In terms of coasters per park:

https://coasterpedia.net/wiki/Most_roller_coasters_in_one_park

While coasters that appeal to you within a park may not equal the number of coasters a park has, odds are that you’ll find a significant number of ones that do when a park has a lot of them.

When you get to Cedar Point, I’d also recommend Millennium Force. Of course I’m a bit biased towards Cedar Point - I was born and raised in Sandusky, Ohio.

Check out the websites for specifics on each coaster in each park.

For shear thrill rides cedar point is unbeatable, I’m more of a theme park person myself though and of course cedar point is less than an hour away.

Cedar Point and Magic Mountain are pretty much the best coaster parks. Magic Mountain has the edge if you can only go to one, though because you get Magic Mountain, Knotts Berry Farm (Ghostrider is a fantastic classic wood rollercoaster), Disneyland, and Legoland all within roughly the same area.

Ghostrider isn't super fast, but it has a sense of out-of-control speed that I've never had on another wooden coaster (including any of the classic MM ones - Colossus, forward or backwards, Psyclone, etc). Some of those banked turns you're up on two wheels and it really feels like you're thisclose to flying off the track.

I’ve only been to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, VA and King’s Dominion near Richmond, VA. Kings Dominion is owned by Cedar Park now.

For rides my co worker says King’s Dominion is better. They took out what was probably their best coaster a year or 2 ago though, the Volcano. I haven’t been to Busch Gardens in years, but I remember it being a little nicer, cleaner, etc.

I haven’t ridden any newer coasters. When I go now it’s with the family so we stay in the kid area primarily. I’ll be going to kings dominion a lot over the summer though. Got season passes this year.

If you want to go with something a bit more classic check out knoebles in Pa. https://www.knoebels.com/
Some great wooden coasters....an awesome dark ride.... and a great atmosphere.... they don’t make them like this anymore

Great adventure in New Jersey has a ton of coasters. Some of them great.... Nitro is awesome. Hershey park in pa is a nice park as well.... you may want to narrow down where you will be....

As mentioned above, Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, VA is a beautiful park with something for everyone. There’s a great mix of coasters from old to new and they are set to open a brand new one this summer called Pantheon that’s touted as the worlds fastest rollercoaster. Another one and maybe one of the neatest parks is Kennywood Park near Pittsburgh, PA in a small town named West Mifflin, PA. It has an old time kind of feel with a lot of historical wooden coasters over 100 years old. The prices are amazing too and surprisingly cheap compared to most places today.

Many many years ago I went to Kings Island in Ohio. That was fun. I'm not big on rollercoasters though.

Pantheon is a multi launch ride that is for people looking to take the next step from Verbolten but not to something like Alpengeist or Griffon. No way it’s the fastest coaster in the world. It’s not even the fastest coaster on its half of the park.

Where are you planning to fly in to? Time of year? There are a boat load of parks on the east coast that are an easy drive to each other. I imagine you'll run out of time before you run out of parks. If you can do mid to late August a lot of parks are still open everyday, but also a lot of schools are back in session. Definitely helps with the crowds. If you'll be in NYC the Cyclone is running great these days. Wonder Wheel is also pretty cool there, but nothing else overly exciting ride wise. Cool place to visit though. The Jersey Shore is also quite a scene at night, but once again not the greatest coasters.

Here is a list of coaster events, some you need to be an ACE member, others events you can be a member of any coaster club (some are free or dirt cheap). Might be worth checking out if the timing is right.

https://www.aceonline.org/events/event_list.asp

Growing up in Pa has been great because of all the great theme parks in a 1-2 hour drive from where I live.
Here are the first that come to mind...

Hershey Park - Comet(Classic Wooden), Great Bear, Lightning Racer(Dueling Wooden), Storm Runner.
Dorney Park - Thunderhawk(Classic Wooden), Steal Force, Talon, Hydra.
Knoebels - Phoenix, Twister.
Six Flags Great Adventure - Kinda Ka, Batman, Superman, Nitro, El toro, so many more!

