There’s a great documentary on YouTube by Seaworld History about the former Rhino Rally attraction at Busch Gardens Tampa featuring the amazing SirWillow who used to be a driver on the attraction. I was also thrilled to see the inclusion of some pictures I had posted several years ago on a blog entries about the abandoned ride area and the Rhino Rally area being under construction for what would become Serengeti Flyer. It was so cool to see my blog mentioned in the credits!
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Three rides from the former Six Flags America park briefly appeared on the prominent used ride website Amusement-Rides.com. The rides included the park’s Zamperal NebulaZ SteamWhirler, its Zampera spinning coaster Ragin’ Cajun and its Zamperla Discovery Harley Quinn Spinsanity. The NebulaZ and Giant Discovery were especially surprising given they were nearly new and seemed likely to be relocated to another Six Flags park. The spinning coaster was a tad older, having originally come itself in a relocation from Six Flags Great America, but also was seen as likely to find a new home.
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Kasas City Chiefs tight end and Taylor Swift fiancé Travis Kelce is now a major investor in Six Flags. He has partnered with activist investor Jana Partners to take a 9% stake in the company. They plan to engage with the company’s board and management regarding opportunities to enhance shareholder value and improve the guest experience and the company seems willing to accept the help. Kelce was a fan of Cedar point as a child and wants future generations to have the same experience he did growing up.
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It appears that Brian Bacica will shortly no longer be with Busch Gardens Tampa and will be moving to LegoLand Florida. This is according to well informed sources at Busch Gardens as well as a Screen shot of an internal Merlin message announcing him joining LegoLand Florida as VP on December 10th. I was able to independently confirm the LegoLand VP opening through a connection vying for the position. Busch Gardens will have its 3rd park President in the last year, which is an incredible amount of turnover. The new President inherits a park with tremendous history and world class coasters, but with increasing perception that Busch Gardens Tampa is a park on decline. Hopefully 2026 will bring great things for the park!
Six Flags America is closed, likely forever, unless the land is bought by a group who intends to reopen it, which seems unlikely. There have already been reports of trains from Professor Screamore’s SkyWinder being moved to Canada’s Wonderland for their Vekoma SLC Flight Deck, so it appears the dismantling is underway. Six Flags also announced on an earnings call its intention to divest other “non-core” parks, but it is yet to be seen if these sales will be to another operator or result in closure with the land seeing other uses. A closure is often in the best interest of a seller in order to drive business to their other parks nearby. National news gave lots of coverage to the Six Flags America closure, laying part of the blame on a “sluggish economy that’s hit Six Flags’ core middle-class customers particularly hard”. So what does this mean for the industry going forward?
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If you are active duty or retired military or a department of defense civilian employee you can get a Universal Orlando Resort Annual Pass incredibly cheaply. The pass is called the Military Freedom Pass and it starts at just $220 (compared to the cheapest standard pass at $425). You can choose From 2-Park or 3-Park options where Volcano Bay is added as the 3rd park. Keep in mind that no Universal annual pass currently gets you into Epic Universe, but more on that later. This is quite the bargain when a single day ticket starts at $119, so for less than the cost of 2 days you get the whole year.
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LEGOLAND Billund Resort is opening a new roller coaster in 2026 (or actually two credits due to the two tracks and dueling nature) called Minifigure Speedway. The attraction is already open at LEGOLAND Windsor Resort, where the picture above is from, and features a duelling element with each team having their own minifigure captain. The ride will be located between Knights’ Kingdom and Adventure Land at a height of ~50 feet and is being built on the site of the former Vikings River Splash. This is a “shuttle” style coaster manufactured by Zierer, so the fact it experiences the layout both forwards and backwards makes the most use of the 843 feet of track.
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The Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) is a international non-profitwho releases a free annual report about the leisure and travel sectors including the theme park industry. The 2024 TEA Global Experience Index™ is out and the results show that Asia is a growing theme park powerhouse with 12 of the top 25 theme parks by attendance. It’s not uncommon for enthusiasts to travel internationally these days, but most seem to travel to Europe, not Asia. Most of the Asian parks in the top 10 are in Japan including #3 Universal Studios Japan, #4 Tokyo Disneyland and #7 Tokyo DisneySea, but you’ll also find several parks in China and two in South Korea. However, this report shows that if you’ve never visited a park in Asia you’re missing almost half of the top 25 parks in the world.
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Did you know that a town in Colorado served as the model for Disneyland’s (and the Magic Kingdom’s) Main Street USA? Fort Collins proudly embraces this heritage and it’s all because of Imagineer Harper Goff who was born in Fort Collins. Main Street USA also draws inspiration from Walt Disney’s hometown, Marceline, Missouri but the similarities to Fort Collins are uncanny. In fact records show that Goff went back to Fort Collins in the 1950’s explicitly for the purpose of building Main Street USA in the future Disneyland park. You can see in the pictures above many commonalities from the trolley all the way down to the look of the street lights.
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If you’re a teacher, work in healthcare, are in in the military, a veterans or a first responder you can get a free ticket this month (November 2025) to Six Flags Over Georgia as part of their DC Heroes Fest. These local heroes may also purchase up to six (6) friends and family tickets for $19.99 each. Free and discounted tickets can be can be obtained in person on the day of their visit with Applicable ID. During DC Heroes Fest guests can enjoy special live performances, face painting, arts and crafts, photo opportunities, exclusive character meet-and-greets and their favorite rides. All the information and rules can be found at https://www.sixflags.com/overgeorgia/events/DC-heroes-fest.
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