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?