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Most Overrated Coasters You've Been On?

Sandman

Giga Poster
El Toro - Still think it's a great ride but little old Balder wipes the floor with it.

Helix - Yes, it's fab. Yes, it's Top 10. But I was expecting some sort of loony, out of body coastergasm thanks to the hype.

Wodan - Big ride, short on thrills. The stipulation is that it is a better experience on the front row at the end of the day. But that's pretty specific.

Lost Gravity - I just don't get it?
 

Indy

Hyper Poster
Oh boy, where do I start?

Millennium Force - I'm sure I don't need to explain.

Maverick - Don't get me wrong, it's good. It's really really good. But is it #1 material? No. Is it top ten material? I would also say no.

Goliath (Walibi Holland) - It was fun, but much tamer than I ever expected given the hype. I'm sure it felt legendary 20 years ago. The last three airtime hills were nice though.

Dueling Dragons - Lots of straight track and lousy endings. It's goodness was heavily dependent on the dueling aspect and it lost a lot when that aspect went away. Fire's wraparound Immelman was the only redeeming element.

Superman The Ride - Once upon a time it was great, but the newer trains with lap bars that land mid-thigh are absolutely awful and make it very difficult to enjoy.

Twisted Colossus - You will never convince me that a coaster with a 60 second intermission is a great ride. Sorry 'bout it.

Nitro - I mean, it's one of my favorite mine trains.
 

