With consumer sentiment ebbing throughout 2025, many Americans have spent the last year watching their discretionary spending more carefully — an economic situation that ultimately led to fewer dollars spent at venues like amusement parks and, in some cases, bankruptcies.
After posting a loss of more than $1.2 billion last December, Six Flags announced that it will be closing down more “underperforming” park locations. The Six Flags America and adjacent Hurricane Harbor water park in southwestern Maryland had already shuttered its doors over a similarly poor state of its finances in November 2025.
In January 2026, the Cartoon Network Hotel next to the Dutch Wonderland amusement park in central Pennsylvania also shut down operations.
Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park files for Chapter 11 protection
Opened atop of the 7,000-foot Iron Mountain in western Colorado in 1999, Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park has been marketing itself as “America’s only mountaintop theme park.” While a small park with just a dozen main rides and a gondola taking guests to the top of the mountain, Glenwood Caverns is ideally located for visitors who come into the region to explore the nearby hot springs and that stretch of the Rocky Mountains in general.
That said, the theme park’s reputation was irrevocably damaged after six-year-old Wongel Estifanos was killed from falling more than 100 feet on the Haunted Mine Drop ride in September 2021. A Colorado jury later awarded Estifanos’ family $82 million for emotional distress and loss and $123 million in punitive damages after an investigation found that Glenwood Caverns workers started the ride without confirming that the girl was buckled in correctly.
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Glenwood Caverns’ total liability was later reduced to $116 million while a separate judgment ordered ride manufacturer Soaring Eagle to also pay $58 million to the family. After closing the Haunted Mine Drop ride for more than a year to add additional security features, the park ended up reopening it as the rebranded Crystal Tower in 2023.
But between the judgment and the lower visitor numbers around news coverage of the case, Glenwood Caverns fell deeper into financial problems and ended up filing for Chapter 11 protection at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware on Feb. 9.
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Glenwood Caverns will “continue operating” during bankruptcy proceedings, adventure park says
“Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware today following the recent judgment against it stemming from a tragic incident that occurred there in 2021,” the park confirmed in a statement. “The Chapter 11 process will allow Glenwood Caverns to continue operating while creating a structured, court-supervised process that ensures fairness and transparency as it pursues reorganization.”
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The statement goes on to say that the park has no intention to close down operations while the court filing also reports Glenwood Caverns’ intent to appeal the judgment.
Despite this, the park classifies its choice to file for bankruptcy protection as “the most responsible path to stabilize the business, preserve operations and maintain the value for the benefit of all parties” while also saying that it “recognize[s] the unimaginable loss of the Estifanos family.”
Related: Another travel company files for bankruptcy, cancels all trips
