Your 2024 in Review

[Poisson]

I think I am done for 2024 now, so here goes:

• Coaster count at start of 2024: 334
• Coaster count at end of 2024: 415
• Coaster count increase: +81
• Park/Fair visits at start of 2024: 307
• Park/Fair visits at end of 2024: 379
• Park/Fair visit increase: +72
• Number of rides 2024: 727
• Number of coaster rides 2024: 464
• Unique rides overall: 890
• Unique parks/fairs visited overall: 134

Highlights & Lowlights:

• Favourite new coaster of 2024: In terms of raw quality, Toutatis. Lots of love for Balder though.
  
  
• Favourite new non-coaster of 2024: Danse Macabre for out right new rides, Reactor Institute of Power up there if new owners and retheme count.
  
  
• Favourite new park of 2024: Liseberg, with Asterix close behind.
  
  
• Favourite new fair/kermis: Sinksenfoor in Antwerp was very well set up but Frankfrut Fruhjarsmesse shows quality can out do quantity with ride hardware.
  
  
• Biggest positive surprise of 2024: Parc De La Vallee. A fun little park in the middle of nowhere with Schwarzkopf and plastic coaster nonsense. Looping owned by Troisne was the best surprise coaster. A touring, old, half powered/half gravity coaster made by Soquet that was smooth.
  
  
• Biggest disappointment of 2024: Tripsdrill. It's a nice park, but I expected better. Karacho is a head banger and Mammut does nothing. Hals-uber-Kopf is good though. Operations were poor.
  
  
• Biggest milestones of 2024: Cred #400, Lisebergbanan. Also did my 4000th ride, which was Rita. This year was my second most creds ever achieved (103 in 2021 is still the most), most rides ever done by over 230 rides and most places ever visited in a year.

 

[George W]

For me I had 33 park visits, 10 of those being new to me European parks, which were the following:
April:
Portaventura
Ferrari land
May:
Walibi Belgium
Movie park Germany
Phantasialand
Toverland
Walibi Holland
Efteling
Plopsaland
September:
Europa park

This year has really been my time to start getting to the parks that I've been wanting to do for years but only recently I've been able to travel more so I've just been trying to tick off what I can.
The other 23 visits were multiple trips to Alton towers, thorpe park, Chessington, Drayton manor and Blackpool pleasure beach and I rode 63 new creds in 2024.

Here's my top 5 new creds:
1. Untamed
2. Voltron
3. Ride to happiness
4. Taron
5. Hyperia
My favourite new none coasters were mostly the dark rides at efteling but there was some other cool ones too:
1. Dream flight
2. Fata Morgana
3. Symbolica
4. Pirates in Batavia
5. Sesame Street: Street Mission

Now I'm going to start of 2025 with a bang as I'm going to Orlando to hit up universal, sea world, Busch gardens Tampa and Disney starting January 5th which this is all new stuff to me.

My most visited park this year was thorpe park and although I didn't count anything else I can 100% say hyperia was my most ridden rollercoaster at 53 times.

 

[Bowser]

There's technically one day left but i'm fairly certain today at Legoland was our final trip of the year!

Haven't kept track but it's definitely the most visits we've made in a year so far. Admittedly the vast majority were Chessington and Legoland.

Might try and make an effort to document the numbers this year, any recommendations for how people do that? Alas i'm going to be away working a lot in 2025 so the frequency is likely to be far less than this year.

Best New Theme Park:

Efteling. No contest really. Drayton, Plopsaland and Universal Osaka were the other new parks we visited.

Best New Rollercoaster:

Flying Dinosaur at USJ. Again no contest and i did go on quite a lot of new coasters this year. Vogel Rok gets a shout on behalf of my son, we did it 5 times in a row so i reckon that was his favourite.

Best New Dark Ride:

This one is tough. Harry Potter at USJ is a technical masterpiece so i think i have to give it to that but Symbolica is so wonderful it has to get a mention too.

Best 2024 Ride:

Of the rides that actually opened this year.... well i think i only got on Hyperia and Miniature Speedway so not the fairest competition!

 

[Matt N]

Might try and make an effort to document the numbers this year, any recommendations for how people do that? Alas i'm going to be away working a lot in 2025 so the frequency is likely to be far less than this year.

If you're at all good with spreadsheets, I find that an Excel or Google Sheets workbook is a brilliant way of keeping track and logging your stats with as much granularity as you desire!

Alternatively, sites like Captain Coaster and Coaster Count are quite useful if you just want to log coasters!

