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World News:
---- THE LATEST GLOBAL NEWS ----
(2/5/2026) Canada - Take A Look Inside the "Niagara Takes Flight" Flying Theater
(2/5/2026) Brean Theme Park (UK) Enters Liquidation
(2/3/2026) Brazil - Riders Get Evacuated From 200 foot Super Gyro Tower
(1/31/2026) What Are the Best 10 Dark Rides in the UK?
(1/26/2026) Wonderla Opens Their Latest Theme Park in India
(1/15/2026) UK - New Indoor Ski Resort and Indoor Waterpark Approved For Wales
Australia - (11/28/2025) A new Alpine Coaster (from Wiegand) will soon be ready to open in Australia. The track installation for the new Plantation Coaster at Big Banana Fun Park is now complete, making this installation only the second Alpine Coaster from Wiegand in all of Australia. Look for the grand opening of the new ride to take place on December 13th.
 Brazil - (2/3/2026) Guests enjoying the Super Gyro Tower (an observation tower attraction) in Brazil on January 30th got a little more than they bargained for, when the attraction suddenly came to a stop about 200 feet in the air on Friday. After about two hours, and being unable to get the ride moving again, rescue crews climbed up the tower and began the slow process of lowering individual riders down to the ground with a safety harness.
I’m sorry, but this would be one of my worst nightmares come to life. While I know everyone made it down safe and sound, just the idea of being lowered to the ground by rope just leaves a giant pit in my stomach.
(2/1/2025) According to various posts, the Mirabilandia park in Brazil will close down forever tomorrow, Feb 2nd. For years the park had been looking to relocate to a new site to relocate the park, but it sounds as if those plans were never able to be finalized.
Canada - (2/5/2026) Blooloop has posted a look at the new Niagara Takes Flight flying theater attraction now open at Niagara Falls on the Canadian side, using Brogent’s o-Ride flight system. The attraction also features a pre-show narration delivered by James Cameron and serves as a replacement for the, now closed, Niagara’s Fury 4D theater attraction.
(12/17/2025) If you’ve visited the world famous Niagara Falls area, you may have noticed a major difference about the experience of the American side of the falls compared to the Canadian side. While the American side is more of a national park type of experience, the Canadian side is the complete opposite, featuring a wild and colorful barrage of tourist offerings featuring, attractions, and gift shops galore. This includes some rather wacky combinations as well, such as the famous Burger King on Clifton hill that features a giant Frankenstein style creature above the entrance holding a Whopper in his hand. If that wasn't’ enough there is actually a roller coaster on the roof of the building called the Frank’ N Coaster, because it also is home to the House of Frankenstein attraction.
It seems more good times are ahead because the local politicians in the area have now announced a multi-billion dollar strategy to attract even more developments and attractions to the area with the hopes of doubling the tourism impact here. The plan includes expansions to local roads as well as the local airport to handle bigger planes, new hotels, and of course, new attractions. One they have their sights set on is to bring in a giant observation wheel to the area, not unlike the ones in Orlando, Las Vegas and London.
(9/6/2025) A new flying theater experience has opened at Niagara Falls called Niagara Takes Flight featuring ride hardware from Brogent. The new attraction is on the Canadian side of the falls, located at Table Rock Center, right at the water’s edge of Niagara’s famous Horseshoe Falls. The 30-minute experience is more than just the ride itself, as it starts with a pre-show experience narrated by director James Cameron.
(3/19/2025) Is a new indoor waterpark in development for Mirabel, Quebec? According to a press release, the creation of a “Mōrea Water Park” in the area would be the largest waterpark ever built in Quebec. The waterpark resort would be themed to the culture of French Polynesia and bring the spirit of the lush tropical location to Quebec with water slides, a lazy river, an indoor surf pool, wellness center and spa.
China - (12/20/2025) Blooloop reports that the massive Harbin Ice and Snow World attraction has once again opened in China, offering a massive outdoor winter themed attraction unlike any other. Each season the attraction has set out to improve itself, expand the offerings, and to integrate technology and new storytelling experiences into the design.
