It’s never too early to look ahead at what’s on tap for next year and 2026 is already shaping up as a good year for roller coaster enthusiasts, thrill ride junkies and theme park fans in the United States.

Consider our Top 10 for 2026 an evolving and ever-changing list of the best new rides and attractions coming to theme parks in the U.S. in the coming year.

ALSO SEE: Six Flags Magic Mountain to turn kids area into Looney Tunes Land

Many parks have already begun construction on 2026 projects while others have only announced plans or launched teaser campaigns.

We’ll update our Top 10 list for 2026 as new rides and attractions are unveiled and more details become available.

Concept art of Mr. DNA’s Double Helix Spin and Cretaceous coaster in Jurassic World Adventure Camp at the Universal Kids theme park in Frisco, Texas. (Courtesy of Universal)

1) Universal Kids

Frisco, Texas

The new Universal theme park aimed at families with young children will boast lands dedicated to DreamWorks, Nickelodeon and Illumination film franchises when the Texas kiddieland opens in 2026.

The 97-acre Universal Kids resort will be home to a theme park and themed hotel with space set aside for future expansion.

ALSO SEE: Universal’s newest theme park brings kid-sized fun to Texas

Universal Kids will feature seven themed lands: Shrek’s Swamp, Jurassic World Adventure Camp, SpongeBob SquarePants Bikini Bottom, Minions vs. Minions: Bello Bay Club, TrollsFest, Puss in Boots Del Mar and the Isle of Curiosity.

The first test run of the new Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift roller coaster at Universal Studios Hollywood. (Courtesy of Universal)

2) Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift

Universal Studios Hollywood

The new Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift roller coaster coming to Universal Studios Hollywood will feature 360-degree rotating coaster vehicles designed to look like drifting race cars from the street racing film franchise that has earned $7 billion at the worldwide box office.

Coaster trains with four street racing cars will rocket from zero to 72 mph along the 4,100-foot-long track.

ALSO SEE: First look at Fast & Furious coaster on-track test at Universal Studios Hollywood

Riders will drift and spin in a replica of Dominic Toretto’s 1970 Dodge Charger as they ride in the new launch coaster coming to the Upper Lot of the Hollywood theme park.

Concept art of the NightFlight Expedition ride coming to Dollywood in Tennessee. (Courtesy of Dollywood)

3) NightFlight Expedition

Dollywood

The new first-of-its-kind attraction coming to Dollywood will take riders into the Smoky Mountains on a soaring nighttime flight that turns into a roller coaster ride and then a whitewater rafting excursion before concluding with a mysterious dark ride across a shimmering lake.

The $50 million NightFlight Expedition marks the largest single attraction investment in Dollywood’s history.

ALSO SEE: $2.5 billion Disneyland Paris makeover starts with new Frozen land

The hybrid roller coaster/whitewater river rapids ride will be the first Mack Rides Rocking Boat Ride in the United States built by the German ridemaker.

Concept art of the SeaQuest: Legends of the Deep ride coming to SeaWorld Orlando in Florida. (Courtesy of SeaWorld)

4) SeaQuest: Legends of the Deep

SeaWorld Orlando

The new, first-of-its-kind ride coming to SeaWorld Orlando will take riders under the sea in a three-person submersible vehicle to explore sunken shipwrecks brimming with sharks, stingrays, jellyfish and other extraordinary sea creatures.

The new SeaQuest: Legends of the Deep will be the world’s first Vekoma suspended dark ride from the Netherlands-based ridemaker.

ALSO SEE: Disneyland 2026: All the seasonal events, food festivals and late night parties

The indoor dark ride will feature a submarine-like ride vehicle suspended from an overhead track that will swing and rotate through a series of themed environments.

The backstory for SeaQuest will involve a deep sea exploration of glowing undersea worlds filled with awe, wonder and adventure.

Concept art of the Tormenta Rampaging Run roller coaster coming to Six Flags Over Texas. (Courtesy of Six Flags)

5) Tormenta Rampaging Run

Six Flags Over Texas

Tormenta Rampaging Run will claim the title of world’s tallest, longest and fastest dive coaster when it debuts at Six Flags Over Texas.

Tormenta will become the world’s first giga dive coaster — combining a 300-foot-plus height (giga) with a beyond vertical drop (dive) to create a completely new ride category.

ALSO SEE: Six Flags Magic Mountain pushes back new coaster to 2027

The coaster by Switzerland-based ridemaker Bolliger & Mabillard will be themed to Pamplona’s Running of the Bulls tradition.

Concept art of the Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare dark ride coming to Kings Island in Ohio. (Courtesy of Six Flags)

6) Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare

Kings Island

The classic dark ride set in a haunted theater on a dark and stormy night will return to Ohio’s Kings Island in 2026 with a cast of familiar characters, a new storyline involving the Maestro’s famed pipe organ and a little interactive game play to avert disaster on opening night.

