Great Adventure Nabs 3 Spots on Top 10 List of Most Thrilling Rides

Six Flags Great Adventure nabbed three spots in USA Today’s list of the top 10 most thrilling amusement park rides, despite one of the attractions not even having opened yet. Now that’s impressive.

USA Today’s Arthur Levine ranked these three coasters in the top 10:

• 8th. El Toro, a wooden coaster frequently ranked among the best wooden coasters in the country. “I have never experienced so much violent (in the nicest possible sense) airtime as I have on El Toro,” Levine writes.
• 3rd. Zumanjaro Drop of Doom. This isn’t open yet, but a similar ride (Lex Luthor: Drop of Doom) at Six Flags Magic Mountain is open and tied for third, hence the ranking. Zumanjaro is currently being bolted onto the side of Kingda Ka. Both rides “lift passengers over 400 feet in the air, let them stew in open seats for a few what-have-I-gotten-myself-into moments, and release them into gut-wrenching 90-mph freefalls.” Zumanjaro will be the tallest drop ride in the world.
• 2nd. Kingda Ka. Currently closed — as workers construct Zumanjaro onto the side of it — Kingda Ka shares the No. 2 spot with Top Thrill Dragster, a similar ride at Cedar Point in Ohio. Kingda Ka is the tallest roller coaster in the world (456 feet) and reaches a top speed of 128 mph.

The No. 1 spot? An attraction in Las Vegas where you literally jump off an 855-foot tower. For reference, the top of the Comcast Center is 973 feet.

The No. 1 spot on the least thrilling amusement park ride list, which I just made up, went to the Victorian Railway at Clementon Park. Honestly, though, that’s more my style.

[Times of Trenton | USA Today]