How can we say this delicately? Disney and Universal will always win in the end. The resorts owned by those huge corporations have equally huge budgets that fuel innovation, marketing, and international draw that local parks simply can’t compete with. That’s why Disney and Universal creations almost completely fill our countdowns of the Top 15 Dark Rides and Top 15 Roller Coasters as ranked by our readers.
Every day, readers ask us to write more about their favorite regional parks. We hear you, and we want to! The truth is, our content will continue to focus on the mega-parks (since that’s what most of our readers overwhelmingly want), but we also want to make sure those smaller, regional parks get their share of the spotlight.
Below, we’ve collected a dozen that are meant to give an example of the Disney-quality parks out there. This is not an exhaustive list, and if your favorite park doesn’t get featured, that’s not to say it’s not a good park. This list is just a sampling of the great parks stuck in Disney’s shadow. Will the parks on this list ever be more popular than Disney and Universal? Of course not. But they do have stories, attractions, and settings that are just as impressive as Disney’s best. And it doesn’t stop here – the overwhelmingly positive reaction to this feature lead us to a sequel: 12 MORE Underdog Parks. Make the jump to catch the full list of all 24!
1. Efteling
© Efteling
Location: Kaatsheuvel, North Brabant, Netherlands
Map: PDF
About: Efteling in the Netherlands opened in 1952. Its starring attraction was the Fairy Tale Forest, a walkthrough forest of characters and settings from all manner of legend. Ever since, the park has grown in a trajectory not unlike Disneyland’s (which opened 3 years later), adding incredible dark rides scattered among themed lands. Today, Efteling is easily one of the most beautiful theme parks in the world, featuring a mix of modern coasters, audio-animatronic populated dark rides, and the original Fairy Tale Forest, which continues to accrue new stories every decade.
Signature Attractions: Two of the park’s most beloved dark rides are distinctly Disney-esque in their presentation and oppulence. The magnificent Dreamflight is a suspended dark ride through and over enchanted forest realms populated by fairies and goblins. Across the way, the infallible exterior of Fata Morgana (above) conceals a dark ride on par with Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean, but retelling the tale of 1,001 Arabian Nights.
2. Alton Towers
© Merlin Entertainment
Location: Alton, Staffordshire, United Kingdom
Map: PDF
About: Easily the most well-known park in the U.K., Alton Towers originated as the very real manor home of English nobility in the 1800s. In the 1920s, the elegant Gardens around the mansion were restored as a tourist attraction. The park has since taken on a life of its own, developing into a modern thrill-based amusement park with cutting edge rides while still maintaining the regal and historical style of its forerunner. The park today has 10 themed lands, spread across its sprawling grounds.
Signature Attractions: There may be too many list, as Alton Towers is renowned for its “Secret Weapon” attractions that almost always dare to break records and expectations. In the post-apocolyptic Forbidden Valley, Nemesis stunned the enthusiast community with its tightly coiled inverted layout. In the futuristic X-Sector, the dizzying Smiler coaster (above) features a record-breaking 14 inversions. In the Dark Forest, the sinister Thirteen set a new standard for family thrills with its secret world’s first element…
3. Europa Park
Location: Rust, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Park Map: Interactive
About: The second most visited park in Europe after Disneyland Paris, Europa Park in Germany features almost 60 rides, including 12 roller coasters. The park is actually owned by roller coaster manufacturer Mack Rides Gmbh, who use the park to test prototype attractions. Today, the park is filled with European country-themed sections like Scandavia, Greece, and Austria.
Signature Attractions: Like choosing just a ride or two from Disneyland, it’s almost impossible to pick only a few signature attractions for Europa Park. For coaster lovers, the GCI-built Wodan Timbur Coaster is a clear stand out, located very near to Mack’s own Blue Fire, a launched coaster that tracks rider’s heartrate on live in-seat monitors throughout. In Greece, Poseidon is a picturesque water coaster that lives up to its name. An entire land (and associated high-tech dark ride / coaster) themed to Arthur and the Minimoys Kingdom has put Europa Park on the map yet again.
4. Busch Gardens Williamsburg
Image: Busch Gardens
Location: Williamsburg, Virginia, United States
Map: Interactive
About: Like Europa Park, each of Busch Gardens Williamsburg’s meticulously themed lands is dedicated to a European country. Busch Gardens, however, celebrates each country’s stories and traditions in a more “old world” way. Quite literally as much garden as theme park, Busch Gardens has been voted the world’s most beautiful for literal decades, and relies on authentic dining and merchandise options in its hamlets (England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, and Italy), along with appropriately-themed live entertainment that keeps folks coming back for more.
Signature Attractions: Even if Busch Gardens is sold as an authentic and romantic recreation of “the old country,” it does sneak in some of the world’s best coasters. The towering Griffon (above) is the world’s tallest and fastest Dive Machine, seating 10-across in its massive wingspan. In Germany, the Dark Forest-ed Verbolten coaster left fans jaws in freefall while Curse of DarKastle was the second ride in the world to use the roving, 3-D motion simulator technology Universal’s Spider-Man, briliantly transposing the tech onto a haunted German castle.
