 With yesterdays announcement of Universal Orlando's Epic Universe I totally had just thought about updating our "It's a great time to be a Theme Park Fan ... and don't let anybody tell you different" article. Because that's just what we do when something new opens. It's one of our most popular articles ever, it's got some great points and it takes 5 minutes to update stuff. Win for everybody. But something happened then the editor did not intend. Somebody made a most excellent point that kind of counters that thing. So as Samuel L. Jackson would say ... "hold onto your butts". Written by Gregg Condon I had originally planned on including my thoughts on Epic Universe in this article, but as often happens, it turned into something beyond that. So I've shared my thoughts on Epic Universe in a different article. Click the link to check it out.  Fair warning, I am going to borrow some things from that other article, is it plagiarism if you plagiarize yourself? Gonna have to ask my English/Communications Major daughter that one. (I asked, we're good, apparently it was a ridiculous question) But I digress. The basis of that other article is really encouraging people to embrace the fun of theme parks, to embrace the "Theme Park Wars" we currently find ourselves in. If you've followed us for awhile you'll know that most of our Editor Commentaries pretty much follow this same theme. Something just kind of triggers in my head and I have to bring myself back to the reason we do this, and that's to have fun. So then I share it with all of you. I love theme parks, I love Halloween events, the "Team Park Journey" we've assembled, and I'd guess most of our followers are the same, we don't all have the "same" favorites. Out of the 10 or so people who contribute to the site I'm guessing there are probably 7-8 different parks we'd all call our "favorite". (in fact, hold please, gonna ask them in our group chat)  After asking Team Park Journey, some friends on my personal FB page and sending a Tweet out asking what everybody's favorite park is I got some amazing answers: Plenty of Disneyland, Animal Kingdom, Epcot, DisneySea, Islands of Adventure, etc. But also Dollywood, Knott's Berry Farm, Phantasialand, Magic Mountain, Busch Gardens Williamsburg, even a Hong Kong Disneyland. So while WDW, Universal Orlando, Disneyland, etc gets most of the coverage, you'll see that among enthusiasts and non-enthusiasts the favorite parks are as wide-ranging as our personalities. But I digress (again). Yesterday Universal Orlando announced their all new "Epic Universe" theme park. This will be the first theme park to open in Orlando since Islands of Adventure in 1999. There have been new attractions, new re-imaginings of existing attractions, Potter, Avatar, new Fantasyland, Volcano Bay (there's a debate on if it's really a theme park or not going on right now, seriously), great attractions at SeaWorld and Busch Gardens, even Fun Spot and many, many more. And the basis for all of that was that we should be enjoying this "one-upmanship" that is currently occupying much of the time at Disney and Universal. That even if you weren't necessarily a fan of Universal there is probably "something" you could find to enjoy. That even if you weren't necessarily a fan of Busch Gardens or SeaWorld or Six Flags or Cedar Fair, you could maybe enjoy visiting some of those parks. Or at the very least respect that the war between Disney and Universal has seeped out into these other parks who are also building more heavily themed attractions. But 2 years and 4 months after that article was written I've discovered a few things. 1) Some people that will NEVER, EVER, EVERRRRRRRR give any other park chain credit other than Disney. They'll visit these parks, but only to come up with reasons to hate them. (Heck, there are twitter accounts dedicated to just tearing Disney apart, even though they visit Disney on a weekly basis ... but that's a whole other topic) 2) Some people will result to ridiculous arguments they couldn't possibly believe in order to prove a point, like saying that Universals announcement = Disney is "done" (not going to call out the people here as that's not what we do, but you all know who you are) 3) I made a mistake concentrating mostly on CA and FL and didn't give enough consideration that perhaps, perhaps, the "scraps" being fed off to area's outside of those two states weren't enough. Let me explain ... Here's the tweet chain that started a new line of thinking (thanks to Matt for giving us permission to use the tweet exchange in this article):  And Matt is 100% right. While there have been some truly unbelievable coasters and attractions built at parks outside of California and Florida, the fact remains there haven't been a lot of major parks built outside of those states in the past 25 or so years.
