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2011 Golden Ticket Awards


CodyDL
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And, grudgingly, the New Texas Giant got Best New Ride. Why grudgingly, you might ask? Six Flags doesn't buy many ads from Mr. Gary Slade, proprietor of Amusement Today.

Meanwhile, Cedar Point got Best Amusement Park in the World. 14th straight year....

Golden Tickets have almost the credibilty and importance of Motor Trend's Car of the Year award. Almost.....

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New Texas Giant was also a top ranked steel coaster. So it isn't considered a wooden coaster? I know it was re-tracked but so much it became a steel coaster? Maybe they need a new hybrid category for next year :P

Right. It was re-tracked in steel. So it's a steel coaster.

"Hybrid" is really just a classification that arose from human's longing to classify things. The track is either steel or wooden, and that's all that matters from the point of view in consideration.

Adventure Express is a steel coaster, period. Voyage is a wooden coaster. And the New Texas Giant is steel. Though the supports holding up Son of Beast's loop were steel, the track was made of wood, so it was a wooden coaster with a loop. That's not to say a "hybrid" structure can't influence the ride experience, because I imagine Son of Beast would've been much sturdier (and almost certainly safer) had it been supported by steel. But again, from the point of view in question, only the track composition matters.

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^ I agree totally about the classification bit. I wonder, though, how people will/do classify wooden coasters that get Rocky Mountain Construction's topper track. After all, the track is then made of both steel and wood...

(If you're not familiar: Wooden coaster track is usually made of seven or eight layers of wood stacked on top of each other, the top two or three of which are wider and are what the train actually travels on. Topper track is prefabricated steel that takes the places of those two or three top layers. It's different from the Iron Horse track used on The New Texas Giant and has been installed on at least SFFT's Rattler and SFNE's Cyclone, with positive results. I've heard rumors that Holiday World will be installing some on Voyage next year to accompany the new Timberliners.)

One other thing... The perfectionist engineer in me has to point out that there's zero guarantee that Son of Beast, had it been designed with steel supports, would have been safer. If you read the accident report from 2006, the problem was not with the ride's wood. The problem was in the design, which did not account for certain loads. I don't know why the problem didn't present itself sooner, but something about the way the trains shuffled that day caused extra lateral loading to the outside of the helix. The loading was transferred to the bent, which was unprepared for that amount of stress and therefore sheared itself essentially in half vertically along some of the outside beams. Even more, a lot of the wood in that bent was new; the design was just flawed. I'm willing to bet that RCCA could have just as easily made a mistake with steel...

You simply have to account for all forces under any circumstance in which the ride (or any machine, for that matter) will operate. It's a bit short-sighted to just say that steel would solve the problem.

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The Golden Tickets lost credibility several years ago. I really question if votes are really counted. All the parks get the same awards every year. It's almost a given that CP gets best park and KI gets best kids area, and Schlitterbahn is best water park, although that's probably true. The only variances I see and have seen in the last 5 years is best new rides. Those are obviously different. I have to question quite a few of the awards. The only one that really bothers me a lot is Knoebels getting best food. That absolutely is NOT true! They don't even have a sit down table service restaurant! I can't stand their pizza, it's almost as bad as CiCis! Best food definitely belongs to Dollywood. They have the tastiest food of any park I've been to. They need to think these things over again. Same parks shouldnt be getting same awards every year, just because they always have.

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Kings Island's area is indeed lovely, and has lots and lots of rides for kids. But better than Fantasyland at Disneyland? Better than Seuss Landing at Universal's Islands of Adventure? According to this publication, apparently it is. Who can say?

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Yep. And how many awards did Six Flags win? And did Cedar Fair's full page spread in last years Amusement Today Golden Ticket issue assist them at all this year? I didn't see any full page ads sponsored by Disney, and as coincidence would have it, their parks didn't seem to win much of anything despite universal recognition and acclaim... Hmmm... Speaking of universal...