(11/25/2025) According to an article at Interpark, a Ferrari themed land and attractions are in development to open somewhere in China. They are calling it the Ferrari World Entertainment Complex right now and at an investment of nearly 10 billion yuan the attraction is expected to “feature the world’s fastest roller coaster Formula Rossa” as well as an Esports Arena, Ferrari museum and a variety of other attractions.
Of course, as most of our readers are already aware, the current “world’s fastest roller coaster”, also named Formula Rossa, has been running at the original Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi since 2010 hitting a top speed of 149.1mph. The OG Formula Rossa will soon drop that title to Falcons Flight at Six Flags Qiddiya City in Saudi Arabia when that park opens on December 31st, 2025, with Falcons Flight said to reach a top speed of 155.3mph.
Both are the creations of Intamin, so I can only guess that Intamin may be working on an idea to build in China for something able to go even faster than Falcons Flight.
(11/8/2025) Popland, a new theme park that is all about those little Labubu dolls, has now opened in Beijing, China. Based on a quick video tour of Popland I found on YouTube, it looks more like a large grouping of displays mixed with shopping areas, but I didn’t really notice any rides or true attractions. So in short, this looks more like the kind of attraction people come to take Instagram / TikTok style photos and videos, and do a little shopping, but that’s about it. But if Labubus are your thing right now, then this is where you’ll want to visit.
(7/3/2025) Hasbro is working on building a new Peppa Pig themed outdoor theme park in China. Unlike the US mini-parks we’ve seen so far, at a cost of approximately $331 million, this new park will be 48 acres and located on China’s Changzing Island in Chongming, Shanghai. The project is still in the design phase right now, and is planned to feature five different themed areas and environments. The project will also include the world’s first Peppa Pig themed hotel, offering over 400 rooms.
Unlike the other Peppa Pig themed attraction seen to date, this one is not from Merlin Entertainment, but instead is part of a separate deal Hasbro signed with Max-Matching Entertainments who seems to have the exclusive license in China to create attractions themed to a number of different brands including from deals with Mattel (Barbie, Thomas, Hot Wheels), Hasbro (Transformers, Peppa Pig, Nerf, My Little Pony), Wildbrain (Peanuts, Teletubbies), Aardman (Shaun the Sheep), Crayola and more.
France - (11/28/2025) For tourists looking to visit some of Paris’ most famous attractions know that the Louvre museum has now confirmed that ticket prices will increase by 45% for anyone visiting who is a ‘non-European Union” visitor. So starting next week, guests visiting from the US, UK or even China will now have to pay €32 to enter the Louvre. (That’s about $37 at the current exchange rate).
(5/14/2025) While I’m not opposed to the concept of marine life parks, a news story came to my attention today that is a bit disturbing. We reported last year that France’s Marineland park in Antibes would be closing down forever on January 5th, 2025. This was caused after France passed a law that banned all live show featuring Dolphins and Whales within the country, forcing the park to close and try to relocate about 4,000 animals to other facilities around the world.
The list included severals dolphins and in two large Killer Whales. At the time there was a plan in the works to relocate the whales to a facility in Japan but according to a new article posted by Mirror, when a French ecology minister rules that they wanted instead to find a “European sanctuary” for the pair instead.
Just ahead to the present and the park has now been closed for over 5 months and the killer whales are still there. A skeleton crew arrives to feed them and take care of some basic needs, but it is clear from the photos posted in the article that the facility itself that they live in does not look like it is being maintained, and appears to be slowing being taken over by green algae.
So I’m just bringing this situation to light as there are a number of facilities out there who might have an answer, or a new home, for these two forgotten killer whales. Before it’s too late…
Otherwise, perhaps the French government should provide some financial aid to provide better care for them until a new home is found, since it was their law that essentially forced the entire park to shut down, regardless if the animals had a new home or not.
