The Golden Ticket Award for Best New Ride is presented by Amusement Today to the best new attraction in the water park industry. The award was presented for best new attraction in both water parks and amusement parks since its inception in 2005 until 2018.

History

The Golden Ticket Awards have been presenting awards since 1998 acknowledging amusement and water parks for their achievement in different categories. The Best New Ride award was introduced in the form of two different awards to acknowledge the best in amusement and water parks. The award has been presented since 2005 and has been featured on the Discovery Channel and the Travel Channel. In 2019, the amusement park award was split into three categories. The overall award was renamed to Best New Attraction Installation of 2019, with "industry suppliers and parks hav[ing] direct involvement with nominations".^[1] The Best New Family Attraction and Best New Roller Coaster categories were also introduced.

Amusement park ride recipients

Best New Amusement Ride

From 2005 to 2018, the fourteen winners were only produced by twelve different theme parks. The parks to introduce the most winners in this timespan were Cedar Point and Dollywood with two rides each. With 5 awards, Cedar Fair is the company that produced the most best new rides.

Year	Winner(s)	Park		Other candidates
2005	Hades	Mt. Olympus Water & Theme Park		Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure Italian Job: Stunt Track at Paramount's Kings Island maXair at Cedar Point Powder Keg: A Blast into the Wilderness at Silver Dollar City SheiKra at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay	[2]
2006	The Voyage	Holiday World & Splashin' Safari		Expedition Everest at Disney's Animal Kingdom El Toro at Six Flags Great Adventure Goliath at Six Flags Over Georgia Kentucky Rumbler at Beech Bend Park	[3]
2007	Maverick	Cedar Point		Mystery Mine at Dollywood Griffon at Busch Gardens Europe Renegade at Valleyfair Troy at Toverland	[4]
2008	Ravine Flyer II	Waldameer Park		Boardwalk Bullet at Kemah Boardwalk Behemoth at Canada's Wonderland Led Zeppelin - The Ride at Hard Rock Park Evel Knievel at Six Flags St. Louis	[5]
2009	Prowler	Worlds of Fun		Diamondback at Kings Island Manta at SeaWorld Orlando Terminator Salvation: The Ride at Six Flags Magic Mountain Monster Mansion at Six Flags Over Georgia Pilgrims Plunge at Holiday World & Splashin' Safari	[6]
2010	Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey	Islands of Adventure		Intimidator 305 at Kings Dominion Sky Rocket at Kennywood Intimidator at Carowinds Ghost Ship at Morey's Piers Joris en de Draak at Efteling	[7]
2011	New Texas Giant	Six Flags Over Texas		Cheetah Hunt at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay Wooden Warrior at Quassy Amusement Park Twister at Gröna Lund Zippin Pippin at Bay Beach Amusement Park	[8]
2012	Wild Eagle	Dollywood		Radiator Springs Racers at Disney California Adventure Leviathan at Canada's Wonderland Verbolten at Busch Gardens Williamsburg OzIris at Parc Astérix Skyrush at Hersheypark	[9]
2013	Outlaw Run	Silver Dollar City		Iron Rattler at Six Flags Fiesta Texas GateKeeper at Cedar Point Gold Striker at California's Great America Transformers: The Ride at Universal Studios Florida	[10]
2014	Flying Turns	Knoebels		Banshee at Kings Island Goliath at Six Flags Great America Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts at Universal Studios Florida Lightning Run at Kentucky Kingdom	[11]
2015	Fury 325	Carowinds		Wicked Cyclone at Six Flags New England Twisted Colossus at Six Flags Magic Mountain Cú Chulainn Coaster at Tayto Park Thunderbird at Holiday World & Splashin' Safari	[12]
2016	Lightning Rod	Dollywood		Storm Chaser at Kentucky Kingdom Mako at SeaWorld Orlando Valravn at Cedar Point Switchback at ZDT's Amusement Park	[13]
2017	Mystic Timbers	Kings Island		Flight of Passage at Disney's Animal Kingdom Mine Blower at Fun Spot America InvadR at Busch Gardens Williamsburg Wave Breaker: The Rescue Coaster at SeaWorld San Antonio	[14]
2018	Steel Vengeance	Cedar Point		Time Traveler at Silver Dollar City Twisted Timbers at Kings Dominion Oscar's Wacky Taxi at Sesame Place Wicker Man at Alton Towers	[15]

Water park slide recipients

Winners of the Best New Water Slide has only been produced by seven different water parks out of the 16 slides that have been rewarded. The park to introduced the most exciting new water slide is Holiday World & Splashin' Safari with five slides, yet the park shares with Schlitterbahn with five titles held within their respective companies.

