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All filler - no killer. Well rounded parks with poor headline attractions.

Chris Brown

Chris Brown

Mr CoasterForce 2016
We've all been to them, really well rounded parks that have nailed all of the supporting attraction, have good theming, pleasant guest experience but lack the killer roller coaster headliners. A few off the top of my head below.

Isla Magica, - I'll start by saying I've not been but this place looks pretty good from afar. Dark rides, indoor roller coaster, rapids, tidal wave thingy, log flume, drop tower, kids rides, water park, reasonable theming, established foliage, lakeside layout. Headline attraction? 25 year old SLC.

Rainbow Magicland - similar to above. Shock is fab but its just not quite good enough!

Bellewaerde - This one doesn't really count, its a great family park and the relatively new addition of Wakala has helped a lot but again, the headline attraction being Wakala or the worlds first Vekoma boomerang doesn't do the park justice.

Any others that spring to mind?
 
I will get hate for this.

Europa Park - Coaster wise there is nothing really good and nothing I would necessarily want to go back for. The best attraction here is Piraten in Batavia, followed by Wodan and Eurosat. The park is absolutely lovely but there are countless parks with much better coasters and rides.

Gardaland - This park has a good drop coaster, the rest is all filler. Pretty sad.
 
Chris Brown said:
Isla Magica, - I'll start by saying I've not been but this place looks pretty good from afar. Dark rides, indoor roller coaster, rapids, tidal wave thingy, log flume, drop tower, kids rides, water park, reasonable theming, established foliage, lakeside layout. Headline attraction? 25 year old SLC.
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I visited a few years ago and I can agree. It's a very nice looking park with a great selection of water rides (a huge must in a place like Sevilla), but that's kinda where it ends. It definitely felt like they didn't invest much in it since it first opened in 1997. A huge shame, since it has a great location within walking distance from the city center. Not sure where you picked up an indoor coaster and dark rides, though? Iirc there wasn't much in terms of indoor stuff outside of a 3D cinema/simulator.

I think the best contender I can think of here is Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village. It also has a great line-up of water rides, theming on a lot of the rides is excellent and the amusement park area is just a small part of this huge place. But again, outside of an old SLC (one of the better ones out there, though) and an eternally broken drop tower, there just isn't much in terms of thrill rides in that park.

As for the parks that I'm yet to visit, Warner Bros. Movie World Abu Dhabi is a good shout. It always felt weird that such a world class park only has a couple of family coasters.
 
If @Christian is going to get hate for saying Europa Park then I'm probably going to join him by saying.... Efteling. Fantastic theming, lots of really good rides but coaster-wise (and dark ride wise in my view) there is nothing that is absolutely top tier there.

I'd also mention Six Flags Great America. Tons of very good coasters, including some of the best ride types out there but everything there is sort of middle to lower end of the scale for that type of ride. Seems dumb to say a park with an RMC, an S&S air launch and four B&Ms has no killer rides, but all of them had flaws of some type that stopped them being outstanding.
 
Maybe doesn't count, but I'd argue Legoland parks fit in here.

Yes, they have Dragons. But, even for a Legoland park, is the bog standard Dragon really a good headline coaster? Not really. You could argue that's the point of Legoland parks, to be a collection of fillers with no killer, but yeah. They could do with something.

Billund perhaps has that with Polar Xplorer. Windsor might get that with the duelling creds. And maybe Germany with the B&M. So there's steps in the right direction tbf
 
I wouldn't agree with Europa Park here as I think everything is so strong - although I do take the point there's nothing that's an absolute knockout. It's a park of 8/10s - but I wouldn't say It's filler.

I do agree with Efteling though, and I was quite disappointed with it given how much people seem to love it. It's a fairly small park, with nothing that really grabbed my attention.

Controversially, I think Phantasialand fell into the same category when I went, but that was before Taking and FLY. At that time, I was similarly underwhelmed. Whilst the park is beautiful, no particular attraction stood out.

I'd also say Canada's Wonderland and Six Flags Discovery Kingdom fall into this category. Canada's Wonderland in particular is strange - it's a very large park, with a large selection of attractions, but none really excited me.
 
So who's gonna point out all the family Vekomas at Energylandia? :p

All those relegated Six Flags parks immediately spring to mind. Six Flags parks past and present that ride the second and third tier status (Great Escape, Elitch Gardens, Darien Lake, SFA, etc.) are rough at best on their coaster lineups, despite being otherwise acceptable parks.
 
If Canadas B&Ms were not already sad enough from hot takes, Zadra & Hyperion might just flip a table.
 
Gazza said:
Efteling is a fairly small park?
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Is it not? I've only been the one time and might be misremembering but I remember feeling like there wasn't THAT much to be doing and that it was easy enough to conquer relatively quickly. Maybe I just went on a quiet day or something, or it's bigger than I have in mind...
 
emoo said:
If Canadas B&Ms were not already sad enough from hot takes, Zadra & Hyperion might just flip a table.
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To clarify, I did go before Yukon Striker and I'm not a huge hyper/giga fan. Behemoth was decent, but I really didn't care much for Leviathan. I'd hardly call Time Warp, Flight Deck and Backlot a killer line-up...

Energylandia is definitely some killer (Hyperion and Zadra, as you say) with a whole lot of filler.
 
I apologise in advance if this generates any rage, but I’m actually going to be a bit controversial here and suggest Disney’s Magic Kingdom in Florida.

Magic Kingdom is a nice enough park with quite a wide range of attractions, but I would not personally say that any attraction at Magic Kingdom was especially top tier. Even if I were to list some of my favourite rides at WDW, I think you’d go a fair bit down that list before you hit an MK ride.

That’s not to say that MK’s attraction lineup is bad at all; there’s some fun stuff there, and as said, I think its attraction lineup is quite wide. However, I personally felt that it lacked a true standout attraction in any particular category.
 
It really depends if you are a theme park or coaster fan - Efteling and Europa are 2 of my top 5 favourite parks - that's because of their outstanding dark rides and general vibe, but on the coaster front yes - you could say their coasters are fillers, but I won't call the parks themselves fillers.
 
Parc Astérix. Hopefully Toutatis will fix this, but right now it is still definitely more of a vibes and theming focused park than a big coaster park. Arguably the best ride there is Défi de César.

Regarding Efteling, the clear headline attraction there is Symbolica, it is a dark ride focused park after all. Having said this, vliegende hollander is one of the best dark rides i've ever been on and definitely deserves star status IMO.
 
I would say Thorpe Park. It has five good coasters but none of them are elite. Colossus and Saw are forceful but rough, Swarm only has 2 elements worth caring about and is short, Stealth is short, and Inferno is great but it is not like something people are gonna drive miles upon miles to ride.
 
I’d say universal Orlando. Don’t get me wrong it’s a brilliant park but is there really a must do? Don’t get me wrong, the mummy is good, and gringotts is alright, but you could pick up maybe 5/6 rides from next door in IOA and plonk them in here and they would be THE stand out ride in the park. Put it this way, you have 2 days at universal resort, you’re spending 2 days at IOA aren’t you, maybe just popping over to “do it”.

When you think of the budget that this place has, it’s crying out for something amazing. Hopefully the refurb on the mummy will elevate it up there, or this new land that they’re building.
 
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