Matt N

CF Legend
As I said in the “overrated parks” thread, I’m not personally too keen on the term overrated, as I feel like it invalidates other people’s opinions, but I do think the premise of the topic is interesting and gets people talking, and taking the topic title to mean “coasters that you don’t like as much as most”, I could certainly pull up a few examples to fit the thread if I thought hard enough:
  • Nemesis, Alton Towers - Starting with a big, controversial one! Don’t get me wrong, I like Nemesis a lot, and I fully understand why it’s so coveted and iconic to so many people, but I don’t place it on the same godly pedestal that most enthusiasts seem to; it’s not my favourite UK coaster, and perhaps controversially, I (narrowly) prefer Nemesis Inferno. I think it’s more down to it not really being my absolute favourite type of ride more than anything else.
  • Stealth, Thorpe Park - Another big, controversial UK choice! I used to love this coaster, and don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to like (the launch is sensational, the top hat airtime is excellent, and even the bunny hill into the brakes can really deliver sometimes), but my last few rides on it have been really quite bumpy, and had me coming off of it with a bit of a headache (although it’s not unbearably rough by any means; certainly smoother than Colossus). I also find the restraints dig in quite a bit by the end of the ride. Given Rita has the reputation as the “rough” Intamin Accelerator in the UK, I’ve surprisingly been finding it noticeably smoother and more enjoyable than Stealth as of late; as well as the smoothness factor, I also prefer Rita by a fair margin because I think it has a surprisingly fun layout after the launch (Although my thoughts on Rita might be for another thread)! In terms of Stealth; most covet it as their favourite Thorpe coaster and among their favourites in the UK, but I’d genuinely say it’s 4th out of the big 5 at Thorpe for me based on my last visit, purely due to the increased roughness and headache factor (it’s below Inferno, Swarm and Saw, in case you’re wondering)
  • Megafobia, Oakwood - Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some enjoyable rides on Megafobia, but like Nemesis, I don’t personally place it on anywhere near the same pedestal as I know many do. For many, I know that this is easily their favourite UK woodie, one of their favourite UK coasters, and one of their favourite woodies of all time, but I don’t personally hold it in that regard. My favourite row is the front, and up there, it does have some fun airtime pops, but I’ve honestly felt like Wicker Man’s have been feeling stronger lately, and that ride also has really consistent fast pacing, fun transitions, and a consistently fairly smooth ride experience, which Megafobia lacks. While Wicker Man blitzes through the layout, Megafobia feels like it has numerous dead spots throughout, and notably loses pace towards the end. I also find Megafobia pretty temperamental; on my last Oakwood visit in 2019, I had 4 rides, with 2 in the front, 1 in the middle, and 1 on the back, and the ride experience wildly varied dependant on what seat I sat in. In the front, there were some fun airtime pops and the ride wasn’t especially rough (although still perhaps a touch rickety for me to fully rate it in places); this was my favourite seat. In the middle, the ride was still not particularly rough, but just felt profoundly average, and didn’t really have much of anything sensations-wise. In the back, it had 1 or 2 more intense pops of airtime (the first drop and drop out of the turnaround in the back are some of the strongest airtime pops I’ve yet experienced), but the back was actually my least favourite row, because I found it a bit too rough for me to enjoy; to paraphrase Fawlty Towers, back row Megafobia “[gave me] a damn good thrashing”, and the roughness was considerably more overpowering in the back than in the front and middle to an extent that I didn’t expect. Overall, I don’t dislike Megafobia by any means, but I don’t personally hold it on the same pedestal among woodies as most do; of the 7 woodies I’ve done, it places 3rd for me, and a notable peg below the top 2. Controversially, Wicker Man reigns supreme among UK woodies for me by a considerable distance, even when excluding the theming!
  • Expedition Everest, Disney’s Animal Kingdom - A lot of people absolutely love this, and while I do enjoy it every time I ride it, don’t get me wrong, I don’t seem to like it to the same extent as most, and it never fails to leave me feeling slightly cold and underwhelmed for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. I’ll admit that I’ve always found the long wait for the switch track to move itself on Everest to kill the mood slightly (I personally think that Thirteen executes the backwards trick far more slickly, and I dare say that ROTM at Universal does too), and for such a long ride, I do think the actual “proper coasting” section feels surprisingly short and lacking in dynamic manoeuvres compared to even other Disney coasters, but those are extremely harsh criticisms on my part, as Everest is a Disney coaster aimed at families after all, and a Disney coaster built before switch track technology was commonplace, at that. Don’t get me wrong, Everest is a fun family coaster that I enjoy, and has spectacular theming and cool tricks, but something about it always leaves me slightly underwhelmed, and I can’t quite place what.
  • Olympia Looping, Travelling - I’d heard a hell of a lot of hype for Olympia prior to riding, so that may have killed it slightly for me, but I’ll admit that I was pretty underwhelmed when I finally rode it at Hyde Park Winter Wonderland in January 2020. I won’t deny that the ride is an absolute masterpiece when you take into account its travelling status, and I feel honoured to have ridden such an influential piece of coaster history, but even though I was hoping for something that would rank pretty highly (it was almost my sole reason for visiting HPWW), it wasn’t really my cup of tea at all. I won’t deny that the ride lived up to its billed intensity, but it provided this in a very different way to what I was anticipating; it didn’t make me black out or even grey out, but it was a very weird, dizzying kind of intensity that’s difficult to describe. It wasn’t particularly enjoyable at all for me, and I felt quite nauseous and dizzy getting off. The second main con was the trains/restraints, which I wasn’t personally keen on at all. The trains are very tight legroom-wise (even for me, who isn’t especially tall at 5’9.5”), and the shoulder bars really dug in during the ride to a pretty painful extent; on my second ride, I was wincing in pain going around due to how much the shoulder bars were digging in. Overall, I get why people like Olympia, and I fully appreciate its iconic status and history, but it didn’t live up to the hype for me; when combining the weird, nauseating intensity and the painful shoulder bars, it’s not a coaster I’m especially keen on at all from a ride experience perspective. I just don’t think it’s really my kind of ride.
 

Rob Coasters

Hyper Poster
Nemesis - Here's a big, controversial one! I did this in 2018 before I really seriously kicked off my coaster career, and was doing the lap of Towers. Due to my unfortunate encounters with Alton Towers I wasn't immersed into the area at all and my exact thoughts seeing the ride for the first time was "oh hey there's the world class coaster". Since I had to Fast Track the ride I was assigned back row and outside of the helix being really intense, the whole rest of the ride was just underwhelming. The turnaround before the loop I thought would be fantastic, then I just kinda trundled through it. The loop literally did nothing. I remember thinking "awww" when the train just kind of went around the loop. Don't remember anything else, probably a reason for that.

I came off disappointly nonchalant about having just ridden the world's most intense rollercoaster experience and made my way to Galactica.

I have Inferno ranked significantly higher than Nemesis, and I'm a bit tired of telling everyone "nemesis was just okay". I am desperate for a reride of Nemesis this time in the front row, and I've heard endlessly good screaming about how fantastic the front row is. I honestly can't wait to try again, but I haven't returned for almost four years now due to its comically inconvenient location. I wish I loved this ride more.
 

SkyrushSimp

Mega Poster
def Maverick, it's an a decent coaster but its B+ at best. also, maybe Montu? I didn't think it was nearly as good as Alpengeist or Raptor.
 

