CAROWINDS
Charlotte, NC
Six Flags Entertainment
---- THE LATEST BUZZ ----
(5/30/2026) Carowinds Drops Haunted Saw Mill Teaser Ahead of Media Announcement Next Week
(5/23/2026) Time To Find Out What’s In The Woods
(3/26/2026) Carowinds - 2027 Construction Update
(3/21/2026) A Giant Mystery Crate Has Been Set Up Inside Carowinds
(3/11/2026) Carowinds To Offer A New Spring Break Experience
Park News - (3/11/2026) Carowinds will open for the 2026 season starting on Saturday, March 14th, or if you are a passholder, there is the Passholder Preview Night event on the evening of March 13th. Shortly after this, Carowinds will host their new Spring Break season celebration from April 3 to April 12, which will offer a new frightful experience that you would normally associate with the SCarowinds Halloween Haunt in the fall.
During this year’s Spring Break guests can experience The Conjuring: Beyond Fear, advertised as a new “SCREAMium experience” themed to the popular spooky film series from New Line Cinema that will feature famous villains like The Nun, The Crooked Man, The Ferryman as you attempt to lock Annabelle back inside her box before it is too late.
There will be a separate charge if you wish to experience this haunt style experience.
2026 - Nothing new is expected to be added this year, and the proposed 2026 projects seems to have been delayed until 2027.
 2027 - New Attraction / Haunted Saw Mill Water Ride - (5/30/2026) While the big announcement from Carowinds is coming in a week, the park did post a weird teaser video about “Paranormal Phenoms” about “one of the most haunted places in the Carolinas”... the Holz Brothers Logging Company which left behind a creepy abandon’s saw mill in the woods. So…. it sounds like we now know exactly the source of the #WhatsInTheWoods hashtag mystery, and does on to give details about this abandoned creepy saw mill, including a “steam driven multi-level buzzsaw”.
So… this definitely sounds like we can expect a good classic theme park Log Ride to be announced… but the end of the video also drops an 8/6/2026 date in the video, while strangely the planned media event in the park will be taking place June 8th… or 6/8/2026.
So a strange mirror image mistake in the date? And Yes, I know the European standard for dates is to put then in day/month/year format, but Carowinds, in the middle of the US South, is definitely not a place you would do that, so perhaps June 8th is more of a teaser, with the full reveal to come in August maybe?
Either way, this announcement has given me some hope that Carowinds (and backed by Six Flags now) will put some extra money into the theming budget here and actually build a nice themed log ride experience with terrain, logging buildings, tunnels, maybe even enclose some of it with a fake mountain structure to make this 21st century log ride look a bit more like the classic Knott’s Berry Farm style log ride, which also has a great saw mill theme. Let’s hope… because unthemed log rides running through troughs held up in the air by open steel beams (kinda like the old flume that Carowinds removed long ago) is just a bit too uninspired of a project to build in this day and age.
Final thought… I’m thinking June 8th for the media is to further promote this initial teaser topic of the haunted saw mill theme, and maybe this will be followed throughout the summer with a series of mini updates and more teasers that will all lead to a big final announcement on August 6th. And who knows… maybe they’ll be smart and tie some of this fun Paranormal Phenoms stuff into this year’s SCarowinds haunt to continue to build up the lore for the upcoming attraction’s theme.
(5/23/2026) The big reveal for what Carowinds has planned for the 2027 season is nearly here, as the teaser campaign to find out #WHATSINTHEWOODS will cap off with a planned media announcement on June 8th, 2026. So will it be the water flume ride that corporate previously announced as something coming in 2026, or has the scope of the project grown larger or changed entirely? We will know soon enough…
(3/26/2026) While Carowinds seems to just be starting their build-up tease to whatever they have planned for 2027, be it the same previous water ride teased by corporate for 2026 that may have just been delayed, or perhaps something else entirely new, we do have a great picture showing off the site that was cleared that was the former home to the park’s river rapid ride. So what may come here for 2027?
(3/21/2026) A large crate has been set up in Carowinds it seems as a teaser for the park’s upcoming 2027 attraction. Other than the “Ship to: Carowinds” stamp, the only other obvious text on the crate is “FRAGILE”, so unless it’s a giant leg-shaped lamp that was sent as a major award… then this has to be a teaser for a future attraction.
