A new ride that will “dominate the skyline” is coming to Lagoon.
Early Friday evening, while standing in between a spinning roller coaster called the Spider and the jerky Wild Mouse ride, Julie Freed announced a new thrill called The Nutcracker coming to the largest amusement park in Utah next season.
What to know about Lagoon’s new ride, The Nutcracker
During a brief presentation, Freed — a member of the family who has owned Lagoon for three generations — unveiled The Nutcracker, a “Screamin’ Swing” pendulum ride that is “built to thrill,” she told media and guests at the park.
The park isn’t sharing an exact date for the ride’s official debut, but said it will open during the 2026 season.
“Next year, a 50-foot Nutcracker icon will proudly stand guard ready to welcome every guest to join the fun,” said Freed, the park’s director of special events, during the presentation. “The best part: This icon will be dwarfed by the sheer size of the ride itself. We are incredibly proud to bring the world-class power and engineering of an S&S Worldwide ‘Screamin’ Swing’ right here to the park.”
“This is a colossal, jaw-dropping ride that will dominate the skyline here at Lagoon,” she added. “As you swing, you won’t just see the sky — you’ll hang in it.”
Here are some fun facts Lagoon shared about the ride:
- The ride’s steel arch structure measures about 105 feet tall.
- Riders will fly up to nearly 150 feet above the ground — the same height as the Sky Coaster.
- Riders hit a 115-degree angle at full swing.
- The maximum speed is 68 miles per hour — roughly the top speed on Cannibal.
- The total ride experience is 108 seconds.
- The ride capacity is 40 passengers per cycle (1,200 passengers per hour).
- You must be at least 48 inches tall to ride.
‘Like Sky Coaster 10 times’
Freed told the Deseret News that Nutcracker has been in the works since park staff tried out the Serengeti Flyer at Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida, last year. She drew comparisons to Lagoon’s Sky Coaster ride, which puts riders approximately 150 feet in the air before they release from a launch cable and rapidly swing toward the ground.
“It was so intense,” she said of the Serengeti Flyer. It honestly feels like Sky Coaster, but it goes down and then back again and down again and back again. It’s like Sky Coaster 10 times. It’s so intense, it’s so fun."
The ride’s Nutcracker theme is specific to Lagoon, and ties into the nearby Biergarten, a Bavarian-themed restaurant at the park. One of the ride’s two exits will go right into the Biergarten, Freed said.
The announcement of this ride comes two years after Lagoon opened Primordial — a highly anticipated roller coaster that was years in the making. Freed said she expects a similar excitement surrounding Nutcracker.
“It’s so huge — you’ll see it from the freeway,“ she told the Deseret News. ”I do think people are going to be just as excited, if not more.”