A.J.

As soon as they told us to put the goody bags that they had just given us ten minutes before into the paid lockers at Hyperion, I knew how the day was going to go.

It's not perfect, and not every park officially reports their numbers, but the report is sound enough that it's used as a resource by many in decision-making processes. It's been going for a long while now. This reporting is put together by AECOM, a multi-national firm with deep ties to the technical side of the business, and the Themed Entertainment Association, one of the most prominent professional associations in the business (the first being the IAAPA), and the most prominent for creatives. They address concerns each year near the end of the report. Some highlights: Full disclosure. I'm not affiliated with AECOM. I am with the TEA but I do not speak as a representative for them. I did not participate in any of the research nor was I part of the team that put the report together or did QA / QC / GP on it. While I can't promise that the reporting is always completely accurate, I do not believe that their intention is to mislead anyone. I can't speak to any allegations that they mess with numbers they've received from official sources. All I care about is that, despite the competition, it is important for everyone in the theme park world to understand what's working, and what isn't working, to continue to grow.

Galaxy's Edge was there for seven months, but Rise of the Resistance was not. That had to have contributed somewhat. I can see people putting off trips for that reason. Personally I'd compare the Universal Orlando parks to EPCOT and Hollywood Studios before I'd compare them to Magic Kingdom. Both sets of parks are two big theme parks, within spitting distance of each other, with straightforward access to their companion resort hotels. You can get to either Disney park easily from Boardwalk and Yacht / Beach Club, and you can get to either Universal park easily from Hard Rock and Royal Pacific.

The Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) and AECOM have released the 2019 annual attendance report and Theme Index! Click HERE to check it out, as well as former years! Top 25 Amusement & Theme Parks Worldwide 1. Magic Kingdom (Walt Disney World) - 20.963 million (+0.5%) 2. Disneyland Park (Disneyland) - 18.666 million (stable) 3. Tokyo Disneyland (Tokyo Disney Resort) - 17.910 million (stable) 4. Tokyo DisneySea (Tokyo Disney Resort) - 14.650 million (stable) 5. Universal Studios Japan - 14.500 million (stable) 6. Disney's Animal Kingdom (Walt Disney World) - 13.888 million (+1%) 7. EPCOT (Walt Disney World) - 12.444 million (stable) 8. Chimelong Ocean Kingdom - 11.736 million (+8.4%) 9. Disney's Hollywood Studios (Walt Disney World) - 11.483 million (+2%) 10. Shanghai Disneyland - 11.210 million (-5%) 11. Universal Studios Florida (Universal Orlando) - 10.922 million (+2%) 12. Islands of Adventure (Universal Orlando) - 10.375 million (+6%) 13. Disney California Adventure (Disneyland) - 9.861 million (stable) 14. Disneyland Park (Disneyland Paris) - 9.745 million (-1%) 15. Universal Studios Hollywood - 9.147 million (stable) 16. Everland - 6.606 million (+12.9%) 17. Lotte World - 5.953 million (-0.1%) 18. Nagashima Spa Land - 5.950 million (+0.5%) 19. Europa Park - 5.750 million (+0.5%) 20. Ocean Park - 5.700 million (-1.7%) 21. Hong Kong Disneyland - 5.695 million (-15%) 22. Efteling - 5.400 million (stable) 23. Walt Disney Studios Park (Disneyland Paris) - 5.245 million (-1%) 24. Happy Valley Beijing - 5.160 million (+29.6%, new to global top 25) 25. Chimelong Paradise - 4.905 million (+4.8%) Now, discuss! More images and info from the release will be coming later.

Based on our government's recent track record, I think they will.

There's also the possibility that whatever B&M ended up designing / manufacturing for SeaWorld Orlando could end up somewhere else.

No it shouldn't have. Roller coasters aren't the answer to every theme park's problems.

Completely makes sense, thanks for chiming in.

So, how many overrides would an operator have to make to get the coaster to dispatch in that situation? And how many giant flashing "harness open" warnings was the operator ignoring to do so? I have trouble believing this. EDIT: Whoa whoa, he wants to sue Intamin too?!?

Bad news unfortunately, they're pushing any and all game elements to the Play Disney Parks app, including the Space Mountain games. The queue is just ambient screens now.

