I’ve made no secret of 2025 being far from the best season I’ve experienced at Canada’s Wonderland. It wasn’t all bad and even the worst season at the most wonderful place on the planet is better than the best season at some other parks. I’m still incredibly grateful to have a park like Wonderland in my backyard. But there are several reasons why I spent less time in the park than any other (non-pandemic) year since 2013. Not just fewer visits, but less time per visit on average.
AlpenFury
This is a larger discussion I’ll have to delve into some other time, but essentially: AlpenFury is not for me. It’s an extreme thrill machine more focussed on one “cool” visual than the overall atmosphere of the park.
I’m a bit of a thrill seeker. And by that I mean I am not an extreme thrill seeker. I don’t like being held upside down, I prefer over-the-shoulder-restraints (OTSRs), and launch coasters like Maverick at Cedar Point or Wonderland’s own Backlot Stunt Coaster have frequently made me grey-out (nearly blacking out, sometimes with just pinprick vision remaining). There’s no part of AlpenFury that’s appealing to me. In fact it made me nervous just thinking about it.
My first ride, I was shocked. I was fine! It was intense, for sure, but I didn’t feel lightheaded, the restraint felt far more secure than past experiences, and the inversions were never long enough to make me feel like I was being “held” upside down!
And yet there was still a major issue with the ride experience itself: It’s way too fast to appreciate the ride’s individual elements. The whole ride goes by in a blur to the point I’ve heard multiple people say they don’t even know what happened. That’s a problem, in my opinion. I love the visuals when riding a coaster. Seeing all the near-miss elements coming toward you with enough time to process how close you are, looking around at how far you’ve travelled since the train left the station… AlpenFury doesn’t have that despite having an amazingly well-designed layout. It’s a shame.
Speaking of visuals, there’s almost nothing on-ride to excuse the use of Wonder Mountain nor explain the story. There’s a mural of a map in the station and some coloured lights in the launch shaft which turn from blue to orange, then fade back to blue. It’s incredible to me how this effect goes by too fast to really notice while there’s still enough time to see how underwhelming the launch shaft “tunnel” itself is. A couple stalagmites and stalactites. Painted black. Just like the plain cinder-block and plaster walls.
AlpenFest
With a new coaster, it’s become pretty standard at the former Cedar Fair (and now Six Flags) parks to introduce a new themed area. And so with AlpenFury came AlpenFest! …sort of. AlpenFest was one of the original themed areas planned for Canada’s Wonderland, part of the larger International Festival which would have included a Mediterranean Village. I’ve been hoping and even outright asking to see AlpenFest officially recognized for years, but my vision of it looked a little different than what we got. (More on that some other time.)
This newly-branded area is based on a small village in the Alps holding a festival which, for some reason, is celebrating the elements of fire and ice. While this sort of explains the fire and ice theming of AlpenFury itself, it doesn’t incorporate any of the existing rides into this story. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by Frontier Canada’s excellent gradual introduction over several years before being officially recognized with the introduction of Yukon Striker, but AlpenFest’s introduction feels like it’s in name only. International Festival already had rides which matched the “festival” aesthetic and some had German names. So why does the area in some ways feel less cohesive than before AlpenFury was added?
Have a Six Flags Day!
So the new ride and area didn’t work for me. That’s happened before with rides like Flying Eagles and Skyhawk being added in 2016, and we’ve even had years with no new rides or major attractions (such as 2013 with only Monsters of the Deep being added in Action Theatre. What makes 2025 worse than those years?
To start, the entertainment, while always excellent, seemingly suffered from some budget restrictions: no new shows added throughout the summer, the loss of Skeleton Crew and Dia De Los Muertos for Halloween Haunt, no new scare zones nor mazes (with returning mazes now require an additional fee), two new shows for WinterFest which came at the expense of existing ones, and no new festivals despite one being announced before the park opened for the season. That’s not great for someone who appreciates the atmosphere of the park as much as its rides.
But with the rides, some of them have had scheduled closures or late openings with no clear communication to guests and no explanations given outside of a simple sign at its entrance (at best). The same goes for Grande World Eatery being closed for most of the summer (and the busiest part of it at that). From what I’ve gathered, these changes were purely due to budget constraints.
There’s also the incredible frustration of the new lockers for Yukon Striker which deserves its own entry. Simply put: The lockers are bad for guest satisfaction, bad for employee morale, and ultimately (I believe) bad for Six Flags as a company. I cannot stress enough how much I want them to reverse this decision and remove the lockers.
Food service this year was also subpar. Previously mentioned, Grande World Eatery was closed for a good portion of the summer. All’s Well Hall also remains exclusively a “private event” space. King’s Feast received a nice renovation but a more basic menu than before. The funnel cake batter hasn’t been worth the price since they switched recipes so I only got one the whole season (because someone else wanted it).
With a new “fire and ice” themed coaster in the newly-branded Alps-inspired area, I feel like there were a lot of options for culinary creativity (or even making the Oktoberfest food available year-round), but instead we got a… sweet and spicy bologna sandwich? Grande World Eatery had a decent menu in the spring (until it closed midway through the summer) and the incredible chicken parmigiana in the fall. But overall it felt like a reduced variety of options with great items being few and far between.
“Happy” New Year?
I understand the company isn’t in the best shape right now as it deals with pressures from stockholders and all the challenges involved with merging two multi-billion-dollar companies. But it’s not leaving a good (first) impression on average guests. I had the opportunity to introduce someone to Wonderland for her first year as a season pass holder, and yet I had to keep apologizing for the state of things. She’ll go back because of me, but her experiences in 2025 didn’t make her eager to return like I believe they would have in previous seasons.
All that being said (and I know it’s a lot), 2025 wasn’t all bad. The chicken parmigiana from Grande World Eatery throughout the fall was quite possibly the best meal I’ve ever had at the park! The Mighty Canadian Minebuster was improved with silky smooth vertically-stacked wooden track from The Gravity Group! The kids’ park received its first ever proper Refresh Centre, complete with ICEEs! The Conjuring: Beyond Fear was an awesome and unique experience (even if it does have an understandable additional fee). And of course all the familiar rides were still there (with the exception of Time Warp).
It’s just frustrating when I know how good Wonderland can be and see it fail to deliver on those expectations. I had fun, but not nearly as much as any other year in memory. More often than not, I left feeling frustrated. I hope 2026 is better than 2025. It’s hard to imagine it being worse.
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