How we verify every height requirement

I started Theme Park Height Guide after one too many trips spent tabbing between nine park websites trying to work out what my kids could actually go on. The answer was always somewhere — in a PDF, on an individual ride page, in the small print under a chart — but never in one place, and never in the same format twice.

I maintain the ride records myself. Every height here is taken from the park's own published information and stored with the date it was checked, and a correction is made by going back to that source rather than from memory. Where a park publishes nothing, the site says so instead of guessing. If you spot something wrong, tell me — it gets checked and dated like everything else.

What we publish

For every park we maintain a ride-by-ride record: the ride name and type, the minimum height to ride accompanied by an adult, the minimum height to ride alone, any maximum height, and whether the ride is indoors. Those records drive every table, count and planner result on the site — nothing on a park page is typed twice or estimated separately, so what you see in a summary always matches the underlying ride list.

Where the numbers come from

Official park sources first: the park's own ride pages, ride finder or accessibility guide, its published height chart, and its printed park map where that is available online. Where a park's site is unclear or silent, we treat guest services confirmation as the next best source and note it. We do not copy figures from other directories, forums or review sites, and we do not carry forward a number simply because it appeared in an earlier version of this guide.

How each park is checked

Parks are worked through one at a time. We open the park's official website, navigate to its ride or height information, and read the current published requirement for each attraction, recording the date of the check and the page used. Every change is compared against what we already hold rather than overwriting it, so a difference is a deliberate correction with a source behind it, not a silent replacement. Parks with new rides, refurbishments or announced policy changes are re-checked ahead of the normal cycle.

How we classify a ride

Rides are grouped into height brackets using the lowest height at which a child can legally ride: if a ride can be ridden at 110cm with an adult and 140cm alone, it sits in the 110–120cm bracket, because that is the point at which the ride becomes available to your family. Brackets are under 90cm, 90–99cm, 100–109cm, 110–119cm, 120–129cm, 130–139cm and 140cm and above, plus a no-restriction group for rides the park confirms are open to all heights.

“No restriction” is not the same as “not listed”

This distinction matters more than any other on the site. A ride is only recorded as having no height restriction when the park states that — “no height requirement”, “all ages”, or an equivalent. When a park simply does not publish a figure, the ride is flagged as “height not listed”, shown with an amber badge, and left out of the count of rides your child can ride. We would rather under-promise on a park page than send a family to a ride they cannot board.

What we never do

We never infer a height requirement from a ride's type, its intensity or a similar ride at another park; an unknown stays unknown. We never fill gaps with figures from a previous season. We do not accept payment for a listing, a ranking, or a change to a ride's data, and no park has editorial input into what appears on its page.

Limitations you should know about

Parks change restrictions without notice, and individual rides can impose extra requirements on the day for maintenance, weather or medical reasons — as well as restrictions that have nothing to do with height, such as pregnancy, back and neck conditions or the use of certain mobility aids. Some smaller parks publish nothing at all online. Treat this guide as a planning tool that tells you which parks are worth your money, and confirm anything a day depends on with the park itself.

Update cadence

Every park page carries the date it was last verified, and that date is generated from the underlying data rather than typed by hand, so it cannot drift out of step with the ride list. Parks are re-checked on a rolling basis across the season, with priority given to parks that have announced new rides, changed policies or reopened after refurbishment.