Due to an incident in 2016 in which a ten-year-old boy was decapitated, Verrückt became the first ride that had won an award from Amusement Today for Best New Ride to be removed. Verrückt operated for 2 and a half seasons before closing indefinitely on August 7, 2016. ^[16] The Kansas City Schlitterbahn water slide is not the first award recipient to have a fatality incident as so did the New Texas Giant back in 2013, yet the roller coaster still operates today after an intensive investigation that was done on the ride.

Year	Winner(s)	Park		Other candidates
2005	Black Anaconda	Noah's Ark Water Park		Crush 'n Gusher at Typhoon Lagoon Typhoon at Six Flags New England Bahari Wave Pool at Holiday World & Splashin' Safari Funnel of Fear at Michigan's Adventure	[2]
2006	Bahari River	Holiday World & Splashin' Safari		Time Warp at Noah's Ark Water Park Tornado at Six Flags Great America Fire Tower Falls at Dollywood's Splash Country	[3]
2007	Bakuli	Holiday World & Splashin' Safari		Deluge at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom Brainwash at Wet 'n Wild Orlando East Coast Waterworks at Hersheypark Poseidon's Rage at Mt. Olympus Water & Theme Park	[4]
2008	Dragon's Revenge	Schlitterbahn		Dolphin's Plunge at Aquatica Orlando Black Hole: The Next Generation at Wet 'n Wild Orlando Rock & Roll Island at Water Country USA Taumata Racer at Aquatica Orlando	[5]
2009	Congo River Expedition	Schlitterbahn		Wahoo Racer at Six Flags St. Louis UpSurge! at Alabama Adventure Maximum Velocity at Wet'n' Wild Phoenix Dr. Von Dark's Tunnel of Terror at Splish Splash	[6]
2010	Wildebeest	Holiday World & Splashin' Safari			[7]
2011	The Falls	Schlitterbahn			[8]
2012	Mammoth	Holiday World & Splashin' Safari			[9]
2013	River Rush	Dollywood's Splash Country			[10]
2014	Verrückt	Schlitterbahn Kansas City		Colossal Curl at Water Country USA Bahama Blasters at Six Flags Fiesta Texas Deep Water Dive at Kentucky Kingdom Snake Pit at Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom	[11]
2015	Dive Bomber	Six Flags White Water		SlideZilla at Elitch Gardens Theme Park Aqua Rocket at Raging Waters San Dimas Slideboarding at Wet'n'Wild Las Vegas Anaconda at Kalahari Resorts Pocono Mts.	[12]
2016	Massiv	Schlitterbahn, Galveston		Blackbeard’s Revenge at Carowinds Cyclone Saucers at Beach Bend Tropical Plunge at Kings Island Wonambi at Raging Waters, Illinois	[13]
2017	Thunder Rapids	Six Flags Fiesta Texas		Krakatau Aqua Coaster at Volcano Bay Point Plummet at Cedar Point Shores Miss Adventure Falls at Typhoon Lagoon Ko'okiri Body Plunge at Volcano Bay	[14]
2018	Ray Rush	Aquatica Orlando		Breaker's Edge at Hersheypark Rock Wheel at Chimelong Waterpark Whitecap Racer at Hersheypark Raja at Noah's Ark Water Park	[17]
2019	Cutback Water Coaster	Water Country USA		Lava Drifting at Shanghai Haichang Ocean Waterpark Daredevil's Peak at Little Stirrup Cay Infinity Racers at Schlitterbahn Galveston Rapid Remix at Soundwaves Water Park	[18]
2021	Cheetah Chase	Holiday World & Splashin' Safari		Riptide Race at Aquatica Orlando Tsunami Surge at Six Flags Hurricane Harbor Gurnee Venus Vortex at Lake Compounce Rally Racer at Waldameer Park	[19]