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Saw John Wardley giving a presentation a few years back and during Q&A someone asked why Alton Towers didn't have a wooden coaster. He said that he constantly tried to get a wooden coaster but Nick Varney would never build one because he didn't think they were marketable enough (no gimmick). Its kind of funny how now that Wardley is retired, it looks like AT is going to finally get a wooden coaster. And not only are they getting a wooden coaster but its likely going to be a GCI which are the least gimmicky of the new generation of wooden coasters (don't go upside down, at least).

All the statements I am reading from Sea World's investor relations website say that attendance at SWSA was up this year. While yes it was down in 2015, my post was in reference to the layoffs that just took place the other day, not the ones that took place after 2015. And the fact that this is the "SeaWorld Orlando (SWO) Discussion Thread." Also not sure why I get labeled as a "Disney Parks person" when I post a lot about other parks. My home park growing up was KI and I have been to all the Six Flags, Universal, Sea World, and Cedar Fair (minus MIA) parks in the country. I have seen up close all the business cycles of the past 25 years or so in the amusement park business: I've seen Paramount come and go, i've seen Time Warner come and go, i've been to Six Flags Ohio, i've been to Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom, i've been to Six Flags New Orleans, I was traveling around the country going to parks during the "coaster wars" of the 90s and early 2000s and got a front row seat to the madness. I've ridden all the rough Arrow mega loopers of the 80s that are now gone. I rode Texas Giant/Rattler/Mean Streak/Hades when they were smooth and again after they got rough. I've ridden almost every B&M in the continent. I've rolled back on both TTD and Storm Runner (and have also ridden Kingda Ka and Xcelerator). I've dealt with the pain of trying to get on all 3 DejaVu's when they were new and unreliable (MM's I got the first time, GAm's I eventually got on after many attempts, and sadly Georgia's broke down and cleared the queue when I was going to be on the next train, was closed all day when I visited a few years later, then was removed for my next visit). I was at Alton Towers when Air was the big new ride. I've seen all the companies change their strategies many times. I don't know how this makes me a "Disney person that only relates to Orlando and socal." Sorry I don't mean to come off as an enthusi-ass to everyone else or take away from your opinions, because if you're posting on here i'm sure you've been to a lot of parks too. But don't make an assumption and label me as just because you don't agree with me.

Sea World's plan now can pretty much be summed up as: "rescue animals, make rides based on rescuing animals, show ourselves on TV rescuing animals, show people we're good guys, publicize that, and at some time in the future hopefully crowds will start coming. We're not quite sure when that's going to happen but hopefully it's before we have to go bankrupt. Oh and maybe we will get some checks from developers in the middle east, that might help." Also in addition to the slow Latin American season and the movie, I think SWO also is getting killed by the aggressive growth and price increases from Disney and Universal. They are competing for dollars against Mickey Mouse and now Harry Potter, there is so much to see and do at both properties now, both properties market themselves as not having to leave to have a full vacation, and the prices for the "must do's" have gone up so much there is no money left for the "want to do." Sadly cutting operating costs is necessary, they don't have much of a choice with their attendance levels.

Some of what you said makes sense, but to say they are not going to try an increase attendance because MK can't handle any more is ridiculous. I don't know how you can say that when STAR WARS LAND IS BEING BUILT AT DISNEYLAND the biggest clusterf*ck of any theme park on the plant. Also to say that Mymagic+ was purposely created to minimize attendance increase (trying to say this as polite as possible) might be the most ridiculous thing i've ever read. Mymagic+ was added because in the digital age it's common sense to try and adapt to changing consumer trends. If your assumptions were true Bob Iger wouldn't have said that they are looking at adding more hotels at the earnings call. More hotels = they are expecting more people...regardless of length of stay. Also regarding infrastructure to handle crowds, it seems to me what you are trying to say is that its not worth spending the money on things like the new hub, second ferry dock, and additional components at Soarin and and Toy Story Mania...they would make more money by just leaving them the way they are and not getting the higher attendance because it would keep their costs lower. MK just made a huge investment with New Fantasyland which ironically has an onimover, two Dumbos, and a dinkly little coaster that has an unload platform and runs like 4 trains. That's a huge investment in increased attraction capacity for the park. If the attendance increase warrants having another park eventually there will be another park regardless of its impact to MK you can count on that. It's called add more boats/buses/parking...it's what they've been doing for over 40 years when they expect attendance increases. It may not be for a few decades...but eventually it will get to that point. Ironically I have an MBA and had to go through all those diminishing return case studies

The population of Florida continues to grow very healthy and probably will for a long time, the world population continues to grow, emerging markets continue to grow (though the ones close to Florida, such as central America and Brazil, are in a big slump right now. They will recover eventually). It might not be worth it to build a new park right now but eventually it probably will be. I agree with you they should be cautious because what is the point they start cannibalizing their own business...but lets say in 2040 or something if they add another park and all 5 parks are busy all the time it would be hard to argue that they aren't making more money. I think the big challenge WDW faces isn't economics, its keeping everything fresh and up to date when there is so much there. Of course that's a whole other discussion.

