Does size matter?

[mcgoughchris]

That age old question that most of us have been searching for answers to. We all know that bigger ones look better, more intimidating etc but do they feel better? Are they more fun?

Do you have any coaster examples to back up your opinion?

 

[ThomVD]

No. Sometimes height and big coasters are awesome to look at, but they aren't necessarily better. Small coasters can pack just as much punch, and terrain coasters are awesome.

Example, Joris en de Draak is my favorite woodie even though it's actually the second smallest I've ridden.

 

[caffeine_demon]

The intamin mega lite, blackpool wild mouse, Plohns el toro all prove that "no"....

That said - Height does bring a strange fear - at least on a first ride - don't think I'll forget my first sighting of the big one in person, and my first time on stealth was quite scary too..

 

[Hobbes]

Large drops are great fun (I've got a giga, two hypers, two dive machines and a large woodie in my top 10), and the speed that comes with a large coaster is great as well. That said, small coasters can be just as good. Batman and White Lightning are probably the two small coasters in my count that jump out as being great. So while an impressive drop can certainly help kick off a ride, generally I'd say that forces and pacing are far more important to how much I enjoy a ride than size alone.

And if terrain coasters count as "small" because they generally don't come far off the ground, then that pretty much proves that rides don't need to be big to be fun.

 

[CookieCoasters]

Height can definitely help improve a coaster in terms of its experience, but it isn't a necessity for a great coaster to have.

Piraten and Phoenix are both in my top 10, yet are quite small in height.

Kingda Ka is probably nearing my bottom 10 and that is obviously quite large

 

[Rachel]

No not really. If something is high then it will definitely make me more nervous before riding, but it doesn't necessarily make it a better ride experience.

Good examples are White Lightning and Nemesis - small but pack a great punch. Compared to something like The Big One which is high but boring.

 

[theRock-steel]

Height does matter to me, but the tallest is not always the best. There are three B&M hypers I like best of all, but there are rides out there that are bigger. Kingda Ka is a little taller than Top Thrill Dragster, but I prefer the lap bar restraint over the OTSR. When it comes to the gigas that I have ridden, I like the taller and longer more (Millennium Force, Leviathan, then Intimidator 305). The tallest invert that I have ridden happens to be my favorite (Alpengeist), but it is not the longest. My favorite three woodens are Thunderhead, Lightning Racers, and Prowler. None of them are the tallest or longest. There are many good rides like Talon, Verbolten, Fahrenheit, X-Coaster, Sky Rocket, Avatar Airbender, and Fiesta Texas' Pandemonium that are not big. It all depends on what the ride is, not always the size.

 

[BBH]

I think height brings an added element of thrill, but not usually enough to make it better than another particular ride.

 

[Ready_23]

Nemesis, no more is needed

 

[ava1enzue1a]

Let's not forget Maverick.

 

[Hyde]

It used to. The late 80s to the early 2000s saw all manufacturers figuring out how to build the tallest, fastest roller coaster of any genre. Wooden, steel sit down, inverted, etc. The dawn of the accelerators in the early 2000s made things even more lucrative.

Things have tamed down though. Taking a look at the Mitch Hawker poll, height is a perk (there are 2 gigas, 3 megas in the top 10 steel), but coaster design has since focused on layout and roller coaster flow. Airtime, near-misses, and sweeping layouts are arguably the most desired traits of today's builds. On my own listing, my favorite steel and wood are both just barely over 100 ft. tall.

 

[bmac]

Height doesn't make as much of an impact on the ride experience besides being the precursor to a lot of speed and set-up of a good pace. While it's nice a launched coaster can go 450 feet in the air you're up there for only a few seconds so you can't quite experience just how high you are.

On a lift hill coaster however, it builds up suspense as you wait to crown the lift and begin the ride but beyond that it lies entirely on the layout and experience of the ride itself like others have said (especially the way Hyde put it). So yes, height sorta plays a role but not a particularly large or noticeable one in my book.

 

[Darren B]

I love Hypers, so yes, height matters to me. However; Maverick, Helix, Roar-O-Saurus, Wooden Warrior, Twister, El Toro tells me that height means nothing as far as ride quality goes.

Apart from Helix I'd probably take a Hyper over any of the others, but they're still fantastic at what they do.

 

[ATTACKHAMMER]

Big drops and coasters with lots of height are really awesome. However there are great rides with neither. White Lightning for example.

 

[rtotheizzo17]

There is a psychological impact by the height of a coaster that the average person feels. Really fun rides don't have to be huge, but the general public will be intimidated by walking up to a hyper-giga-strata.

Tried to keep it brief, as I am 75% sure the OP just wanted to make a veiled attempt to talk about dong size....

 

[jj23w]

Thorpe Park kind of show how it's all done. Because if you think about it there height coasters is varied from 70-205ft, even from this take my top 4 for example:

The Swarm 127ft still packs a punch for quite a medium height coaster.
Nemesis Inferno 98ft because of its layout the size doesn't really matter because the lift just adds to the whole ride.
Stealth 205ft does what it says on the tin makes the General Public scared but can still attract queues of over 60 mins what it lacks in layout it gives in speed.
Saw The Ride 100ft this ride despite Enthusiasts hating it is the most fearsome of the lot going vertical at 100ft and then dropping 100° vertical shows that even then the size doesn't matter.

Even Alton Towers can be a prime example of does size matter.

 

[owentaylor121]

Thorpe Park kind of show how it's all done. Because if you think about it there height coasters is varied from 70-205ft, even from this take my top 4 for example:

The Swarm 127ft still packs a punch for quite a medium height coaster.
Nemesis Inferno 98ft because of its layout the size doesn't really matter because the lift just adds to the whole ride.
Stealth 205ft does what it says on the tin makes the General Public scared but can still attract queues of over 60 mins what it lacks in layout it gives in speed.
Saw The Ride 100ft this ride despite Enthusiasts hating it is the most fearsome of the lot going vertical at 100ft and then dropping 100° vertical shows that even then the size doesn't matter.

Even Alton Towers can be a prime example of does size matter.

I have to completely disagree on that, the UK looks at Thorpe Parks rides being massive, Saw is rather tall for a coaster in the UK, we don't have many tall coasters over here. The Swarm is actually really tall compared too most coasters in the UK.
Alton Towers also uses size to, they may not be tall but they go deep into the ground, everyone knows Oblivion isn't tall but by dropping into the hole they know they have a massive drop ahead of them.