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SIX FLAGS GREAT ADVENTURE
& Six Flags Hurricane Harbor
Jackson, New Jersey
Six Flags Theme Parks
 Park News - (10/8/2026) Six Flags Great Adventure has teamed up with Atlantic Highlands-based Shipwreck Rum to introduce… “Bakunawa’s Wrath”, a limited-edition speciality cocktail inspired by the park’s upcoming record breaking coaster in 2027, Bakunawa.
“Available exclusively at Sea Gulps from October 9 until supplies last, the vibrant beverage gives guests a first taste of the legend before Bakunawa officially arrives. This limited-run release serves as a sneak peek of a signature beverage experience that will return in 2027 as part of the Bakunawa experience, offering fans an exclusive preview before its full launch next season.”
“The collaboration brings together two New Jersey brands dedicated to creating unforgettable guest experiences. Featuring a blend of Shipwreck White Rum, Shipwreck Lime Rum, Blue Curaçao, grenadine, lemonade and club soda, the striking purple cocktail is finished with a green gummy serpent garnish, a playful nod to the mythical creature that inspired Bakunawa's name and storyline.”
Sounds good to me… let me know if you find it and give it a try, or try to make one of your own.
(9/19/2026) Fright Fest has returned to Six Flags Great Adventure as of last night, and the re-energized event will feature four brand new haunted mazes this year: two IP mazes and two new original concepts: Jason: Blood Reign, Final Destination: Death’s Playground, Twisted Holidays and Deadwood Cabin. Two fan favorite IP mazes from last year will also return: The Conjuring Universe and Army of the Dead, along with the return of the popular Dead Man’s Party show.
(8/16/2026) The new Final Destination: Death’s Playground haunt that was announced as coming to Six Flags Magic Mountain has now also been confirmed as coming to Six Flags Great Adventure.
(8/1/2026) Six Flags has announced that the Jason Universe will arrive at select parks this Halloween season with the creation of a “Jason Blood Reign” haunted house experience. The post on social media tagged Kings Island, Six Flags Great Adventure and Carowinds, so we can only assume the new Jason attraction will be at just those parks.
(6/27/2026) Six Flags Great Adventure has been working to restore the track on the Runaway Train coaster to a color scheme very close to its original look. Apparently it hasn’t been painted in about 20 years and was really showing its age, so it was time to fix it up! Check out the video below from the park about the 10-week restoration process that will see it closed on an off for the time being to work on it. Restoration of the Fort structure is also starting and will result in an all new color scheme for it in the near future.
(5/10/2026) Six Flags had some good news last week for fans of Six Flags over Georgia and Six Flags Great Adventure. The company announced that they were going to bring back the “Holiday in the Park” winter festival event after cancelling them last season. The returning events will be “reimagined” and feature new themed lands, live entertainment and more family friendly activities. Six Flags says they are now planning on making this a multi-year investment to bring the Holiday in the Park event back to these two parks, so you can expect the experience to grow and add new features each year for the next few years.
According to Six Flags, this version of Holiday in the Park will have been “completely redesigned from the ground up”. The exact line-up of entertainment and rides that will be available will be announced at a future date.
Now… you may be wondering… who is being left out here? The answer is Kings Dominion, who saw it’s WinterFest event cut from the 2025 schedule and it will not be returning for 2026 either. Kings Dominion was also left out of the list of major parks who were bringing back the Park President position, so it does make one ponder what Six Flags has in store for Kings Dominion going forward. As such… I would think that the 2026 Summer Season is going to be a very important one for the park, as I think they will be keeping a very close eye on how operations go this year.
 2027 - Bakunawa / “Project Purple” - (10/2/2026) Six Flags Great Adventure sent out a new video update showing off the Bakunawa ride cars being put together. There will be two trains, a purple and a green train, each five cars long.
(7/30/2026) It looks like the rumors were right, because Six Flags Great Adventure confirmed this week that BAKUNAWA was coming in 2027. Just as described in the last update, the new coaster will be inspired by the Philippine legend of the BAKUNAWA sea serpent. Details about the ride experience and records it will break were also revealed.
For starters, Bakunawa will be the world’s tallest and fastest spinning launch coaster, with the spiral tower at the end standing 382 feet tall, making it one of the five tallest roller coasters in the world. The top speed of the launched experience will hit 100mph, on what will be the world’s first free-spinning, floorless coaster trains, able to rotate freely throughout the ride experience in order to ensure that no two rides are exactly the same.
In order to allow for better capacity, the station will be able to load two different trains, so one is ready to go when the other returns. According to the press release, the experience will last 2 minutes and 17 seconds, starting with the first of three magnetic launches that will propel the train from 0 to 60mph. As the train inverts upside-down into the world’s longest stall inversion, the trains will encounter the ride’s second launch while completely upside-down, that will boost the train from 60mph to 80mph. Rolling back upright, as the trains hit the bottom of the spiral tower they will run through the third launch zone that will accelerate the train up to 100mph as it blasts up the massive tower, into a spiral and into a 180º bank, revealing an “unprecedented” view of Six Flags Great Adventure below you… assuming you still have your eyes open at this point.
“Each of the two, 20-passenger trains surfaces from the depths and speeds through the 3,163-foot course with its free-spinning, floorless vehicles rotating independently, creating a unique combination of spins, views and sensations every cycle.” Riders must be at least 48” tall to ride Bakunawa.
All together, they say the coaster will take Six World Records:
World’s Fastest Spinning Coaster (100mph)
World’s Tallest Spinning Coaster (382 feet)
World’s Fastest Inversion (80mph)
World’s Longest Stall Inversion
World’s First Floorless Spinning Coaster
World’s First Upside-Down Launch
(7/25/2026) The next and final teaser for Project Purple has been posted by Six Flags Great Adventure, which confirms that the big announcement will take place on July 28th.
The funny thing is the true name of Project Purple has been the cause of so much debate this summer, which is great for the park, as everyone is talking about the next new coaster. Phantom Spire was a fun sounding name for sure, bug Gargantuan Vertical Vengeance is just too much of a mouthful and as a backup, I’ve been wondering if the park was trolling the enthusiast community with that one a little bit, especially by putting the GVV logo on the shipping container.
One really fun theory has come out that I think has enough merit to be worth discussing, and that is the name Bakunawa. You haven’t seen this in a trademark filing most likely because it is a historic and public mythic character… not unlike other mythic characters like Thor, Zeus, Kraken and the like. I believe the way this works is that while a park can get a copyright on their particular version of a mythic character like this (such as Marvel’s Thor) the use for the name and concept itself are not exclusive, so that someone else could come up with their own version of it… much like how we’ve seen so many versions of Pinocchio or Hercules over the years, as the character itself become public domain.
So you are likely asking yourself right now… just what the heck is a Bakunawa? It isn’t the most well known creature, but Bakunawa is a giant sea serpent / dragon like character from Philippine mythology who is also known as the “Moon-Eater”, and is such related to the cause of eclipses, earthquakes and some storms. As the legend goes, there were once seven moons in the sky and Bakunawa becamed obsessed with them and rose up from the sea and devoured six of them. You can see where this is going, as modern lunar eclipses are said to be Bakunawa attempting to swallow the final moon in the sky, and rituals would be performed making a lot of loud noise to drive Bakunawa back into the sea during the eclipse.
While the announcement is set for July 28th… it is interesting to note that the last significant lunar eclipse to take place before New Year’s Eve 2028 is actually set for the evening a month later on August 27, 2026 for what is being called a “Deep Partial Lunar Eclipse” where 96% of the moon will slip into the Earth’s shadow. By now you will have also noticed that the Full Moon has been present in a lot of the Project Purple teaser material as well… while we’ve been all too focused on the shipping container itself, the full moon has been there in the background as well in much of it.
So while we still don’t know the true name of Project Purple… we now have what could possibly be our first clue as to the theme of the ride.
(7/17/2026) A new teaser has been posted featuring the Project Purple shipping container, found on the beach and they report that “something is trying to get out!”.
(7/11/2026) The first new teaser for the theme and name of “Project Purple” at Six Flags Great Adventure was released yesterday… taking the form of a washed up shipping container sitting on the shore and a creepy audio track that says, “This is ship B-728 and we’ve lost precious cargo. If you find our container… please don’t open it!”
A closer look at the shipping container reveals “GVV SC” logo on the left, and as you may recall Six Flags did just post a trademark filing for the name “Gargantuan Vertical Vengeance”. In addition to some sea nets caught on the edges, and barnacles, there is an impression that makes it look like it may have been grabbed at one point by a giant tentacle. On the right side is another warning sticker of some kind… I can’t quite make out the first word, but it may say “BEACH WARNING” followed by a purple flag and the text, “Dangerous Sea Creatures”
Oh… apparently a real life version of this crate has been dropped off a few days ago at the park by the entrance to Shoreline Pier, where a better look at this particular warning sign confirms it is a “Marine Life Hazzard”, along with a tag line at the bottom by a Shoreline Pier logo that says “Know the warning flags”. And yes… fun fact… a Purple Flag is an official beach warning sign to indicate the presence of “Dangerous Marine Life”.
So we’re clearly going for a sea creature / Kraken style motif it seems, and we won’t have long to wait, as it looks like the announcement is coming on July 28th.