The new Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare by Florida-based Sally Dark Rides will feature 26 scenes with animatronic figures, hidden Easter eggs and sound and wind effects.

ALSO SEE: Universal Studios Hollywood 2026: All the after-hours events and seasonal festivals

Riders in enchanted opera boxes will use interactive spellbound flashlights to collect “ghost notes” released from the organ during a lightning strike.

Detailed image of the “Soarin’ Across America” attraction poster for the updated ride coming to Disney California Adventure and Epcot. (Courtesy of Disney)

7) Soarin’ Across America

Disney California Adventure and Epcot

The new “Soarin’ Across America” films coming to the venerable flight simulator rides at Disney California Adventure and Epcot will debut just in time for the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States.

“Soarin’ Across America” will be filmed at 33 locations across the United States with the new scenes capturing a bird’s-eye view of the “scenic wonders, amazing cities and the beauty of the coasts” in a celebration of America’s diversity and grandeur.

ALSO SEE: Disneyland sets opening date for Soarin’ Across America

Walt Disney Imagineering will use advanced cameras and lenses mounted on helicopters and drones to capture the aerial footage for the updated attractions.

Also in 2026: Disneyland will update Millennium Falcon Smuggler’s Run with a new adventure starring Mandalorian and Grogu while the Fantasyland Theatre will launch “Bluey’s Best Day Ever” musical comedy show.

Concept art of the Barracuda Strike roller coaster coming to SeaWorld San Antonio in Texas. (Courtesy of SeaWorld)

8) Barracuda Strike

SeaWorld San Antonio

The $8.8 million Barracuda Strike inverted coaster by Switzerland-based ridemaker Bolliger & Mabillard will glide above SeaWorld San Antonio’s water ski lake.

Riders will hit a top speed of 44 mph after aboard coaster trains suspended beneath the 1,800-foot-long track.

9) Quantum Accelerator

Six Flags New England

The Quantum Accelerator straddle coaster by Switzerland-based ridemaker Intamin will blur the line between family friendly and extreme thrills with a ride aimed squarely at tweens looking for the next level of excitement.

The dual-launch coaster coming to Six Flags New England will reach a top speed of 45 mph with a tire-propelled boost in the middle of the 2,600-foot-long track filled with 11 airtime hills.

ALSO SEE: Disneyland to begin Avatar land construction in 2026

The backstory for Quantum Accelerator turns the coaster into a steampunk-style time machine created by Professor Screamore.

Concept art of the Galacticoaster indoor roller coaster coming to Legoland California and Legoland Florida. (Courtesy of Legoland)

10) Galaciticoaster

Legoland California and Legoland Florida

Aspiring young astronauts will design their own spaceships and train for an intergalactic mission into the Lego Galaxy aboard the new outer space-themed indoor coasters coming to Legoland California and Legoland Florida.

The first-of-their-kind Galacticoaster indoor coasters built by ridemaker ART Engineering of Germany will each travel along 1,500-foot-long tracks enclosed inside 30,000-square-foot “space port” buildings.

ALSO SEE: Legoland California trains kid astronauts for flights aboard new Galacticoaster

The galactic themed indoor launched roller coasters will send riders on an exploratory mission into the uncharted Lego Galaxy in custom Lego spacecraft where they will pass through cosmic scenes and meet other intergalactic travelers, according to the backstory for the ride.

MIAMI (AP) — Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier will have surgery on both ankles and is expected to be sidelined four to six months, including the upcoming Unrivaled season, the 3-on-3 women’s basketball league announced Thursday.

Collier had been rehabbing ankle injuries suffered during the WNBA season but said last month that she was working back to full strength so she could be available for Unrivaled’s second season, which begins Monday.

That timeline also suggests Collier would miss the start of the 2026 Lynx campaign, if there is one. The WNBA and players association continue to negotiate a potential collective bargaining agreement in an attempt to avoid a 2026 lockout.

The 2024 WNBA Defensive Player of the Year suffered a sprained right ankle during an August game against the Las Vegas Aces and missed several weeks. She then hurt her left ankle in Game 3 of the WNBA semifinals against the Phoenix Mercury.

Unrivaled, which Collier co-founded with fellow WNBA star Breanna Stewart, said a “joint team of medical staff” determined that surgery on both ankles would be needed for Collier, named the 3-on-3 league’s MVP last season.

Temi Fágbénlé will take Collier’s spot on the Lunar Owls for the 2026 season.

___

AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

Related Articles

Lynx awarded No. 2 pick in WNBA draft in lottery

Who are the greatest women’s college basketball players?

