And with that, the summer season of 2025 comes to a close.
Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando, and Disneyland in California already have started their Halloween events. Many more theme parks will join them over the next three weeks, including Universal Studios Hollywood on Thursday and Knott's Scary Farm two weeks after that. But let's look past the Halloween and holiday seasons and ahead to 2026.
What kind of year can the theme park industry, and its fans, expect next year?
In the United States, there are no major, new-construction attractions planned to open in 2026 at Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando, or Disneyland. The most-visited theme park in the United States opening a new-construction attraction in 2026 will be Universal Studios Hollywood, with its Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift coaster. That's expected sometime early in the year.
Beyond that? If Knott's Berry Farm does not get its rebuilt Montezooma opened this year, that might slide one more year into 2026. But that's not really new construction, as it is a rebuild of a former coaster, reportedly without many of the theming enhancements that Knott's promised when announcing the project. Down the coast, SeaWorld San Diego is refreshing its Shark Encounter.
Elsewhere among the top 20 parks in North America, Kings Island is transforming its Boo Blasters on Boo Hill interactive Sally dark ride into Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare, an interactive Sally dark ride. Otherwise, nothing has been announced yet.
At smaller parks, SeaWorld San Antonio is expected to open its installation of the Bolliger & Mabillard family inverted coasters that United Parks seems to have bought in bulk. The Legoland parks in California and Florida will be opening their Lego Galaxy roller coasters, but those are expected to be indoor versions of the same model as Snoopy's Racing Railway at the Six Flags parks. At least Six Flags Over Texas is building a new B&M dive coaster, so it's not all family and kiddie coasters outside Universal next year.
Circling back to Universal, the company will open a new theme park next year, with its Universal Kids Resort outside Dallas. But beyond Universal's two new projects, 2026 has not offered a line-up that promises to inspire a lot of theme park enthusiasts to travel beyond their home parks next year. I know of at least two parks that are planning announcements this month, but with international travel to the U.S. not looking like it will rebound for at least the next three years or so, and rising prices squeezing many American consumer, 2026 might see a big downturn for the theme park industry if some big new projects don't get announced soon.
Walt Disney World has its Tropical Americas land at Disney's Animal Kingdom coming in 2027. And the resort will open a rebrand of Animation Courtyard at Disney's Hollywood Studios next year, as well as - possibly - that Carousel of Progress revamp that the company promised at Destination D23 last weekend. But Universal Orlando will be riding what it hopes are the coattails of Epic Universe's opening this year, as its Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit replacement at Universal Studios Florida will not be ready until 2027 at the earliest. Universal's other new project for 2026 is a second installation of Universal Horror Unleashed, in Chicago.
In California at Disneyland, construction will start next year on the new Avatar ride as well as the new parking garage east of the resort. Construction is underway already on the Avengers Campus expansion, but that looks to be a 2027 debut, as well.
Yes, there are other major projects in development across the country. But until I see official opening dates for COTAland in Austin, Texas or Mattel Adventure Park in Glendale, Arizona or the Kansas City area, I do not think that fans should be spending money yet to plan trips to those already-delayed parks.
Years ago, a TV network promoted its summer reruns with the slogan, "if you haven't seen it, it's new to you!" That might become the theme park industry's manta to fans in 2026, as well. With a modest line-up of new attractions - especially for fans without small children - next year might be one for exploring parks in the United States - and, especially, abroad - that fans have not visited before, or in years.
Maybe 2026 will be the year for hidden gems beyond the industry's traditional headliners. Where are you looking forward to - or thinking about - visiting in 2026?
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For a list of major new projects coming to theme parks around the world in 2026 and beyond, please see our theme park rides under construction page.
The state of the industry unfortunately means 2026 is very likely to be a lighter year across the board, but that doesn't mean it isn't still a year with some good offerings. We've got the debut of three whole parks: Cotaland, Mattel Adventure Park, and Universal Kids Resort. Plus, despite their financial difficulties, Six Flags still has a number of projects going on for next year...
