Personally, coaster milestones have never been a huge deal for me. I love counting creds and getting to weird and wonderful corners of the world to experience strange new coaster experiences but I've never been that anal about ensuring my milestones are anything significant. There have been times where I've slightly regretted not trying a bit harder to ride more 'stand-out' coasters for the milestone spots but now that I've been on over 1000 of the things I do quite like looking back at my list and laughing at how ridiculous it is. I don't think I've ever really discussed my coaster milestones on the blog in the past so wanted to take some time today to revisit each milestone and give some general thoughts and feelings on each coaster on the list now that I've ticked off so many. This is revisiting my roller coaster milestones list!
The only coaster, and indeed theme park, no longer in operation in its original location on this list is Caterpillar Capers at Camelot! My humble 100th coaster credit and easily one of the most significant on this list, Caterpillar Capers is a Pinfari Big Apple coaster and probably one of the first of MANY come to think of it. I don't particularly remember riding the coaster specifically, but I do remember this visit to the park. The year was 2008 and I believe we had been to a CoasterForce Live event at Blackpool on the Sunday and were popping in to Camelot on the way back down south on the Sunday. It's the first instance I can recall of heading to a park specifically in search of creds and the rush of said trip fuelled my passion for what would become 15 years+ of cred hunting. RIP Camelot.
It's hard for me to remember a time where I wasn't obsessed with Halloween but fast forward to end of October 2009 and my little jaunt to the Netherlands to visit Walibi Holland and Toverland. I remember being in Walibi Holland during their Halloween Fright Nights event but not being bothered about mazes and walking past the queues for them in search of creds, funny how things change! Toverland was an odd one, I was on this trip with my friend Tom and honestly as just two adults Toverland at the time was a bit of a strange place to visit as it was mostly just an indoor kids theme park that happened to have a massive GCI coaster in the back yard as opposed to the fully fledged theme park it is now. Troy absolutely blew me away - previous to riding this my only experience with wooden coasters was Gwazi, Stampida and the Blackpool woodies so Troy really opened my eyes to what an incredible wooden coaster could really be like. It went straight into my Top 10 list and remains one of my favourite wooden coasters in the world to this day!
It's at this point, as I queued for this spinning family coaster, I really started thinking that I should put some more thought into what my milestones would be. In 2012 my best friend and I embarked on an epic three week theme park trip, starting in California before flying over to the East Coast to take on some of the most infamous coasters in the world. Y'all know I'm not a huge Mack fan and I'll be lying if I said this coaster was anything other than completely unremarkable. I remember queueing for it but that's essentially where my memory of the thing draws the line. I DO actually really enjoy Dwervelwind (mostly due to the onboard audio though to be fair) and I think Storm Chaser looks like it'll be a pretty good addition to the UK coasterscape but honestly when I go back to Knotts Berry Farm Sierra Sidewinder isn't going to be top of my list of coasters to reride.
I have a predicament with water rides/coasters in that I absolutely love them but I hate getting wet. I wish there were a way to enjoy every aspect of a water ride without having to deal with the sogginess after. But alas, that technology isn't quite with us yet so let's talk about Poseidon. Generally speaking I much prefer a water ride that has a bit more theming than coaster (think Journey to Atlantis at Sea World Orlando) so I don't love the coastery portions of this ride but I do absolutely love the theming, especially the first section coming out of the station and the rockwork around the final splashdown. Especially at night. I also love the way the entire Greece area is built around Poseidon as a focal point, I think it works gloriously and aesthetically the ride is stunning. I first rode this coaster in 2012 and I haven't ridden the thing since 2015 and even then I can remember it starting to feel a little rough so lord knows what it's like now.
As much as Drievliet isn't my favourite theme park I do think Formule X is one of the most underrated coasters in Europe. This was one of Conor and I's first theme park trips away together back in 2014 so it was fun to experience some new parks with him for the very first time. Formule X is fantastic - it's a compact launch coaster perfect for a park like Drievliet. The launch is one of the most fun I've experienced and the layout is great and includes two inversions so certainly not uninteresting. It's SUCH a rerideable coaster too - if my memory serves me correctly it was pretty quiet during our visit so once we'd mopped up the creds in the park we spent most of our visit getting in multiple laps on this Maurer Sohne X-Car coaster. I'd have loved for Drayton Manor to get one of these instead of G-Force, miles better in every single way!