Ref from crew Cheryl Reeve criticized just received an NBA promotion

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, Associated Press

As technology distracts, polarizes and automates, people are still finding refuge on analog islands in the digital sea.

The holdouts span the generation gaps, uniting elderly and middle-aged enclaves born in the pre-internet times with the digital natives raised in the era of online ubiquity.

They are setting down their devices to paint, color, knit and play board games. Others carve out time to mail birthday cards and salutations written in their own hand. Some drive cars with manual transmissions while surrounded by automobiles increasingly able to drive themselves. And a widening audience is turning to vinyl albums, resuscitating an analog format that was on its deathbed 20 years ago.

The analog havens provide a nostalgic escape from tumultuous times for generations born from 1946 through 1980, says Martin Bispels, 57, a former QVC executive who recently started Retroactv, a company that sells rock music merchandise dating to the 1960s and 1970s.

“The past gives comfort. The past is knowable,” Bispels says. “And you can define it because you can remember it the way you want.”

But analog escapes also beckon to the members of the millennials and Generation Z, those born from 1981 through 2012 — younger people immersed in a digital culture that has put instant information and entertainment at their fingertips.

Despite that convenience and instant gratification, even younger people growing up on technology’s cutting edge are yearning for more tactile, deliberate and personal activities that don’t evaporate in the digital ephemera, says Pamela Paul, author of “100 Things We’ve Lost To The Internet.”

“Younger generations have an almost longing wistfulness because because so little of their life feels tangible,” Paul says. “They are starting to recognize how the internet has changed their lives, and they are trying to revive these in-person, low-tech environments that older generations took for granted.”

Here are some glimpses into how the old ways are new again.

Keeping those cards coming

People have been exchanging cards for centuries. It’s a ritual in danger of being obliterated by the tsunami of texting and social media posts. Besides being quicker and more convenient, digital communication has become more economical as the cost of a first-class U.S. postage stamp has soared from 33 to 78 cents during the past 25 years.

But tradition is hanging on thanks to people like Megan Evans, who started the Facebook group called “Random Acts of Cardness” a decade ago when she was just 21 in hopes of fostering and maintaining more human connections in an increasingly impersonal world.

“Anybody can send a text message that says ‘Happy Birthday!’ But sending a card is a much more intentional way of telling somebody that you care,” says Evans, who lives in Wickliff, Ohio. “It’s something that the sender has touched with their own hand, and that you are going to hold in your own hand.”

This August 2025 photo provided by Billy-Jo Dieter shows Dieter as she writes cards to strangers in Ellsworth, Maine. (Billy-Jo Dieter via AP)

More than 15,000 people are now part of Evans’ Facebook group, including Billy-Jo Dieter, who sends at least 100 cards per month commemorating birthdays, holidays and other milestones. “A dying art,” she calls it.

“My goal has been to try to make at least one person smile each day,” says Dieter, 48, who lives in Ellsworth, Maine. “When you sit down and you put the pen to the paper, it becomes something that’s even more just for that person.”

The singularity of a stick shift

Before technology futurist Ray Kurzweil came up with a concept that he dubbed the “Singularity” to describe his vision of computers melding with humanity, the roads were crammed with stick-shift cars working in concert with people.

But automobiles with manual transmission appear to be on a road to oblivion as technology transforms cars into computers on wheels. Fewer than 1% of the new vehicles sold in the U.S. have manual transmission, down from 35% in 1980, according to an analysis by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Divjeev Sohi, 19, shifts gears in a Jeep Wrangler on the streets of San Jose, Calif., July 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Liedtke)

But there remain stick-shift diehards like Prabh and Divjeev Sohi, brothers who drive cars with manual transmissions to their classes at San Jose State University along Silicon Valley roads clogged with Teslas. They became enamored with stick shifts while virtually driving cars in video games as kids and riding in manual transmission vehicles operated by their father and grandfather.

So when they were old enough to drive, Prabh, 22, and Divjeev, 19, were determined to learn a skill few people their age even bother to attempt: mastering the nuances of a clutch that controls a manual transmission, a process that resulted in their 1994 Jeep Wrangler coming to a complete stop while frustrated drivers got stuck behind them.

“He stalled like five times his first time on the road,” Prabh recalls.

Even though the experience still causes Divjeev to shudder, he feels it led him to a better place.

“You are more in the moment when you are driving a car with a stick. Basically you are just there to drive and you aren’t doing anything else,” Divjeev says. “You understand the car, and if you don’t handle it correctly, that car isn’t going to move.”

