A couple of years ago I put a video on our YouTube channel ranking what I thought where the best roller coasters in Florida. I had no idea this subject would be so controversial! Everyday I would see new comments calling my list a joke, that I had no idea what I was talking about, or that my list was a “total fail, my dude”. Ok, fair enough.
Going into that list I sort of decided to not only rank them on how fun they are, but also in originality and how iconic and notable they are in the Florida theme park scene. Central Florida is the theme park capital of the world. These parks attract visitors from all around the world, so I thought a list of the best roller coasters in Florida should have rides that are world-famous, iconic or have theming that you won’t find anywhere else. I guess that a lot of the viewers and commenters didn’t agree with me, because I took a lot of heat for listing Space Mountain as number one on the list. I put Space Mountain at the top spot not because it’s my favorite (it’s not), but because it’s a classic coaster in a classic park that has spanned generations. We rode it as kids, our kids are now riding it with us, and hopefully it’ll be around when our kids have kids of their own. A lot of the comments were upset that Mako, the giant hypercoater at SeaWorld wasn’t my number one instead. There were also more than a few complaints for putting Coastersaurus, the wooden coaster at Legoland, on the list at all.
So in order to right so many wrongs in my roller coaster opinion-making, I decided to let the roller coaster community on the internet speak for themselves and decide the best roller coasters in Florida. I created a poll in Ranker.com where I listed all of the roller coasters in Florida (I left off all the kiddie coasters) and asked the internet to rank them. I posted the poll to /r/rollercoasters on Reddit, asked the listeners of our podcast to vote by posting the poll on social media, and left the poll as a stickied post to the top of the comment section of my video in YouTube. I wanted to give my YouTube critics a chance to have their own votes count.
So here we go! After two months of gathering nearly 800 votes, here’s what the internet decided are the top ten best roller coasters in Florida.
10. Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith
It’s a bit surprising to me to see Rock ‘n’ Roller coaster at Disney’s Hollywood Studios crack the top ten list of best Florida roller coasters, but it just squeaked into the list at number 10. The ride unforgettably starts with an exhilarating launch out of the station that sends riders 0 to 57mph in just under 3 seconds. It’s a head-snapping experience where riders will briefly experience 5 G’s of force as they’re pushed back into their seat upon takeoff. After the launch, the ride is a fairly standard trip around a series of turns and inversions like half loops and corkscrews while an incredible sound system pumps out a medley of Aerosmith classics directly into your earholes. Like Space Mountain, all of this takes place indoors and in the dark save for a few scenery pieces illuminated by blacklights.
What I love about Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster is that the initial blastoff into the ride is one of the single most unforgettably exciting moments on any roller coaster, anywhere. And the build-up to it while staring down that tunnel into the dark makes it even more exciting. After that though, I feel this is a coaster that’s only, well, just sort of ok. It’s not particularly fast, taking a fairly meandering pace along its track after that first half-loop, and the scenery is starting to feel dated. At just over 1 minute and 20 seconds, it’s also pretty short. The trains pass through what’s really not much more than a dark warehouse filled with plywood scenery lit up by blacklights. It’s starting to feel a little more like a high-end carnival ride or an old Six Flags coaster than something you’d expect to find at Disney World. The music though more than makes up for that, and makes this a fun and worthwhile attraction to ride at Hollywood Studios.
Fun Fact: The ride was originally intended to feature the music of The Rolling Stones, but when licensing their music proved to be too expensive Disney eventually landed on Aerosmith instead.
9. Revenge of the Mummy
Revenge of Mummy is another indoor roller coaster that blends elements of a haunted house, a dark ride, and a roller coaster into a fan favorite that still holds up. Opening in 2004, Revenge of the Mummy is like riding through a roller coaster version of an Iron Maiden album cover. There are jump scares, fire effects, backward track sections, and even a cameo by the man himself, Brendan Fraser. Somebody get him his coffee!
Revenge of the Mummy might only have come came in 9th on this list of best Florida Roller Coasters, but it’s been granted the award of “Best Indoor Roller Coaster” for the last 6 years by Amusement Today’s Golden Ticket Awards. I completely agree. This roller coaster is a masterpiece of creative theming and filling a roller coaster with surprises and some pretty crazy moments.
