Weekly Top 10: Top Theme Park Carousels

I'm very sad that the Grand Carousel at Knoebels couldn't crack this top 10. It's one of the few left in the world where you can still grab rings, and is quite fast.

Actually I'm not sure Knoebels is IN the parks guide for TPI anymore, although I want to make a plug for it. Possibly not a large enough park by numbers, but surely a park with outsize influence on the theme park world? Knoebels has two excellent carousels, and even the smaller one has an exquisite original pipe organ. Robert, can we get Knoebels back?

I follow TPI through RSS feed and rarely make my way over to the site, but I had to come over an plug the Grand Carousel at Knoebels myself. But nothing else compares to leaning out to try and catch the brass ring (or being the employee 'runner' to follow it and get it back!). It's also one of the few carousels that uses actual horse tails instead of carved ones.

I'm glad to see Cedar Downs ranked first on this list, but I agree with Russell and Jonah. The Grand Carousel at Knoebels is better than anything on this list, and the 1911 Looff Carousel at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk belongs here too (it's the only other one I've seen with a working ring dispenser). When it comes to big rides, these lists are great, but for smaller rides I've found the parks not featured on TPI often have better attractions than those that are.

Mildy disappointed that they didn't share the listing on the double decker with both parks listed.

Also wish you had listed the 2 other rides similar to Cedar Downs. Rye Playland and Pleasure Beach Blackpool have the only other 2 of those that I know of. Rye has the fastest as far as I know but CP's is definitely the best taken care of.

Great so see the carousel of the Efteling in The Netherlands on the second place. It is a beauty and it's building is also stunning.

Cedar Downs is a great ride. Always loved it, and really wish that the very similar ride at Rye Playland still raced.

However, my favorite carousel is Jane's Carousel in NYC (http://janescarousel.com/). Not in a theme park, but with amusement park roots, it came from Idora Park in my hometown of Youngstown, Ohio to my new home, New York. Definitely take it for a spin after walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. Nested inside an amazing glass cube, it has the best view of any merry-go-round on the planet.

This list can't really be considered as fully accurate due to the lack of classic parks in the TPI database, which are where all the best Carousels are (Knoebel's, Trimper's, Etc.)

Wow, I had no idea how many great carousels are out there! And now all the commenters have me dying to see the one at Knoebel's!

Of this list, I love the classic look of the MK carousel and the double-deckers are beautiful. But my favorite from this list, if I ever get to see it in person, would probably be King Triton's due to the use of undersea critters.

My personal favorite of carousels I've actually seen or ridden is the one at Audubon Zoo in New Orleans -- it has all sorts of zoo creatures, including a hippo!! :-)

Very glad the Riverview Carousel at SFOG made the list. Spurgeon Richardson, long time park President always referred to the carousel as, "The Fine China" of our park. It really is one of the loveliest rides in the world, and it is in such a beautiful location as well. It's also one of the last, if not the last original five abreast carousels left in the world.

Whenever we go to an amusement park, I always try to check out the carousel. Most of the carousels around the country are antiques. The one in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World was purchased by Disney from Olympic park here in New Jersey.

We removed Knoebels in the last listings purge because we had so little traffic to those pages and so few votes that it just wasn't worth keeping the park on the site with such poor response. Of course, overall traffic has grown since then, and if people are committed to helping maintain those listings, voting on them and referring people to them, I'd be happy to put the park back in the listings. I'd just need someone to send me a complete list of attractions and restaurants that I could easily copy and paste into the system.

Carousel @ Blackpool Pleasure Beach is pretty spectacular. Similar to your Number 1.

Robert, I'm game! That sounds like a fun weekend project. Worth it I think to get those attractions up on the site. And I make an annual pilgrimage, so I'll be sure to review as many of the attractions as possible, and start a thread on the discussion board to encourage others to do the same!

This is probably TPI's weakest top 10 list since many of the best & most historical carousels are from parks that TPI doesn't cover. Always considered one of the top carousels among enthusiasts is Kennywood's Merry Go Round, the Grand Carousel. It was built by William Dentzel in 1926 and placed in Kennywood in 1927. It was his last carousel.And it's still there.... From the book Kennywood Roller Coaster Capital of The World, by Charles Jacques 1982, "For both young patrons and the young at heart, a new full sized four row carousel was purchased from William Dentzel of Germantown. It had been built originally for the Philsdelphia Susqui-Centennial of 1926. Dentzel missed the deadline and it was completed with only two weeks to go in the exhibition. He sold it to Kennywood for $25,000. Although he was seriously ill, and died early in 1928,Dentzel left his sick bed to supervise the installation in a new $10,000 steel frame building. The carousel turntable was 54 feet in diameter. It had 50 jumping horses, one lion, one tiger, and 14 stationary horses along with bench seats, all of which was lighted by 1,400 fifty watt mazda bulbs.".....Music for the carousel is supplied by a 1916 Wurlitzer Musical Organ. The carousel is located next to the park lagoon and has always been the traditional meeting place for families. And it's also themed and used for the Halloween Horror Nights and the Christmas Holiday Celebration. And the carousel has been declared a Historical Landmark.

Loved Cedar Downs when the Rao Family (guest starring Jim & Anton Koehl) visited Cedar Point last summer. It was probably the biggest surprise of the entire trip. It is a fantastic take on an all too common attraction, and something no Cedar Point visitor should skip.

As an honorable mention, my disowned home park, Worlds of Fun, has a restored and renovated 1926 M.C. Illions carousel, previously of the chain's Geauga Lake park, called The Grand Carrousel. They really did a fine job in restoring this classic attraction, to the point that I do strive to visit it at least a few times each summer.

Nice to see SFGA get a place. The double decker is truly the gem of the park. It's the park that has all the right things in place, but is still held back.

A shame we don't have Phantasialand on the site - they have a gorgeous (and perfectly situated) old-school double-decker.

Can we put in an honorary mention for the carousel at the National Zoo in Washington DC? All different animals to ride from ostriches to wolves to big cats. Magical!

Carousels are the first "big person" ride that most of us remember from our childhood and deserve all the praise we can give. It seems the roller coaster people have dominated in TPI for a while but carousels are fundamental rides for all parks.

As a sad note, the carousel that was my favorite childhood memory was destroyed by fire 2 years ago when the Seaside Park, NJ boardwalk was destroyed by fire. I don't know any details about its age, maker or origin except that it was old and an important part of my life.

{EDIT} I did some research and discovered that the old carousel (a classic Illions model purchased from Coney Island in 1955) from my childhood with the wooden carved horses with real horse-hair tails was sold in the 1980s and a new, fiberglass animals carousel was the one destroyed in the 2013 fire. I hope the old carousel is providing fun to others where ever it went to.

I also discovered that the other Seaside Height carousel, an old one in the Casino Pier area, has closed in late 2014 and will be/has been sold. This summer will be the first year since about 1915 that there will be no carousel on the Seaside Heights boardwalk.

what about Les Machines?

The Loof Carousel at Santa Cruz Boardwalk also has rings and is in a park not on the site. I've probably ridden it as much as every other carousel combined.