The owner of Cypress Gardens Adventure Park today announced a number of new attractions, including new rides for small children and construction of a long-awaited $5 million wooden roller coaster.

Owner Kent Buescher also said that the park will admit for free the holders of a season pass to any other theme park in the United States. This will be in effect from Friday through Dec. 24.

Buescher said installation of the famed Starliner roller coaster, purchased from a park in Panama City, will begin almost immediately. It will be open in late May.

And a new attraction for the park's youngest guests is on the way. Called Bugsville, it will feature 13 rides and interactive features in a four-story building.

In September, the park filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Georgia federal court, facing $17 million in unpaid claims from $25 million in hurricane damages the park suffered in 2004. Buescher vowed the bankruptcy petition would not affect operations or season pass holders. He said today there have been no new developments on this issue.

The bankruptcy paperwork shows more than $50 million in debts, but the filing allowed the park to borrow $13 million more to get through the short-term until the insurance issue is settled, he said. Fans of the park have been loyal. Attendance over the summer was up 16.5 percent from 2005 and park officials expect it to hit 1.3 million this year.

Buescher, who spent $7 million on Cypress Gardens and another $5 million in improvements before the 2004 hurricanes, owns a similar park in Valdosta, Georgia that went from a small petting zoo with 100,000 visitors annually when he bought it to an attraction with 1.5 million people passing through last year.

Cypress Gardens is considered "Florida's first theme park," and celebrates its 70th anniversary this year.