Park with the most extreme quality gap?

[caffeine_demon]

Plopsaland de Panne

Ride to Happiness just feels so out of place among so many mediocre coasters, at best.

Nah - Heidi and anubis are pretty good too!

I'd also argue that walibi belgium is pretty solid after pulsar and kondaa - calamity mine is good fun, as is tiki waka, and even fun pilot is quite nice (admitedly, the SLC and woody are pretty awful though!

 

[Tonkso]

I can't believe people have mentioned Port Aventura yet not brought up their Mine Train which is essentially 90% lift hill. John Wardley didn't want it built but was brought on too late, he did give us Dragon Khan though.

 

[Hyde]

I mean, there's a quantitative way to crack this egg. Sorted below is parks by gap distance in rankings. Bear in mind, a lot of these parks are reflecting kiddie coasters in the biggest gaps - I'm sure there's a further formula you could slap together to consider median or average coaster ranking, relative to outliers. (Which I can work out when not working )

Park	Lowest Ranked Coaster	Highest Ranked Coaster	Gap
Holiday World	255	2	253
Cedar Point	250	1	249
Six Flags Magic Mountain	253	7	246
Busch Gardens Tampa	246	4	242
Waldameer	251	12	239
Kentucky Kingdom	241	5	236
Islands of Adventure	236	3	233
Kings Island	252	25	227
SeaWorld Orlando	244	23	221
Hersheypark	229	9	220
Kings Dominion	230	11	219
Kennywood	234	22	212
Carowinds	220	10	210
Six Flags Over Georgia	232	28	204
Silver Dollar City	207	8	199
Six Flags Over Texas	214	17	197
Michigan’s Adventure	254	70	184
Dollywood	206	29	177
Universal Studios Florida	240	65	175
Worlds of Fun	212	40	172
Fun Spot America (Orlando)	257	89	168
Dorney Park	221	54	167
Six Flags Fiesta Texas	180	16	164
Six Flags St. Louis	198	35	163
Knott's Berry Farm	238	83	155
Knott’s Berry Farm	211	62	149
California Adventure	218	104	114
Nickelodeon Universe (Bloomington)	258	144	114
Six Flags America	187	95	92
Frontier City	243	157	86
Busch Gardens Williamsburg	99	21	78
Fun Spot America (Kissimmee)	256	188	68
Elitch Gardens	210	145	65
Hollywood Studios	153	93	60
Geauga Lake	249	193	56
WDW Magic Kingdom	166	139	27
Camden Park	216	195	21
Disneyland	142	122	20
Lakeside Amusement Park	199	190	9

 

[UP87]

Has anyone mentioned Phantasialand yet? Taron vs Temple of the Nighthawk is a pretty stark difference in quality, don't you think?

Well Nighthawk is a pretty solid VR coaster with Crazy Bats nowadays. But if we don't look at the coasters but at the park in general I'd say Phantasialand belongs on the list. There are really top notch world class areas and then there are rather bad things like Geisterrikscha, the broken Hollywood Tour, Wuze Town kids area...

 

[witchfinder]

I'd have offered up SFNE as a good candidate here, with Wicked Cyclone at the top end (and Superman for that matter) and Goliath at the bottom, but they trashed that so it's not valid any more. Flashback is also pretty horrible though!

Also Kolmarden probably deserves a mention - Wildfire vs two very mediocre kiddie creds is quite a quality gap!

 

[DelPiero]

I'd have offered up SFNE as a good candidate here, with Wicked Cyclone at the top end (and Superman for that matter) and Goliath at the bottom, but they trashed that so it's not valid any more. Flashback is also pretty horrible though!

Also Kolmarden probably deserves a mention - Wildfire vs two very mediocre kiddie creds is quite a quality gap!

Yeah but neither of the kiddy creds at Kolmarden are so awful you never want to ride them again. Like, built by satan himself as torture devices awful.

 

[witchfinder]

Yeah but neither of the kiddy creds at Kolmarden are so awful you never want to ride them again. Like, built by satan himself as torture devices awful.

That is true.

 

[Hyde]

I mean, there's a quantitative way to crack this egg. Sorted below is parks by gap distance in rankings. Bear in mind, a lot of these parks are reflecting kiddie coasters in the biggest gaps - I'm sure there's a further formula you could slap together to consider median or average coaster ranking, relative to outliers. (Which I can work out when not working )

Park	Lowest Ranked Coaster	Highest Ranked Coaster	Gap
Holiday World	255	2	253
Cedar Point	250	1	249
Six Flags Magic Mountain	253	7	246
Busch Gardens Tampa	246	4	242
Waldameer	251	12	239
Kentucky Kingdom	241	5	236
Islands of Adventure	236	3	233
Kings Island	252	25	227
SeaWorld Orlando	244	23	221
Hersheypark	229	9	220
Kings Dominion	230	11	219
Kennywood	234	22	212
Carowinds	220	10	210
Six Flags Over Georgia	232	28	204
Silver Dollar City	207	8	199
Six Flags Over Texas	214	17	197
Michigan’s Adventure	254	70	184
Dollywood	206	29	177
Universal Studios Florida	240	65	175
Worlds of Fun	212	40	172
Fun Spot America (Orlando)	257	89	168
Dorney Park	221	54	167
Six Flags Fiesta Texas	180	16	164
Six Flags St. Louis	198	35	163
Knott's Berry Farm	238	83	155
Knott’s Berry Farm	211	62	149
California Adventure	218	104	114
Nickelodeon Universe (Bloomington)	258	144	114
Six Flags America	187	95	92
Frontier City	243	157	86
Busch Gardens Williamsburg	99	21	78
Fun Spot America (Kissimmee)	256	188	68
Elitch Gardens	210	145	65
Hollywood Studios	153	93	60
Geauga Lake	249	193	56
WDW Magic Kingdom	166	139	27
Camden Park	216	195	21
Disneyland	142	122	20
Lakeside Amusement Park	199	190	9

So I did some function doodling during a work call this morning - essentially (if anyone is up to the fun and challenge of segmenting their coaster rankings park-by-park) you could organize respective park rankings and calculate quartiles, upper limit, and lower limit. With that intel, you then classify how many coasters are above or below respective limits; parks with the most "true" returns of coasters outside the limits would have the largest quality gap.

... It just means a lot of pivot tables, that I might do if I can get a few beers in me over the weekend.