COTA Land
Austin, Texas
NEW PARK
OPENING SEPT. 26, 2026
 Park News - (8/19/2026) Texans… the time has come at last. COTALAND has confirmed that the park will finally open to the public on Sept. 26th at the Circuit of the Americas race track grounds. Visit the official website for details and to pre-purchase tickets that are starting at $65.00.
(4/18/2026) A great aerial tour video of the upcoming COTALand theme park can be seen below. A lot of construction is taking place as a number of smaller attractions are in the midst of being installed, along with a large log flume ride. Meanwhile an all new website for the park has also launched, which features the names and concept art of all the new rides as well.
Now the real question is… when will the park open? They’ve previously stated they are planning to open in 2026… so I guess the real question is when. Rumors indicate that the park is planning to start their hiring process sometime in May, which would seem to indicate that they will hopefully be ready to open sometime this summer.
(2/20/2026) The new COTALAND has been getting grief this month over the craziest thing… the family of the youth (Tyre Sampson) who died on the Orlando FreeFall drop tower ride in 2022 are trying to block the installation of a new drop tower ride from Funtime planned for COTALAND. The plans to add the FunTime ride to COTALAND were actually signed before the accident in Orlando, but I think some important details have been lost along the way.
There are many other drop towers made by FunTime operating all around the world at this time, including the one that opened at Dollywood years before the Orlando tower, which is still running to this day. Also, the accident at the tower ride in Orlando was caused entirely by the local operator of that ride who made illegal modifications of the safety restraint system, and not by the manufacturer of the tower, Funtime.
The ride planned to go into COTALAND is not the same tower that was removed from Orlando, nor is it the same height or even exact design of seats (no tilting seats, and they will have seatbelts). From a design standpoint it will be more similar to the existing tower running at Dollywood. Meanwhile there are lawyers trying to file an injunction to stop COTALAND from installing this ride already, with no real justification to do so.
Well… the lawyer and family do have some personal vendetta with Funtime however, as Funtime (who is based in Austria, not the US) was given a bad verdict from the Orlando accident, with the judgement asking Funtime to turn over $310 million. All for an accident that they had no hand in causing, yet the jury apparently lumped them in with those who were guilty. So the family's lawyer says that Funtime should be banned from doing any future business in the US at all because of this.
What I don’t know is if Funtime is simply choosing to ignore the judgement from the US based court, or if they are currently in the midst of their own legal appeal to the judgement or not. After all, this is like someone buying a Porsche sports car, performing their own modification to the design of the wheels and engine, and then trying to sue the car company for damages after something goes wrong that was caused by the user who made the modifications.
Had the drop tower ride been left alone, running as designed by the manufacturer, Tyre Sampson would have never fit into the restraint and never taken that fatal ride on the Orlando Freefall tower. The accident reports from Orlando indicated that he weighed about 100 pounds over what should have been the limit for any rider to fit on the Orlando ride. The built in safety system would not have allowed the ride to operate with him aboard, if it wasn’t for the modifications to the seat restraint that he was placed in that were done by the operator of the ride after it was installed, unbeknown to the ride’s manufacturer.
I do feel horrible about the accident in Orlando, and clearly it never should have happened, but taking legal action in Texas today against COTALAND, does not seem to be an appropriate or sensible course of action. But that’s just my opinion… and I'm not a lawyer.
(1/2/2026) A fun photo from COTALAND shows off that the park’s upcoming S&S Screamin’ Swing attraction was topped out a couple of weeks ago.
(12/21/2025) By now you’ve seen the headlines about 2 riders getting stuck in a roller coaster for about an hour at COTALAND in Texas. It is true… but the park technically hasn’t even opened yet. Instead the park has just been testing this one attraction with preview riders during the 2025 holiday Peppermint Parkway experience, ahead of the park’s actual opening in 2026. Of course this all took place on the new Vekoma Tilt Coaster, Circuit Breaker, and just as you might expect, the coaster train entered the “tilt” feature at the top of the hill and came to a stop.
You may recall the media going nuts every time this happened over the summer on Siren’s Curse at Cedar Point as well, but this is actually an example of the roller coaster’s safety system doing exactly what it was designed to do. If it tilts and the various sensors are not giving back an all approved signal, the roller coaster train will not drop the train down the first drop. The park confirmed that it was due to a “sensor pin malfunction” and that the COTA staff was able to resolve the issue and the ride “proceeded without incident.”
Based on the media treatment of Siren’s Curse at Cedar Point, I can say with a fair amount of confidence that this won’t be the last time we hear about such an event happening over the next year once COTALAND opens. Trains getting stopped by the safety systems at this extremely vital portion of the ride experience is to be expected, but due to the extreme visual nature of how it looks when it happens and the click-bait style of reporting done by today’s media, they’re going to jump on this every time to cry wolf, even if riders are only stalled for a few minutes.
In the meantime… if you’re in the area and want to take a spin on Circuit Breaker, in addition to paying to get into the Peppermint Park experience, they’re charging an extra $15 fee per rider if you want to try out Circuit Breaker between now and Jan. 4th, 2026. ($30 if you want to cut to the front of the line…)
(12/13/2025) You can see video footage of Palindrome making test runs at COTALAND this week, as shot and posted by ThrillNerds.
(10/17/2025) While we wont see the whole COTA Land theme park open until sometime in 2026, they are apparently offering a rare chance to ride the new Circuit Breaker roller coaster to those are have purchased a ticket to F1 race taking place from today throuhg to this sunday. Again... do not buy a ticket to ride the roller coaster UNLESS you also have purchased a ticket to one of the three F1 race days, otherwise you will not be allowed to ride!
UPDATE - Just found a POV of the Circuit Breaker run that was posted yesterday.
(9/21/2025) Some great footage showing off the new Circuit Breaker roller coaster (Vekoma Tilt) testing can be seen below, shot from the air and ground.
As the drone cam rotates, it’s interesting to see how far back Palindrome (the other steel coaster) is from the location of Circuit Breaker, as well as any other attractions under construction in-between.
(9/13/2025) A new quick update from COTALAND this week, as the new theme park project has now announced that they are expecting to be fully open sometime in 2026. This pushes back the date from the last estimate given in early 2025 when they had hoped to have it up and running in time for the 2025 F1 race coming on Oct. 19, 2025. With lots left to do, we can only wait and see if they are planning to have the park up in time for a more traditional spring/summer season in 2026, or if they’re going to shoot for a fall 2026 timeline again to take advantage of the race crowds.
|