5. Phantasialand
© Phantasialand
Location: Brühl, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Map: Interactive
About: Themed to adventure and exploration, Phantasialand is divided into unique realms like Mystery, Fantasy, Deep in Africa, China Town, and Mexico, each packed with attractions that rival (and even exceed) Disney’s contemporary efforts in terms of themeing and storytelling, always fusing in innovative thrill.
Signature Attractions: No matter how you like your adventure, Phantasialand has got a ride for you. The innovative Maus au Chocolat played off of Disney’s interactive Toy Story Mania ride system, arming guests with a pastry cream bag of chocolate! The slithering Black Mamba inverted coaster dives through an ancient African fortress. The Mexico area of the park contains the dizzying Talocan (which earned a spot on our list of the Seven “Ancient” Wonders of the Theme Park World) and the brand new log flume adventure Chiapas with its record drop.
6. Lotte World
Image: Lotte World
Location:
Map: PDF Download
About: Lotte World earned the #1 spot on our countdown of the biggest Disney copycat parks in Asia, though we admitted that it may be unfair to call the park a copycat. After all, Lotte World is a destination in its own right. It’s an impressive park that, like so many others, simply borrows from Disney here and there. Sure there are times when their attractions come across as imitations of Disney’s. Just as often, Lotte World pulls ahead and produces incredible rides that deserve attention in their own right!
Signature Attractions: Probably Lotte World’s most ambitious and memorable attraction is Pharaoh’s Fury, which borrows the EMV technology behind Disneyland’s Indiana Jones Adventure (and Animal Kingdom’s DINOSAUR). The ride even parallels a few of Indy’s most striking scenes. The park’s Atlantis Adventure is a stunning water coaster that’s quite unlike anything else on Earth. Altogether, Lotte World is one of the best “borrowers” of Disney ideas in that it implements them in new and unusual ways.
7. Thorpe Park
© Merlin Entertainment
Location: Chertsey, Surrey, United Kingdom
Map: PDF
About: Until the new millennium, Thorpe Park was a family getaway, through-and-through! With only a few water rides, family flat rides, and a safari car ride in its lineup, the park was divided into charming and detailed themed lands. But starting in 2002, the park expanded aggressively. Since then, Thorpe has built five massive coasters and obliterated most of its early family offerings and themed lands, opting instead to proudly proclaim itself as the nation’s thrill capital (opposite sister park Alton Towers, which leans in a more family direction). Thorpe’s sudden growth spurt has left its identity a bit muddled, but you can’t argue with an extreme coaster lineup like theirs…
Signature Attractions: Designed as a sort of volcanic “spin-off” of Alton Tower’s world famous Nemesis, Thorpe’s Nemesis Inferno doesn’t surpass its older sister, but it’s a fantastic complimentary ride. The park’s launched Stealth coaster has always been a fan favorite. SAW: The Ride opened in 2009 as a grisly and grimy Gerstlauer Euro-fighter based on the disturbing film franchise, while 2012 saw the addition of the similarly-dark The Swarm, a B&M Wing Rider coaster specializing in incredible near-miss optical illusions with the remnants of an embattled and destroyed military base. The park also seemed to regret its dramatic shift away from family rides and made up for it with 2014’s Angry Birds Land.
8. Blackpool Pleasure Beach
© Technifex
Location: Blackpool, Lancashire, England
Map: Online
About: Blackpool Pleasure Beach, like many coastal boardwalks throughout the world, is a low-priced-entry amusement park pier where guests can purchase wristbands or ride tickets to pay-per-ride on the boardwalk’s assortment of attractions. It harkens back to an earlier (and in some ways, simpler) time of parkgoing.
Signature Attractions: The park is filled with attractions like the historic and totally unique Steeplechase three-laned horse-riding coaster and The Big One, the towering 235-foot coaster that makes the park a thrill-lover’s paradise. Classically British is the Wallace & Gromit Thrill-O-Matic dark ride. Even then, probably the most iconic ride at the park, however, is Valhalla – a startling water dark ride through the afterlife world of Viking lore hidden behind a rocky cliff face. The ride features fire, water, real ice, and animatronic figures.
9. PortAventura
© PortAventura
Location: Salou, Catalonia, Spain
Map: PDF
About: Concieved and built with Anheuser-Busch (the brewery company behind Busch Gardens and SeaWorld) and briefly owned by Universal Parks (during which time it was named Universal’s Port Aventura), this Spanish park has a history as varied as its ride line-up. Today, the park is just part of a full-fledged resort (which includes four hotels and a water park) and is the most-visited park in Spain and the 6th most visited in Europe. The adventure-themed park contains ports based on the Mediterranean, Mexico, the Far West, Polynesia, and China.
