Have you heard the news? Universal Orlando’s newest “E-Ticket” attraction, Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure is the first “story coaster” in the world…! Or is it?
What exactly makes a coaster “worthy” of being called a “story” coaster? Of course, there’s no official definition, so to help us make sense of what’s what, it got us thinking about four categories of classifying roller coasters by their storytelling. And though the lines can be blurry, we tend to think of it this way:
- “THRILL” COASTERS. Most of the bare wood or steel coasters at your neighborhood amusement park probably would fit here. Think of Six Flags’ Batman: The Ride, Knott’s Berry Farm’s Silver Bullet, or Cedar Point’s Millennium Force. Though some amount of decoration or style might exist in the name, queue, or station, the point of these coasters is to be coasters. It’s what they’re good at!
Image: Universal
- “SENSATION” COASTERS. Think of Universal’s Incredible Hulk. Though ultimately it is a thrill ride, there’s something a bit deeper – experiencing the rage of the Hulk. Cedar Point’s Maverick has the personality of a buckin’ bronco, twisting through canyons and racing along water as cannons fire. Busch Gardens Tampa’s SheiKra is named for the African bird known to dive straight down to pluck its prey, matching the coaster’s ultra-wide winged train and its vertical drop and elegant splashdown. It’s not just about riding a coaster; it’s about experiencing a particular sensation.
- “THEME” COASTERS. Though Big Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain, and even Seven Dwarfs Mine Train don’t walk us through a plot, they do have a unifying idea; they take us on a journey or through a process, often wrapped in a world. But do these rise to the level of a “story” coaster? To our thinking, they don’t. Though guests are part of these worlds – even briefly – they’re not active participants whose actions “influence” a story’s progression. Instead, they’re sailing through space or riding a wild mine train. Though perhaps wrapped less elegantly, even Six Flags, Cedar Fair, and Merlin parks can and do feature coasters of this caliber, like Smiler, Adventure Express, and more.
Image: Universal
- “STORY” COASTERS. A relatively new term reserved for the most elaborate rides, we argue that a story coaster would need to bring guests along for a plot – a beginning, middle, and end. Through these experiences, guests would need to disembark having played a role. Though background and exposition may happen in the queue, the ride itself would need to present rising action, a climax, falling action, and a conclusion – a lofty mark to hit when you’re traveling at roller coaster speed!
It’s not that one is better than another or that every ride should strive to move “up” a level. But thinking of it this way help us to decide if Hagrid’s really is the first “story” coaster on Earth (hint: it’s not) and what other rides might fit into this class… Take a look at the ones we decided on, then let us know which we missed!
1. Revenge of the Mummy
Image: Universal
Location: Universal Studios Florida
Opened: 2004
One of the early adopters of Universal’s relentless push to modernize its “studio” park, Revenge of the Mummy was once billed as the world’s first “psychological thrill ride.” Especially given that its max speed is 40 miles per hour and its largest drop is technically the same as Seven Dwarfs Mine Train’s, it’s quite a feat that the attraction largely lives up to the hype! Even 15 years later (a lifetime in Universal years), the ride is still considered among Universal’s best, earning it an in-depth making-of feature here, Modern Marvels: Revenge of the Mummy.
Image: Universal
But what’s most impressive is that Universal really pulled out all the stops in adapting the Mummy franchise and its heroes into a more-or-less coherent story that guests ride through. Our motivation? Imhotep is risen, has sucked the soul out of a stagehand, and is determined to kill us. Our goal? Find the symbol of the Medjai – the ancient protective order tasked with returning Imhotep to the grave – before it’s too late.
Along the way, Revenge of the Mummy is equal parts frightening and fun, with nimble 12-person “mine carts” that first act as dark ride vehicles before twisting, diving, slamming to a halt, and launching. Along the way, the ride uses animatronics, dead-end track, backwards sections, a turntable, and – in its most memorable moment – a “fake unload” station that then sees guests dive into a pit of fiery steam. Peace is restored when the Mummy is seemingly sealed away once again.
2. Expedition Everest
Image: Disney
Location: Disney’s Animal Kingdom
Opened: 2006
Though Disney’s “mountains” are among the most iconic roller coasters on Earth, we’d argue that most of them don’t really rise to the level of “story” coasters. Take Disneyland’s Matterhorn Bobsleds. While riders slalom along the icy mountain, through glacial grottos, and even encounter the Abominable Snowman, the ride isn’t really bringing them along for a plot. Instead, it’s merely conveying the fanciful theme of bobsledding as a joyful and freeing adventure.
However, its sister ride at Disney’s Animal Kingdom is a whole different beast. The Modern Marvel: Expedition Everest benefits from being layered into the park’s photorealistic Asia, which already has enough plot baked in (thanks to legendary Imagineer Joe Rohde and his team) to instantly add context and realism. The queue for Expedition Everest sets up what we need to know by sending guests through a Yeti museum with artifacts for and against the existence of the legendary guardian of the Himalayas.
Image: Disney
Once on board, guests trains head for a Forbidden Mountain only to be intercepted by track that’s been mysteriously uprooted… What follows is a descent through the mountain’s caverns with the protective Yeti in pursuit. The voyage through the Himalayas and the Yeti’s attack feels like a story guests are a part of. It’s happening to riders, not just around riders. And though it may feel like a story coaster would be the same every time and thus reduce re-ridability, Everest proves it’s not true, consistently considered one of the resort’s key attractions.
3. Backlot Stunt Coaster
Image: Cedar Fair
Location: Kings Island, Kings Dominion, and Canada’s Wonderland
Opened: 2005 and 2006
Opened first in 2005 at Kings Island when Paramount was at the helm, the Backlot Stunt Coaster (then called Italian Job: Stunt Track) fused Paramount’s intellectual property with a surprising product: a launched coaster for families. The result is a brief ride that doesn’t stand under scrutiny after a long wait, but one packed with personality (and unexpected punch) that’s perfect for families to ride together.
Image: Paramount Pictures
On board ¾ scale MINI Coopers (complete with functioning doors, windows, and on-board audio), guests were launched into an upward triple helix (cleverly set in a parking garage shell – up-and-around, just like in a parking deck) before slaloming through police cars, rumbling through an overbanked turn, whipping down a staircase, and then coming to a halt in an industrial yard. There, a rising helicopter would fire rounds, causing gas canisters to spray riders before igniting flame effects. In a second surprise launch, the cars would race into the sewers before emerging from a billboard and splashing down in an aqueduct.
Image: Paramount Pictures
Though the ride technically recreated the major scenes of The Italian Job’s action packed finale, the story was a bit more convoluted if only because (in typical “studio” park fashion) riders weren’t cast as escaping thieves, but as stunt car drivers filming the big finale themselves. Though we often deride the “stuntman” role as the mark of a bad story, it worked for this ride and felt right in the Paramount Parks – a good balance of theming and thrills for seasonal, regional parks!
Given that two of the three installation have essentially had their special effects shut off, it’s clear that Cedar Fair isn’t interested in these kinds of zippy, well-themed rides packed with “extras”… But even if the Backlot Stunt Coasters were “cheap and cheerful” additions at the end of Paramount’s reign, they’re evidence of what a critical role this kind of ride can play in making a park more than just a thrill park.
4. Space Mountain: De la Terre a la Lune
Image: Disney
Location: Disneyland Paris
Opened: 1995
Though Space Mountain has been a mainstay of Disney Parks since the first opened at Magic Kingdom in 1975, the ride is not what we’d call a story coaster. Instead, it’s meant to embody the exhilaration of free flight, the wonder of space, and the feeling of the unknown – something that would probably place it in our “theme coaster” category. But by time Disneyland Paris opened in the ‘90s, the Space Age was long over, and a stark, white, “NASA” inspired Space Mountain wouldn’t exactly resonate with French audiences.
Designers smartly returned Tomorrowland to the past, creating the incredible Discoveryland in its place – a retrofuturistic golden land of the future as envisioned by Jules Verne’s Voyages Extraordinaires and his contemporaries. In 1995, the land gained its iconic anchor and Lost Legend: Space Mountain – De la Terre a la Lune, based on the 19th century novel by Verne. The towering bronze and copper peak is easily identified by the massive, golden Columbiad Cannon that rests along its sloped exterior with an aim set for the stars.
Image: Disney
After queuing in the Baltimore Gun Club and observing blueprints of the Cannon, guests would board their trains and be loaded into the Cannon’s core. With an inclined launch from the cannon (including recoil and smoke), guests would be propelled into the mountain from its top, racing through set pieces inspired by the book and Georges Méliès silent film adaptation.
As the first Disney coaster with synchronized on-board audio, the whole journey was underscored by a masterful orchestral track. After breaking back through Earth’s atmosphere in a hypnotic light show, the brake run signaled guests’ return from their trip to the moon, passing through the Electro-de-Velocitor.
Image: Theme Park Tourist
In 2005, the ride was re-named Space Mountain: Mission 2, losing its retro-accents and instead taking on the same sci-fi styling as its American counterparts. In 2017, Mission 2 was retired in favor of a permanent switch to Star Wars Hyperspace Mountain: Rebel Mission. Though both are arguably story coasters, neither can manage to explain why guests are being launched from a gold cannon or why the story begins and ends in a 19th century retro-futuristic literary port of discovery.
5. Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts
Image: Universal / Warner Bros.
Location: Universal Studios Florida
Opened: 2014
After the runaway success of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and its snowy Hogwarts at Universal’s Islands of Adventure, an expansion of the land was all but assured. In 2014, Diagon Alley opened at Universal Studios Florida, with the Hogwarts Express cleverly connecting the two Wizarding World lands between parks. Naturally, the land’s E-Ticket is a journey through the palatial Gringotts Wizarding Bank and the bottomless subterranean vaults beneath connected by magical mine carts. (It’s as if J.K. Rowling had a theme park in mind when she wrote the stories!)
Given that the first Potter E-Ticket, Forbidden Journey, introduced a complex, hard-to-describe, and never-before-seen ride system, expectations were high for Gringotts, too. And the ride is astounding, essentially combining a roller coaster with the setup first used by the Modern Marvel: The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man (and somewhat overused since…). Though some fans were disappointed by Gringotts’ relative lack of industry-changing thrills, the ride is a storytelling master class.
Image: Universal / Warner Bros.
Especially since Forbidden Journey feels like a breathless race through the Wizarding World’s biggest settings and villains with no real sense of place or plot, it’s respectable that Gringotts’ story feels immensely grounded. The set-up is that we’ve arrived to open an account at Gringotts at a most inopportune time: unbeknownst to us, Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s bank heist (as seen in the Deathly Hallows film) is happening at the same time as they search for Voldemort’s Horcrux in Bellatrix Lestrange’s vault.
This provides a unique set-up where the ride path occasionally intersects with the trio in “real time,” giving us a new perspective of the events we saw in the film. While the “coaster” elements are brief (essentially bookmarking the experience), it’s still a definite evolution of using coasters as a storytelling medium.
Image: Universal / Warner Bros.
In that way, Gringotts isn’t just a spectacular “story coaster;” it’s a clever reinvention of the oft-derided “book report ride.” Yes, it’s an event or story we already know… but it’s presented from a (literal) new point-of-view, giving riders the chance to have their own adventure.
6. Verbolten
Image: SeaWorld Parks
Location: Busch Gardens Williamsburg
Opened: 2012
Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia is a park that tends to outperform the expectations you may have for a seasonal park. Beautifully located in the dense forests of Virginia, the park has been named the world’s most beautiful for going on three decades. Its forested hamlets recreating old world European villages are part of the draw, with guests visiting for food and entertainment as much as for its ride collection.
Image: SeaWorld Parks
Located in the Germany-themed Oktoberfest, Verbolten is a one-of-a-kind story coaster where a trip through the German countryside goes exceedingly wrong. Departing from Gerta and Gunter’s Tour Center, observant guests will recognize that the brother half of that sibling duo might secretly have nefarious intentions with guests. Gerta’s warnings to avoid the legendary Black Forest are quickly ignored as our train is diverted directly into the inky blackness of the cursed woods, racing through massive set pieces.
The forest also holds a secret: three randomized show encounters (either a pack of red-eyed wolves, a freak thunderstorm, or the haunting spirit of the forest) that lead to a vertical drop track, plummeting the entire train vertically through the branches. The only escape is a pedal-to-the-metal race to the old, creaky, dilapidated covered bridge 88 feet over the Rhine River below, sending guests into a final sprint back to the Tour Center.
Image: SeaWorld Parks
Verbolten not only succeeds in replacing the beloved Lost Legend: Big Bad Wolf with a respectable modern counterpart, but it also ranks among the best “story coaster” experiences available… and all from a regional park in Virginia! Interestingly, it also shares quite a few similarities with an Alton Towers coaster that’s earned considerably less praise – the Declassified Disaster: THIRTEEN. Still, it’s feeling that you’re part of a plot that gives Verbolten an edge, making it feel like the “seasonal” version of a product Disney or Universal could produce.
7. Incredicoaster
Image: Disney
Location: Disney California Adventure
Opened: 2018
When Disney California Adventure opened in 2001, all of the park’s problems were exemplified by Paradise Pier – an uninspired modern thrill boardwalk of carnival games, stucco walls, neon signs, and unthemed amusement park rides. The land’s headliner (and one of the park’s few stand-out rides) was California Screamin’ – a launched steel coaster designed to look like a classic wooden one, with synchronized on-board audio remixing carnival calliope tunes with modern rock music as trains raced around the pier.
As part of the park’s billion-dollar rebirth, Paradise Pier was reimagined in 2012 as a historic Victorian boardwalk of elegant seaside architecture, turn-of-the-century leisure gardens, strung Edison bulbs, and early “pie-eyed” Disney characters. Even then, California Screamin’ was still just a bare thrill coaster serving as the land’s backdrop. Then, in 2017 at the bi-annual D23 conference, one announcement caught everyone by surprise: Paradise Pier would change again, becoming the prismatic Pixar Pier.
Image: Disney
California Screamin’ became the Incredicoaster (highlight of a mid-century modern stylized Incredibles “neighborhood” on the otherwise Victorian pier). In a post-Marvel bit of self-referential, fourth-wall-breaking humor, the premise is that the Incredibles are being honored with their own roller coaster (“So they’re just slapping our name on a ride that’s already there?” Violet asks in a queue video. Edna Mode assures her: “It’s called synergy, darling; it’s all the rage”) with us attending the opening ceremony.
But when baby Jack-Jack’s randomized powers kick in, the family has to track him down in real time as we race through the coaster’s layout (where the ride’s “scream tubes” have been enclosed to allow for show scenes to take place). Super-speedy Dash “runs” alongside the train during the launch; Elastigirl and Mr. Incredible lure Jack-Jack with cookies on the lift hill; most impressively, Violet creates her signature purple forcefield to protect riders from a tunnel set ablaze by Jack-Jack’s fire power.
Image: Disney
No one would bother arguing that the temporary-feeling overlay is among Imagineering’s best works. (It’s not.) But while fans rightfully lambast the overlay for placing static, unmoving, and awkward figures of the Incredibles family along the ride’s course, there’s no denying that Disney somehow did the impossible: turned a bare steel thrill coaster into a ride with a story. And of course, a custom musical score by the brilliant Michael Giacchino (Alias, Lost, Ratatouille, The Incredibles, and Disneyland’s own Space Mountain) is quite a plus.
8. Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure
Image: Universal / Warner Bros.
Location: Universal’s Islands of Adventure
Opened: 2019
When Universal’s Islands of Adventure opened, Dueling Dragons was one of the hallmark features used the park’s push as the “World’s Most Technologically Advanced Theme Park.” The two intertwined – but separate! – B&M inverted roller coasters weren’t just beautifully interwoven; they were precisely measured and adjusted to “duel,” clashing within 18 inches of each other at 3 key points along the ride’s course. A few too many accidents from flying debris brought an end to the “dueling” just as the coaster was renamed Dragon Challenge to be absorbed into the new Wizarding World, but the bare, primary-color steel coasters were wildly at odds with the otherwise immersive land.
Image: Universal / Warner Bros.
The dragons were demolished in 2017, making way for a ride more fitting for the Wizarding World. Hagrid’s Motorbike Adventure is fundamentally a family ride, though it’s marked by the most launches (7) of any coaster on Earth, plus a few technological gee-whiz track features. Narratively, the ride positions guests (on motorbikes) as students in Hagrid’s Care of Magical Creatures class, with the curriculum adjusted when fiery blast-ended skrewts escape their stable and wander off into the ancient abbey ruins near Hogwarts.
Naturally, the chase is on, with guests revving along a mile of terrain-hugging track through the woods at the edge of the Forbidden Forest (and eventually, into the Forest itself) with several blink-and-you’ll-miss-it encounters with magical creatures like Cornish pixies, centaurs, and Fluffy, the three-headed dog. Once the skrewts are found, it’s a final launch using explosive dragon fire (“initiated” by guests pushing purple buttons at their seats) that returns guests back to the abbey for a surprising encounter to end class: a mother unicorn and her foal.
Image: Universal / Warner Bros.
While it’s been plagued by frustrating downtime and technical glitches, riders unanimously report that the ride is worth the multi-hour wait and easily one of the best rides in Orlando, period. Given Universal’s usual preference for screens over visceral experiences, it’s refreshing to see such a “real” experience without a single screen in sight, and guests’ overwhelmingly positive feedback gives us hope that it’ll become the norm at Universal.
Stories all around
Universal proudly described Hagrid’s as the first “story coaster” on Earth, which we’ve hopefully disproven here. (Of course, they also described it as the first coaster in the United States to feature vertical freefall drop track, so…).
Though it may be one of the most elaborate and smartly-plotted coaster experiences, it’s not the first story coaster ever. In fact, there are plenty more we’ve missed! Fill us in… What other “story coasters” are must-see experiences at parks you’ve visited?