Greece - (8/17/2025) Crazy video footage shot in Rhodes, an island off the coast of Greece, captured an accident on a flat ride showing four riders being thrown from the ride and into the barrier fence that surrounds it. According to the report, one the seats on the ride broke, resulting in the ejection of the riders. The incident was said to have taken place at a small amusement park in the Kremasti area, and based on the footage, the ride is question is one of the infamous Tagada rides that are never seen in North America, as riders seems to routinely be bounced around very aggressively with minimal or no restraints at all in place. You can watch the video short below, thought we don’t know the health status of the riders following the incident, though reports seem to indicate they escaped without serious injuries. Two arrests have been made by the local government in response to the accident, including a 64-year old representative of the ride company and the 42-year old ride operator.
India - (1/26/2026) It has been confirmed that Wonderla has opened their latest park in India, Wonderla Chennai, just before the end of December. This marks the opening of the fifth Wonderla park following the opening of Kochi in 2000, Bangalore in 2005, Hyderabad in 2016 and Bhubaneswar in 2024.
The new park features India’s first B&M Inverted coaster, Tanjora, which is actually a Batman: The Ride clone that was first built and installed in Kuwait Entertainment City under the name Lightning where it operated from 2004 to 2016.
(10/11/2025) Yikes… an incident involving a carnival ride breaking apart in India was caught on video. A rotating ride car appears to break free from the base of arm where it was connected, rolls back over itself and onto it’s side, before the momentum of the spinning ride disk begins to pull it along, dragging the riders along with it. No word on the health or condition of those involved, but it did appear as if the ride was slowing and shutting down towards the end of the video, so hopefully everyone was ok.
Italy - (11/28/2025) The world will gather in Milano Cortina (Italy) to compete in the 2026 Winter Olympics games from Feb. 6 through to Feb 22, 2026. Of course, the one event that always appeals to roller coaster and thrill ride fans is the Bobsled event, and they’ve just released a POV video showing a run down the new high-speed Bobsled course at Cortina that you can watch below. The track will be used for this year’s Bobsled, Luge and Skeleton events.
Japan - (12/28/2025) After just opening in March 2024, what was described as being Japan’s first fully immersive theme park experience, ”Immersive Fort Toyko”, has announced that the attraction will close down at the end of February 2026. Build to take over a space created formerly as the “Venus Fort” mall, guests would enter an indoor living world where they could interact with live actors playing characters in an immersive storyline as it unfolds. Unfortunately, it seems those plans ended up not being financially viable. Immersive Fort Tokyo was also home to a number of individual attractions guests could purchase tickets to experience there as well, including escape rooms, “The Sherlock” murder mystery experience, and something called “Alive inm Borderland: The Ultimate” where they would be outfitted with faux “collar bombs” that seem to cause small electric shocks during the experience.
According to this article a “similar concept” immersive attraction that was built mostly outdoors in Okinawa that opened in 2025 called Junglila has been said to be more successful as it requires far less staffing. Other comments I’ve seen also gave a thumbs down due to the high cost of the experience, claiming that for the price you pay to spend the afternoon in Fort Tokyo, you could easily go to Tokyo Disney and get a far superior experience for the day.
So has anyone had the chance to experience one or both of these attractions? Based on photos and some videos of Fort Tokyo, it looks similar in nature to Caesar’s Forum shops in Las Vegas, but if someone turned it all into an interactive world instead of being packed full of restaurants and shops.
(12/20/2025) A new free-roam XR attraction themed to The Little Prince has been created by Wevr and HTC Viverse. Guests wearing XR headsets will be able to freely walk through 16 handcrafted scenes, and meet 14 iconic characters along the way, including the Pilot, Fox and Rose. This new attraction, “The Little Prince: Call to Adventure” has been set up in Hokkaido, Japan for a limited time and is available now through to Feb. 28, 2026.
Mexico - (1/2/2026) Over the years Dave & Busters has become a well known leisure stop all across North America, starting out from a very humble beginning in Texas in the mid ‘80s. The chain has grown bigger over the years, and has even expanded to include some international locations in India, Philippines, Australia and the Dominican Republic. Just before Christmas Intergame reported that the company had broke ground on their first location in Mexico, coming to Plaza Carso in Mexico City with plans to hopefully have it ready to open in March 2026.
