The top theme park news stories of 2023, so far

Don’t Newsome my Florida. We love, value and respect our children here, truly.

Sigh.

"We love value and respect our children here."

Except for the LGBT ones and not enough to have sensible handgun laws.

Please don't. Stop entertaining his comments. For all our sake...

Governor Ron DeSantis Signs Sweeping Legislation to Protect the Innocence of Florida’s Children
On May 17, 2023, in News Releases, by Staff

TAMPA, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis signed the Let Kids Be Kids bill package to protect Florida’s children from permanent mutilating surgical procedures, gender identity politics in schools, and attending sexually explicit adult performances. For more information about the bills signed today, click here.

“Florida is proud to lead the way in standing up for our children,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “As the world goes mad, Florida represents a refuge of sanity and a citadel of normalcy.”

“Thank you to Governor Ron DeSantis for continuing to implement legislation to keep our students safe and our schools focused on education, not indoctrination,” said Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz, Jr. “Today’s actions make it clear – educators in Florida are expected to teach our standards, and not interject their own opinions or worldview into the classroom. The Department will remain focused on teaching students core subjects, rather than woke gender ideology or inappropriate topics.”

“Thank you Governor DeSantis for signing legislation that protects our children,” said Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Jason Weida. “Florida is following the science to elevate our standards of care to protect kids from harmful drugs and surgeries.”

SB 254 – Treatments for Sex Reassignment:
Prohibits sex reassignment surgeries and experimental puberty blockers for children.
Requires adult patients who are receiving these medications or surgeries to be informed about the dangers and irreversible nature of these procedures and to give written, informed consent.
Provides courts temporary emergency jurisdiction to step in and halt sex reassignment procedures for out-of-state children present in Florida.
Creates a pathway for individuals to obtain damages when they were injured or killed after receiving sex reassignment surgeries or medications as minors.
HB 1069 protects students from having to declare their pronouns in school. Additionally, this bill expands parental rights in education by prohibiting classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in Pre-K through 8th grade.

HB 1438 protects children from sexually explicit performances in all venues. This bill prohibits a person from knowingly admitting a minor to an adult performance. Additionally, this legislation authorizes the Department of Business and Professional Regulation to fine, suspend, or revoke the operating or alcohol licenses of hotels or restaurants if they admit a child into an adult performance.

HB 1521 ensures that Florida’s bathrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms are safe places for women. The bill requires educational institutions, detention facilities, correctional institutions, juvenile correctional facilities, and public buildings with a restroom or changing facility to designate separate facilities based on biological sex or to provide one-person unisex facilities.

The Governor also signed legislation to protect youth sports in Florida and ensure that all students can play sports without interference from extremist bureaucratic boards. HB 225 allows private school, virtual school, and home school students to participate in sports and other extracurricular activities at other public or private schools, regardless of zip code.

HB 225 also reorganizes the FHSAA Board of Directors to 13 members, instead of the current 16 members. Four members will be elected by school representative members while eight members will be appointed by the governor, and the final member will be the Commissioner of Education or his designee. This bill also allows teams to provide brief opening remarks, including prayers, before high school athletic contests.

I know this is purely anecdotal information, but it does seem that Americans are cooling on theme parks this summer. We visited Busch Gardens Williamsburg and Water Country USA this past weekend, and while there were good crowds, the parks weren't nearly as crowded as you would expect for a holiday weekend. Similar observations were reported at other theme parks around the country (including WDW) that crowds were not as bad as expected over the holiday weekend, and while MK was technically "sold out" for July 4, the other WDW parks were far less crowded than previous years (aside from 2020 and 2021 of course) with a mid-afternoon screen capture of MDE showing DHS wait times for all the top rides (RotR, MFSR, ToT, RnRC, TSM, and SDD) running between 30-60 minutes.

It might not be just Six Flags struggling with attendance.

@Russell: It's really, really hot, and the perception is that visiting a theme park is a daylong (and expensive) experience.

TH is right about it being expensive. Money is tight for a ton of folks right now, and only getting tighter. The discretionary spending post COVID is cooling down all over, not surprising theme parks would eventually start to feel the pinch.

@TH - I could see the heat having an impact in Orlando, but other theme parks around the country were seeing smaller than expected crowds despite excellent weather conditions. Like I said, in Williamsburg, it was in the upper 80's over the weekend with Pantheon a literal walk on after 8 PM (park was open until 10). Cedar Point, Kings Island, and Hersheypark (though forecasts in Central PA predicted storms that never materialized) were all well below typical weekend crowds.

Financial considerations might be impacting crowds at the destination resorts, but again this is a trend observed across the spectrum of parks.

It's possible that Americans avoided theme parks over the holiday weekend because of the holiday being on Tuesday (allowing for a longer, more elaborate vacation than typical this time of year), but it was a common trend for theme parks around the country with crowds unexpectedly light that were not specifically impacted by the weather (though you know when financial projections don't hit their mark, executives will immediately pull the "weather card").

It's also possible that the incident on Fury may have impacted some guests' views of theme parks and their overall safety record (which is impeccable FWIW). There was also a highly publicized incident at a local carnival in Wisconsin where guests were stuck upside down on a Larson Loop-style attraction.

