Top 25 for 2024: Best new theme park rides and attractions

It’s never too early to look ahead at what’s on tap for next year and 2024 is already shaping up as a good year for roller coaster enthusiasts, thrill ride junkies and theme park fans.

Consider our Top 25 for 2024 to be an evolving and ever-changing list of the best new rides and attractions coming to theme parks in the United States and around the globe in the coming year.

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Early announcements suggest 2024 will once again be a good year for theme park enthusiasts. Many parks have already begun construction on 2024 projects while other parks have only announced plans or launched teaser campaigns.

Several Southern California theme parks have announced new attractions that have not yet been given opening dates — suggesting they could be pegged for 2025 or later. Universal Studios Hollywood has started construction on a new Fast & Furious coaster while Disneyland has teased a new Avengers E-ticket ride and Avatar experience.

We’ll update our Top 25 list for 2024 as new rides and attractions are unveiled and more details become available.

1) Fantasy Springs

The new Fantasy Springs port coming to Tokyo DisneySea in Japan will feature four attractions themed to Frozen, Tangled and Peter Pan along with three restaurants and a hotel.

The new attractions include Anna and Elsa’s Frozen Journey, Rapunzel’s Lantern Festival, Peter Pan’s Never Land and Fairy Tinker Bell’s Busy Buggies.

The new themed land opens June 6, 2024.

2) Mine-Cart Madness

The new Mine-Cart Madness boom coaster will serve as the centerpiece of the Donkey Kong Country expansion of Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Japan.

The first-of-its-kind family boom coaster will appear to jump across gaps in the roller coaster track and perform other stunts related to Donkey Kong video games.

The Donkey Kong Country expansion will include video game-style interactive experiences along with Nintendo-themed food and merchandise.

Donkey Kong Country and Mine-Cart Madness open in spring 2024.

3) Tiana’s Bayou Adventure

Disneyland and Disney World have closed their Splash Mountain attractions so Walt Disney Imagineering can begin the process of transforming the classic log flume rides with a new “Princess and the Frog” theme.

The twin Tiana’s Bayou Adventure rides will tell an extension of the “Princess and the Frog” story that picks up after the final kiss between Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen. The new backstory for Splash Mountain will follow Tiana and Louis the trumpet-playing alligator as they prepare for their first Mardi Gras performance.

The reimagining of the Splash Mountain rides at the Anaheim and Florida theme parks will remove thematic elements related to “Song of the South” — the controversial 1940s film criticized for perpetuating racist stereotypes that has been disowned by Disney.

The dueling versions of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure are set to debut in late 2024.

4) Voltron Nevera

The new Voltron Nevera quadruple-launch coaster at Europa Park will be themed to Nikola Tesla’s electricity experiments as part of the first phase of a new Croatia land at the German theme park.

The Mack Rides Stryker coaster with a backward launch and 105-degree beyond vertical forward launch will reach a top speed of 56 mph over a 4,544-foot-long track.

The ride’s seven inversions will include an inverted top hat, descending roll, inverted stall, falling roll and dive loop.

The Voltron Nevera coaster will be “powered by” Bugatti Rimac — the Croatian electric car maker sponsoring the ride.

5) Danse Macabre

Imagine Disneyland’s Mad Tea Party on a tilting platform and you get the general idea for the new Danse Macabre attraction coming to Efteling in the Netherlands.

Danse Macabre will be the first installation of Intamin’s new Dynamic Motion Stage dark ride concept described as a thrill ride with immersive show technology.

Six smaller turntables with choir pews for up to 108 riders will spin inside a larger 60-foot-diameter spinning turntable surrounded by multi-media screens.

The larger turntable will rise, fall, tilt and spin like a coin before falling flat at the end of the ride.

The complex backstory for the ride involves a dark force that overtakes a hand-cranked barrel organ mechanical musical instrument belonging to the world-traveling Charlatan family.

Danse Macabre will anchor a new Huyverwoud Forest themed land at Efteling.

6) Top Thrill 2

Cedar Point is redesigning Top Thrill Dragster with a new multi-pass launch and reverse spike to propel new trains 120 mph up and over the original 420-foot-tall Top Hat element.

Top Thrill 2 replaces the Intamin hydraulic launch system with a Zamperla electro-magnetic propulsion launch system.

The new triple launch pushes the train forward halfway up the top hat element at 74 mph, backward up the new spike at 101 mph and on a third pass at 120 mph up and over the peak.

The Ohio theme park closed Top Thrill Dragster for the entire 2022 and 2023 seasons after a metal piece flew off the ride and seriously injured a woman waiting in the attraction queue in August 2021.