Rupert

Mega Poster
Goliath (Walibi Holland) - It was fun, but much tamer than I ever expected given the hype. I'm sure it felt legendary 20 years ago. The last three airtime hills were nice though.
100x this! Exactly the coaster I thought of when I saw the thread title - a fun coaster yes, but nothing mind blowing.

Also completely agree with @Sandman on El Toro. Really rough with worse air time than Balder.

Also Magnum XL-200: the transition at the base of every valley is like being hit in the spine by a bag of rocks, which seems to be even worse in the tunnel section. Can’t work out why people rave about it! Sure it’s an important coaster in the industry’s development but that doesn’t mean it has to be revered.
 

JoshC.

Strata Poster
The Smiler - Bit of a marmite ride, but there's people who adore this so so much, and I can never understand how this is rated as anything more than a painful, repetitive hot mess

Olympia Looping - I have a big amount of admiration and respect for the ride in its own right - a travelling coaster of that size is nothing short of remarkable. But the ride itself? Erring on the bad side.

Big Dipper (Blackpool) - I hear a lot of people talk about this as Blackpool's best woodie? Completely forgettable for me.

Huracan (Bellewaerde) - This is an indoor family coaster with a dark ride section. I tend to see positive reviews of it, but I really don't get it. It's fine for what it is, but I always got the impression from others that it was greater than the sum of its parts, when it really isn't
 

Nitefly

Hyper Poster
Probably Duelling Dragons. Better in concept than execution. Good but outclassed by Montu, Nemesis and Hulk. It was also a really ugly ride, with its grey supports.

Edit - watching some POVs I suppose it was unique but I distinctly recall preferring Hulk on every visit to IOA over the years. Maybe it’s more that Hulk is underrated, rather than Duelling Dragons being overrated.
 
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Howie

Donkey in a hat
Maverick.
Barely makes it into the top 10 coasters at Cedar Point for me, let alone anywhere else. It launches you straight into... a trim brake, ffs! I find that completely unforgivable.

Taron.
When staying on site, night time ERT on this thing with a bunch of excited goons is one of the best experiences out there. But take that away and I can't ignore the fact that the layout itself is actually a bit repetitive and... dare I say, meandering.

I305.
I just found it to be a bit of a non-event. First drop is great, but the rest of it was just a blur of... nothing, really. Soul-less. I just didn't 'connect' with it somehow.

Hmm, I've just realised these are all Intamin coasters. That's not deliberate, got nothing against Intamin, it's just that those were the first three that came to mind. What else then?
As Will said, judging by the CF poll, Icon for sure. And maybe - here's a hot take - maybe Zadra? Yeah it's good... but it's not that good. Nowhere near top 10 marerial for me. Untamed is better. 😮
 

EmmaUK

Mega Poster
Kumba - I went to Busch Gardens in 1991 and although we went o back to Florida in 1993 and I begged my dad to take us there we didn't. All of the billboards on the I4 were advertising this new beast of a Coaster down the road in Tampa. 23 years of waiting I finally got on it in 2016. And it was meh.

Montu - same trip in 2016 and same feeling of meh. I went away from Busch much preferring Sheikra and Cheetah Hunt.

Wicker Man - whilst my most recent visit was much better, with a back row night ride, I can't shake that feeling of meh I got first time road. I'd heard so much about it, so many people had hyped it up for me, and it felt a bit kiddie coaster

Ultimate - Yeah it had that great 30 seconds in the woods, but otherwise it was a bit of monorail, with the slowest and most tedious lift hills in history
 

caffeine_demon

Strata Poster
Maverick.
Barely makes it into the top 10 coasters at Cedar Point for me, let alone anywhere else. It launches you straight into... a trim brake, ffs! I find that completely unforgivable.

Taron.
When staying on site, night time ERT on this thing with a bunch of excited goons is one of the best experiences out there. But take that away and I can't ignore the fact that the layout itself is actually a bit repetitive and... dare I say, meandering.
😮

Everyone's entitled to their own opinion and all that, but have you gone mad??

anyway - mine are:

Boulder dash, tonerre de zeus and megafobia - Guess I'm not a CCI fan!

I305 - doesn't do much

EGF and goliath (holland) - Both have some great "moments", but not as consistent as Skyrush, Piraten or Alpina blitz

El toro - Collossos at heide is just so much better!
 
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