Mitch Hawker Polls 2008 - Full Results In

[rollermonkey]

To be fair, having actually done a trip, I can safely assure you I had NO <img> clue what Robb thought about 99% of the rides.

Really? Did your bus not have a microphone? On the TPR trip I went on, R&E hardly ever put the mike down about what they thought of the rides/park.

And they bash parks and rides all the time on the site, and they praise other parks and rides all the time. I bet anybody who reads that forum could name 5 parks/coasters they like and 5 they don't.

So, ANYWAYS. I loved Eejanaika. I didn't find it rough at all. (I haven't ridden X/X2, so I can't compare, though.)

But then, I always hit Fuji-Q in the shoulder season, on weekdays, so it's rarely if ever crowded. Certain people who don't like that park / ride seem to always hit it up on the worst days possible.

The park's coasters nearly all have absolutely horrible throughput: Eejanaika, 20 pax/train; Dodonpa, 8 pax/train; Hamster Coaster, 2 pax/car; Crazy Mouse, 2 pax/train; Zola7, 4 pax/train. Fujiyama is the only coaster with 'normal' throughput.

So yeah, I don't blame the park's management for lousy choices when I rank how I like a ride.

Do I think that TPR affected the poll's outcome? Yes.

Do I think that they plotted and schemed to do so? I don't know. There is no evidence to support that conclusion.

 

[Mike]

Really? Did your bus not have a microphone? On the TPR trip I went on, R&E hardly ever put the mike down about what they thought of the rides/park.

They were normally too busy either making jokes about people on the bus, or saying nothing at all as everybody was asleep. :

 

[Snoo]

Do I think that TPR affected the poll's outcome? Yes.

Do I think that they plotted and schemed to do so? I don't know. There is no evidence to support that conclusion.

About the gist of it boys and girls.

 

[gavin]

But for the coaster that won the best wooden I find strange as I did not think that many people had been on it. So I think people voted on this by word of mouth and POV's

But if you look at the numbers, only 14 people voted for it. That's not exactly "that many," it's just that those who did vote for it probably had it at the top of a list of 200, 300+ coasters, and that's how it won.

 

[rollermonkey]

^And of the 14 people who did vote for T Express, not all of them ranked it #1.

 

[furie]

^Now doing that is just plain retarded. Overall experience should include theme, not jack off ride ops. Who knows if you just hit a bad day to a bunch of people who didn't want to cater to someone like yourself... ie coaster nerd? That can take away from how good the actual coaster is..

But.. how could we forget.. no one cares about your opinion.

For some reason, best known to the second bottle of wine I'm on, I care about this...

Baco I disliked... Purely down to the pain it caused me. I dislike Rita because it hurts me, but Rita is several notches over Baco on the fun/pain scale.

So roughness really does have a major effect. Everyone says "Baco you need to be in row X, on the inside, at exactly 7:34 p.m... on a full moon on the 13th June... Miss that, and you'll thing it's dreadful. I don't care, I rode it several times, it hurt me more than a coaster ever has in my life (I've been on Ben's favourite pain machines remember), so it doesn't rank in my top 30/40/50 (not worked it out yet, but it hovers around X:\NWO).

For me, the poll says "Furie, go ride these rides. Some you'll love, some you'll hate, but each and every one is worth the effort and experience."

It's kind of the holygrail of coaster enthusiasm for me. I don't really care if the results are skewed, or I disagree. As long as I';m enjoying making the effort to ride themw and form my own opinions, I'm enjoying my enthusiasm. As new rides are found and hit the top, it just makes for a new challenge to achieve. However, I'd love to ride every single top ten coaster ever rated in the MH poll. No matter where it lies now, that coaster says
"I was once one of the best, love me if you can" and
I shall...

 

[Anonymous]

And I'm still not buying into people just blaming the TPR trips for any results they don't agree with. If it was that big a factor, Superman wouldn't have been at number one and Boulder Dash would have been above Toro...

Because, not to be rude, but most TPR members don't have minds of their own and are all followers of one another, which is one of the reasons I don't like that website. One person on that site doesn't like a ride (cough, Rob) then everyone joins in, and considering I'm sure most of them take the coaster polls, their opinions influence it quite a bit, so blaming them is pretty justified.