Philippines - (11/30/2025) A new steel coaster is coming to the Philippines it seems. Spotted in a post on Reddit, the coaster is already well under construction at the “J Castles” fun park. The unknown coaster was also just added to RCDB who lists it as a Jinma Rides “Vertical Roller Coaster” / “GSC-20A” model, featuring 6 inversions within a very short track length of 1542 feet, at a top height of 91.9 ft.
Jinma opened one in late 2024 and three others in 2025, with the only one with photos available on RCDB is called Tachycardia at Squirrels Town in Wuhu, China.
Romania - (12/8/2025) According to Blooloop a new theme park and resort project is being planned for Romania that will be themed around the legend of Dracula. The plan is to build a park, water park, hotels, a stadium and outlet mall on a 160 hectare site located just north of Bucharest, in the general area of Bran Castle. They say that the project which has been quietly in development for a number of years is expected to cost around a billion Euro once complete with the hopes of attracting about 3 million guests a year to start with.
Will it get built? I really can’t say but we’ll be watching out for more news about this for sure.
Russia - (9/14/2025) I had not heard about this accident until now, but it seems an old aerial cable car system in Nalchi, Russia suffered a full collapse on August 8, 2025. The unique cable-car system uses small single-seat ski-lift style cars and carries riders out over a small lake before climbing up the hillside.
Based on video footage, the cable broke free, dropping riders down onto the ground as well as several into the lake, causing several injuries. You can see security footage from one station looking out towards the lake here, and if you really want to see something crazy, check out this second video posted to Google Maps showing off the complete hardware failure of the lower station tension unit being yanked completely out of the station structure and flipping over.
I’ve never seen one of these on wheels and tracks before, the tension unit on most of the theme parks units I’ve seen were actually attached to a very heavy counter-weight sunk into a pit inside the station’s turnaround, rather than allowing the whole unit to slide on tracks. You can see a photo of the aftermath here as well.
Saudi Arabia - (11/8/2025) Would you believe a new theme park will open on Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from YouTube personality, Mr. Beast? It’s simply called Beast Land and according to the social media post, it will open on November 13th with a small collection of rides, plus some custom game based attractions based on some of Mr Beast’s video challenges.
I don’t know much for sure about this attraction, but if I had to take a guess, this is likely a temporary attraction as part of the seasonal Riyadh celebration event that will take place from Oct. 10 through to March 2026 which plays host of a number of limited time attractions, shows and performances.
(7/31/2025) In a sad bit of news at least 23 riders were injured (3 critically) when a portable swinging pendulum style flat ride set up at a fair event in an city near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia stuffed a complete break of the arm at the peak of an upward swing. The incident was caught on video and can be seen in detail over at CNN. The manufacturer is unknown and I don’t recognize it as being a model from one of the major companies we typically see across North America, but it was called simply the “360 Big Pendulum”
“Prince Saud bin Nahar bin Saud bin Abdulaziz, the region’s governor, ordered the immediate closure” of the event while an investigation takes place.
South Korea - (11/4/2025) It’s been some time since we’ve heard anything about the proposed Paramount branded theme park that would be built as part of the Star Bay City project in Hwaseong. According to an update on the project posted to Attractions Magazine, the project team is now looking to have Phase One open by 2030, with a ground-breaking planned to take place during the second half of 2026. The entire project likely won't be finished until 2035 however.
(7/11/2025) Blooloop reports that a new “integrated resort” is now being planned for Korea’s Yeongjong Island called KIT World. According to the plans released so far the plan also includes a new “5D Theme Park” project that will serve as the anchor to the new resort. Currently investors have committed $12.6 billion towards the project, with $2.8 billion confirmed in “early-stage funding”.
Little is known about the KIT World theme park just yet, other than that they plan to integrate immersive digital technology, artificial intelligence, augmented reality and virtual reality with various physical attractions. As an integrated resort, the project itself is also expected to feature a casino, a shopping mall, restaurants as well as luxury resorts amenities including an artificial beach and possibly
UAE - (11/15/2025) A new and very cool looking “Stranger Things: The Experience” attraction has just opened on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi. Check out the preview clip of the experience below.