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As I have said in other threads I give little weight to the validity of the Golden Ticket Awards as if it is a true and fair assessment of the parks being judged. I do not mean to take away from any parks achievement they work hard to continue/try to win certain classifications, I as well as the guests in general appreciate their efforts. I would just like to see before hand what the classifications are in each award classification and how they are to be judged and by whom. Anything short of that at this point from Amusement Today will only fortify my belief that the Golden Ticket Award is not worth the paper it is printed on.

I mean for Kings Island to give validity to the Golden Ticket Award then they would also need to accept that Holiday World ranks within the top 10 parks and they rank further down the list from them. I believe Kings Island kids area is one of the best if not the best and in my heart as much as I like Holiday World dry park (I really do) I can not accept them being ranked over Kings Island as well as others.

Congratulations Kings Island I think.

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Kings Island has a wonderful kids area as well as Cedar Point, Dollywood and Universal Studios to just name a few. The thing is I have never thought a great Kids area had to do so much with rides as it does for the whole experience to include entertainment, staff interaction and friendliness.. I guess it is up to each family to decide what they like in a family area. Kings Island should be proud of their Kids area and should advertise how great it is. I just do not need a Golden Ticket Award to tell me it is as in my opinion it means little.

So CodyDL are you saying Holiday World is a better park than Kings Island with 3 wooden coasters 3 water rides, 1 dark ride other flats and shows? Just sayin,

I do not think anyone is questioning Kings Islands Kids area being a world class attraction area. but rather who is deciding it and how they are doing it.

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Not trying to knock on Planet Snoopy, it is a good kids area, but I have to say, if I could do it, I would much rather spend more time at Suess Landing, than Planet Snoopy. I think the Cat In The Hat ride is way better than Boo Blasters! It is more family friendly and better themed than BB. The Suess Carousel is way better than the kiddie Carousel in Planet Snoopy. So, not sure if I can say it's better. Kings Island's kids area was way better when it was Hanna-Barbera. That is what it was when it first was winning that award. I would say it was the best then. Planet Snoopy, not so much.

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I just think out of all other kids areas in other parks KI has the most to offer.

And that is the logic by which the awards are chosen (and probably one of the reasons their validity is so contested). Take Cedar Point... It is crowned the "best amusement park on Earth" yet again.

But by the Golden Ticket Awards' own admission, Cedar Point does NOT have the best new ride of 2011, the best entertainment of 2011, the friendliest employees of 2011, the cleanest park of 2011, the best dining of 2011, or the best landscaping of 2011. In fact, the ONLY category it wins in is "best amusement park." Now, isn't that counter-intuitive? Shouldn't the "best amusement park in the world" sweep those categories at best, or come out on top of at least at few at worst? But it doesn't... It does not have the best new ride, the best dining, the best entertainment... but still ends up as the best amusement park. Again, the ONLY thing is has is more roller coasters. By Amusement Today's logic, that is enough to crown it the best amusement park.

And so, by extension, yes: Kings Island's Planet Snoopy is the best kid's area simply in terms of it having more kid's coasters and more kid's rides than anywhere else. That appears to be their logic. But what I'm asking is, in practice, does Planet Snoopy beat any of the half-dozen Fantasylands, Seuss Landing, Mermaid Lagoon at DisneySea, Flik's Fun Fair...? I mean, really... Top five? Absolutely. Top three? I'd say so. But the best?

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In other news, Kings Island's Halloween Haunt was knocked off the list of best Halloween events, according to the list. Interesting to see that both Kennywood, Knoebels, AND a park in Germany beat both Howl-O-Scream events at the Busch Gardens parks, Uni Hollywood's HHN, as well as our own Haunt. Also interesting that Eruopa Park's event only got 5% of the vote to make it into the top 5...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Agreed. I would also argue that Canada's Wonderland has cooler looking buildings in their kids area. Their whole kids area just seems fresher and more lively than KIs. How their kids area isn't even mentioned in the Golden Tickets is beyond me.

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