Jesus Christ, you follow up "not to be rude" with perhaps the rudest statement I have ever heard!

Yes, maybe the 14-year-olds who have never been on a trip, and probably will never be on a trip agree with Robb on everything he says. But why shouldn't they? They are never going to Japan or China or Korea any time soon!

I thought Behemoth was the worst B&M hyper I've ridden, Ravine Flyer II was overrated, and Predator was above average....those were deffinitely not the general consensus of feelings on the bus.

In fact, one of the best parts of the trip was getting to meet a few other enthusiasts and talk about how they like rides. And trust me, almost no one had the same opinion.

And you would think if TPR influenced the poll so much, Voyage wouldn't be #1/#2 every year. I think Robb ranks that at about number 30. Also it is funny how the rides the Alvey's have been praising for years (Balder and EGF) have not been number one for a very long time.

IMO TPR helps the poll if anything. For the time being, had TPR not gone to Korea, T-Express, Atlantis Adventure, and Eagle Fortress would have far too few votes to even be in the rankings.

It doesn't make ANY sense that someone would spend thousands of dollars traveling around the world to ride a coaster of all things and then vote how someone else thinks.

 

[Jools]

^ I totally agree with what I know that you mentioned... if that makes sense :?

But I do think that alot of people follow other peoples opinions, maybe not just TPR, I woudln't know, but par example; my friends were all saying that Stealth was the best coaster at Thorpe so far, then me being the only real coaster enthusiast said "I actually think Nemesis Inferno is the best coaster", then they all went "Actually yeh, I agree" So... common occurence, I don't however see how the Mitch Hawker Poll is influenced by other peoples thoughts, as I'm sure most people have there own true feelings, plus they can't see anyone elses ballots.

 

[Anonymous]

So then how can there be a general consensus on the bus if everyone had a different opinion...? Seems a bit contradictory to me...

I see where you are coming from. I meant more than just "the bus." As in the enthusiast community as a whole seems to think differently than me. But I do see what you are saying. I personally think a lot of people ranked Behemoth high because they rode it with a bunch of friends and had two hours of ERT on it.

I totally do not think TPR "plots" to skew the poll, considering if you read their "Mitch Hawker Poll" topic you will see that Robb gets a little pissed when some of his close friends don't cast their ballots.

I will admit that Robb can be annoying some times; however, it is just his way of promoting his site. Without his big persoanlity and opinions, I doubt TPR would be where it is and what it is today, for better or for worse.

 

[Mike]

For everything bad said about TPR, with being in a group could skew the poll and all that stuff, can't almost exactly the same things be said about CF and CF-Lives?

There are certainly quite a few rides in this country that I've had a brilliant time on, and largely thanks to CF takeovers of them, resulting in bumping them up a bit in my rankings (for example, Grand National. On your own, good, with CF, excellent)

Oh well...

 

[furie]

I agree UC, but Baco still sucked, whether some loud mouthed scouser was going on about it or not - we still all agreed (except Ian and Erol ).

 

[Stone Cold]

For everything bad said about TPR, with being in a group could skew the poll and all that stuff, can't almost exactly the same things be said about CF and CF-Lives?

Yes, it could, and to a small extent is probably does. However, CF have never visited anywhere en mass in order to make a dent in the ratings, so many people have ridden the coasters in the UK, it doesn't make a difference, similarly, PortAventura and Germany are places most people have visited.

However, Fluch von Novgorod at Hansa Park is a coaster that 20 or so CFers will ride this year. I wouldn't be surprised if only another 20 pollsters rode it this year, which means we have a serious chance of affecting the poll if we have a particularly good/bad experience. Of course, if our views are mixed, it will make no difference to the poll, as I'm sure is the case with most TPR trips.

 

[Divv]

However, CF have never visited anywhere en mass in order to make a dent in the ratings

That's a bit of a misguided view of why people do TPR trips. It actually appears that the majority of TPR trip goers do it for the fun of it and don't really care that much about the poll. Out of 70 people doing the Europe trip in 2008 only 9 of them took part in this years poll (I actually wonder if there were more people from CF's Germany trip voting in this poll?). I get that group mentality can influence people's opinions on rides but I don't think the effect of TPR trips comes into play apart from the coasters with very low ridership.