At this point they should just re-do Wildcat so that people would stop asking them to re-do Wildcat.

I suspect this as well. If anyone has gone recently, I'd love to hear about it... Seems like Knoebels' lack of a traditional single entrance / access point would make the rule more difficult to enforce.

Correct, the aforementioned lawsuit is one of the situations which led to today's version of the Disability Access Service Card. The new policies were put in place specifically to curb abuse.

It's rural Pennsylvania.

So the inverted coaster is less like an inverted version of a Firestorm / Space Warp and more like a larger version of the Suspended Family Coaster. I really like that. It's so different from other inverted coasters... That's refreshing to see.

Just did a couple of Park Pass reservations for the last few weekends in July... Butter-smooth, no problems at all, even after the predicted "rush" at 7 AM. Still plenty of availability for all four parks after that first week. Fan sites over-hyping the process as usual.

Right, the liens situation is not unprecedented though it is unusual to see it occurring at this scale. The COVID crisis is not something that SeaWorld could have controlled but the level of investment is somewhat paralleling what we saw from some Six Flags parks during the era of the Premier Parks acquisition. Forgive me, but based on speculation I've read (and ONLY from speculation I've read), I'm not sure upper management has the parks' long-term prospects in mind.

Some sources (such as this one, though exact details are unverified) are reporting that a lot of the people laid off were from non guest-facing positions, such as from marketing, or Universal Creative, and in a few cases those people had years of experience with the company. I've been noticing a significant amount of shakeups impacting a lot of creative friends and colleagues these past few weeks alone... The design side of the theme park business is going to look remarkably different once this all settles down.

Resort guests at the Disney parks have always had earlier access to FastPass reservations over non-resort guests and passholders... 60 days in advance versus 30. In this current situation, current resort guests are being given a several-day advantage to reserve (a) day(s) at their park(s) of choice over passholders and non-resort guests. As capacity limits increase, or IF they increase since Florida is now apparently becoming the Darwinism state, I could see Disney keeping the "amount" of available reservations the same for passholders and non-resort guests and opening up the increased number of reservations to resort guests only.

I have doubts as well, that seems a little out of character (heh). I originally was going to include the initial reporting of all resort changes being forced paid upgrades in the list as stuff that was actually happening, but as I was getting the research together I started reading some reports / comments on other fan sites / social media channels that some people who Disney called to change (not the guest calling Disney) were offered the upgrades free of charge. Again, it's not completely clear and not having an impacted resort reservation myself, I can't independently confirm.

Since this hasn't been posted in earnest here in the forum, here's the rundown for everything regarding the openings at Walt Disney World, pulled from the Parks Blog and some other sources: Park reservations go live for resort guests (including resort guest passholders) on June 22, non-resort annual passholders on June 26, and all other ticket holders on June 28, at 7 AM eastern each day You must have your ticket or pass linked in MyDisneyExperience to make a reservation New vacation bookings and park tickets open for 2021 dates on June 26 Park hopping is temporarily suspended, each reservation can only be for one park per day Annual passholder previews are on July 9 and 10 for Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom Events and spectaculars are suspended, characters will still make occasional appearances throughout the day No FastPass, Single rider queues, or Rise of the Resistance boarding passes All major attractions will be open with the exception of Princess Fairytale Hall, Town Square Theater, Up A Great Bird Adventure, Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, and Fantasmic Spaceship Earth's renovation has been delayed and it will re-open in its current state with EPCOT In addition, there are reports that guests staying in resorts that will not be reopening with the parks are being asked to relocate to a resort that is open. Some reports are saying that guests are being asked to pay full price to upgrade, but others have said that they are not being charged if they do not choose a specific resort to relocate to. Your mileage may vary. Hopefully I didn't miss anything or give any incorrect information.

Oh, how we all wish.

I absolutely loved Duinrell despite the crowds and not actually riding anything besides the Nautic Jet and the Alpine slide. It's all just so pretty. I've got a bunch of photos of the rides and yes, I'm working on my own report again. Things just kind of got in the way.

Keep in mind that even though a park may still be operating at a loss, if the loss is less than if they were to stay closed, then it's still worth it.

Not sure they have the digital infrastructure to implement that.