-Water Ride @ Carowinds
-Phantom Theater @ Kings Island
-Soak City Improvements @ Knott's Berry Farm
-50th Anniversary Celebration @ Six Flags Great America (new kids area deferred to 2027)
-Roller Coaster (Cyber Cycle) @ Six Flags Magic Mountain
-Speedway Stunt Coaster @ Six Flags Mexico
-Quantum Accelerator @ Six Flags New England (deferred from 2025)
-(record breaking) Dive Machine @ Six Flags Over Texas
-Waterpark Expansion (and likely 50th Anniversary Celebration) @ Valleyfair!
United also has a bit going on, but it looks like everything is on the small side for them...
-Italian Le Mans (rumored) @ Busch Gardens Williamsburg
-Inverted Family Coaster @ SeaWorld San Antonio
-Shark Encounter @ SeaWorld San Diego
Beyond that, Hershend is adding a new Vekoma suspended family coaster to Kentucky Kingdom and Dollywood is getting a major new attraction themed to the Secret Lake of Wildwood Grove, which stands a good shot of being the best new attraction in North America next year. The other big contender is of course Fast & Furious Hollywood Drift at Universal Studios Hollywood, but also worth noting is that park will be reprising Universal Fan Fest Nights with a whole new set of temporary attractions. Florida is light next year but isn't being left out, as Epic Universe is opening a new restaurant in Celestial Park and Walt Disney World's got updated versions of Big Thunder Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, and Smugglers Run to debut, as well as The Magic of Disney Animation. Lastly, we've got the Lego Galaxy projects at Legolands in both California and Florida, which amounts to the largest investment in a while for either park. Overall, while we're only getting about half as much of note next year as we did this year, it's still got some potentially good stuff to offer.
As for me, unfortunate personal events in the early part of 2025 wiped out everything I had planned this year, and unless something changes it's very likely to be the first year since 2016 I don't leave California. Thus, my #1 plan for 2026 is to get back to Florida and do everything that's been added since my most recent visit in 2022. Second priority would be a deep south trip to get on whatever Dollywood's cooking for next year as well as a few major coasters from the past couple years I have yet to ride (namely ArieForce One, Big Bear Mountain, Georgia Gold Rusher, and Rapterra). I might also try to get out to the Midwest for Wrath of Rakshasa and some other rides, but as that was the original 2026 plan it's probably going to be deferred a year.
They're building something at Dollywood, but nothing anounced yet as far as I know.
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FWIW, SFGAdv has made progress on their new "record breaking" coaster to replace Kingda Ka/Green Lantern as numerous footers have been spotted around the project site. However, SF has already pushed that opening to 2027, so excitement for that is obviously muted until the park actually announces what it's going to be.
I feel like there were so many coasters that opened late this year that many of them will be marketed as "new" next year since many of the regional parks simply don't have the resources to build anything truly new for 2026. I'm actually pretty surprised that we haven't even seen any announcements from parks for any major flat rides in 2026. I feel that large flat rides can often take the place of a major coaster in a park's marketing cycle when there isn't enough money to build something big. I'm also a bit surprised that SF hasn't announced that any of the attractions at SFA will be moving to other parks in the chain. While it probably doesn't make a lot of sense to move many of the big coasters, there are plenty of newer flat rides at the park that could find a home elsewhere in the chain. Maybe they're waiting until SFA officially closes to make those announcements so as to not rub salt into the wound, but waiting until November to make announcements about "new" attractions for 2026 probably won't make much of an impact revenue-wise for whatever parks are actually "gifted" attractions from SFA.
For us, we missed out on Epic this summer, so if we find ourselves in Florida in 2026, that would be an entirely new park for us. Also, we're planning our very first visit to Lagoon in a couple of weeks, and we might seek out parks we haven't visited in a while (like SFNE, KI, and others) over chasing new for 2026 installations. Frankly, we did pretty well this summer getting to new for 2025 coasters with Flash (SFGAdv), Rapterra (KD), Big Bad Wolf (BGW), Alpen Fury (CW), Wrath of Rakshasa (SFGAm), and Siren's Curse (CP).