(10/21/2024) Planning is now underway to build a copy of the famous Las Vegas Sphere performance venue, but this one will be in Abu Dhabi! Sphere Entertainment has signed a deal with Abu Dhabi’s culture and tourism department to build the world’s second Sphere.
This comes on the heels of the collapse of a potential deal to build a second Sphere in London after the city’s mayor rejected the proposal nearly one year ago. The final budget for the Abu Dhabi Sphere has not been revealed, but the original Sphere in Vegas was reported as having cost $2.3 billion by the time it opened last year with a series of performances by U2.
UK - (2/5/2026) ThemeParks-UK tells us that the Brean Theme Park in Somerset has officially “entered liquidation, raising uncertainty over its future ahead of the 2026 season.” At this point the park is currently being reviewed for assets and liabilities and no formal announcement has been made about if it will be able to open for 2026 or if they will have to shut it down immediately and permanently.
Unfortunately this marks yet another small regional park that has been struggling to stay afloat in the current world conditions following the COVID Pandemic that may now be forced for close forever.
(1/31/2026) The UK theme park market has an impressive and interesting list of attractions… but for those looking for some of the best examples of theming, then check out this list of the UK’s best 10 dark rides to see what you are missing. Just wait until the new Universal Studios park opens in a few years too… then this list will really change.
(1/15/2026) A massive indoor ski resort and and indoor waterpark resort hotel has now been approved to be built in Wales. Just approved earlier this month, the project is being called the Rhydycar West Project right now and it will feature the longest indoor ski slope and indoor snow center in the UK when it opens. Construction isn’t expected to begun until sometime next yer, with a planned 2030 opening timeline.
(12/28/2025) According to The Sun a fire broke out at the Ocean Beach Pleasure Park in South Shields (UK) on December 26th causing some severe damage to one of the larger building structures. Based on maps, the fire seemed to be mostly contained to an “Oasis Amusements” building structure near the road a mini-golf course. The cause of the fire was not known at the time, but an investigation would be looking into it.
(6/30/2025) A new article posted by The Telegraph says that “Britain’s charming, old-fashioned theme parks are at risk of extinction” was posted on Saturday that strike a lot of similar notes to my post at Blooloop about how smaller parks and attractions are starting to really struggle. This new article with a focus on UK parks and attractions mentions the closure of parks like Flambards and Oakwood, and the current struggles of attractions like Wicksteed Park, The Blackpool Pier Company, Dreamland in Margate and Fantasy Island in Skegness.
It’s worth giving it a read when you have time.
(2/1/2025) A new tourist attraction is in the works for London… well… actually it is beneath London. They are calling it The London Tunnels and it will be a tour through the vast network of tunnels created beneath the city in the 1940’s that were meant to serve as protective bomb shelters for the city residents to gather in during German bombing runs of the city during World War II. By the time the tunnels were finished in 1942, apparently the German bombing raids had ended, so they were never used for their intended purpose.
Instead the tunnels have sat, mostly abandoned all these years, though apparently they were used by British Naval Intelligence for a time, which inspired the creator of the James Bond novels, Ian Fleming, who worked within them at the time. The planned attraction will be part museum and part entertainment experience by the time the attraction is ready to open in 2028.
UZBEKISTAN - (5/30/2024) Plans are being developed to build the largest amusement park in Central Asia somewhere in Uzbekistan. The park will be named Grand Serai and is expected to include a seasonal water park, an amusement park, an on-site hotel, and a large area to be used for retail stopping, entertainment and dining locations. Legacy Entertainment has been working on the design of the property, which will also include some kind of “nightly acrobatic show” involving projection mapping.
Currently the developer is still looking for the right site to build the project on, with the hopes of opening the first phase by 2027. The goal is for the complex to find a 28 hectares site, though they have already confirmed that 20 of those hectares will be taken up by the water park, which confirms that it will be the true focus of the project, and that the much smaller amusement park will be more of a secondary attraction.
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