I have always thought Kings Island in Cincinnati was a great Park. Good coasters, and not just a big "parking lot" Meaning lots of trees, and such. Busch Gardens williamsburg has the Loch Ness Monster, that looks fun.

Cedar Point is awesome for roller coasters.

Kings Island is a nice park also.

A great park that sometimes gets overlooked is Dollywood. They have some world class coasters (eg Lightning Rod) and the park is beautiful with a lot of great entertainment and music.

Screaminr,

Some great sites to help you in your research;

1) If you want to know where any roller coaster is, anywhere, start with the Roller Coaster Database ( https://rcdb.com ). Completely searchable, and has links to park sites as well as maps

2) If you're curious about what us coaster crazies think is the "best", there are several Top 10/25/100 lists to look at (be sure to look at both Steel and Wood polls);
- https://coasterbuzz.com/RollerCoasters/Top100
- https://www.ellocoaster.com/poll-results
- https://coasterpoll.com/results
These are the rankings by people (like me) that travel all around the world just to ride these damn things. The poll algorithms are pretty well done, and rank coasters based on mutual comparisons (I rode "A" and "B", and found "A" to be better, etc.).

If you're interested in more of a "general public" type of poll (which winds up being more Popularity than anything elsey), check these out;
- http://goldenticketawards.com/2019-gta-winners/
- https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/experience/america/theme-parks/2017/09/07/12-most-thrilling-roller-coasters-usa/638289001/

3) If you're looking for what's coming soon, a great aggregator of amusement park/coaster rumors is http://screamscape.com/
Place tells you a lot about what's going on in the industry.

4) For details on visiting each individual park, my best suggestion would be to look through Trip Reports from places like https://coasterbuzz.com/ or https://www.themeparkreview.com/. Lots of folks do write ups about their experiences in each park, and you can gain a lot of insight reading their commentary.

Of course, if you have any specific questions, you can just post it here, and I can hopefully point you in the right direction!

Later,
EV

As a coaster enthusiast and having extensively travelled the US to ride coasters, here are a few MUST visit parks...

Cedar Point (Sandusky, OH) - probably the best coaster collection in the world. (2 days)

Kings Island (Mason, OH) - my favorite larger park and with the new for 2020 Orion will rival Cedar Point. Also home of The Beast...nothing like it and my favorite coaster to ride at night. (1 day)

Holiday World (Santa Claus, IN) - the first “theme” park (1946) in the US...each area of the park is themed after a major holiday...Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Fourth of July. They also have one of the top two water parks in the US. Finally, the reason you HAVE to go...the Voyage...the best wooden coaster on the planet and my favorite (204 coaster credits and counting ) coaster period. Their other coasters are excellent and very well maintained. The overall park experience is truly amazing...my wife’s favorite park. (2 days if you are doing the waterpark)

As far as the west coast (California) goes, I just spent 10 days there last summer to visit Six Flags Magic Mountain, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, California’s Great America, and Knott’s Berry Farm. The ONLY one I would visit again is Knott’s Berry Farm. Magic Mountain was disappointing and considering it’s reputation is very overrated, doesn’t hold a candle to Cedar Point which it is often compared to. The other two were duds.

Hope this helps...good luck with your trip...you are sure to have a great time here!

The best US parks I've been to are

Busch Gardens
Kings Island
Hershey
Kennywood

These have the most personality, amazing rollercoasters, and they aren't too oppressive generally when it comes to crowds or finding shade.

Most of the Six Flags properties are unbearable - they have some great rides but tons of concrete, less character, terrible concessions, and a business model that involves getting as many people into the park as possible with discounts and then trying to milk $ out of them on crappy food and other add ons.

