travel channel best parks awards

[AndyMagic]

The Golden Tickets do have other categories that the show did not cover. Disney won best nighttime procuction for Illuminations and came in second and third places in a few other categories. The show decided to focus on the coasters. Also, they have a best dark ride category and Disney has three rides in their top 5. That's impressive no doubt about it. (Spiderman at Islands of Adventure won for the 5th straight year in this category however). It is true that the awards for best park tend to go in favor of thrill based parks which is unfortunate. They could easily fix this by introducing a category called "Best Thrill Park" and then renaming the other award, "Best Overall Theme Park" which should go to Disney.

 

[clarksfan95]

I agree with Patsfan....Cedar Point is one of the best places I've ever been. You cannot compete with the amount of rides that they have, let alone the gazillion roller coasters that come in all shapes and sizes. I love Disney and it's one of the best places to go, but if I'm looking for outright excitement.....Cedar Point wins - hands down. If you've never been to Cedar Point...then you have no idea what it's all about and I highly recommend making the trip (Not during summer weekends tho' - the lines on those weekends make Disney wait times look like a drive-thru at your local McDonalds...)

What Cedar Point lacks in themeing is more than made up by what it houses on such a limited amount of land. Where I'm from....we boast Idlewild,the 2nd or 3rd oldest amusement park in the United States and the only surviving Catepillar ride in the world....it's definitely not exciting once you break 13 years old, but is still one of the coolest places you can visit in Western PA. It was ranked by the travel channel on one of their shows as the 2nd best park in the U.S. or something..tho' I don't remember the criteria for the show.

 

[Captain Chaos]

And you wonder why Disney is adding thrill rides?? Obviously thrill rides is what people want... Hate to say it, but you take a survery of people who went to both CP and Disney, I bet majority would say CP is the better park, and why? MORE THRILLS... I am not saying Disney makes their decisions based on some Golden Ticket (Willie Wonka anyone??) award... But, they do give what people want, and that, lately is thrills... As for IoA being second, I wonder who they paid off for that one... By far, IOA is not the second best park.... The only ride worth a crap is Spider-Man.. Hulk and Dueling Dragons are just typical roller coasters... Nothing extremely impressive....

 

[lebeau]

The Golden Tickets are voted on by a geographically-distributed set of what Amusement Today calls "amusement park enthusiasts", but would probably be more properly called coaster enthusiasts. These folks consider mostly "traditional" amusement parks in their votes.

http://www.amusementtoday.com/2005gta82705.html

Some categories make sense. While one could quibble with the steel and wooden coater award winners, they are not ridiculously wrong. Cedar Point (which happens to be my home park) may well be the best *traditional* amusement park, but there are certainly others I would consider---especially given some recent operational changes at CP.

Best kids park? Legoland may be the best park focused exclusively on kids, but it's not the first place I'd take kids even in southern california---that'd be Disneyland.

Others just make no sense at all. I've been to SFFT, and seen more than half of thier shows. And, they really are quite good. But there is no way on God's green earth that MGM-Studios should be only *fifth* on that list (tied with Cedar Point no less, which---expect for their ice skating show, which was developed at Knott's---has strictly bush-league productions.) Their big muscal number is good, but Beauty and the Beast is better. (And, Aladdin at DCA is better still.)

Disney did garner one Golden Ticket, for best nighttime show. However, I think they picked the wrong one (Illuminations) rather than the right one (Disneyland's Fantasmic!).

At the end of the day, the golden tickets are a beauty contest amongst traditional amusement parks, and serve mostly as a vehicle to generate full-page ads in the AT issue that announces the results: http://www.amusementtoday.com/image/GoldenTicket2005.pdf

You summed up my thoughts on the show quite well.

Given the categories that were presented, I couldn't quibble with them very much. The most outrageous category for me was best shows. The clips of the extreme sports show they were praising so heavily looked like Tarzan Rocks without the costumes, sets or music.

The awards honored parks that could be pigeon-holed into very specific categories. Disney excels across the board. These awards seem to reward parks for specializing in one particular thing. And thrill rides were clearly prioritzied over theming.

 

[Damien666]

Dueling Dragons typical? Not a chance, it's the only duel racing inverted coasters in the world and has a que line that puts many other coaster que lines to shame.

 

[Incredibles]

The entire show was somewhat of a joke. Anyone that has ever been to a non-Disney park realizes the true difference between the Disney experience and a non-Disney experience. Honestly, I am kinda glad they left Disney out of it. Most parks are rides and shows and water rides. Disney is a total experience that can't and probably never will be matched. If they had a category for overall theme / amusement experince, WDW would have won. Hands down.

 

[Captain Chaos]

Dueling Dragons typical? Not a chance, it's the only duel racing inverted coasters in the world and has a que line that puts many other coaster que lines to shame.

The queue doesn't make the ride... All in all, DD is a roller coaster...

 

[Alztybrn]

Can somebody tell me what the name of this show was? I tried to find anything about it on the travel channel website and could not find anything. I want to look for a replay of the show.
Thanks

 

[PhilharMagician]

I a surprised at a ffew of the winners.

How does Dudley Do Right's Ripsaw Falls win over splash. It's a ok ride, but it is not even close to splash.

In the top 50 steel roller coasters RNRC is not even listed. I know it is not one of the top ten or even 25, but top 50 :veryconfu

In the best shows catagory Disney MGM got 5th. What about Aladdin @ DL or FOTLK @ AK. These are great shows.

As for night shows I also do not think Fantasmic got the award it deserves.

 

[Incredibles]

I think it was called Best Amusement Parks 2006.

 

[Disneyfan2000]

disney is still by far the best i mean how many parks do you know get like 5 tv shows dedicated to just them....i think tht blows any award away:sohappy:

 

[I luv WDW]

The best in the world

The Disney parks are in a class by themselves.

Next visit: Nov. 23, 2006 Happy Thanksgiving!!!

 

[pluto77]

Wow, Cedar Point even beat Disney in cleanest park and most friendly staff in these awards

Edit: and Cedar Point won in best souvinirs