8. Cheetah Hunt
The first Busch Gardens roller coaster to make an appearance on the list will certainly not be the last. Cheetah Hunt’s ride experience was inspired by the speed and movement of cheetahs on the hunt for their prey. The ride launches you out of the loading gate (just like a pouncing cheetah!) and up a turn until you hit another launch. This time firing you at 60mph (a cheetah’s top speed) up a winding helix until you reach the rides first drop. After that drop, Cheetah Hunt takes you through a series of canyons and trenches, through a heartline roll, and one more launch. It’s a long ride that seems to take you halfway across the park and back.
This personally might be my favorite ride on the list. Cheetah Hunt is just pure fun, fast, smooth, and very unique in how it hugs the ground through a lot of its duration. Not a lot of big hills, but still big thrills as you weave through those trenches. Don’t miss the real cheetahs at the nearby Cheetah Run exhibit where you can watch these magnificent cats run and sprint across the plains.
7. Kraken
Here’s a hot take. The front row on Kraken is the best roller coaster experience you can have in Florida. Watching your feet dangle over the track while the coaster rolls down its 153-foot first drop is something you’ll never forget. Kraken is a floor-less steel coaster that opened in 2000 and marked a significant change in direction for SeaWorld.
Before Kraken, SeaWorld was the classic marine life park we all remembered. Whale shows with Shamu, dolphins jumping through hoops, walruses and otters, sharks and penguins. But Kraken marked the Orlando park’s first leap toward becoming a major player as a place to go for thrill rides in Florida. Some of the recent bad press that SeaWorld has endured had kicked them in the direction of adding even more roller coaster and thrill rides to the park in recent years. I think this is a strategy to slowly transform the park to an ocean life themed thrill ride park, instead of a marine life park with a few rides. Then eventually SeaWorld can comfortably retire their controversial whale shows and still keep attracting visitors.
6. SheiKra
If you have a fear of heights and insanely high, steep drops then this Busch Gardens beast is one you might want to think about skipping. This is the scariest roller coaster on our list. SheiKra takes riders up a 200-foot tall lift hill before suspending them for four very long seconds at the edge of its 90 degree first drop. You’ll get a great view of the skyline of Tampa, and the entire park before you go straight down hitting speeds approaching 70mph. You’ll take a couple more fast turns and a second big drop before making huge waves in the ride’s famous splashdown. SheiKra was touted as the world’s first “dive coaster” when it opened at Busch Gardens in 2005.
I think SheiKra is a lot of fun and that first drop is truly frightening, but the ride is fairly short. It uses it’s one big trick right at the start and then just sort of forgets what it wants to do next so the ride can feel a little anti-climatic. But that first drop is one very scary, very memorable trick.
Fun Fact: That splashdown looks really cool, but it also serves a practical purpose. It’s a natural and energy-efficient brake run that slows the ride down significantly without the use of standard brakes.
5. The Incredible Hulk
The Incredible Hulk at Universal’s Islands of Adventure is the third, and highest ranked, launch coaster on the list. This is a coaster that developed a bit of a bad reputation for giving a rough ride that left riders feeling a bit battered and bruised. But maybe that’s just being consistent with the rides theming? HULK SMASH! The Incredible Hulk starts by firing riders up its 110-foot lift hill at 0 to 40mph in just two seconds directly into a zero-G roll and a 105-foot drop. The Incredible Hulk is a roller coaster that open with one helluva bang! The pace of Hulk is just relentless as it just keeps taking you through one twist, turn, and inversion after another until you suddenly find yourself back at the drop-off station.
Compared to a few others on this list like Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and SheiKra that start off strong, then kind of limp back into the gate, Hulk keeps the intensity going from start to finish. This is a great ride with great theming that makes it both a great coaster and an attraction worthy of a world-class theme park destination.
In 2016 Universal Orlando closed the Hulk to renovate and retrack it so it would give riders a better, smoother experience. Fortunately for us, these changes didn’t ruin the roller coaster because it still made it here to the top 5 on our list.
4. Manta
Manta at SeaWorld Orlando is probably the most unique roller coaster on this list, and maybe in all of Florida. Manta is a “flying coaster”, in which riders lay flat, facing down toward the ground and fly like Iron Man around the track. The sensation of flying on this smooth ride is a joyful rush. Manta is a serpentine flight through four inversions, past a waterfall, and perilously close to the water just below. When the concept for Manta was first being drawn up, the ride was actually supposed to dip one of its Manta Ray wings into the water to splash the riders. But engineers poo-poo’ed that as a bad idea, and instead installed timed fountains that go off to create the illusion that the ride is skimming the water.