Just got back from WDW and it was packed the entire time we were there. I live in Socal and know all too well how bad DLR gets with the crowded walkways, WDW was almost as bad even though the parks are way bigger. Even the attractions that don't traditionally get really long queues were 60 for much of the time (Pirates, Mansion). Frozen was posted between 120-150, most of the major attractions were about 90, even the character meet & greets Adventures Outpost and Epcot Character Spot were posted at 60 and Ariel M&G at MK was posted at 45 when I walked by it at like 10pm. We went on Small World at 11pm and it still had a full queue. Just seems kind of odd they are full on cost cutting and upcharge mode when the parks are still very busy. It would have been nice to have Stitch's Great Escape open, even though I wouldn't have ridden the park was so packed anything that could suck in crowds would be nice. It was also bizarre with no night parade when all the queues were still long at like 10-11pm. I know this is traditionally a slower time of year and have been to WDW and DLR on holidays when they are busier, but it definitely still felt very busy. My guess is that it has to do with the Rivers of Light miss at DAK this summer, the park was still open late with nothing really new to keep people there resulting in nighttime operation being a huge a waste of money (so far). Also Avatar probably being way over budget.

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Is Disney even making enough money off of this to make it worth the effort? It looks like there are only 3-4 cabana's, so just a few thousand in revenues a day (assuming they sell out). The average family that goes to WDW probably spends the same as a days worth of cabana sales. If they put them in all 4 parks and sell out every day that's about $3 million in revenues for the whole year for the whole property. When you consider: -The added staffing & health care. I know its not a lot of employees, but covering 4 theme parks day & night 365 days a year, if each employee is making $20-25k, after you're done paying insurance & taxes on all of them...that's a huge expense. -The maintenance of the units, the A/C, furniture replacement when something gets damaged or needs to be replaced due to the humidity. -The same amount of money is made if you have 20 priced at $100 or 3 priced at $650...there is obviously a very small set of people willing to shill out $650 for a tent while at a theme park, so you can't just add more without lowering the price substantially. Consider this one a head scratcher to me. Doesn't seem to be worth the time and headache, and making the parks look tacky just for a couple million in revenues IMO.

An attraction, something that attracts people, can definitely be a show. Especially at a Disney Park where shows are often big attractions: look at the crowds Fantasmic draws to DHS at night, or how many people went to DCA when Frozen was new. DCA's attendance went up like 20% the year World of Color opened! Also that's kind of weird how the Fastpass tickets are written in English considering about 1% of mainland China speaks English. Do you get an option or something of what language you want it in? At the other Disney Parks it has the native language and English on the same ticket.

Im not sure if this is a serious post or not, but the 2016 season has been over for more than a month..... Thx for pointing that out, when I said 2016 I meant 2017 and when I said 2017 I meant 2018. Time flies when you get old.

At this point I would say 99.9% chance this ride is scheduled to open for 2017...the only possibility I could see for 2016 is if there is some big marketing ploy to open it for Halloweekends. Remember Maverick was like entirely built before the park even closed in 2006 (and sadly still didn't open on time for 2007 ).

I think its really obvious that it's going to replace Kidzone and possibly ET. Curious George, Woody Woodpecker, Barney...none of these are relevant anymore. Also I think Jaws was considered more of a classic attraction than ET but that didn't stop it from being replaced with Harry Potter. Speaking of Harry Potter, seems like what's left of Lost Continent is prime expansion space for that franchise. I have to disagree with you bigtime here. The metal detector/l*cker situation is an annoyance but running 1 train on the most popular rides (if open at all) during busy times of year is much more of an annoyance. Also Universal as far as I know fully staffs its third shift maintenance and custodial, and the rides have very little downtime. Six Flags those days you never knew what rides were going to closed, late opening, running 1 train, down for staffing, etc. Universal Orlando's operations are probably just as good if not better now than ever.

Unless you have a burning desire to see to Rocky Mountains I would recommend doing Disney and Universal in the first part and ending the trip in Chicago and flying back to Australia from there, even if you have to connect out of LAX or Canada. That drive from Chicago to Denver to LA is, best described, a LONG ASS DRIVE. The first 10 hours is all fields, the next 10 hours is mountains ( which are beautiful, but after flying from Australia to the United States, driving through Mexico, going to Cuba, flying back to the United States, then driving from Atlanta all the way to the Midwest, and hitting up theme parks the entire time, are you really gonna want to drive through a crap load of rugged terrain?), then the next 10 hours is mind numbing desert and LA traffic. That is just a lot of driving to do after doing such a big trip. If you're one of those people that likes that kind of thing, and if you have lots and lots of extra time and money, then just make sure to be safe and be careful. You only live once I guess

I think SFMMs biggest obstacle to getting more families is their clientele (or perhaps their reputation as it relates to their clientele). While I personally have not had any issues with the clientele there, there are a lot of people that live in Southern Cal that won't go there because they have this perception that they are going to get beat up. Which is a shame because it's actually a pretty decent park for kids. Now that they are getting Justice League if SFMM had had better general maintenance, food service, and operations, I think it would be a fine park (I will admit though for those reasons I have no desire to go back even though they have gotten a bunch of new coasters since the last time ive been there). I heard an interview with Mark Shapiro saying SFMM had a good opportunity to target lower income families that can't afford to go to Disneyland, but I think after Thomas Town flopped they figured the reputation was so tarnished that they're better off just focusing on thrills. It seems no matter what they do they are going to have a hard time getting the sour taste out of the GP who hate the places mouth. I don't think i've ever seen a park so hated by its surrounding GP.

