August has arrived, but the theme park industry showed no sign of slowing down during another announcement-filled week.
Six Flags finally revealed the identity of the enormous purple coaster rising above Great Adventure, Universal Studios Hollywood began welcoming guests onto its long-awaited Fast & Furious attraction and Halloween Horror Nights added one of rock music’s most recognisable names to its 2026 line-up.
Dollywood has confirmed when visitors will finally be able to experience its delayed indoor adventure coaster, Knott’s Soak City revealed two unusual new water slides and Busch Gardens Tampa Bay prepared to say goodbye to one of the most influential roller coasters of the 1990s.
Here are the biggest theme park stories from the past seven days.
Six Flags reveals the record-breaking Bakunawa
Months of speculation surrounding Six Flags Great Adventure’s mysterious Project Purple finally came to an end when the park officially unveiled Bakunawa.
Opening in 2027, the enormous attraction will reach a height of 382 feet and a top speed of 100mph. Six Flags is describing it as the tallest and fastest spinning launch coaster in the world.
The ride will feature floorless, free-spinning trains and three separate launches across a 3,163-foot layout. One of those launches will send riders upside down, something Six Flags claims has never previously been attempted on a roller coaster.
Bakunawa takes its name from a serpent-like creature found in Philippine mythology. The attraction’s story imagines the creature awakening beneath the Jersey Shore before rising into the sky and attempting to consume the moon.
The coaster will become the centrepiece of a wider redevelopment of Great Adventure’s Boardwalk area. Six Flags says the attraction will claim six world records when it opens, although the unusual spinning trains may prove more important to the experience than any single statistic.
Replacing Kingda Ka was always going to require something enormous. Bakunawa may not attempt to reproduce the former coaster’s straightforward hydraulic launch, but its scale ensures Great Adventure will continue to possess one of the most dramatic skylines in the industry.
Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift begins welcoming riders
Universal Studios Hollywood’s Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift began welcoming its first public riders during technical rehearsals on 27 July.
The coaster uses vehicles designed to rotate through 360 degrees, allowing them to drift through corners while travelling around the hillside layout. It also sends riders over the edge of the park’s Upper Lot on a large track element overlooking the surrounding area.
Its arrival is particularly significant for Universal Studios Hollywood, which has historically offered fewer conventional thrill rides than many competing parks. Hollywood Drift gives the resort a major outdoor roller coaster built around one of Universal’s most commercially successful film franchises.
The technical rehearsal does not represent the attraction’s formal grand opening, and Universal has warned that the ride may operate intermittently while testing and adjustments continue.
Nevertheless, the start of guest operations suggests the project is now approaching the finish line after years of construction and speculation.
Ozzy Osbourne joins Halloween Horror Nights
Universal also completed another major part of its Halloween Horror Nights line-up by announcing Ozzy Osbourne: Prince of Darkness.
The new haunted house will appear at both Universal Orlando Resort and Universal Studios Hollywood, celebrating more than four decades of the rock musician’s solo career.
Guests will encounter imagery and characters inspired by Ozzy’s albums, performances and larger-than-life public persona. Universal says the experience was developed in collaboration with members of the Osbourne family.
The Orlando and Hollywood versions will not be completely identical. Each park will interpret different parts of Ozzy’s career while using his music and visual style to build an intense walkthrough experience.
Halloween Horror Nights begins at Universal Orlando on 28 August, while the Hollywood event starts on 3 September. Both seasons are currently scheduled to continue until 1 November.
The announcement gives this year’s event a particularly strong musical identity and follows previous haunted attractions inspired by artists including The Weeknd.
Dollywood sets an opening date for NightFlight Expedition
Dollywood has confirmed that NightFlight Expedition will open to all guests on 19 August.
The $50 million attraction was originally expected to debut earlier in the 2026 season, but its opening was delayed as work continued on the ambitious indoor experience.
Dollywood describes NightFlight Expedition as the world’s first immersive indoor adventure coaster. The ride will combine coaster sections, motion-based movement, scenic environments and more than 500,000 gallons of water inside a large show building.
Its story follows fictional adventurers Cora and Jasper as they search the Smoky Mountains for the region’s famous synchronous fireflies. Riders will soar above mountain scenery, navigate a white-water environment and enter a mysterious bioluminescent landscape.
Eligible season passholders will receive preview opportunities between 15 and 18 August before general public operations begin.
NightFlight Expedition is the largest individual attraction investment in Dollywood’s history and represents one of the most technically ambitious openings of 2026.
Knott’s Soak City plans two unusual family slides
Knott’s Soak City has announced two new family raft attractions for the 2027 season.
Coral Craze will become the first triple Family FlyingSAUCER installation on the West Coast. Large rafts will travel through three steeply banked saucer elements designed to create sweeping turns and moments of weightlessness.
Kelp Kraze will be North America’s first Family HIVE slide, combining enclosed helix sections with translucent walls and changing views across the water park.
Both attractions will carry groups of up to five riders and share a conveyor system that transports the heavy rafts to the top of the tower.
The slides will replace Shore Break, a complex containing six individual body and mat slides. The decision reflects a wider water park trend towards shared family experiences capable of accommodating groups together, rather than collections of high-intensity attractions ridden individually.
Kumba takes its final roar
Finally, Busch Gardens Tampa Bay is preparing to close Kumba after 33 years of operation.
The Bolliger & Mabillard roller coaster is scheduled to carry its final riders on 2 August. When it opened in 1993, Kumba was among the tallest and fastest looping coasters in the world and helped establish the layout style that would define many major attractions throughout the decade.
Its sequence of seven inversions includes a vertical loop wrapped around the lift hill, a dive loop, a zero-gravity roll, a cobra roll and a pair of interlocking corkscrews.
Kumba also became known for the distinctive roar created by its track, which could be heard across large parts of Busch Gardens.
The park has already confirmed that the name will live on through Kumba’s Revenge, a new attraction planned as part of Busch Gardens Tampa Bay’s wider $100 million investment programme.
Exactly what that replacement will involve remains unclear, although the park has described it as an extension of Kumba’s story rather than a straightforward refurbishment.
Whatever comes next, the original Kumba leaves behind a substantial legacy. Its combination of forceful inversions, creative terrain use and relentless pacing helped demonstrate what Bolliger & Mabillard could achieve during the manufacturer’s formative years.
Another week of record-breaking ambitions and difficult farewells
This week’s stories captured two very different sides of the theme park industry.
Bakunawa and NightFlight Expedition represent the continuing push towards attractions that are larger, more technically ambitious and easier to distinguish from anything that has come before.
At the same time, Kumba’s closure is another reminder that even hugely influential roller coasters cannot operate forever.
With Hollywood Drift now carrying guests and the autumn announcement season approaching, August could become one of the busiest months of the year for new attraction news.
For now, however, the week belongs to a mythical moon-eating serpent, a drifting Hollywood coaster and one final roar from a Florida legend.
