About our Affiliates

The European Theme Park Critic Awards are bought to you by Theme Park Insider. As the founding member site of the awards, the site considers itself as a roller coaster equivalent to The Hitchhikers’ Guide.

The site is an independent resource for would-be theme park visitors with hundreds and hundreds of reviews of theme parks, their rides and even their restaurants.

Theme Park Insider, like Coaster Kingdom, also actively encourages reader input. The site goes further than simple Discussion Forums and offers the opportunity for you to tap into the theme park database and add your thoughts on every aspect of a theme park.

The site is the love child of Robert Niles, an American journalist, and also relies on Russell Meyers, writer of the “Blog Flume”, a round up of amusement park news from around the internet, and Ben Mills, TPI’s European correspondent.

Theme Park Insider is very much an international affair. The growing database of European parks is becoming an ever-increasing resource for enthusiasts with a growing pool of thoughts and information.

Joining Theme Park Insider are Coaster Kingdom, Disneyland Paris Guide, and Two Swords.

Disneyland Paris Guide is probably the internet’s most respected guide to Disneyland Resort Paris. Their park guide is comprehensive, includes photos of the resort (along with sister site, ClickMagique), there is a massive news and rumours section, and the forum is a hotbed of news, information and views from the Parisian resort.

In addition to this, Disneyland Paris Guide has historical information, tips to make the most of your visit, and information on all the shops and restaurants to be found at the resort.

Also on the panel is Jamie Shoesmith, whose history with Tussauds makes him a reliable source of information from the industry. Unofficially, he represents Guides Forum, sister site to Thorpe Park Guide, which is one of the more mature discussion forum with a strong Thorpe Park/Chessington leaning, and other coverage from Europe.

The European Theme Park Critic Awards have reaffirmed the strong relationship European sites have, but has also received support from numerous other sites.

These include Screamscape, the most dynamic coaster news site in the world, and also themeparks.about.com, a virtual encyclopaedia with guides covering virtually everything... including theme parks.

MS 25 February 2005.