 

[Zeock]

Credit Count: 103 (+24)
Best New Theme Park: Tokyo DisneySea
Best New Ride: Journey to the Center of the Earth
Best New Rollercoaster: Eejanaika
Best Day At A Theme Park: Scarefest Mini Meet 12th October
Worst Day At A Theme Park: Legoland Windsor 29th December
Overall, this year has been extremely good for me regarding theme parks. Even my worst day at a theme park wasn't terrible.

 

[Bowser]

Worst Day At A Theme Park: Legoland Windsor 29th December

What happened here??

I didn’t include any worst categories as despite my online grumbles the overwhelming majority of our trips are good and didn’t want to dwell on the negatives.

That being said summarising 2024 without mentioning probably the worst day I’ve ever had at a theme park would be amiss so that honour goes to Alton Towers After Dark back in March.

 

[Zeock]

What happened here??

I didn’t include any worst categories as despite my online grumbles the overwhelming majority of our trips are good and didn’t want to dwell on the negatives.

That being said summarising 2024 without mentioning probably the worst day I’ve ever had at a theme park would be amiss so that honour goes to Alton Towers After Dark back in March.

It wasn't too bad, but the theme park didn't look in the best shape. Interestingly, 30 St Mary Axe and the Lloyd's Building were missing from Miniland. The queues were also pretty long considering the time of year.

 

[Matt N]

That being said summarising 2024 without mentioning probably the worst day I’ve ever had at a theme park would be amiss so that honour goes to Alton Towers After Dark back in March.

I think you and I were there on the same day, if I'm remembering correctly (23rd March?)... and I think that's a fair assessment!

For me, it was right down there for "weakest day I've ever had in a major park" along with a school trip to Thorpe in 2018 and an unlucky last day at Universal Orlando in 2023. But in both of those other cases, I think my weak day was at least partially caused by a slice of circumstance/luck (repeatedly being in the wrong place at the wrong time) and a slice of my own poor decision making.

I don't think luck and good decision making would have saved that Towers day, though. I don't think I've ever seen a park implode quite so drastically as Towers did back in March; I think only Nemesis and RMT were open at one point! I accept that the weather was a significant contributor, but having seen other parks cope far better in windier weather than Towers experienced back in March (my last day at PortAventura was pretty hairy wind-wise, but they managed to keep ride availability fairly good throughout the day), I don't think the weather was the sole cause.

 

[Bowser]

It wasn't too bad, but the theme park didn't look in the best shape. Interestingly, 30 St Mary Axe and the Lloyd's Building were missing from Miniland. The queues were also pretty long considering the time of year.

Yes we went today and it was surprisingly busy. Fortunately my son likes to spend most of the day in the 4D cinema so we bypassed most queuing.

We went the last 2 years on New Years Day which was much quieter… unsurprisingly!

I think you and I were there on the same day, if I'm remembering correctly (23rd March?)... and I think that's a fair assessment

Yes I can’t remember the exact date but that sounds right! A park desperately in need of some weather resistant attractions. Quite curious to see how Legoland fares the next few days. On the face of it most things should remain operational.

 

[Shaggy_Dog_]

I had an interesting year in 2024, not too many park visits but I enjoyed my time immensely at the ones I got to. I don't have any local parks so I'm always keen to combine some travelling with visiting some European parks.

UK parks visited: One day each at Alton Towers, CWOA, and Thorpe.

European parks visited: PortAventura (2 days), Ferrari Land, (1 evening), Liseberg (2 days), Linnanmaki, Tussenfryd

The parks in bold were all new to me. I had been a bit unsure about PortAventura given it's reputation for long queues, but I had a great time there. Liseberg was a park that I was keen to get back to as I'd visited it before solo in 2022 but this time I was coming back with my daughter who had now reached the magical 1.4m mark as I've been so wanting to take her on Helix.

Top 10 New Creds Ridden in 2024

1. Taiga
2. Shambhala
3. Red Force
4. Hyperia
5. Nemesis Reborn
6. Storm The Dragon Legend
7. Balder (was closed for retracking on previous visit)
8. Uncharted
9. Speed Monster
10. Vuoristorata

Worst Coaster Ridden In 2024
Thunder Express (a Vekoma woodie with Timberliner trains) at Tussenfryd has a horrificly violent rattle that makes it feel as though you are sitting on a jackhammer as you go round. Great layout though but punishing to ride.

Best Water Ride Ridden in 2024
Probably the Kallerado rapids at Liseberg, though their classic log flume will be very much missed when it is retired.