Manta is in the top 5 of the best roller coasters in Florida, but let’s not forget about it’s awesomely themed queue area! SeaWorld did a fantastic job bridging the gap between a marine park and a thrill ride park here. A 184,000 gallon aquarium with over 3,000 animals make this one of the best places on the list to wait for your turn to ride.
3. Kumba
Kumba at Busch Gardens is the oldest coaster on this list which opened to a lot of hype and fanfare way back in 1993. Seeing it here at number 3 proves this thing still holds up against even some of the newer and more modern coasters. When it opened, Kumba was Florida’s tallest, fastest and longest roller coaster that also just happened to have a 118 foot high vertical loop – the tallest in the world at the time. Kumba was also the first roller coaster in the world to have interlocking corkscrews, it’s signature feature seen in countless photographs. It’s still one of the only roller coasters in the world to have a loop that wraps around the lift hill.
This is a coaster that’s only getting more intense with age. While most steel coasters are much smoother than their wooden cousins, Kumba has developed a pretty rough ride in recent years. Banging your head between the restraints during one of its seven inversions is pretty typical these days, so watch out for those earrings! Even with the fairly punishing ride, Kumba still has a few truly memorable moments. My favorites are it’s signature zero-G roll and it’s climatic dive through a tunnel before returning back to the station.
Fun Fact: Kumba has no sound dampening sand within its rails which gives the coaster it’s distinctly loud roaring noise. The world Kumba means “Roar” in the African Kongo language.
2. Mako
SeaWorld’s Mako is the biggest, tallest, fastest roller coaster in Florida but surprisingly only came in at number 2 in our poll. Mako is a hyper-coaster that sends riders over a relentless series of huge airtime hills at speeds over 70mph and almost a mile of track. When SeaWorld built Kraken in 2000 it showed us they were prepared to become a real player in the roller coaster game, and with Mako they sealed the deal. This ride is a legit monster!
When I first put together this list for my previously mentioned YouTube video, the only thing that kept me from ranking Mako higher was the fact that I was biased toward more unique, and more one of a kind type roller coasters in the “Theme Park Capital of the World”. Mako, while breathtaking and considered by people a lot smarter than me to the best roller coaster in Florida, it’s still a ride concept seen at lots of Six Flags parks that’s been around for a couple of decades now. Still great enough to come in here as the second-best roller coaster in Florida.
1. Montu
Busch Gardens in Tampa has put up a strong showing here! According to the online roller coaster community we polled, the best roller coaster in Florida is Montu at Busch Gardens. Montu is an inverted roller coaster that debuted back in 1996 as the tallest, fastest inverted coaster in the world and continues to thrill riders today. Montu is a relentless series of loops, twists and turns that inverts riders seven times over the course of its 3 minute ride time through an Egyptian themed setting.
Those who voted to put Montu at number one are not alone in their love for this ride. Montu is one of only seven roller coasters in the world to be ranked as one of Amusement Today’s Top 50 roller coasters in the world for 15 years in a row. Montu is a classic!
What I love about Montu is that this is a coaster that’s a real crowd-pleaser, so maybe it’s not that surprising to see it here at number 1. It’s intense enough for the hardcore coaster fanatics but still doesn’t have anything that would absolutely terrify a coaster newbie. It has a fairly mild first drop that gives riders just the right amount of “Oomph” needed to get them through it’s long, winding layout full of wild inversions. Like any aging steel coaster, it has gotten noticeably rougher over the years.
Fun Fact: Montu used to feature an enclosure full of live Nile Crocodiles that the train would pass over shortly after the loading station. Rider’s feet would briefly dangle over these dangerous reptiles, but the crocodiles had to be relocated after objects kept falling into the enclosure.
So those are the results of our poll to discover the best roller coasters in Florida! Did your favorite miss the list? Let us know your own favorite in the comments! There are currently a bunch of new roller coasters on the way at Epcot, Magic Kingdom, Busch Gardens, and Universal Studios so we can’t wait to see how much this list changes in the future.
Oh, and in case you’re curious about what roller coaster was ranked last as the worst roller coaster in Florida? That dubious honor went to Primeval Whirl at Disney’s Animal Kingdom.