-normal NUMBER of riders for the CP rides - that's not a complaint per se, there's a larger-than-normal number of enthusiasts in the OH/PA region. But CB and Mitch make "corrective allowances" (Mitch via head-to-head matchups, Jeff with a scoring system). This allows for a more rigorous ranking system to give a better perspective on what an "average" rider thinks.

If all you do is say "MF has the highest number of voters"....well, that's how Hulk and/or Beast make it to Number One. There's valuable and rich data behind those numbers, data that can paint an infinitely more accurate picture.

On the other hand, to vote in the AT poll, you have to decide what your top 10 wood and steel are. You can't vote for everything. The CB poll can (in theory) have a rank for every coaster you've ridden. I could be ranking Voyage, El Toro, Bizarro, Millennium and Ravine Flyer all as 5 star rides. But that doesn't really say which one I think is better.

Funny thing is...

CB results for wood: Voyage, El Toro, Ravine, Phoenix, Boulder, Thunderhead, Raven, Timbers, Lightening Racer, Legend

AT results for wood: Voyage, El Toro, Phoenix, Boulder, Thunderhead, Ravine, Beast, Hades, Raven, Lightening Racer

Not a huge difference. Biggest difference IMO is the never ending infatuation that some enthusiasts have with Beast.

CB results for steel: Bizarro, Millennium, Goliath, Diamondback, Maverick, X2, Nitro, Montu, Phantom, Storm Runner, Magnum

AT results for steel: Millennium, Bizarro, Nitro, Apollo, Goliath, GeForce, Diamondback, Magnum, Phantom, Dragster

There seem to be some abnormalities here on both sides. I find it surprising that X2 made it so high on the CB poll. But, in the same regard, I find it surprising that Dragster broke the top 10 in the AT poll. What I'm impressed with is the fact that in what is admittedly a popularity contest, a European coaster makes it into the top 10. I've heard nothing but good things about GeForce. I look forward to riding it next summer. GeForce isn't even in the CB top 100.

Just out of curiosity Jeff, did you say the threshold number can fluctuate? Where is the threshold at currently?

Who's to say either list is right. It really doesn't matter. I find both fun.

I think the ride has to be in something like 72 track records right now, and they have to be the top half (in terms of number of rides) of track records. In other words, if you've been on ten rides, your votes wouldn't count.

So that being said, I wonder how many people I need to recruit to go to Germany with me to get GeForce up to the threshold. ;)

Jason Hammond said:
Not a huge difference. There seem to be some abnormalities here on both sides.

Who's to say either list is right. It really doesn't matter. I find both fun.

That's exactly what I was getting at a while back.

All three (AT, Mitch, CB) pretty much list the same coasters in the top spots - and they're the ones we all know should be there anyway - and then inject their own little bit of 'flavor' by way of a seasoning of anomolies that squeak in based on how they count/interpret the data.

I still think the most accurate poll is the aggregate of the other polls. :)

I seem to recall the AT poll having some really absurd results back in the day, like Mean Streak being a top 10, or CP having the best food. Oh wait, that was the Coasters' Choice Awards. ;)

Jason Hammond said:
Funny thing is...

CB results for wood: Voyage, El Toro, Ravine, Phoenix, Boulder, Thunderhead, Raven, Timbers, Lightening Racer, Legend

AT results for wood: Voyage, El Toro, Phoenix, Boulder, Thunderhead, Ravine, Beast, Hades, Raven, Lightening Racer

Not a huge difference. Biggest difference IMO is the never ending infatuation that some enthusiasts have with Beast.

If you extend the lists:
CB # 11 (for wood) - Beast (last week it was #10)
AT # 11 (for wood) - Shivering Timbers

It is hard to make the case that these two polls rank Beast significantly differently. ;)