7) The Flash: Vertical Velocity

Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey will get North America’s first Vekoma Super Boomerang — a modern twist on the old shuttle coaster once popular at parks across the globe.

The Flash: Vertical Velocity will reach a top speed of 59 mph over a 1,430-foot-long track.

Riders will navigate through a 180-degree twisted drop and zero-G roll — first forward and then backward.

The world’s first Super Boomerang opened in July 2023 at Fantawild Wonderland in China.

8) Hyperia

The new Mack Rides Hypercoaster coming to Thorpe Park is being billed as the tallest and fastest coaster in the United Kingdom — at 236 feet tall with a top speed of 80 mph.

The coaster will be themed to a fearless goddess named Hyperia — which is also a play on the ride’s hypercoaster status. Hypercoasters exceed 200 feet in height.

9) Fire in the Hole

Silver Dollar City is building an entirely new version of Fire in the Hole that will replace the classic dark ride roller coaster that has been a mainstay of the Missouri theme park since 1972.

The $30 million Rocky Mountain Construction ride will be the largest investment in any single attraction in Silver Dollar City’s history.

The dark ride-coaster combo will feature a powered incline, gravity descent and three drops — including a splash landing. The 14 show scenes will include special effects and a custom soundtrack played on onboard audio. The ride will reach a top speed of 26 mph over 1,512 feet of track.

The new Fire in the Hole attraction will be located next to the Fireman’s Landing kids play area and together the rides will serve as the anchors for a renamed Fire District.

The new ride opens in spring 2024.

10) Jungle Rush

The Jungle Rush roller coaster coming in late 2024 to Dreamworld in Australia will serve as the centerpiece of the new Rivertown themed land.

The $35 million Vekoma coaster will feature show sections, 12 airtime elements, backward and forward travel and the world’s first inclined turntable that moves the train into position for launch.

11) Iron Menace

The new Iron Menace dive coaster coming to Dorney Park in Pennsylvania will be themed to an old steel mill.

Riders will hang over the edge briefly before plummeting 152 feet down a 95-degree first drop at a top speed of 64 mph.

The Bolliger & Mabillard coaster will navigate four inversions over 2,169 feet of track.

12) Phoenix Rising

The new Phoenix Rising coming to the Pantopia land of Busch Gardens Tampa Bay will be the 10th roller coaster at the Florida theme park.

The Bolliger & Mabillard family inverted coaster will reach a top speed of 44 mph over 1,831 feet of track.

The first coaster at Busch Gardens Tampa with on-board audio will feature a “a one-of-a-kind soundtrack.”

The ride opens in spring 2024.

13) Penguin Trek

Riders will trek through the icy tundra of sunny Florida on a penguin rescue mission when the new Penguin Trek roller coaster opens at SeaWorld Orlando.

The family thrill coaster will have an Antarctica theme with riders exiting through the park’s penguin habitat.

The dual-launch Bolliger & Mabillard coaster will reach a top speed of 43 mph over 3,020 feet of track.

The ride opens in spring 2024.

14) Good Gravy

Holiday World in Santa Claus, Indiana, will add a delightfully wacky Thanksgiving dinner theme to an otherwise ordinary family coaster.

The Good Gravy coaster draws its name from the resemblance of the train cars to gravy boats that will travel over a 1,500-foot-long cranberry-colored track. Along the way, riders will whisk past a 20-foot-tall whisk and roll by a 18-foot-tall rolling pin.

The Vekoma Family Boomerang shuttle coaster will travel forward and backward at a top speed of 37 mph.

15) DreamWorks Land

Universal Studios Florida will reimagine the former Woody Woodpecker’s KidZone as DreamWorks Land with attractions and interactive play spaces themed to Shrek, Trolls and Kung Fu Panda.

The former Woody Woodpecker’s Nuthouse Coaster is expected to be rethemed as the Trollercoaster, according to Orlando ParkStop.

16) DC Universe

Six Flags Fiesta Texas will expand the DC Universe area with three new attractions themed to DC comic book superheroes.

The Six Flags park will add Zamperla Nebulaz ride called Cyborg Cyber Revolution, the Shazam: Tower of Eternity family drop tower and Metropolis Transit Authority monorail.

Six Flags America in Maryland will also add a new Nebulaz ride called SteamWhirler for 2024.

17) Mattel Adventure Park

The new Mattel Adventure Park in Glendale, Arizona is expected to debut in 2024 after a series of delays.

