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Canada’s Wonderland
Ontario, Canada
Cedar Fair Entertainment
 Park News - (11/8/2024) WinterFest will return to Canada’s Wonderland starting on Nov. 16th and running on select dates through to Jan. 4th, 2025. The winter wonderland themed event features season food and treats, themed live entertainment, a nightly tree lightning ceremony, cookie decorating with Mrs. Claus and much more.
This year’s event also featuring Ice Skating on Snow Flake Lake, Jack Frost’s Igloo Village, Elf on the Shelf and St. Nick photo ops, a visit to the Christmas Market, and over 20 rides that will remain open, weather permitting of course. (Click here to see the list of WinterFest rides)
(9/28/2024) Canada’s Wonderland has come up with something extra fun for Halloween this year, with the creation of a short film Cedar Faiir has made called “Tick. Tick. Tick” that will premiere on October 1st at 8pm EST as an extra promotion for this year’s Halloween Haunt.
Check out the preview for “Tick. Tick. Tick.” below!
(7/14/2024) The local news has released an update regarding the medical condition of the 17-year old girl who fell from the Swing of the Century ride at Canada’s Wonderland. According to various reports she is still listed as being in “critical condition” at this point, though no further details have been noted.
(7/13/2024) Sad news from Canada’s Wonderland this week as the local news reports that a 17-year old girl fell from the park’s Swing of the Century ride on Thursday afternoon. Park Medical staff responded and treated on-site while waiting for EMS to arrive, who transported her to a local hospital for further evaluation.
As you might expect from the name, Swing of the Century is a Zierer made Wave Swinger style ride, featuring 48 seats suspended from a tilting and swinging carousel like structure by chains. These style rides are considers family attractions, with Swing of the Century being one of the original rides that was at the park when it first opened back in 1981.
Currently the details about how exactly the girl “fell” from the ride have not been released, but since no one has reported that anything appears to have “broke” during the ride cycle, this has led to the thought that the incident may have been caused by the rider somehow. In fact, according to a report on YouTube by a “Global News” channel, they say that inspectors were on site at the park later that same day and found that every aspect of the ride was safe and working properly. A witness report and comments from Canada’s Technical Standards and Safety Authority spokesperson in the video confirm that they believe the riders was somehow attempting to get off the ride for an unknown reason, possibly panicking as the ride was starting the cycle, and caused their own accident. Authorities gave Canada’s Wonderland permission to reopen the ride, and they did on Friday without incident.
(3/16/2024) Canada’s Wonderland has posted a video about a large number of construction projects taking place at the park currently, as they are making preparations to open for the 2024 season in May (Passholder Preview in late April).
The first thing guests will notice for the 2024 season is that the path you take to enter the park will be somewhere new. Instead of just coming up to the main gate plaza from the sides, a new walkway to enter the plaza area will now route guests through the green-space, passing below Leviathan’s far turnaround. Small shade structures are already in place here, which I imagine will serve as a security checkpoint as well.
On a related note they mention that the Wonderland Store, which is attached to the main gate, is getting a complete renovation that will also see the store “expanded”, along with a new door that will also exit into the front gate plaza. (So I guess you’ll be exiting the park through a gift shop now…) Meanwhile, just next door, it was already previously mentioned that the park’s Extreme Skyflyer (Skycoaster) was coming down. So all together, there is a lot going on right now near the main gate area.
Elsewhere in the video they mention that Moosehorn Falls is still expected to open on May 25th when Splashworks opens for the season. They are just waiting on the fiberglass pieces to arrive to begin assembly. The Backlot Cafe restaurant is under-going complete interior refurbishment, new electrical motors for Vikings Rage have been installed and a new Premium Passholder VIP Lounge is being created. Lastly they mention work taking place around Wonder Mountain, that is causing for the demolition of some the buildings in the Alpen area nearby and Tiny Tom’s is being moved elsewhere. More details about what’s going with some of this construction is expected to be released in early April.
(2/8/2024) Big news from Canada’s Wonderland this week as the park confirmed that after 26 years of service, they are retiring the park’s Xtreme Skyflyer ride, or the upcharge attraction more commonly known as a Skycoaster. Xtreme Skyflyer first opened way back in 1996 and was said to have given 1,179,213 rides by the end of the 2023 season.
While chatting about the closure, a reader was quick to point out that the removal of the Xtreme Skyflyer would create a very nice open plot of land that could be used as a path for that that crazy “Blast Coaster” concept that the park pitched in a survey last summer.
If you missed it, we’ve still got the concept art of the Candian Blast Coaster project posted below!
2024 - Moosehorn Falls - (8/12/2023) Canada’s Wonderland has confirmed the addition of Moosehorn Falls for 2024 coming to the Splash Works water park. The new slide will load up to six guests in a large raft and send then down a course of twists and turns before dropping them down at a 42 foot tall half-wall for a moment of weightlessness before they fall backwards down once again and into the splash pool.
2025 - AlpenFury - (11/20/2024) Premier Rides was showing off the lead roller coaster train car at IAAPA for the new AlpenFury coaster coming to Canada’s Wonderland next summer. What I really like is that the side body panels have been removed from Premier’s SkyRocket train design, which should make loading and unloading guests from the train’s so much easier. As a ride vehicle, I don’t mind the SkyRocket trains at all for their ride experience, and once you are inside and seated they are roomy and fairly “fluffy friendly” if you get my gist, but the act of getting in and out between the restraints and the body panels of your typical train is something of a battle all by itself. So that said, this looks to be an excellent solution to that problem while creating a very “open” ride experience for the passengers at all the same time on this epic layout launched coaster.
(10/26/2024) We’ve got some great news for our readers in the “Great White North”, because a shipment of valuable cargo from the US is on the way to the border for you! And no… i’m not talking about smuggling sugary US breakfast cereals across the border! Instead a semi-truck load of blue Premier Rides roller coaster track and black support beams was spotted on I-94 heading east-bound just south of the Michigan making a bee-line for the Canadaian border and to drop off the precious cargo at Canada’s Wonderland for the new Alpen Fury coaster.
(8/9/2024) Canada’s Wonderland will be adding an incredible multi-launch roller coaster for the 2025 season called AlpenFury, which will also be Canada’s “longest, tallest and fastest launch coaster!” The first launch will blast guests from the station down in the depths of Wonder Mountain, while the second will shoot them 50 meters into the air and out of the top of the mountain itself! Along the way rides will soar along 1000 meters of track and through 9 brain warping inversions, the most in all of North America on a launch coaster.
The coaster itself will be from Premier Rides, using their Sky Rocket coaster design. For those wondering, while scanning the concept art, I don’t see a sign of any sort of ‘comfort collars” added onto the trains, though I wouldn’t be surprised if they feature a seat-belt though.
Check out the incredible animations below!
(7/21/2024) A new video teaser for the new 2025 Canada’s Wonderland ride project has been posted by the park, with a very creepy vibe.
(7/19/2024) A post by Canada’s Wonderland reveals that they will be making some kind of announcement about “A new adventure” coming to the park on August 8th. The background that the graphics are overlaid on appears to be the rocky surface of Monder Mountain, which has been long rumored to be involved with the park’s next roller coaster project.
(7/5/2024) While the thought is that some kind of launched coaster may be coming to Canada’s Wonderland for 2025 and possibly interact with the park’s Wonder Mountain, it is looking less likely to be the B&M Wing Coaster ride system shown in the concept art. Instead we’ve heard that Cedar Fair had been looking at Multi-Launch coaster concepts from Premier Rides and Zamperla for a time as well for their future projects.
With the merger between Six Flags and Cedar Fair now in effect, that could make things even more interesting, though at this point I’d think that whatever is planned for CW was already lock-in and should be in production. Stay tuned!
(6/15/2024) A reader sent in some pictures from Canada’s Wonderland this week, where they noticed that construction walls are already in place for the park’s suspected new 2025 attraction. Based on some of those early guest survey concepts (see below), many are really hoping that this may be that B&M Launched Wing coaster concept, but nothing has been confirmed yet.
Interestingly enough, pieces for a suspected B&M launched Wing coaster have started to arrive at sister park, Kings Dominion, so I’m not sure if CW will get something similar or go in another unique direction for 2025.
Special thanks to Matt for sending in pictures showing off the teaser walls, and an overhead map showing off their location.
2026 - Water Attraction - (11/14/2024) A press release from Six Flags today confirmed that the company is planning to spend over $1 BILLION on the parks over the next two years. Some of this will come in the form of enhancements to the guest experience, such as new themed areas, dining upgrades and technology enhancements. While we’ve seen the 2025 capital projects ($500 million) already announced, they decided to post a list of teasers of what they are already confirming will come to some of the parks in 2026 as part of another $525 million capital investment plan.