If you are planning on going to Europe, I'd highly recommend Etfling in Netherlands and Tivoli in Copenhagen. Neither have the amount and outrageousness of the thrill rides in the US but they are both just awesome, gorgeous parks.

I know us Americans have done our best to scare everyone else away from visiting Florida with all of our stories however we have a bunch of theme, adventure and water parks here as well.

Busch Gardens
Universal Studios
Blizzard Beach
Typhoon Lagoon
Disney (meh,)

If you end up coming to visit America's Schlong and want to jam on my RaM lmk.

I am going to second or third, or whatever it is now to go to Knoebles in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania! Been going every year for over 20 years now, and will pass Cedar Point up to go there!

While they may not have the mega coasters, the coasters they have are perfectly maintained, and run better than you could ever imagine!

Phoenix is a top 10 coaster worldwide! You would believe it until you ride it!
Twister is a loose recreation of Mr. Twister from a park in Denver that is now closed and missed. This recreation is an amazing twister.
Flying Turns, The only one of its kind, not real thrilling, but crazy ass fun! You will laugh the entire time! Longest line in the park, but worth the wait!
Impluse, Typical smaller steel coaster, with single cars, but in Knoebles style runs amazing!
Black Diamond, Indoor dark ride/coaster, short drops, quick turns, but amazingly fun!

Also don't miss the #1 Bumper Cars, Whip, Sky Ride, Train Rides (Yes there are two).

And most importantly the atmosphere of what a classic amusement park is, which there are few of.

Other Shout outs are Kennywood,

Three well maintained wood coasters, 2 still running from the 20s and two very good steel coasters.
Don't let the Jack Rabbit look like a small coaster, the double dip is nothing to miss.

Also, off the beaten path, especially if time is limited, but Conneaut Lake Park, my home park, has the Blue Streak.
Conneaut is a small park, on a beautiful lakeside setting, that has had financial troubles for the last 30 years, although things are looking better now.

The Blue Streak has been almost completely re tracked in the last 5 years, and is running well! It has 3 amazingly steep and fast drops, and a turn around that will surprise you!

Waldemeer isn't far from Conneaut, on lake Eire, and has a Jr. Coaster, the Comet, and the Ravine Flyer II, which is amazing in itself!

Time and travel will have to set your schedule!

Parks I would recommend visits to as someone who has been on 663 coasters and been to 124 parks.
Dollywood
Kennywood
Knoebels
Hershey
Busch Gardens (both Tampa and Williamsburg)
Six Flags over Georgia
Carowinds
Kings Dominion
kings island
Knotts berry farm
Holiday World
Cedar Point
Six Flags Magic Mountain
Six Flags Great Adventure
Six Flags over Texas

and have yet to go to but high on my list
Silver Dollar City
Lagoon

This being said I am not a massive fan of Six Flags Magic Mountain or Cedar Point.....neither have a coaster in my top ten wood or steel. They have a lot of rides but expect long lines at massively popular very hyped parks. Knoebels on the average day will get you a ton more rides. most of the parks on my list have at least one real unique signature coaster.

Agreed. Knoebels, Waldameer, and Kennywood are all fantastic traditional amusement parks. In some ways I do prefer these to the giant theme parks. If the OP is looking to experience some Americana, historical rides, and classics you won’t find anywhere else, these three are great choices.

Congrats on the coaster count...damn!

It will go up more soon. I have been focused on taking a trip over seas every other
year. those add so much to the count. USA is getting hard to go on a trip and get more then like 10 new ones.

I'd recommend three days given what I understand about your goals:

Day 1: Tour the entire park and get a good lay of the land. Be sure to make at least one complete tour from opening to closing. Along the way, ride anything and everything you like that doesn't have an hour+ line in addition to anything you'd gladly wait that hour+ for. Back in your room that night, get out the park map and plan ...

Day 2: Identify all your must-do's and work out the best way to hit them all, allowing for on-the-spot repeats and the route you'll take to hit them. Then think about how you will do ...

Day 3: Hit only your most favorites. Ride them as many times as you can whether that's in multiple on-the-spot re-rerides or you set up a tour of just your ultimate favorites and keep repeating until closing. FYI: one my friends went there last year and ended up riding Millennium Force 17 times in a single day. He'd do a couple of on-the-spot re-rides at every stop on his favorites tour and then repeat that tour, often eliminating some in subsequent loops so he could ride his ultra-ultra-favorites even more.

Three tips for Cedar Point:

a. Mondays through Fridays are the least busy days as you might expect. Do note that Mondays and Fridays can be slightly busier since many folks will make it a long weekend by adding one or both days to their trip. And don't forget to account for US holidays.

b. Be sure to have your bug/mosquito repellent with you (there's ... ahem ... a little fresh water around Cedar Point) but make sure that you ride plenty of the coasters at night. It's naturally the same ride, but it's a different and cool experience.

c. Best advice I can give to make your daily experience as good as it can be: Cedar Point is on a peninsula in Lake Erie. So overall the park is long and narrow. So be at the gate when the park opens. Once you're in, ignore everything else and get to the far end of the park furthest from the main gate as soon as you can. Steel Vengeance is at that end. You will be able to ride it several times before the crowds get there - because the majority of people will stop at other things along the way. Then work your way back towards the front of the park to hit other coasters and stuff. These will be things that a lot of the guests will have already rode as they were heading to the opposite end of the park. After that, you're on your own to revisit anything you want.

My bad! Thanks for the clarification...I should have read up on it more! I was thinking that at 72 mph it couldn’t be?!

To my surprise, I've always enjoyed the wooden coasters the most. And cedar point has those! Best park there is.

The Beast at King's Island in Ohio is probably my all time favorite even though they have tamed it down with its age.

No other (not many at least) coasters have something like the 2nd drop on the beast where speed is sustained for a long period of time as you whip through the double helix. Its awesome... Most coasters you go down a hill than right back up another taking the speed out. When it rained we would head straight to the beast. The friction brakes didn't work as well when wet and you got a lot faster ride. Judged the quality of the ride by how far up the 2nd hill you climb before the lift chain catches. If you go half way up the 2nd drop hill the double helix part was going to be great. I think they have magnet breaks now tho, so no rain bonus speed.

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My favorite overall rollercoaster park is also in Ohio, Cedar Point. The Millennium Force, top thrill dragster, Maverick, and more including new one I have not ridden yet. Millennium Force pulls enough G's I get lightheaded at the bottom of the first drop.

Calling AndHart120

My parents used to take me to Kings Island to ride the Beast every year. Some of my best memories.

This past summer, I brought my 10 year old there to ride it with me! It was so awesome. And we both got Beast shirts!

How many roller coasters are still a main draw at a major park after all those years? This ride was built in the 70s and when you really think about it, it was pretty much a homemade coaster. So impressive. And it's still a beast!

+1 for Maverick at Cedar Point. No build up at all. Just rockets you uphill out of the gate straight into a 95 degree drop.

Local to me up in Allentown PA is Dorney Park. Little sister park of Cedar Point. Not near as good but way cheaper, WAY shorter lines and still some really fun coasters... About 1/2 dozen of them: Steel Force (slightly smaller version of Millennium Force at CP), Talon, Hydra, Thunderhawk. By far best time to go there though is in the fall, when they also open all the haunted attractions within the park and you can do both.

Cedar Point can't be beat for sheer coasters but the lines can get INSANE. Fast Pass is a must there. Otherwise, it's 1 hour bare minimum wait for almost anything during the summer.

I was going to say, going to Cedar Point without a fast pass, especially these days, is hell. Get a fast pass, get in and out in a day. Maybe I'm just old and crabby but the lines ruin the whole experience for me.

Agreed totally. Nothing gets more annoying than waiting for 90 minutes for a ride like Top Thrill Dragster that lasts 15 seconds.... Just enough time to get into that second 90 minute line before lunch.

Assuming it's actually still running by the time you get to the front of the line...

In my experience, if a park is REALLY packed, it's still a shitshow even if you cough up for the "fast pass." You've just traded one line for another. If you really can't stand lines, you need to avoid weekends at the huge mega parks.

Yep was dragged on the roller coaster by my dad crying and screaming the whole way. Had the biggest smile after I got off and couldn’t wait to ride again I was probably 8 now 46 so quite a few years ago.

Funny thing is dragged my kids on while they where crying as well. They too had a smile after getting off and couldn’t wait to get back on.

I think it became our all time favorite as well.

Another +1 for Knoebels, can't go wrong with the Phoenix!

Our new Devil Coaster in NJ should be a blast...

Or you could save a few $$$ and just come by and play my fine collection of coaster pins and pretend you're at a park. Guaranteed short lines!

I always go on all the coasters when I go to a amusement park. My favorite would be Sheikra at Busch Gardens in Tampa. Loved that ride.

Busch Gardens has amazing roller coasters. I can't wait to go back this year. Also, they have a ton of other attractions.....

My biggest problem with Magic Mountain is they've clear cut the mountain and area around it over the last 30 years to put in more rides and coasters, ruining the park itself a little more each time. Taking out the classic flume ride Logjammer with zero notice was not cool at all. Magic Mountain of my youth was very landscaped, especially on the mountain in the center. Revolution was all about zipping in and out of the trees and bushes. Most of that is gone now. I still like the park, but I wish the management would respect what they inherited instead of cutting it all down to make bigger coasters with almost no new shade and bushes to make it beautiful.

I was born and raised in Sandusky too. Small world!

I think it's going to be a major shit show this Summer with the Gold Pass they rolled out at the end of last year. A ton of people bought it and if the crowds last Fall were any indication, I will be staying away on weekends.

My advice is to buy a fast pass and go on a weekday if you're serious about riding. If you go on a weekday in May before kids are on Summer break you can probably get away without the fast pass and still have short lines. I would personally chain ride Steel Vengeance the entire day!

Kennywood
Pittsburgh, PA

Some of the best wooden coasters in the country:
Jack Rabbit
Racers
Thunderbolt

Kennywood is great, but I think the best spot for Wood these days is probably Hershey.

Comet is a classy old classic, lightning racer is a ton of fun, and the Wildcat is batshit crazy. They all look fabulous at night also.

While not bad suggestions, that's a big Nope on both. If your criteria is best Wood coasters in one park, Holiday World (Indiana) wins hands down;

Voyage (my personal #1)
Legend
Raven

Get yourself to HoliWood Nights (coaster enthusiast event always held 1st weekend after Memorial Day), and experience these babies during incredible nighttime ERT. Change your perspective on what wood coasters can be.

Honorable mention to the trio at Knoebel's (Phoenix, Flying Turns, and Twister).

Later,
EV

anywhere but cedar point. i live in ohio, but its the worst. long waits, outdated, terrible design of the park.

i'm with you. the thunderbolt has the best start for a ride ever. t here is no hill up, as soon as the coaster leaves parking it go foward and drops down a ravine. quite a surprise to start a ride and unexpected if you have never been on it.

Here is an itinerary for you to hit four major parks in one trip:
Day 1: Melbourne to LA, LA to St. Louis
Day 2: Six Flags St. Louis
Day: 3/4 Holiday World
Day: 5/6 Kings Island
Day: 7/8 Cedar Point
Day: 9 Cleveland to LA, LA to Melbourne
Only about 3-4 hours between parks by car. Add in Days of rest as you see fit!

parks (resized).png

And you can add Silver Dollar city and Kentucky kingdom in there.

Agreed. Wood coasters...Holiday World for the win...period.

I was thinking something very similar to this trip!