But when you look at the people who voted T-Express most of them have vast coaster experience and with Balder and El Toro ranking well in recent polls its not that big a surprise that it was number one.

So whilst I agree that group trips have an impact on the poll it's not really that significant on the whole. UC's point that having the trips and a slight bias in the poll instead of no trips and a less representative poll is the one I'd agree with.

That all said, TPR are taking 50 people to Hansa park next year so that's maybe 6 votes in next year's poll that might skew it.

 

[furie]

However, CF have never visited anywhere en mass in order to make a dent in the ratings

That's a bit of a misguided view of why people do TPR trips.

I think Stone Cold just wrote that poorly. I think he meant:

However, CF have never visited anywhere en mass, which will make a dent in the ratings. It's the use of the word in order. Not meaning that's the reason, but that it's a by product.

Just poor English I think... Though he may have been being offensive, you can never be sure :lol:

 

[Snoo]

Exactly what furie said. Obviously TPR doesn't plan their trips around the Mitch Hawker polls.. as that would be retarded.

 

[Stone Cold]

However, CF have never visited anywhere en mass in order to make a dent in the ratings

That's a bit of a misguided view of why people do TPR trips.

I think Stone Cold just wrote that poorly. I think he meant:

However, CF have never visited anywhere en mass, which will make a dent in the ratings. It's the use of the word in order. Not meaning that's the reason, but that it's a by product.

Just poor English I think... Though he may have been being offensive, you can never be sure :lol:

Let me see, do I admit to using poor English... or pretend I was bashing TPR...


So anyway, do TPR not have anything better to do than disrupt roller coaster polls? They make me livid, why can't they just enjoy coasters, and as for that whole donkey thing, there should be laws against that...

 

[Gazza]

Just to add some more fuel to the fire of the TPR group mentality issue, I found this quote from here interesting.

The ride is a custom design for the park, but it is similar enough to be a clone of either of the two Busch Gardens rides in the United States, even down to the splash down area at ride end, where those who stand in the wrong place should be dabbled with water. It goes without saying that the ride was absolutely superb, as is a given for any new B&M product. The group voted to list it as the second best coaster of the trip, with Crystal Wings holding on to the top spot.

 

[Mike]

^To me, that really doesn't mean anything...

I can't believe this argument is still going!
It'll be the 2009 poll soon, so people should save some of their "TPR mucks up the poll" arguments until then! :lol:

 

[M_Force_4_ever]

Ok I'm a little late but I'll throw my 2 cents in...

Sure the placement of certain coasters with such a limited amount of riders does make one curious, however regardless of weather TPR is trying to use the Mitch Hawker poll as a marketing ploy is irrelevant to the fact that T Express does look like an amazing ride and I wouldnt doubt it earning the number 1 spot. And before you say that I'm a TPR fanboy please know I along with many other people were banned from TPR back in 2007 simply because we post at www.tommyandjames.net so no I am not a TPR fanboy. With that said, I'm not entirely sure I buy into the idea of a 17 year old Arrow suspended that had never even placed in the poll due to lack of riders until 2007 would be that great. I personally think that my favorite Arrow suspended (Vortex at CW) while being a really great ride doesn't even come close to cracking my top 10. However I could be really wrong and whenever I get the chance to ride it it will surprise the heck out of me. Personally I'm a bit upset Millennium Force placed at #12 I know personally I rank it as my number one coaster bar none, and on my ballot I placed it above SROS, Goliath at Walibi World and Behemoth but I havent ridden anything else on the top 12 steel. As for wood I havent been on T Espress but as I stated earlier I don't doubt that it could clench that top spot. I have El Toro and Voyage tied for my top wood so yeah. Phoenix I have ranked as my #7 so pretty close. Ravine Flyer 2 is a great ride and I have it as #5. Thunderhead I have ranked as #6. Hades is ranked as #8 for me and that is all of the top 12 I've ridden but I feel like the wood list is pretty dead on.

 

[Anonymous]

yer i no coooooooooooooooool :roll: