Dollywood has announced that NightFlight will be closed through October 2, 2026 for the park to continue to optimize their newest attraction. The closure was originally slated to start on Monday, September 28th, but instead started sooner than expected on Friday, September 25th per the park’s social media. This park is is a technological marvel, combining several types of ride technologies together. A past closure was related to the “table” which runs the flight simulator portion of the ride, but there’s no information as to what this closure is related to.
Six Flags Over Georgia is home to a historic carousel and when they say historic they mean it as it was actually added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1995 (NRHP reference number 94001639). The carousel is named the Riverview Carousel and takes its name from Riverview Park in Chicago, Illinois where it operated from 1908 to 1967. That makes the carousel over 100 years old! The carousel was built by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company (PTC) and is one of only four 5-row carousels built by the company. The Riverview Carousel is one of only two surviving carousels still operating in that “5-wide” original configuration with the other one being the Prince Charming Regal Carousel at Magic Kingdom. The carousel opened at Six Flags Over Georgia for the 1972 season and has been a park staple for over 50 years. It now sits on “Carousel Hill” which is visible from many areas of the park.
DreamSong Theater at Dollywood (Photo courtesy of Matt Brinkley)
The DreamSong Theater is one of Dollywood’s premier live entertainment venues. However, it wasn’t always a music venue, but actually housed several iterations of a motion simulator ride. The attraction opened in 1996 and used seat movement synced to the films to create an immersive experience. The two films that were primarily played were first Thunder Road followed by Smoky Mountain Wilderness Adventure Ride with Polar Express interspersed during the holidays. The attraction closed in 2008 and the facility was then converted to a live performance theater that today is called the DreamSong Theater. Today the Dreamsong Theater is primarily home to the Heidi Parton’s Kin & Friends show. Heidi Parton is Dolly’s niece and the show largely serves as a tribute to Dolly. It features Heidi Parton along with her family and friends performing hit songs across a variety of genres and celebrating the Parton family gift of music. The recent addition of NightFlight has been applauded for giving Dollywood a much needed “all-weather” attraction, but years ago it actually had an indoor simulator ride.
Fun Spot Atlanta closed back in August and the auction for the rides and other property at the park is underway. Dozens of items are for sale from coasters like Sea Serpent and Hurricane to Flat rides like Hook & Slice to arcade games to kitchen equipment. The online auction began on September 22nd and runs through October 14th. “Our Atlanta park made lifetime memories for a lot of families, and the equipment behind those memories has been well cared for,” said John Arie, Jr., Owner and Chief Executive Officer of Fun Spot America Theme Parks. The bidding is already strong on many items with interested buyers to include other amusement parks, family entertainment centers or even local fans.
Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare at Kings Island won the 2026 Best New Family Attraction “Golden Ticket” awarded by Amusement Today. On the attraction riders travel in enchanted opera boxes and use flashlights to catch ghost musical notes (using projection mapping and haptic vibration feedback to show success). The ride replaced Boo Blasters on Boo Hill and is in homage to the beloved Phantom Theater Omnimover-style dark ride that operated on the site from 1992–2002. In between it operated as Scooby-Doo and the Haunted Castle from 2003–2009 and then Boo Blasters on Boo Hill from 2010–2025. Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare is a huge upgrade to Boo Blasters with 33 animatronics across 26 scenes with special effects like wind, scent changes, and shifting temperatures.
For the 10th year in a row, Fury 325 at Carowinds has won best steel roller coaster as awarded by the Amudement Today 2026 Golden Ticket Awards. This is a record for the B&M coaster which opened on March 28, 2015. The top 5 were rounded out by Jurassic World Velocicoaster, Steel Vengeance, Iron Gwazi and Ride to Happiness. ArieFore One, a coaster that’s gotten a lot of press recently, finished 11th and Carowinds is one of the rumored sites where the ride could be relocated. This could give the park a potent coaster combination. It’s hard to see anything in the near future that could end the run of Fury 325 at the top. Maybe Kumba’s Revenge if it is indeed a record breaking B&M Giga coaster? Maybe Bakuwana? It’s likely we’ll be out into 2028 or 2029 at the earliest as a new coaster has never won “Best New Coaster” and Overall #1 in the same year. Congrats to Fury 325, Carowinds and Six Flags for this great accomplishment for this great roller coaster.
Galacticoaster at LEGOLAND was awarded the Golden Ticket for the Best New Theme Concept for 2026. The Golden Ticket Awards, presented annually by Amusement Today, recognizes the best of the amusement and theme park industry based on voting from industry professionals and enthusiasts. Galacticoaster opened in early 2026 and represents Merlin Entertainment’s largest single in-park investment in the history of its U.S. attractions (Merlin Entertainment is the parent company of the LEGOLAND theme parks). Having ridden it personally, calling Galacticoaster and “ride” or a “roller coaster” really sells it short as this is a multi-part story driven experience. Seeing it get a “Best New Theme Concept” award perfectly encapsulates what this attraction is all about.
Monster Mansion wad an opening day attraction at Six Flags Over Georgia in 1967. On opening day it was known as Tales Of The Okefenokee (1967–1980), then Monster Plantation (1981–2008) and now Monster Mansion. The ride is widely considered to be the best dark ride in the Six Flags chain and possibly the best one outside of Universal and Disney. The park isn’t being complacent though, they’re making the ride better all the time. Six Flags Over Georgia has been great about putting out behind the scenes videos about their work on Monster Mansion on social media. The park calls these “Easter Eggs” and they frequently try to incorporate the history of the ride or the park.
2026 has been a great year for new roller coasters. We’ve had record breakers like Tormenta, indoor highly themed coasters like NightFlight and Galacticoaster as well as first of their kind like Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift. There’s also been a ton for the family from Bluey to Jurassic World. A new coaster can drive park attendance as people visit to try the new ride. It’s the plan that attendance spikes year over year for several years after a multi-million dollar addition like a new roller coaster. So here’s a list of the new coasters we’ve seen for 2026.
The Comet at Great Escape (formerly Six Flags and now Enchanted Parks) is a relocation from a shuttered park in Canada called Crystal Beach. The ride has a fascinating history in that it was also known as the Comet at Crystal Beach at the time of its closure, but in the early 1900’st it was known as the infamous Crystal Beach Cyclone, considered one of the most violent and terrifying rides ever built. It had a “modern” metal support structure with wooden tracks which allowed for more aggressive elements than would normally be seen on a wooden coaster. The layout featured no straight sections of track (except through the station), non-stop banked turns and drops and a sharp turn near the ground with a 90-degree bank that would cause many riders to temporarily pass out. The ride had 4-5 G’s of force, which some rides actually exceed today, but with G-force it’s not just about intensity, but duration as well. The Crystal Beach Cyclone would operate for 20 years before being shuttered, but its structure gave birth to a new and less intense coaster called the Comet that would eventually move from Canada to Great Escape in New York.
