6. Fury 325
Location: Carowinds (Charlotte, North Carolina)
Though Millennium Force was the first coaster to top 300 feet, it wasn’t the last. Even so, giga-coasters are still rare, with only nine on Earth. Surprisingly, the boundary-pushing Intamin has only made two of them: Millennium Force and Kings Dominion’s Project 305. A whole other set has come from the less likely Bolliger & Mabillard, who usually sticks to less intense, more crowd-pleasing installations. The result is that most B&M gigas are… well… pretty much exactly like their 200-foot-tall hyper coasters, just, y’know, taller. Airtime hills, out-and-back layouts, and the like.
But Fury 325 has a little more of a sting. This astounding gigacoaster includes a whole lot of personality, tossing riders into banked airtime hills, racing through tunnels, and more. Despite a high profile incident with one of its supports in 2023, Fury is regarded as one of the biggest bucket list coasters out there; a truly astounding ride that stands out among B&M’s lineup, and serves as an anchor of the southeast’s coaster collection.
7. Kingda Ka
Location: Six Flags Great Adventure (Jackson, New Jersey)
Technically, there are coasters taller and coasters faster than Six Flags Great Adventure’s Kingda Ka. However, none of them are currently operating. For at least the moment, that makes this east coast ride live up to its tagline as “The King of Coasters.” Okay, okay, so there’s a caveat here. Everyone knows that Kingda Ka exists precisely because Six Flags wanted to best Cedar Fair in the Coaster Wars, and thus bought an Intamin Accelerator model that would be just a bit taller and faster than Cedar Point’s Top Thrill Dragster. But you can’t argue with the results.
Kingda Ka launches riders from 0 to 128 miles per hour in just 3.5 seconds – the kind of acceleration that the ride’s hydraulic launch makes possible. Racing down the straightaway to reach full speed, the coasters then rocket up a 456 foot tall hill, gaze out across New Jersey’s forests, then plunge back to Earth. The whole thing takes less than 20 seconds, but Kingda Ka leaves riders breathless. Even if the adrenaline wears off after a few minutes, it’s difficult in the immediate wake of the ride to think anything other than “That’s the greatest ride on Earth.” A true legend, this ultra-extreme experience is a must-ride.
8. The Beast
Location: Kings Island (Mason, Ohio)
Notably the only wooden coaster on this list (though several almost made the cut – including El Toro and Lightning Rod, mind you), a picture of The Beast should live in the dictionary next to the word “legend.” Opened in 1979, the ride was – and even now, 45 years later, remains! – the world’s longest wooden roller coaster. That’s impressive in its own right, but The Beast’s real calling card is the mystery that surrounds it. Famously, you can only see the ride’s lift hill from the park.
That first 141 foot plunge into a tunnel begins a jaw-dropping 7,361 foot long course that takes four and a half minutes to travel. The Beast sprawls across 35 acres of forested Ohio wilderness, rising and falling along hillsides, darting through caves, and pouring through narrow alleys beneath the tree canopy. The ride’s absolutely jaw-dropping finale involves a slow, gradual decline that increasingly tilts riders until – just before the train seems likely to roll right off the side – it tears into a massive 540-degree enclosed helix. The roaring, hidden ride is an absolute icon.
(And by the way, it’s also one of the few roller coasters to get a sequel. 2000’s Son of Beast purposefully left the length record to its father, but otherwise opened as the world’s tallest, fastest, second-longest, and only looping wooden roller coaster. If you’re a coaster fan, you can’t miss the full story of the Lost Legend: Son of Beast – one of the most famous failed rides in history.)
9. Toutatis
Location: Parc Astérix (Plailly, France)
Another Intamin creation, Toutatis is certainly a cousin of VelociCoaster in that it’s a new age Intamin that launches and does some very weird, unexpected, personality-filled maneuvers. Stylized around an ancient Celtic god of the same name, the ride is set among ancient, mossy stone and wood, with a recurring motif of swirling blue-green magic that follows the train’s route. The ride’s highlights include a rolling launch intro, absolutely wild outer-banked airtime hills, and a no-hold forward-backward multi-pass launch, a zero-G stall, and basically just a ton of totally personality-packed moves.
If France is a little far for you, then good news! You can ride Toutatis’ sister ride closer to home, at Busch Gardens Williamsburg in Virginia. Pantheon isn’t a clone of Toutatis, but it does feature many of the same basic elements in the same order. It’s just a shame that Pantheon lacks Toutatis’ theming package, which is what really elevates the French ride to be among the best on Earth.
10. Top Thrill 2
Location: Cedar Point (Sandusky, Ohio)
Here’s the thing. When Cedar Point decided to “retire” Top Thrill Dragster – its record-setting, first-ever, 400 foot “stratacoaster” – it looked like the end of a very problematic ride. Despite being beloved, the full story of the Modern Marvel: Top Thrill Dragster shows just how expensive and troubled the ride was from the very start, up to its end when a loose piece of a train traveling at 120 miles per hour struck and injured a waiting guests. 20 years is a long life for any ride, but especially one as complex and extreme as a 120-mile per hour, 420 foot tall thrill machine.
But instead of closing, Top Thrill Dragster went under the knife for a reimagining. Cedar Fair took a chance on coaster manufacturer Zamperla, who has produced lots of roller coasters, but none that are particularly big or fast. The reborn “Top Thrill 2” was meant to be the launch (pun intended) of Zamperla’s new “Lightning” trains and LSM launch technology that would be safer, smarter, and more reliable than the cable-powered hydraulic launch of the original Intamin ride.
Of course, LSM launches can’t generate the kind of instantaneous acceleration that Intamin’s retired hydraulic launch could, leading to a new ride experience: a multi-pass launch that would see trains accelerate to “just” 70 miles per hour, race backward through the LSMs to get to 100 miles per hour, rocket backwards up a new vertical spike, then accelerate forward again to reach the full 120 miles per hour needed to crest the ride’s iconic top hat.
What fans thought would be a downgraded was actually the opposite; “Top Thrill 2’s” extended ride time, triple launches, and staggering 100 miles per hour backwards blast were stunning, with near unanimous praise for the ride – including from us here at Theme Park Tourist! There’s just one problem: Top Thrill 2 operated for only about a week before closing for the rest of its entire opening season. Though they promise the ride will be ready to go for 2025, there’s no question that the launch of “Top Thrill 2” will be remembered as one of the biggest flops in the industry’s history. The good news is, if it does return to form in 2025, there’s no question that this stratacoaster will regain its rightful spot in the Coaster Pantheon as a totally unique and extreme ride in its own right.
How many of these iconic landmark coasters have you been on? And more to the point, what coasters did we miss? Tell us in the comments below!
