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What is the best flat ride of all time?

Blackhole6670

Roller Poster
Can you tell your favorite flat ride, along with the ride experience of that ride? Can you also tell what park that flat ride was in?
 
If you want a unique ride that will make you feel sick and dizzy for hours than try Adventure Island's Time Machine. Although my favourite flat ride is Rush at Thorpe Park which is a S&S Screaming Swing and is incredibly fun.
 
Power Surges hold a special place in my heart, but there is nothing like a good frisbee. I'm partial to Huss, as it's pretty much all we have in Ohio.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQv-cO6pY50[/youtube]
 
Not sure if this should be in Q&A. Probably in General Discussion, rather.

Also, SpinSpider is pretty good. As long as it's staffed by more than two people...
 
I love Talocan and Mystery Castle at Phantasialand. Both high quality theming, making a standard flat ride something truly special.
 
My favourite 5
Time Machine a flat ride that you spin upside down on with a lapbar the only flat ride I've ever blacked out on.
Slammer a one of a kind flat ride the hangtime you get as well.
Ramesis Revenge I found this to be a pretty good flat just a shame you didn't get wet.
Rush wow this ride I always feel like im standing up on it a great ride.
Samurai my first Top Scan and the cycle we got was great.
 
jj23w said:
Ramesis Revenge I found this to be a pretty good flat just a shame you didn't get wet.

Yeah it is a shame, used to be really fun when you get wet, now you barely get moist.

I love Slammer, it's great. I also love Rush and Vortex to. Thorpe is actually really good for flats. Love Samurai too actually.

Gravitron at Pleasure Island is really fab. Sky Tower at Legoland Florida is quite a fun concept actually.

Have to say my favourite is Slammer.

I was trying to think of other Floridian flat rides. Really ToT comes under dark ride so yeah...thinking of flat rides out there is proving difficult. Ugh.
 
Drop towers are my favourites, with Scream at Heide taking the top spot.

Other than that I loved the Sky Roller at Bakken, and Maelstrom at Drayton's pretty fab.
 
I stick with my funfair favs as flats in parks are mostly quite dull.

3rd - Huss Break Dancer No.2 - large Break Dance variant
2nd - Huss TopSpin - on manual mode with many (!!!) spins
1st - Schwarzkopf Monster - was my first adult ride back as a kid and still my fav
 

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I find it difficult to pinpoint an individual ride but my favourite types are Screaming Swings, Intamin gen 1 and 2 drop towers and Star Flyers.
 
Drop towers for sure, and especially Intamin gyrop drops are great! Scream! at Heide Park is awesome with it's theming, but the "very best" title has to go to the one at Kings Dominion! That particular gyro drop isn't very well themed, but it has the perfect combination of height and late braking; it really feels like you're going to smash into the concrete!!

An honorable mention goes to giant frisbees, top scans and skyswats. These are all great, adrenaline inducing rides, without being (too) nauseating :)
 
For purely the ride and not the theme of the ride:

MaXair has always been one of my favourite flat rides of all time. The rush you get on the full swings of that thing, followed by good forces is pretty exhilarating. A lot of flat rides seem to focus on spinning, which I'm not a huge fan of mostly, so I like the fact that this combines swinging and spinning instead of just one of the two.

Texas Twister at the old Geauga Lake will always have a special place in my heart! That thing had the best cycle of any Top Spin I have ever seen, ever. It didn't always do this, but back in the day (I believe when it was operating under six flags), it had incredibly long ride cycles, with probably 15-16 full flips including six or seven consecutive ones every time.

I love Top Scans too. <3

I never understood the love for Screamin Swings </3
 
I love drop towers, although wouldn't class them as flat rides. Apocalypse at Drayton Manor is the best example I've ridden.

Topspins are amazing too, but it's really down to the cycle.
 
5th: Slammer (Thorpe Park)
4th: Maelstrom (Drayton Manor)
3rd: Rock Rage (Graham Sedgewick)
2nd: Air (Danters)
1st: Rush (Thorpe Park)

These are consistently amazing (only ridden rock rage once and literally was one of the best rides of my life, but can't judge it on just one ride properly), rush' ride cycle is far too short though, but still my favourite. XXL when I went on it at winter wonderland was incredible, I think vortex at Thorpe Park is more intense though but really inconsistent as sometimes you don't get any time at the top which is a bit rubbish, whereas maelstrom is amazing every time without fail! I just like slammer as it's so cool and unique... I love pretty much all flat rides at theme parks, but fairgrounds I can feel a bit sick as they last too long when it's quiet and then at night when it looks amazing but busiest feels like such a rip off with awful cycle (besides Rock Rage at Hyde Park Winter Wonderland and didn't feel sick at all somehow!?)
 
They're not my favourite, but I think we have to give credit to the S&S shot/drop towers. They've been a hugely popular model that have been installed in god knows how many parks, from huge parks and chains like Universal, Cedar Fair and Six Flags to crappy roadside attractions and everything in between.

As enthusiasts, we may be bored of seeing them - I only ride them these days if the park's quiet and I've done pretty much everything else - but they remain really popular with a lot of park guests, even though they're bound to have seen them elsewhere at this stage.

I'm struggling to think of a more successful flat ride type in terms of number of installations to be honest. Top Spins probably take a pretty far behind second place.

My personal favourites are Intamin drop towers, specifically Gyro Drops. Well, those that actually rotate anyway (most of them) on the climb up. UFO at Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village is probably the best of those thanks to the theming and views.

I tend to see things like Tower of Terror and Mystery Castle as more overall "experiences" than drop towers, otherwise they'd clearly be at the top of the list.
 
Oh yeah, I forgot about drop towers. I wouldn't necessarily consider them Flat Rides, but they're still fun and are at almost every park.
 
These are some of my favorites:

Drop Zone (Kings Island)
Skyhawk (Cedar Point)
Fireball (Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk)
 
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