Guests 65 and older get free admission to their Six Flags park for the rest of the 2026 season. Register online, then visit as often as you like through your park’s last day of the season. Simply choose your park and register online before the deadline. Free Senior Admission does not include parking or other perks and it’s open to guests born on or before December 31, 1961 are eligible. Participating parks and their last operating day of the season are below:
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Dollywood has released its full 2027 operating calendar with an opening day of March 10, 2027 for passholders and concluding on January 2, 2028. There are 275 operating days, which surprisingly is 6 fewer than last year after the park adding extra days in the past. The addition of NightFlight does add another indoor option, but this is still a primarily outdoor park with minimum temperature requirements for many of the roller coasters to operate. The calendar is filled with all your favorite events as Barbeque & Bluegrass returning for the 2027 season on Labor Day weekend. This will be the first full season without Dolly as well, so no doubt we can expect some openings of memorials and other poignant moments too. It’s crazy to think, but 2027 will be here before we know it!
Rilix Coaster is a VR coaster experience in the arcade packaging. The Rilix Coaster isn’t just VR visuals though, but a complete immersive experience using haptic technology in the seat and a variable speed fan. The haptic transducer lets you feel every bump and turn while the fan creates wind which helps create a sensation of speed. These can combine to create an immersive experience and mentally tie together the visuals with a physical feeling of motion when you’re actually stationary. You can see in the reaction video below just how convincing the effect can be.
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Andy Grove is the legendary former CEO of Intel and his office actually overlooked California’s Great America. One of the most important conversations in the history took place as he was looking out his window at the park. At that point in time Intel was primarily in the memory chip business and losing to Japanese companies subsidized by the government of Japan. Grove remarked to Gordon Moore (then CEO and co-founder), “If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what do you think he would do?” Moore replied immediately, “He would get us out of memories.” At that point Grove remarked, Why shouldn’t you and I walk out the door, come back and do it ourselves?”
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Six Flags has begun more aggressively marketing the regional access that comes with their Gold Season Pass. They have even created great maps like the one below that highlight the parks of each region. Although only a small percentage of season pass members will go to a distant park, the program does increase the perceived value of a season pass. It may serve to build loyalty and perhaps have some members plan a vacation around visiting a new park. Six Flags has even built web pages highlighting attractions at each park and even places to stay like this one for the Six Flags East Coast Region. This year I’v had the chance to travel to several Six Flags parks outside my home park of Six Flags Over Georgia and I couldn’t recommend using this benefit more!
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Orlando, Florida is known as the theme park capitol of the world and the local science center embraces this with its own roller coaster exhibit. The Orlando Science Center has the Coaster Challenge, where you’ll use pipes to build a model of whatever radical roller coaster you can dream up! The Coaster Challenge is located in the museum’s Kinetic Zone exhibit where guests explore the fundamentals of forces and learn the principles of physics.
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Disney has a new patent application out called “System and Method for Verifying Proper Usage of Passenger Restraints” where it uses a combination of cameras, sensors and machine learning (AI) to verify restraints on rides are being used properly. The cameras can look for several “keypoints” to assure the rider is secured. For example, a sensor can tell you that a seatbelt is buckled, but a camera can confirm it is on top on the rider’s torso and not underneath it. The cameras could also assure a restraint is completely closed and securing the rider so that there is a second check to the position sensors already used on rides. This could be especially important for riders with unique physical characteristics (large riders, small riders, missing limbs, odd body shapes, etc.) where a sensor would register as good, but perhaps a potential safety issue remains.
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Great Escape has unveiled its new park logo and begun the process of converting over from the old Six Flags name and logo. 2026 was slated to be a year of transition with the move over to Enchanted Parks branding expected by 2027. The logo incorporates the Adirondacks mountains, a roller coaster, a water ride and Merry Miller’s Mill in the storybook section of the park, tracing back to the park’s Storytown USA roots. Similar identity changes for the Great Escape Lodge and the water park are expected by the end of the year.
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The London Eye has been an iconic part of the London skyline for over 25 years, visible almost anywhere along the river. It originally opened as the Millennium Wheel (opening on 12/31/99) and was the tallest wheel at the time it opened at 443 feet. It has since been surpassed by the Star of Nanchang in China at 525 feet, but still hold the the record for largest cantilevered observation wheel (supported solely by an A-frame on one side). However, did you know it was actually owned and operated by Merlin Entertainments, owner of the Popular LEGOLAND parks? The website calls it “The World’s Most Iconic Ride”, so having it owned by a theme park company seems appropriate.
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The Platinum Season Pass at SeaWorld San Antonio has long been one of the best values in the theme park industry. The 2027 version still is a tremendous value, but a major change in the guest ticket redemption windows may have a big impact on some guests. Typically platinum season passholders receive 8 free guest tickets per season and that is still the case for 2027, but the change is in the redemption periods. Previously guests would essentially get two tickets every 4 months and both guest tickets could be used on the same day. However, for 2027 passholders will get one ticket every 2 months, eliminating the ability for passholders to bring multiple guests on the same day. This change appears to be uniform across the United Parks chain to include SeaWorld Orlando Platinum Pass, Busch Gardens Tampa Platinum Pass and others.
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