If you feel that only having 2 or 3 coasters barely counts (we'd probably agree) then Wild Adventures would be the last "major" park to open outside of CA/FL. And for the last major "Chain" park, you have to go back to Six Flags Fiesta Texas in 1992 (which wasn't a chain park when it first opened). Note: I did not include glorified family fun centers or pizza places as those don't count (IMO, sorry Gary) That's longer than many of you have probably been alive. And while there has been a lot of talk of parks opening in different locations over the years, as of today there is not one park outside of CA/FL that is anything more than "blue sky" at this point. There are many major metropolitan area's without a major park. Off the top of my head places like Phoenix, Portland, Seattle, New Orleans, Houston and many others come to mind. And that's not even taking into account "under-served" area's such as Denver, Indianapolis and Oklahoma. While yes, some AMAZING coasters and attractions have come out of some existing parks in that time (let's not forget the great coaster wars of the early 2000's) the fact does remain that parks outside of CA and FL are very rare. (in that same time 4 major parks have been built in CA and FL - Animal Kingdom, Islands of Adventure, Legoland California, Disney California Adventure) It does seem there is some truth to this. So what do you think it is? Is it truly that there is not a market there for new parks outside of CA and FL? Is what is already there truly enough? Perhaps it's the consolidation of parks under two national brands (Six Flags and Cedar Fair) that has led to no new developments. Is it time for Disney and/or Universal to step outside of their two core states? Or are you fine with them just being where they are now? Maybe it's time for some other park chain, say Busch Gardens, Herschend or Merlin to build an entirely new park? One side note to all of this ... Not 4 hours after Epic Universe was unveiled, Disney revealed they are going to be announcing something on August 22nd, 3 days BEFORE the Parks Panel at D23.  Thanks to @AshleyLCarter1 for sharing this Happy Birthday to me!! So what could it possibly be that couldn't wait 48 hours? Is it something they hadn't planned on putting in the parks and resorts panel? Is it something so huge that it needs to be separated out? Is it just something to take away from Universals thunder? The war between Universal and Disney isn't over. Some would even say it's just getting started. Will the war extend beyond the current boundaries of Florida and California? Only time will tell. Related Updates:
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 By now we pretty much all know that Disneyland attendance has been down this summer. There are multiple reasons behind this. There is one HUGE reason that isn't really being addressed. And that is that they've turned off the GP due to overcrowding. Written by Gregg Condon Disney blocked CM and AP's so much because they thought the General Population would show up in droves to see the all new Star Wars Galaxy's Edge. It hasn't happened. And the reason isn't because nobody wants to see it. The reason is because of the AP Monster Disney has created.  Imagine you are a family of 4. You make a once yearly trip to Disneyland, maybe once every two years. In the 00's you could get a room, get a 2-3 day park hopper and enjoy your time in the park. It may be busy, but chances are 1 out of those 3 days you are going to get moderate crowds. If you go in the offseason, even a better chance you are going to be able to enjoy the parks at a leisurely pace and see everything you want to see. Multiple times. Let's imagine you were that same family that could get moderate crowds in the 00's going to the park in the 2010's after the Annual Pass numbers have skyrocketed at Disneyland. You are now spending MORE for your hotel. MORE for your parkhopper tickets. And instead of a slow/moderate crowd at Disneyland you are finding the park filled with 50,000 to 60,000 Annual Passholders EVERY DAY. Where is your incentive to repeat that vacation in subsequent years?  Hour Waits to get into a bar? Disney has created this AP monster, and there is no going back. And now that low to moderate crowds are here, Disney is freaking out (even though guest spending is up, WAY up). Disney has gotten so used to long queues and crowds that they no longer remember what it was like to have an off-season. Sure, an off-season in June/July is kind of weird. Here's the thing, we are a family of those infrequent visitors. We had AP's for 14 years. And we used them. And used them well. But since 2012 we've been to the park 3 times. And each time the parks were busier than the last time. After hearing how low the crowds have been we were actually thinking of going to the park during the Galaxy's Edge Reservation period. That's right, we were totally willing to go to Disneyland, knowing we couldn't see Galaxy's Edge JUST so we could enjoy the rest of the park with no crowds. (Due to work and other things we didn't end up going)  But now Disney is freaking out. Lifting CM blackout dates. Cutting CM's hours (because they can really afford to get LESS money). Disney knows the one thing that would fix this, and that's lifting AP blockout days. Something they've been unwilling to do, yet. Why? Because that would be admitting that Disneyland isn't the "resort" they've been trying to tell us it is since 2001. It would be admitting that Disneyland is an Annual Passholder "Locals" park. Because that's what it is. And it's Disney that made it that way. There's no turning back now ... Related Videos
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To hope to start spreading some positive vibes among #ThemeParkTwitter and #DisTwitter again, instead of just doing a "Follow Friday" or similar type post, going to post some of our favorite accounts, and WHY we love them so much. Had originally started doing this on Twitter, but it was going to be WAY too long, so here you go. - Gregg
Note: We did not include any "media" accounts, just site/blog/social media accounts we enjoy. Note 2.0: There are many, many other accounts we follow and all of them are worth it. We've just included the ones we've had the most interactions with over the years. Hope nobody feels left out by this. =) |
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