The site of the former rapids ride has been cleared out for some time now, and previous posts from Six Flags corporate did mention they wanted to install some kind of record breaking water ride, which the park desperately needs, as it has zero water rides right now, but plans at Six Flags do have a tendency to change from time to time, so we’ll have to wait and see what this really is.
(1/19/2026) Well… it’s nearing the end of January and Carowinds still hasn’t made any kind of announcement about a new attraction for the 2026 season, despite the fact that the corporate office confirmed last year that the park would be getting a major new water ride. We also know that the former site of the park’s old Rapids ride has been totally cleared out to make way for a new attraction… but to our knowledge nothing has shown up for it yet either.
Until now… maybe…
Carowinds posted a teaser on social media showing off what appears to be a section of a large wooden crate along with the message, “Did ya hear? Somethin’ is out there… #WHATSINTHEWOODS” along with the hashtag #CAROWINDS2027.
As I mentioned several months ago, I kind of had the feeling that Carowinds was going to push their 2026 project back a year, not unlike what has happened at Six Flags Magic Mountain and Six Flags Great Adventure. So I guess the real question now is… is the 2027 project still going to be a major new water ride, or have they opted to switch gears to build something else? I have to admit, the #WHATSINTHEWOODS hashtag does kind of remind me a little bit about the old Kings Island / Mystic Timbers hashtag tease, which was #WHATSINTHESHED. Ironically, Mystic Timbers arrived in 2017… 10 years ago.
(11/217/2025) Other than land clearing and installing what seems to be new storm water drainage infrastructure, there really has been little or no progress on actually building a new attraction for 2026 at this point, so the project may have been pushed back.
(2/24/2025) So how would you feel if Carowinds added a flume ride very similar in design to the one in the post embedded below? The rumored 2026 attraction that will be placed over the park’s former river rapids ride is rumored to feature both forwards and backwards drops, but somehow the basic open steel and concrete flume design is just leaving me cold. If Carowinds were to add a new flume ride, i’d love for them to actually enclose parts of it inside some kind of fake mountain structure, or within a dark-ride show-building, and build something more akin to the Timber Mountain Log Ride at Knott’s Berry Farm.
(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.
Carowinds made it onto the list, where they promise that the park will receive a “record-breaking water ride” in 2026. This is especially important for Carowinds, as it is one of the only parks in the nation that no longer has even a single water ride left in their arsenal after the retirement of the three they had over the past 15 years, starting with the Powder Keg log flume in 2009.
I’m not sure where this will go, but I’ve got a feeling it could either be placed in the former river rapids location, or quite possibly down in the area currently occupied by Hurler, Drop Tower and Carolina Cyclone. I’ve heard some reports as of late about survey markings being spotted all over that section of the park, which possibly indicate that something big may be in the works and that those older attractions might find themselves on the chopping block between now and 2025.
As for some ideas about what the ride could be, Six Flags did ask a few questions about possible Flume and Water Coaster ride concepts in Spring 2024, which you can re-read below.
???? - New Attraction Guest Survey Concepts - (10/18/2025) Six Flags has begun sending out surveys to select guests to get feedback about possible future addition concepts that may be in the works. Keep in mind that not every concept they pitch for any given park may actually be intended for that particular park, as sometimes the chains will pitch ride concepts to other markets as well to gain some broader feedback on certain concepts. With that said… let’s dig into what is currently being pitched for the various parks.
The guest survey for Carowinds is interesting, as it includes concepts such as a Zamperla Giga Discovery ride (a giant 172ft tall spinning pendulum rides) as well as what sounds like an S&S Screaming Swing. The rest of the survey is very coaster heavy, which shows that good things are likely coming to the Carolinas, with a proposal for a Dive Coaster, a Wing Coaster, a Family Thrill Launch Coaster and a proposal for a new “Launch Coaster” that seems to be more like AlpenFury at Canada’s Wonderland. So a long kick-butt high-inversion count launched coaster for Carowinds would be a winner in my book.
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