Rediscovering vinyl’s virtues

Vinyl’s obsolescence seemed inevitable in the 1980s when compact discs emerged. That introduction triggered an evisceration of analog recordings that hit bottom in 2006 when 900,000 vinyl albums were sold, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. That was a death rattle for a format that peaked in 1977, when 344 million vinyl albums were sold.

But the slump unexpectedly reversed, and vinyl albums are now a growth niche. In each of the past two years, about 43 million vinyl albums have been sold, despite the widespread popularity of music streaming services that make it possible to play virtually any song by any artist at any time.

A shopper stands in front of Amoeba Music in Berkeley, Calif., on Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Liedtke)

Baby boomers expanding upon their decades-old album collections aren’t the only catalyst. Younger generations are embracing the lusher sound of vinyl, too.

“I really love listening to an album on vinyl from start to finish. It feels like I am sitting with the artist,” says 24-year-old Carson Bispels. “Vinyl just adds this permanence that makes the music feel more genuine. It’s just you and the music, the way it should be.”

Carson is the son of Martin Bispels, the former QVC executive. A few years ago, Martin gave a few of his vinyl records to Carson, including Bob Marley’s “Talkin’ Blues,” an album already played so much that it sometimes cracks and pops with the scratches in it.

“I still listen to it because every time I do, I think of my dad,” says Carson, who lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

After starting off with about 10 vinyl albums from his dad, Carson now has about 100 and plans to keep expanding.

“The current digital age of music is fantastic, too, but there’s nothing like the personal aspect of going into the record store and thumbing through a bunch of albums while making small talk with some of the other patrons to find out what they’re listening to,” Carson says.

Paul, the author of the book about analog activities that have been devoured by the internet, says the vinyl music’s comeback story has her mulling a potential sequel. “A return to humanity,” she says, “could turn out to be another book.”

BABBITT — The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources approved a company’s plan to explore for minerals near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Under its approved plan, Franconia Minerals, a subsidiary of Twin Metals Minnesota, is allowed to drill exploratory boreholes at 19 locations north and south of Birch Lake.

Twin Metals wants to build an underground copper-nickel mine, processing facility and tailings storage facility several miles to the northeast, but still along the lake, which flows into the BWCAW via the Kawishiwi River.

The advocacy group Friends of the Boundary Waters urged the DNR to reject the company’s exploration plans over environmental concerns, arguing the state agency had the authority to do so.

However, in a Dec. 29 letter to the group, Joseph Henderson, director of the DNR’s Division of Land and Minerals, said the agency would approve the plans with added conditions “requiring Franconia to take measures to protect the environment, addressing concerns you raise.”

Henderson said the company has “the right to explore for minerals on these leased properties in accordance with the lease terms.”

(Gary Meader / Duluth Media Group)

Friends of the Boundary Waters said it was a missed chance for DFL Gov. Tim Walz to take a stance on the issue.

“At a time when the Boundary Waters faces enormous threats from the Trump administration in Washington, D.C., Governor Walz’s DNR capitulated to foreign mining interests by approving exploratory drilling at the edge of the wilderness,” Chris Knopf, executive director of Friends of the Boundary Waters, said in a news release. “Despite having clear legal authority to deny this permit, and despite overwhelming opposition from Minnesotans, the Walz administration is holding the door open to this toxic industry.”

Former Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton, DFL, was fervently opposed to Twin Metals, going as far as to deny the company access to state lands to do advance work for its proposed mine over concerns “for the inherent risks associated with any mining operation in close proximity to the BWCAW,” he wrote in a 2016 letter to Twin Metals.

But in his first year in office, Walz expressed concern about the mine but said  he didn’t think Dayton’s ban would hold up in court and that he would not continue it.

Twin Metals said it has long explored for minerals in the region.

“Exploration is fundamental to mapping out the characteristics of our mineral deposits, and it helps the state of Minnesota better understand its resources,” Twin Metals spokesperson Kathy Graul said in an email. “Exploration is not the same as mining; it is an exercise in gathering data about the size, scope, geometry, depth and metal content of our minerals, which lie deep underground.”

Like the Obama administration, the Biden administration took steps to effectively kill the Twin Metals mine by canceling two federal mineral leases for Twin Metals and banning mining for 20 years on 225,000 acres of Superior National Forest within the Rainy River Watershed, which is shared with the BWCAW, over concerns that mining would pollute the wilderness area.

But the Trump administration has said it will reverse the Biden administration’s actions to limit mining in the Superior National Forest and return Twin Metals leases.

Related Articles

Christmas is over, but what to do with the tree? These landfill alternatives can also help your garden

Save money, get organized, live better: Common New Year’s resolutions can also cut climate impact

‘Trump’s EPA’ in 2025: A fossil fuel-friendly approach to deregulation

2025 was one of three hottest years on record, scientists say

How bomb cyclones form and create dangerous conditions