The Top 5 Best Roller Coasters on the Planet

Since the Family First readers seemed to really like the post about the Top 5 Best Waterslides earlier this week, I thought you all might enjoy continuing that theme and present the top 5 best roller coasters on this planet (psst – exactly 0 are in the United States!!)

Amusement park enthusiast, pilot and “vacation expert” Pete Trabucco recently released his top picks for the best roller coasters anywhere. Here are his top 5 (he ranked 10 total so visit here to find out about the rest of the list):

The Steel Dragon 2000 – located at Nagashima Spa Land in Mie, Japan. Opened in 2000 (the Year of the Dragon), this steel, sit-down beast lasts for 4 minutes for a total length of over a mile and a half with a top speed of 95 miles per hour.

Tower of Terror II – located at Dreamworld in Queensland, Gold Coast, Australia. With a 90 degree drop, the riders reach 100 miles per hour and lasts for 30 seconds. It opened in 1997 as Tower of Terror but was refurbished and the cars reversed, according to the Dreamworld website to become Tower of Terror II. It includes 6.5 seconds of weightlessness in the drop.

Formula Rossa – located at Ferrari World Abu Dhabi in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. This steel sit-down roller coaster claims to be the fastest on the planet at 240 km/h or roughly 149 miles per hour, which makes sense since it’s located in a theme park about racing. The cars are designed to look like Formula One race cars and riders are required to wear safety goggles while they ride.

The Behmouth – located at Canada’s Wonderland in Ontario, Canada. The only one in the top 10 located in the western hemisphere, this one is the easiest to get to from the states. With a first drop of 230 feet (that’s 23 stories), this is a crazy ride. The length is over a mile in feet (5,318 feet, specifically) and the ride lasts 3 minutes and 12 seconds, according to the Wonderland website. The park is also debuting a brand new ride this year called The Leviathan, which is supposed to be even longer, higher and faster. The website says it opened in May but I wasn’t able to confirm that.

And finally, rounding out the top 5 is The Fujiyama – located at Fuji-Q Highland, Yamanashi, Japan. This ride pulls 3.5 gs which sounds crazy to me. It is almost 1 1/3 miles long and reaches a height of 259 feet (or about 25 stories!). It is named after Fuji or “king” of the coasters.

So, now you can plan your next vacation to one of these great amusement parks and ride the most extreme roller coasters in the world. Thanks to the website www.rcdb.com  for many of the pictures and statistics about these monster rides.

Marijo Tinlin is the Editor in Chief of Family First, one of the oldest family-oriented websites on the internet. She is also the author of a book about patriotism and teaching our children to love this country called “How to Raise an American Patriot, Making it Okay for Our Kids to Be Proud to Be American.”  It features 13 interviews with patriotic Americans including Ed Meese, Erick Erickson and Jackie Gingrich Cushman. It’s available at www.raisinganamericanpatriot.com.