© Thinkwell Group
Signature Attractions: The surprising Furius Baco coaster (above) was Intamin’s first foray into winged seating, launching guests from a dark ride and out into a vineyard on a grape-harvesting machine. Interestingly, the ride proves that “less is more” by featuring almost no elevation change, focusing instead on pure speed. The park’s China land contains its two biggest coasters. B&M’s twisted Dragon Khan flips 8 times along its twisted circuit, while the white track of the new Shambhala towers over it with a 256 foot drop – the tallest in Europe.
10. Terra Mítica
© Sally Rides
Location: Benidorm, Comunitat Valenciana, Spain
Map: PDF
About: Practically down the road from PortAventura is the similarly-themed Terra Mítica. Like PortAventura, this ancient-adventure themed park briefly captured the eye of American park operaters and was named Terra Mítica: A Paramount Park for a few years in the early 2000s. Paramount filed for bankrupcy protection to exit its management contract with the Spanish park shortly before exiting the business altogether and selling its American portfolio to Cedar Fair. While not as large as PortAventura, Terra Mítica is sizable and contains some really stellar attractions.
Signature Attractions: The Magnus Colossus wooden coaster is built into the rocky cliffs that serve as the park’s backdrop, and features a unique double-down drop. The park’s most unique ride might be El Laberinto del Minotauro, an interactive dark ride built by Sally Corp. (who are responsible for the Ghost Blasters, Boo Blasters, and Scooby Doo dark rides in America). This particular dark ride, though, challenges guests to score points by shooting mythological enemies in a dark labyrinth. At any number of points along the ride’s circuit, low-scoring vehicles are re-routed to the exit! Only those carts that can keep scores high make it to the finale encounter with the Minotaur himself.
11. Gardaland
Location: Castelnuovo del Garda, Italy
Map: Interactive
About: Now owned and operated by the same folks behind Alton Towers and Thorpe Park, Gardaland is slowly being transformed and expanded into a world class theme park resort. With lands roughly based on Medieval times, Arabian Nights, a Western town, a pirate port, and more, the park is in transition as it grows and adds new coasters frequently.
Signature Attractions: The steel mine-train coaster Mammut is nearly identical to Disney’s Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, but set in the snowy mountains of an archaeological dig. The wild Sequoia Adventure is a rare S&S Screaming Squirrel model, basically flipping the wild mouse coaster on its side with torturously uncomfortable results (do yourself a favor and click the ride’s name to watch the video). The park’s most ambitious addition was 2011’s Raptor, the first of B&M’s now-famous Wing Rider coasters. Raptor swirls through 3 inversions and encounters countless “near-miss” elements with scattered scenery, giving the impression to riders and onlookers that collision is unavoidable. Of all the Wing Riders, Raptor is by far the most impressive in action.
12. Kennywood
Image: Kennywood
Location: West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, United States
Map: Online
About: Kennywood is one of those traditional, family-style amusement parks that dot the landscape throughout the United States and the United Kingdom. And to be fair, we could’ve chosen any one of those charming, old-timey parks to fill the last slot on our collection. Kennywood is a nice middle ground, with historic coasters, antique dark rides, and a few new, high-tech additions that make it a perfect, timeless family park.
Signature Attractions: The park is rightfully renowned for its classic dark rides. The Old Mill (currently given an unfortunate overlay as Garfield’s Nightmare) first opened in 1901. Yes, 1901. Noah’s Ark is a walkthrough dark ride dating to 1936. Similar dark rides dotted the world for many, many decades, but Kennywood’s is now the only one left in the U.S. The newer, trackless Ghostwood Estates and an enclosed wild mouse (fittingly themed as The Exterminator) round out the park’s dark rides.
It also features three John Miller classic coasters (Jack Rabbit, Racer, and Thunderbolt), plus two incredible modern additions. The Phantom’s Revenge hyper-coaster is built on a cliff, with its second drop being its tallest, diving 228 feet into a ravine. Meanwhile, 2010’s Sky Rocket is a launched, inverting Premier coaster perfect for the family.
Conclusion
Alright, is that list exhaustive? Certainly not. Your favorite park may have been left out again. So let’s be clear: there are hundreds of incredible parks across the world that never get the attention they deserve. It’s a bit like arguing that your local taco joint should be as famous as Chipotle. You’d probably be right to think so, but it’s an unwinnable war! Disney and Universal will always be international draws that are engrained in pop culture. Let’s face it: Efteling will probably never reach that level of fame.
So when our news and features favor Universal and Disney, know that we’re not pretending that incredible parks like the ones above don’t exist. It’s not that we think Disney and Universal are the end-all, be-all. It’s just that, like it or not, they’re the giants. We hope you’ll visit some of the parks we’ve mentioned here and the many, many, many more just like them. They deserve it!
What’s your favorite park not owned by Disney or Universal, and why? Tell us in the comment section below! Then remember to make the jump to 12 MORE Underdog Parks to check out the second half of this list!
