Here are the top 10, by page views: (Note that I am not including tournament or voting posts in this list)
Given that many frequent Theme Park Insider visitors read our pieces on the front page of the site, this list skews toward pieces popular with folks more likely to visit the article pages directly - typically, infrequent or first-time visitors who come to the site via a search engine query or link from another website.
I suspect that a list of the most-commented articles might provide a more accurate glimpse at what stories regular Theme Park Insider readers found most compelling in 2009. Here is that top 10: (Again, not including tournament or voting posts)
Curiously, there was no overlap between the lists, though several of the most-commented stories placed between 11-30 among the most viewed. Given that the Disney purchase of Marvel topped this list, as well as yesterday's reader vote, I'm going to go ahead and declare that, in the view of Theme Park Insider readers, that acquisition was the biggest individual story of the year in the theme park business.
Next year, as always it seems, I suspect we'll see even bigger stories, including the opening of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal's Islands of Adventure in Orlando.
And, of course, we'll probably see a few more cute pictures on the site, too:
Please share you thoughts about the year past, in the comments.
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My plans for theme parks:
My family has decided to try Disneyland and the California parks on for size this year.
No worries WDW, we will be visiting our new favorite event, EPCOT's Food and Wine Festival
SFGA (had to bring it up) will be visited by me and I am hoping this year, we can perhaps make TPI teams at our local SF parks for Walk in the Parks event. More details coming soon (like in four months!)
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But I digress...
Looking into my Crystal Ball for 2010, I present my personal top ten theme park related events of the year:
1) Riding a refurbed Space Mountain at Mk, visiting the Sum of All Thrills at Epcot, and dancing a jig with the Yeti in May.
2) Reading about Potter Land at IOA. Sadly, I do not have an IOA visit scheduled for 2010 as the RRR fiasco in 2009 has me worried about when the main attraction in Potter Land will actually be operating (I'll hit Universal in May 2011 if I am still alive).
3) Riding Intimidator 305 at Kings Dominion when I visit my old Virginia stomping grounds in August.
4) Riding Tom & Huck's River Blast at Silver Dollar City several times over the course of the summer as I make my now routine visits to SDC.
5) Partaking in my first visit to Wild Adventures since Herschend took over in late 2007 (I love Herschend). While I don't expect much, it will be nice to ride Celebration City's Jack Rabbit at WA once the coaster move is complete in 2010.
6) Visiting Adventure Mountain at Dollywood on my return trip from Orlando.
7) Seeing what happens at Worlds of Fun, if anything, now that new ownership is in place.
8) Reading about Wildebeast at Holiday World, the worlds longest water coaster (maybe a 2011 visit is in the works?).
9) Monitoring the continued progress at DCA.
10) Reading TPI daily.
Plus there is expansion at Adventureland (Altoona, IA) to report, continued progress on Schiltterbahn's Vacation Village (Kansas) to witness, and another year of the Six Flags Bankruptcy Soap Opera to be enjoyed.
Sure, looking back at 2009 is a blast, but looking forward to 2010 is even better!