We address the problem of parameter estimation for degenerate diffusion processes defined via the solution of Stochastic Differential Equations (SDEs) with diffusion matrix that is not full-rank. For this class of hypo-elliptic diffusions recent works have proposed contrast estimators that are asymptotically normal, provided that the step-size in-between observations $Δ=Δ_n$ and their total number $n$ satisfy $n \to \infty$, $n Δ_n \to \infty$, $Δ_n \to 0$, and additionally $Δ_n = o (n^{-1/2})$. This latter restriction places a requirement for a so-called `rapidly increasing experimental design'. In this paper, we overcome this limitation and develop a general contrast estimator satisfying asymptotic normality under the weaker design condition $Δ_n = o(n^{-1/p})$ for general $p \ge 2$. Such a result has been obtained for elliptic SDEs in the literature, but its derivation in a hypo-elliptic setting is highly non-trivial. We provide numerical results to illustrate the advantages of the developed theory.