Canada’s Wonderland was included on the 2026 attraction list, promising to bring “a new record-breaking water attraction” to the park. This sounds similar to an entry for Carowinds as well, and we’ve seen a lot of similar attraction concepts shared between these two parks as of late. Both are listed as record-breaking attractions, only with the CW version listed as a “water attraction” while Carowinds was described as a “water ride”. While the word play could have just been put into effect to not sound repetitive, to me the use of the phrase ‘water attraction” also includes the possibility of this being something for the water park, while Carwoinds is described more clearly as a “water ride”.
???? - Future Roller Coaster Concepts - (2/24/2024) More rumors about Cedar Fair possibly being in talks with a few roller coaster manufacturers about a new project for Canada’s Wonderland are starting to make the rounds. There was that initial rumor about the launched B&M Wing coaster (aka: The Blast Coaster) that would run through Wonder Mountain that came from last year’s guest survey, but now I’m hearing that they may also be in talks with Zamperla about some kind of multi-launch coaster project concept as well.
Stay tuned of course, though it isn’t unusual for parks to ask for various companies to submit proposals for them to consider when it comes to big new ride ideas and layouts.
(7/12/2023) Canada’s Wonderland appears to be planning their next big roller coaster and has sent out some concepts in a guest survey for feedback. The first one may seem familiar to Kings Dominion fans, as they call it the “Blast Coaster”. Based on the description and concept artwork, this would be a launched “Winged Coaster” that blasts riders into the caverns inside Wonder Mountain before blasting straight up and out of the top of the mountain. So yeah… this concept seems to be a Canadian version of the former Volcano: The Blast Coaster, but done with a B&M wing coaster. However… one issue with this concept is that I think they would have to remove Wonder Mountain’s Guardian since it already travels through the mountain structure. Built or not, the fact that they even thought this up does not send a good message about the longevity of the Wonder Mountain’s Guardian attraction.
The second concept is labeled, Eureka Ridge Ghost Town, which would bring a wild themed wooden coaster experience to this section of the park, one that ends with a surprise ‘explosive’ finale in the tunnels of an old abandoned gold mine.
The last concept is the Concert Coaster, which once again seems to pitch using a launched B&M Wing Coaster ride, but this one is outfitted with an on-board audio system to play on your wild rocking and rolling adventure ride. This last fun is a fun flash-back to an old Paramount Park concept they once pitched in their own past guest surveys. As I recall the concept then was to send the two Outer Limits: Flight of Fear coasters at Kings Dominion and Kings Island to two other parks in the chain (I believe it was Carowinds and Canada’s Wonderland) where they would be rethemed as “Soundwave” or “MTV Soundwave” and given a rock ‘n roll music theme. At the time this was a quick attempt by Paramount Parks to create their own version of Disney’s Rock ‘n Roller Coaster concept.
Given the current timeline, even if one of these is selected, I don’t think we would see anything ready to open until at least 2025.
???? - Hyatt Place/Hyatt House - INDEFINITE HOLD - (5/16/21) At this point, it seems Canada’s Wonderland has opted to cancel their long planned hotel addition. This may be a temporary thing, as they failed to start construction during the time limits of the building permits they had. There is a good chance that Cedar Fair could have just opted to shelve the project for the time being until the company gets their financials back on solid legs and we have put the COVID-pandemic behind us. This could also be a reflection of the more strict lockdown rules in Canada, and Ontario in particular, that are keeping the park closed for longer than it’s American cousins who are all opening up this month.
(4/18/20) While Cedar Fair has not issued a new timeline for the hotel, it would seem likely that the closures would push back the ‘late 2020’ planned opening of the hotel until sometime in 2021.
(8/29/18) As we had been hearing for some time now, Cedar Fair will open a new hotel at their Canada’s Wonderland theme park property. Now we have a few more details as posted by BlooLoop. This will be a dual-branded Hyatt Place and Hyatt House hotel with 203 rooms that is set to open in late 2020. Construction is expected to begin sometime in the first half of 2019.
(4/29/18) Remember those rumored hotel plans for Canada's Wonderland? They aren't a rumor anymore, as the plans for the new hotel were confirmed in a planning meeting. The new hotel will be 8-stories with 603 rooms and built under the Hyatt Place brand name, to be built on park property on Wonderland Drive near Rutherford Rd and Highway 400. Construction should begin soon actually, but I’m not sure if it will be ready for 2019 or 2020. \
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