Oh god, what the hell was going ON in 2014 because I really do not remember this coaster at allll. Which is strange because generally I adore Intamin hydraulic launch coasters, especially ones that have a little more too them. I DO remember sitting in the seat and realising it was my 600th coaster, if that counts? You can start to see now why I wanted to start my blog in the first place, my memory is absolutely terrible. Speed Monster frames the entrance to Tusenfryd really nicely and if I'd taken Instagram a bit more seriously at the time you can be sure I'd have shoved a photo of it up there pride of place (sadly I thought a photo of the water coaster was more worthy...) Sorry I don't have much to say on this one - the park itself is actually really great and has some awesome flat and dark rides. It's a touch on the expensive side though so watch out for that!
Now here is one I DO remember! 2015 took us on one of our most amazing trips to date to Japan, and of course we visited Tokyo Disneyland whilst we were there. I believe I headed out to Japan pretty close to 700 and Tokyo Disneyland was one of the first parks we hit so it was nice to start the trip with hitting a big milestone. Fun fact, when we went on this ride our train weighed too much so instead of turning right on dispatch and up the lift-hill we turned left and into the maintenance shed instead, much to the surprise/amusement of the girls operating the coaster. Mini-kind-of evac from Tokyo's Space Mountain was certainly not something I was expecting from our visit! I don't LOVE Space Mountain in any iteration and this one is no different. I don't have anything against them, they just don't really do it for me Disney magic-wise like so many of the other iconic Disney attractions do.
Probably the most shameful cred on this list because at the age of 27 and ten years after ticking off my 100th coaster credit I really should know better. After staring through the gates at the grounds of Warwick Castle but choosing not to go in (no idea, don't ask) we wandered down to St. Nicholas Park, a small cluster of amusements and attractions in the corner of a larger town park in Warwick. The coaster is an SBF Visa family affair, not really much to it really. I do remember it being very hot that day and contemplating my life decisions as I stood sweating in a queue surrounded by families with small kids as we waited to ride this. I also think it's one of the last kiddie coasters Conor rode with me before retiring from his cred hunting career officially.
What can I say about Formula Rossa that I haven't already? I didn't plan for this coaster to be my 900th but there was a healthy amount of spite during the rest of our honeymoon but damn what a milestone. I love launch coasters and Rossa is the daddy of all launch coasters - my favourite launch on any coaster in the world and a layout that carries that speed and acceleration through to its full potential. Following the initial rush the ride is packed full of glorious sweeping turns and floaty, elongated airtime hills that left you revel in every second of its unrivalled speed and force. It's absolutely euphoric.
Ah the Beast at Kings Island. Or as I like to call it, Letdown: The Ride. I won't go on too much about Beast as I've banged on about it many times before and I'm sure you're all bored of me going on about how much I didn't enjoy the thing. I'm actually so gutted this was such a let down for me as walking up to it I was so HYPED. I hopped, skipped and jumped my way into the queueline, took up my seat in pole position and excitedly told the completely disinterested and un enthusiastic ride op that this was my 1000th coaster credit (I'm sure on the inside he was buzzing for me). I remember the exact moment when the excitement melted away into frustration and despair as we hit the umpteenth set of trims around the layout. I remember feeling so deflated as we pulled into the station and I tried to remain positive so we could get some coaster milestone pics by the ride sign and entrance but damn. Damn.
And that about does it. Obviously the spiteful VIRUS has ruined my chances of hitting my next milestone this year which is a bit of a shame, but I'm sure I'll be ticking off 1100 soon enough! I like the anticipation of having literally zero clue what cred might take that iconic slot when it really could be anything from a silly kiddie coaster to a legendary coaster giant. Who knows!
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What about you - do you count coasters and if so what are your milestone coasters? Do you purposely try to engineer it so you ride a specific coaster for a specific number or are you happy to leave it to fate? Let me know in the comments, I love chatting to you guys!
Talk later xoxo,
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