Best Dark Ride Ridden In 2024
Kyopelinvuoren Hotelli which is a weird witches hotel themed dark ride at Linnamaki. It's from 2013 but has the feel and charm of a classic Wardley style dark ride with somer great models and lots of humour (check out this site of it's model creators showing their animated models such as the scene with the witches in a sauna! https://spiritsculpture.co.uk/projects/linnanmaki-witch-hotel).

Best Flat Ride Ridden In 2024
I was lucky enough to ride two superb Intamin Gyro swings within a few weeks of each other in Swingi at Linnanmaki and Loke at Liseberg. I think Swingi is actually the better of them and one best flat rides I've ever ridden, the views out over Helsinki harbour and islands at the top of it's swing are absolutely incredible. Hurakon Condor was excellent as well.

 

[Danny]

• Coaster count at start of 2024: 460i(sh)?
• Coaster count at end of 2024: 516
• Favourite new park: Disneyland CA
• Favourite new cred: X2
• Favourite new dark ride: Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge
• Worst new park: Bobbeejaanland / Sea World SD. Can't decide between them really.
• Worst new cred: Dreamcatcher
  
  Top 5 Moments:
  
  
• Driving a Ford Mustang down Pacific Coast Highway to Santa Monica Pier to ride the West Coaster. Not a great ride by any means, but a core bucket list item ticked off regardless.
• Riding Voltron over New Year and the last public train of 2024 without any effort.
• Walking into Super Nintendo World for the first time.
• Walking around a deserted Sea World San Diego with entire solo trains on each of the coasters.
• Flying my drone off the top of Fenix at Toverland.

 

[Burbs]

European and UK theme parks have been a bit thin on the ground for me this year, with 1 visit to Alton Towers (after a 2.5 year hiatus), a return to Parc Asterix and Phantasialand, and a handful of days spent at Europa-Park! I was very fortunate to be able to go back to the USA this summer and tick off 10 bucket-list parks, along with some of the best coasters on the planet.

Since I started recording my stats in 2014, I've...
- Travelled 1025 miles on rollercoaster track (+176mi)
- Been "inverted" 3562 times (+254)
- Ridden 494 coasters (+119)
- Spent 71 days at Alton Towers (+1)
- Been to Europa-Park 12 times (+2), spending 41 days in the main park (+7) and 7 days in Rulantica (+2)
- Made 323 theme park visits (+26) across 268 days (+26)
- Spent 204 days abroad (+37)
- Travelled over 69,500 miles to and from parks (+12000)

Looking forward to seeing what 2025 brings!

 

[Burner]

I left being a theme park enthusiast in my mid teens, and after of nearly a decade of not really visiting theme parks often, I really fell back into being a thoosie in 2024 and regained my passion for it. My park visits were:

1. Alton Towers (local park, I don't even really count these as visits anymore)
2. Drayton Manor
3. Blackpool Pleasure Beach
4. Grona Lund
5. Phantasialand
6. Energylandia

As a kid I always wanted to go to Europe and experience theme parks outside the UK, so I am glad I managed three new parks. I found my new top two coasters in Taron at Phantasialand, and Zadra at Energylandia. The former just being the entire package from what I want from an attraction - immersive and thrilling (managed thirteen rides over a day and a half thanks to the park being empty). The latter being just being insanity from start to finish. Monster at Grona Lund takes the crown for my favourite B&M invert for the first drop alone (the views at sunset are impeccable).

2024 was wonderful in regards to falling back in love with theme parks, and I'm glad I was able experience new places and bump up my credits. I managed 28 new credits in total, and I'm looking forward to visiting more places in 2025. First stop, Efteling in March!

 

[pluk]

I had a complete non-year. Barely any visits and nothing new.

I don't think I gave Merlin a penny. Maybe we did do lego right at the start of the year? I'm really not sure.
I had planned Thorpe for Hyperia, then it stopped working so I cancelled and somehow never got round to rearranging once it was runing again.
I wanted to take the kid to Chessington later in the year as she's become tall enough for Jumanji, but now we are tied to weekends and holidays and keeping an eye on the queue times it never didn't seem arduous.
I'm pretty sure that this year I'd have found AT depressing and the kid would have found it boring having hit the under served post Cebeebies zone.

With the rebuild of my favourite UK ride and a new height record it's pretty shocking that I've been on neither and Merlin haven't managed to attract my custom. Some of that's on me but a lot is on them.

We've had one visit to Paultons, a few to Adventure Island, and thats about it. The group of rides I'll have spent the most time on will be the fairgrounds at Butlins! A Waltzer, a trebant, a chair-o-plain, and dodgems. That's what a 6 year old wants!