There would be no point in redoing Disneyland's castle. The hub area though, I agree that improvements definitely should be made for crowd control. It makes sense for Hong Kong to re-do the castle because while it is a nice park, it doesn't really have an identity, and in the age of the internet it comes across as a cheap imitation. You can say Tokyo does as well but the Japanese love Disney and Americana so much that getting a clone was a viewed as a huge success for them at the time.

With the announcement today that major changes are coming to Epcot, this confirms Disney is doubling down on what I call the "DCA effect." Its become clear Disney has purposely been holding off on building big new rides the past decade in order to do these massive renovations and expansions (DTD, DAK, DHS, and now Epcot). Itll be interesting to see what happens after all the current projects are complete.

Great America and New England's Goliath's. Great America's has a roman column sign made to match the train, but the queue and station are leftover from Iron Wolf which isn't themed at all. And New England's they tried to go with the brown wooden look but left the ride green & blue, and it still has the station from SFMM which does not fit the "theme" they were going for at all. Now that I think about it Six Flags in general, whenever they have tried in the past 10 years, it ends up looking crappy. They just don't spend enough money to make it look right. The sad thing is they actually did great work in the last few years of the Burke/Story era: Hurricane Harbor at Great America, Golden Kingdom and Plaza de Carnival at Great Adventure, Tatsu at MM (which was designed under Burke but opened under Shapiro), all are themed really great. One final run with the credit card before getting canned .

HOP is one of my favorite attractions in the park. Its multi generational, updated every 8 years which keeps it fresh (the whole show and narration is updated, not just the president), is indoors and air conditioned, and is relatively cheap to operate compared to most other attractions. There are many other attractions that are actually bad and could be candidates for removal such as Stitch's Great Escape, Universe of Energy, and Imagination. The attraction has always had a very positive and inspirational message regardless of who is president.

It drove me crazy how people would say the magic bands were a bad idea back when they introduced at WDW, to me it always seemed like an obvious thing to do and that other parks would follow suit. I wonder what these people think now that Universal (and accesso so probably all other parks) are getting them as well.

Chicago is colder than New York in winter, December is usually 10 degrees colder. Its more likely the rides would have to close for weather at GAm than GAdv (probably hence why its at GAdv and not GAm). While most coasters can run in the 40's and many in the 30's, when you get down in the 20's not only could they valley but also its very unpleasant to ride them. HITP would be a really big risk, it could be a huge hit if the weather stays in the 30's-40's. But even if the decorations and shows are great, if it's in the 20's, you have to ask yourself are people even going to show up. It's a lot of time and money to put into an event that likely could bomb just because of the weather.

I have serious doubts about the economics of these parks in the Emirates. Developers are trying to build Dubai into a family vacation destination like Orlando, but I don't think its a city with that kind of reputation, and its going to have a very difficult time getting it. The things that drive attendance to Dubai are unique to Dubai: people want to see the Burj, the fountains, the mall, and have the novelty being in the middle east without the danger. When it comes to theme parks Orlando dominates the European tourists hearts and minds and I think Dubai's parks will be viewed as second rate and will not drive enough attendance to be profitable. Can someone who's been there chime in and say where these tourists are coming from? My assumption is that it must be Europe and the South East or something...I can't see many people coming from Saudi Arabia to go to an amusement park? From pictures and videos these parks always look empty. I think parks are building there just because they are getting sweetheart deals from the developers. Disney was smart to say no and focus on China (and Universal was smart to back out).

Wow didn't think i'd get so much feedback off an observation (not a complaint). I have no stake in the outcome and didn't mean to insult anyone. I've seen three videos from CP: a holiday greetings video, a video with what I believe was the GM and PR guy answering questions, and the Cubs one. All three seemed campy to me. Also the one where the guys were answering questions it was like 20 minutes of them making fun of everyone that was asking questions and not actually answering any of them, which once again is something these large parks/public companies brand management usually do not allow. Feel free to continue to criticizing my observations .

It's funny to me how a huge famous park like CP's youtube is still ran with the equivalent of a 14 year old with an iphone and Windows Movie Maker. Most companies now you need a degree and years of experience doing professional video shoots and editing, and companies are anal about their image...there's just something so campy about CP's. Like I would expect Lake Compounce or Quassy Amusement Park to have that kind of youtube channel, not CP.

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In America we have decided soda isn't bad enough for you in its normal size, so we sell it in a huge cup and then have unlimited refills.