(7/1/2026) Six Flags Great Adventure has now installed the final and tallest section of track on Project Purple, topping the ride structure out at 375 feet. According to stats on RCDB, this will make the ride the 3rd tallest coaster in the world, trailing behind only Falcons Flight (534.8 ft at Six Flags Qiddiya City) and Top Thrill 2 (420 feet at Cedar Point).
(6/28/2026) I mentioned this elsewhere in today’s update, but while the long popular name that was spotted in the trademark database awhile back for “Project Purple” has been “Phantom Spire”. It just sort of fits with exactly the kind of ride that Project Purple is turning out to be, but a new name has also been spotted in the database that might fit as well.
“Gargantuan Vertical Vengeance”
Sure, it’s a bit of a mouthful and doesn’t quite flow over the tongue like Phantom Spire, so I’m wondering if this new filing has been put out as a “backup” name just in case someone objects to and blocks their use of Phantom Spire. That or maybe Six Flags has another giant ride planned elsewhere in the chain that they want to use Gargantuan Vertical Vengeance on.
(6/2/2026) It is being said that Six Flags Great Adventure welcomed a monstrous 450-foot construction crane to the park this week. The heavy machinery is on-site to begin erecting the massive vertical spike track for the highly anticipated Mack Rides launch coaster, currently codenamed Project Purple. While the park is still keeping the official name under wraps (still rumored to be Phantom Spire), PR reps have teased one more factoid… claiming that when it opens the ride will be among the top five tallest roller coasters in the world. To hit that benchmark, the layout will need to breach the 320-to-350-foot envelope.
(4/18/2026) If you are curious to see how Project Purple is going… the check out the quick construction clip below showing off the massive inversion element, with an inverted launch track, that now appears to be complete.
(4/4/2026) The new 2027 roller coaster (aka: Project Purple) is rising very quickly at Six Flags Great Adventure, and now features a launch track into a huge prolonged roll-over section. The really interesting thing about the roll-over is that the track is also loaded with LSM stators that will engage the train while it is completely upside-down to give it a nice little boost.
(3/19/2026) Six Flags Great Adventure has announced that they have begin vertical assembly of the park’s new for 2027 roller coaster. Even better, they sent some pictures of the monumental event as the first pieces are being set into place.
(2/20/2026) The first piece of track for the Six Flags Great Adventure 2027 roller coaster has arrived… and it is very purple… and very much appears to be from Mack Rides. This also appears to be some kind of switch track, featuring what looks like locking pins only on the one side of the track. This isn’t a typical switch track, but is a long straight piece will a full set of LSM launch fins placed so that the direction of travel should be towards the pins.
Based on this, I’m wondering if the ride will feature some kind of sideways sliding launch track… but without locking pins on both ends, it does make me wonder if we might be seeing something more akin to the load and sideways positioning tracks used on Six Flags’ Mr. Freeze coasters at Six Flags over Texas and St. Louis parks.
I know it’s a bit much to assume from just pictures of a single track section, but this is a very unique looking piece of track, designed to serve a very specific purpose. I guess we’ll know more as as soon as Six Flags is ready to show off more of what they have planned.
BUT… there are rumors about what this new project may be. It is still too early to tell, but some believe this may be a new Mack Rides coaster design concept that will be part of their Xtreme Spinning Coaster line of products, possibly to be known as an “Xtreme Spinning Tower Coaster”. The little we know about the early design concepts for this idea was that it would be a spinning shuttle coaster design that would launch up into an extended inverted roll-over section of track, and then spiral up and around a large vertical tower. So in a way this would be sort of replacing the lost Kingda Ka ride with another similar concept that would rise up and down a large vertical tower, just in a very different way.
Oh… and remember that name trademark Six Flags filed for a few weeks back? Phantom Spire? Yeah… that name would be perfect for a ride like this. Check out the video below to see an animated prediction of what it could be like.
???? - New Attraction Guest Survey Concepts - (10/18/2025) Six Flags has begun sending out surveys to select guests to get feedback about possible future addition concepts that may be in the works. Keep in mind that not every concept they pitch for any given park may actually be intended for that particular park, as sometimes the chains will pitch ride concepts to other markets as well to gain some broader feedback on certain concepts. With that said… let’s dig into what is currently being pitched for the various parks.
Six Flags Great Adventure had some interesting concepts in their guest survey… which is even more interesting because we already know that the park is supposed to be getting something very big and special in 2027 that has already been planned. Despite it all the park’s survey pitched the idea of adding a 300 to 400 foot tall new drop tower ride (they did lose Zumanjaro after all) as well as options for a “Collection of Rides” (and adding a batch of new flat rides is something that SFGAdv could definitely used) and finally they ask about adding a “Planet Snoopy Family Area”. This last one is a big surprise, as Six Flags is obviously asking guests about their feelings towards the Snoopy / PEANUTS IP, to see if it would lure more families to the park and sell more merchandise than the current Looney Tunes IP does.
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