The toy themed park will feature two Hot Wheels roller coasters and a Barbie Beach House with a Dream Closet Experience featuring Barbie in hologram form.

The marquee attraction will be the Hot Wheels Twin Mill Racer coaster with a double loop and two corkscrews. The Chance Rides Hyper GT-X will be the slightly more extreme cousin of the Lightning Run coaster at Kentucky Kingdom.

The mostly indoors 9-acre park will be open year round.

18) Catapult Falls

SeaWorld San Antonio in Texas is billing the new Catapult Falls as the world’s first launched flume coaster.

Catapult Falls will launch riders at 20 mph over a crossover and into a splashdown. Riders will then travel up a 55-foot-tall elevator lift before plunging down a 53-degree drop at 37 mph.

The water ride was announced for 2023, but delayed until spring 2024.

19) Bobcat

The new Bobcat will bring an old-school wooden coaster with a few modern innovations to Six Flags Great Escape in New York.

The 55-foot-tall Gravity Group coaster will reach a top speed of 40 mph over 1,412 feet of track.

The Timberliner trains promise a more comfortable ride while allowing for tighter turns along the course.

20) The Flash: Speed Force

The new surfboard-style shuttle coaster coming to Warner Bros. Movie World in Australia will pit The Flash against his greatest rival, The Reverse-Flash.

The 100-foot-tall Flash: Speed Force will reach speeds of 44 mph as riders race along the 220-foot-long half-pipe track.

The Intamin Surf Rider shuttle coaster places riders on two spinning platforms atop a giant skateboard that glides back and forth on the half pipe track.

21) Ultra Surf

The Intamin Ultra Splash takes the concept of the Intamin Surf Rider shuttle coaster and adds water — lots of it.

The new Ultra Surf shuttle coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia will reach a top speed of 60 mph over a 590-foot-long U-shaped track.

In between the 144-foot-tall spikes, the surfboard-shaped train with two spinning circular platforms will race backward and forward over an airtime hill and through a splash zone.

22) Camp Snoopy

The Camp Snoopy makeover set to debut Memorial Day Weekend 2024 at Knott’s Berry Farm will add a new family coaster and super-sized kids swing while updating an off-road rally race and miniature train ride.

The new Snoopy’s Tenderpaw Twister Coaster by Zamperla will take the place of the 1983 Timberline Twister roller coaster and the 1992 Camp Bus flying carpet ride at the Buena Park theme park.

Knott’s sister park Kings Island in Ohio will also expand its Planet Snoopy kiddie land with a Vekoma Family Boomerang coaster and other Peanuts-themed attractions.

The fate of the former Montezooma’s Revenge at Knott’s remains in a state of flux as the addition of a randomized launch sequence to the classic shuttle coaster has hit repeated delays.

23) Dino Valley

The new Dino Valley themed land coming to Legoland California will feature two new rides alongside the park’s 2004 Coastersauraus roller coaster that zips around Lego versions of a Brachiosaurus and Parasaurolophus.

Dino Valley will include the Explorer River Quest and the Duplo Little Dino Trail rides, a dino-themed Lego brick build-and-play area, a reimagined Dino Dig fossil-finding sandbox and meet-and-greet opportunities with new prehistoric characters.

The boat ride will sail past Lego dinosaurs, including a T-Rex. Kids can use cameras to catch Lego dinos in a game of hide and seek on the Duplo safari ride.

24) SpongeBob’s Crazy Carnival Ride

SpongeBob’s Crazy Carnival Ride will bring the mad antics of the undersea residents of Bikini Bottom to the Circus Circus Las Vegas indoor theme park.

The backstory of the interactive dark ride involves Mr. Krabs inviting riders to play the midway games in his new Bikini Bottom carnival when everything goes hilariously wrong thanks to SpongeBob and Patrick.

The Sally Dark Ride travels past practical sets with animatronic characters and special effects. Riders fire Krabby Patty patties, buns and sea tomatoes at targets on multimedia projection scenes.

25) Peppa Pig Theme Park Texas

The second Peppa Pig park in the United States will open in 2024 in the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area.

The new Peppa Pig theme park will have kid-friendly rides, wet and dry play areas and a host of other entertainment. The marquee attraction will be Daddy Pig’s Roller Coaster — billed as a “family-friendly thrill ride” destined to become the first coaster ride for generations of kids.

The “Peppa Pig” animated television show starring Peppa, her family and their animal friends first aired in 2004 and now plays in 40 languages around the world.

The first Peppa Pig park in the U.S. opened in 2022 next to Legoland Florida.