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Ride that is better at night?

ThemeParkHistorian

ThemeParkHistorian

Roller Poster
Rides are great any time of the day, but there's no denying some rides take on a whole new life when dust falls. What is a ride that you think is even better at night than it is during the day? It can be any ride, non-coaster or not. It can even be an indoor ride as the atmosphere around it could be more inviting/convincing/spooky/beautiful and better at dark. Explain and/or provide pictures if wanted.

For me, it's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in Magic Kingdom. It's fun enough in the day, but at night it becomes a whole beast. It feels more faster, thrilling, and it's dark around the mountain so you don't know what happens next, and the lift hill with the views are dope.

Early 2019 Dates Announced for Disney After Hours at Magic Kingdom

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Any decent coaster is almost always going to be better at night.

The classic one is Beast, as mentioned above. However the darkness conceals the otherwise simple layout, so it's ultimately not as magical once you start experience more night rides on other coasters. You're better off getting a night ride on a coaster with a more exciting layout... such as Mystic Timbers.

Based off my experiences, Voyage is king, especially with the coveted trimless rides. Not ashamed to admit that my first night ride on that left me on the brink of tears. That was probably the single best coaster ride I've ever had.

Other great night rides I've done are Steel Vengeance, Skyrush, and Ravine Flyer II.

I'm lacking a night ride on Boulder Dash... perhaps I'll make that happen this year. Would also love one on Lightning Rod.
 
Outside of the obvious Beast & Voyage, a few good ones I've done that come to mind:
Outlaw Run: absolutely pitch black for most of that layout. Got a ride during fireworks as well, just as magical as you'd expect.
Lightning Rod is fantastic as well, though not as secluded as Outlaw Run since you can see the lights from the employee parking lot during the drop, but diving out of the wave turn feels like diving into an abyss. Coming down the quad down seeing all the lights (especially for their Christmas event) is pretty damn awesome too.
Intimidator 305: More of an oddball pick, but I absolutely love a night ride on this. Many good times burning through that track on a moonlit summer night.
Steel Vengeance is kind of an obvious pick as well, but flying through that lit up structure is very very cool.
 
Megafobia.

Fun during the day. At night, being in the middle of nowhere in south west Wales makes this shine. Majority of track is away from the park no nearby lighting and no light pollution makes for an almost pitch black ride.

Haven't ridden Beast but hear that gives a very similar experience
 
My best nightride was on Wodan at Europapark.
Edit: And I found it significantly better at night too.
 
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You said it right in your first message:
ThemeParkHistorian said:
For me, it's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in Magic Kingdom. It's fun enough in the day, but at night it becomes a whole beast. It feels more faster, thrilling, and it's dark around the mountain so you don't know what happens next, and the lift hill with the views are dope.
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The only truly dark night ride I’ve actually ever had was on Grand National at BPB, which I probably liked less than in the day as it seemed even rougher, but apparently Wicker Man at Alton Towers is supposed to be substantially improved after dark. I’m hoping to get there for Fireworks this year and see for myself; I adore Wicker Man during the day, so I can’t wait to ride it at night!
 
Balder at Liseberg comes to mind for me. Excellent during the day, but my 10 P.M marathon on an early May night in 2016 was an unforgettable experience, topped off with a last few rides on Helix a half-hour later which in itself was a different beast at night.
 
ThemeParkHistorian said:
Rides are great any time of the day, but there's no denying some rides take on a whole new life when dust falls. What is a ride that you think is even better at night than it is during the day? It can be any ride, non-coaster or not. It can even be an indoor ride as the atmosphere around it could be more inviting/convincing/spooky/beautiful and better at dark. Explain and/or provide pictures if wanted.

For me, it's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in Magic Kingdom. It's fun enough in the day, but at night it becomes a whole beast. It feels more faster, thrilling, and it's dark around the mountain so you don't know what happens next, and the lift hill with the views are dope.

Early 2019 Dates Announced for Disney After Hours at Magic Kingdom

​
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Phantom‘s Revenge no 🧢
 
Big Thunder at DLP springs to mind. On my first ride, as we crested the final lift hill we were presented with a view of the fireworks and for me it was true Disney magic!
 
Ahem... why has nobody mentioned Taron yet? Night time ERT on that thing is one of the best coaster experiences going.

Thing is, I think most coasters are better at night. When I look back at some of my all time favourite coaster experiences, I'm nearly always picturing in my head the night rides (assuming I had night rides). Taron, Helix, The Beast, Vengeance, Balder, Shambhala, Dragster etc..

I reckon it's much harder to think of a coaster that isn't better at night... but I do have a strange candidate for that title - Oblivion. I rode it at night once, pitch black it was, and I expected it to be even more terrifying than usual but somehow it just... wasn't.
I dunno, I guess not being able to see that massive drop and the tiny little hole in the ground took away an essential espect of the Oblivion experience. The ride just felt shorter, less scary, less intimidating and overall just a bit 'meh'.
Weird.
 
Howie said:
Ahem... why has nobody mentioned Taron yet? Night time ERT on that thing is one of the best coaster experiences going.

Thing is, I think most coasters are better at night. When I look back at some of my all time favourite coaster experiences, I'm nearly always picturing in my head the night rides (assuming I had night rides). Taron, Helix, The Beast, Vengeance, Balder, Shambhala, Dragster etc..

I reckon it's much harder to think of a coaster that isn't better at night... but I do have a strange candidate for that title - Oblivion. I rode it at night once, pitch black it was, and I expected it to be even more terrifying than usual but somehow it just... wasn't.
I dunno, I guess not being able to see that massive drop and the tiny little hole in the ground took away an essential espect of the Oblivion experience. The ride just felt shorter, less scary, less intimidating and overall just a bit 'meh'.
Weird.
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I mean it usually isn’t open at night, bc Phantasialand usually closes at eight pm
 
I find theme parks in general are better at night.

One of my most memorable night rides was Stampida in 2011.

I'm not usually a massive fan of it but for some reason it took on a whole new life at night and flew around the track a lot faster than it seemed to during the day.
 
I agree with @Howie, most rides are better at night (perhaps a better topic would be "rides that are better during the day").

But, in the spirit of the question - there are four that spring to mind for me. Rides that had truly defining night rides for me.

Steel Vengeance - this is obviously a top 5 ride during the day, but that might ride is what makes it number one for me. The fact that @Snoo and I (after he'd had over a dozen rides and I'd had three) both completely mistakenly thought the track was turning right, not left, during one of the final overbanks basically says it all. That ride is just something else.

Lightning Rod - another one that I'm thankful to share with other CFers, but that night ride hitting the crest of that second hill in, what can only be described as, "complete darkness" then racing down the quad-down towards the lights of the park, was yeah... special.

Beast - see all previous topics and posts.

Taron - this ride benefits from two things in the evening/night. One, the fact the ride has warmed up so much. Two, Klugheim at night. That's all I need to say on the matter really.

Honourable mention to Helix, Boulder Dash, Fury 325, Voyage or basically anything else in my Top 20.
 
Matt N said:
apparently Wicker Man at Alton Towers is supposed to be substantially improved after dark.
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Im not a massive fan of this coaster in the day, its just a bit meh. But I did really enjoy it in the dark during fright nights, not only is the coaster more fun but the area also looks awesome.

IMG_20191020_210944.jpg
 
One that isn’t spoken about too much is Zadra, not only does it haul at night but the visuals are incredible. Seeing the whole park lit up whilst inverted on the stall is honestly surreal and the parts in the structure, especially the second inversion are really disorienting.
 
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