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Most spurious/obscure theme park “world’s first” or record claim?

Matt N

Matt N

CF Legend
Hi guys. Innovation has driven the theme park industry for decades, and back in the day, some of these firsts and records were absolutely pivotal moments in the history of the modern industry. The world’s first tubular steel roller coaster at Disneyland in 1959. The world’s first modern inverting roller coaster at Knott’s Berry Farm in 1975. The world’s first roller coaster over 200ft at Cedar Point in 1989. Moments like these were truly seismic for the industry!

But as of late, we’ve arguably seen these “world’s firsts” and records take a slightly more… spurious turn. As we’ve pushed the feasible limits of height, speed, length, inversions etc, parks have increasingly been clutching at straws for their firsts and records in recent years. We’ve seen parks reach for some increasingly spurious and/or obscure records and firsts to sell their new rides in recent times. With this in mind, I’d be curious to know; which obscure/spurious theme park record or world’s first sticks out to you most as a particularly spurious or obscure claim?

I’ll get the ball rolling with a couple of suggestions of my own:
  • “World’s largest loop diameter” (Do-Dodonpa at Fuji-Q Highland, 2017) - This one seems to me like they couldn’t quite do the world’s tallest vertical loop, but they still wanted a loop-related record… “largest loop diameter” seems so strangely obscure compared to “tallest vertical loop” to me, though.
  • “World’s first roller coaster fully dedicated to virtual reality” (Galactica at Alton Towers, 2016) - I’m still not even sure what Alton Towers meant by this claim. Galactica was not the world’s first roller coaster to use virtual reality headsets, so I’ve got no idea how it was the first to be “fully dedicated to VR”… it’s arguably quite a spurious claim by mere virtue of how hand-wavey and open-ended it is!
  • “World’s steepest roller coaster” (TMNT Shellraiser at Nickelodeon Universe Theme Park, 2021) - I’m not raising “world’s steepest roller coaster” as a spurious or obscure claim in itself, but I’m raising this particular example of it because TMNT Shellraiser arguably broke the record in one of the pettiest manners I’ve ever seen… it’s quite literally a clone of Takabisha that has the main drop half a degree steeper. Something about building a clone of a record breaking ride and claiming to have the record based on the drop being half a degree steeper, an amount that could potentially be encompassed within the scope of a rounding error, just seems so strangely petty!
But I’d be keen to know; in the age of the increasingly spurious USP, which spurious/obscure theme park world’s first or record claims stick out to you as being particularly spurious or obscure?
 
Wickerman - love the ride, but "first coaster to fuse wood with fire" is both spurious (wood doesn't touch the fire for obvious reasons, so they're clearly not 'fused'), but is also wrong as Wodan has fire coming from the wolf statues at the top of the lift hill since 6 years before Wicker Man opened.
 
Expedition GeForce was long advertised as the world's steepest drop while twisting 72°. No joke, they just recently stopped claiming this "record".
Taron was always advertised as the world's longest Multilaunchcoaster of it's kind (meaning no inversions).
 
I'd list it as something like this (May have missed a few but can edit later 😂 )

A Tier Records
Longest Roller Coaster In The World
Tallest Roller Coaster In The World
Fastest Roller Coaster In The World
Most Inversions In The World

B Tier Records
Steepest Roller Coaster In The World
Worlds First [Insert Roller Coaster type here]
Worlds Tallest Inversion
Worlds Fastest Acceleration
Most Airtime In The World

C Tier Records
Fastest [Insert coaster type here] In the World
Tallest [Insert coaster type here] In the World
Longest [Insert coaster type here] In the World

D Tier Records
Fastest Roller Coaster In [Insert area here]
Tallest Roller Coaster In [Insert area here]
Longest Roller Coaster In [Insert area here]

Rubbish Records That Don't Count
Pretty much everything else
 
Saw the Ride - World's First Horror Movie themed rollercoaster. I'd say that's quite an odd world's first. I'd also have thought you'd see Saw at Six Flags or Cedar Fair, not Thorpe Park with Merlin.

The stuff about Thirteen being the World's first psycho-coaster marketing was bizarre for a family coaster.
 
I remember when Son of Beast was announced with its seven world records:

1. Tallest Wooden Rollercoaster
2. Fastest Wooden Rollercoaster

Yep, fine, no problem with these. Very very valid records.

3. Longest Wooden Rollercoaster Drop

Mmm... I mean pushing it a bit here. Nobody really suggested that Kingda Ka was both the tallest coaster and the one with the longest drop. I mean, sure there are examples where the drop is longer that the coaster is tall or whatever, but lets be honest, this is just the same record.

4. First and only wooden hyper coaster

I mean this is the just the same record again. You're tall. We get it. As hyper / giga etc are made up terms that only really goons understand, it has about as much validity as saying "Oh it's the first coaster about 199 feet, that is a world records, its the first coaster above 198 feet, there's another one."

5. Longest looping coast

I suppose it's valid. But a bit tenuous isn't it? "We can't call it the longest because its not, I know, let's add a proviso so that we can ignore anything longer."

6. Only looping roller coaster

You're taking the piss now. This is not a world record. It's not a first. Just being the only of something is simply not a world record. It's just not.

7. Most Wooden Coaster Track in one park

Oh I don't know how to tell you this, but apart from being a rubbish record, it would belong to Kings Island, not Son of Beast. It literally only would be the record because it was in the same park as the original beast. By that logic if they added a kids wooden coaster, that would become the new record holder. Since it was demolished do you know who has this record? No? Me neither. Do you care? Nope.

I seem to recall that for a short period they may even have alleged a world record for the coaster holding the most world records, but I would imagine that even they became embarrassed by that one!
 
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