Top 50 Parks

Why not have a rating system for parks like we have for the coasters?

What would the standard be? Most thrilling, most historical, most homey and welcoming, cleanest, biggest, most magical, most charming?

IMO, it would be much more difficult (and subjective) to rank parks the way we do coasters. It would be like comparing apples and oranges and cumquats and apricots and tangerines and maraschino cherries and green seedless grapes and watermelons and grapefruit...

Damn. Now I'm hungry.

^Oh thank heavens I woke up with the Lord today. There is an obvious opening for a naughty comment in there somewhere....

Yeah, there is no clear way to rate parks. I mean, is Cedar Point "better" than Disney World?

I've steered clear of any park ranking thread on other forums precisely because I can't rank parks like I can coasters.

Ensign Smith said:

What would the standard be?

That would obviously be Charmland, of course - duh.

Jeff said:

Yeah, there is no clear way to rate parks. I mean, is Cedar Point "better" than Disney World?

Yes. ;)

Who are you people and what have you done with my CoasterBuzz brethren?

I think it's funny that the thought is you can't rank parks, but you can rank coasters.

Isn't it all just a matter of what you like and what you don't? I didnt know there was a set criteria for ranking/rating coasters. I just gave ones I really like 5 stars and ones I really don't like 1 star and filled in the middle accordingly. I could easily do the same for parks.

Like "it took me a few minutes" easy.

"The idea that you can clearly rank/rate roller coasters but doing the same for parks is a ridiculous notion is uniquely an enthusiast phenomenon." - Anthroplogist Gonch

Heres my top 3! lmao

1-Kennywood

2-Knoebels

3-Dollywood

You just pick the opposite sentiment of everyone else, Gonch. It's your thing, it's what you do.

It's not my fault that people are usually wrong and/or shortsighted. I'm the voice of enlightenment. ;)

Seriously though, in this case I'm not playing the flip side in the slightest. I'm honestly surprised by the responses.

What's so unrealistic about having users rate parks on a 1-5 scale and then creating an aggregate ranking?

It's exactly how the coaster rankings work. Is it really an impossible task to rate a given park on a scale from 1-5?

I first saw this last night when Ensign Smith was the only reply. I figured his response would be the odd one out. Showed up today to find the general consensus is that rating a park has somehow become a mystery wrapped in an enigma shoved inside a fortune cookie that's in a really-hard-to-open wrapper.

Is everyone really trying to tell me that if I threw the name of a park out that they couldn't almost instantaneously throw back a rating on a 5-star scale?

Now if it's a pain in the ass or not worth it on the back end in terms of creating/maintaining the site, I get that. But I call shenanigans on the idea that rating parks is impossible.

I just read this topic for the first time right now, and I was thinking the same thing Gonch was saying as I read his reply.

Some people like loops on their coasters, or rough wooden track, or airtime...

Some people like Traditional small amusement parks, or Big theme parks, or theme parks with water parks attached to them.

I am saying that there is a big difference in different parks, just like there is a big difference in coasters.

I think ranking parks is a pretty neat idea. It would be very easy to program into the site, I would think. As an added plus to CoasterBuzz, you have more data to share with the industry (for free or not).

sws said:

Ensign Smith said:

What would the standard be?

That would obviously be Charmland, of course - duh.

Yeah, I thought that went without saying, too. ;)

We usually rate two types of coasters: Steel Coasters and Wood Coasters. So do we divide parks up into two or more categories? What about chain parks vs. independant? Or parks with Charm vs. No Charm?

At any rate, I don't see anything wrong with the park rating. How about flat ride ratings? Or is this not FlatRideBuzz.com?

~Rob

I don't see how ranking parks is any different than ranking anything else. It's not as if we have some agreed upon standard for ranking coasters.

eightdotthree said:

It's not as if we have some agreed upon standard for ranking coasters.

And if we did, there wouldn't be any reason for us to rank, we could just be told what coasters are best (because the standard would define it).

Which I think is the point. We all rank based on our own criteria and the top 100 list is an attempt to create order out of the chaos. That's all any poll is, really.

---

I'd like to see more people chime in because I suspect I'm not the voice of the minority or devil's advocate or oppsoing views or whatever. (The thuth is I never think I am, but I'm ok playing into the role I've been given.)

I'm inclined to agree. In my simplistic mind I think its just a matter of how much you like the park and rank it based on that. Getting into minutiae about charm and thrill etc. is taking it a little too far. Plus....like the coaster poll, this is just for fun, not a true statistical poll. It'd be interesting to see how fellow buzzers view the parks I love.

Personally, even with coasters I find it extremely difficult to rank them against each other. I mean, Diamondback is awesome, but how do I compare that to the the experience of Space Mountain?

I dunno. Maybe I'm just wishy washy...

I based my initial response on ranking each park from best to worst, not on a 5-point scale (which I'd kind of forgotten that's how it's done here). To Jeff's point, I couldn't tell you if Disney is better than Cedar Point or vice versa; they're too different. I don't have a favorite park; I have several.

However, for the sake of this site, they'd both get 5's, so I guess that method wouldn't be difficult. I'd probably have mostly 5's, a handful of 4's, and maybe a couple ranked somewhere 1-3.

Also, it was a pain in the ass to rank all the coasters I've ridden (again, from best to worst, not the CBuzz 5-point scale), and I initially did that when I was still in double digits. If I had all 180 to rank now from scratch, I can't honestly say I'd have any desire to do it. Plus, at times I look at my rankings and wonder what the hell I was thinking with some of them.

The thing is that Jeff has even provided a key at the top of everyone's track record. Just switch 'roller coaster' to 'park' and off you go.

0 - Not rated
1 - Among the worst roller coasters you've been on
2 - Below average
3 - Average
4 - Above average
5 - Among the best roller coasters you've been on