Man, we went to Universal Hollywood for the first time last month, and that place is a gigantic rip-off. Tickets were $150 per person for the day, Disneyland prices, with what, less than a fifth of the rides? And no rides that even begin to approach Disney standards? And wildly, insanely long lines made worse because the idiots who pay $350 a day are allowed to continuously walk in front of you? I would never go back because of that inane fastpass system--we joined a virtual queue for Secret Life of Pets, and were put in a line that was only about 200 people deep but took nearly an HOUR because the fastpass people were allowed to go and go and go in front of us. I was so angry I could have killed someone, how could anyone be okay with a class-based system that so flagrantly inconveniences those who refuse to pay extortionist prices to attend a half-assed park? I'm told Universal Orlando is a joy, but Universal Hollywood SUUUUUUUUCKS, haha, I would not reccommend it to anyone.

And Nintendo land was a joke--sure, it look moderately interesting, but that's all there is, the MarioCart ride there is a nothing ride, wouldn't care to go on it twice, and there's nothing else to do but bake in the sun with far, far, FAR too many people packed into the tiny land. It was about as interesting as when they build Santa's village at the mall.

Disney rapes your wallet and spits on your ancestors, but at least it's amazing once you're in there.

As for people not attending parks generally, another interesting data point is that people aren't going to movies. Sure, the movies being released aren't awesome, but I think it speaks to something bigger. Maybe everyone spent so much time at home during the quarantine, and so much time in their phones, maybe people just simply aren't doing things any more. Things beyond sitting on the couch doom scrolling.

Finally, is there a feature that allows you to block people on this site? I truly value most of the commentators here, who have some of the best insight on the web, but I can't stand that tin-hat proto-fascist nonsense.

Universal Hollywood is just a different beast than Orlando as they still emphasize the tour more than the rides and so feels a bit more lacking for the high price.

This certainly has been an interesting half year in theme park news.

Theme parks are expensive and with housing and groceries up, something has to give in certain places. As people have said Disney World seems to have reached a point where they are starting to feel the pinch. Their resorts are ridiculously expensive. Also, more people then ever are cognizant of other costs associated with parks like food.

I also agree with someone earlier who mentioned high temps. Man, I'll never go to Florida in the summer. A lot of money spent to be baking in the hot, humid, sun-drenched Floridian sun. Perhaps folks are taking my strategy and taking their trips from Oct-Apr now, which include more comfortable temps. We'll pay attention to those trends in the coming months.

I live about 10-15 miles from WDW. I was up this morning at 3 AM standing in my driveway. The temperature was in the upper 80s ... at 3 AM.

Yeah, to @TH's point — we planned our Orlando trip for March this year because my partner's family was 100 percent opposed to visiting in the summer. We absolutely dealt with more crowds, but the weather was perfect.

I know it is anecdotal, and Six Flags is down across the board, but last Friday at SF Great America (Chicago/Gurnee) the crowds were sparse. I expected very large crowds and long waits, but aside from the typical 90-minute plus waits for Maxx Force (still running only ONE train) and Goliath running an hour (mainly due to the fact that it opened at 5:00 pm after being down all week), most rides were walk-on or near walk-on. X-Flight was walk-on all day, Superman Ultimate Flight was walk-on at 6:00 pm for multiple rides, and Batman was less than 10 minutes all day.

If these are the crowds Six Flags is experiencing chainwide, there may not be many new rides in the near future. As for the food festival, the sad little kiosks serving over-priced tapas sized portions had minimal (at VERY best) business the entire day.

I've got to wonder how much of the low crowds are simply due to less capital expenditures at the parks right now, particularly at the regional parks. Six Flags and Cedar Fair have been very lean with new attractions for the past few years, SeaWorld burned everyone by keeping their much hyped coasters closed for two years past the original announcements, and other than Big Bear Mountain and Wildcat's Revenge there hasn't really been anything of note elsewhere in the country in several years. Meanwhile, prices have gone up across the board, and those pining for a visit after being locked out most likely satisfied that urge last year, so they may be waiting for a reason to go again. The increasing number of well publicized incidents is also certainly unhelpful, but I don't think that's enough to cause the low attendance that has been witnessed across the industry thus far this year.

I don't know AJ, while some parks have not added a lot of new attractions over the past 3-5 years, it's not necessarily out of the ordinary. Six Flags hasn't done the "ride for every park" thing for nearly 5 years now, and Cedar Fair was already slowing the addition of new attraction at most of their parks back in the mid-2010's.

I think there a lot of factors going on here, but I keep coming back to what TH has been parroting across a number of different thread, and that is that people just aren't into theme parks as much as they were 20 year ago. The popularity of the medium has perhaps hit a critical mass where parks just can't squeeze more people into the parks when they'll still enjoy themselves, and those that have gotten caught in those capacity days in the past have soured on the idea of visiting again. Are Americans theme park-ed out, and what new innovation or concept would change that sentiment, if accurate?

Decided to check in with my friend who works the front gate at DAK. I asked "How was work?" Their response: "It's just so hot outside."

Russell, I think you might be a bit off on that. While the last year Cedar Fair added something new to every park in one season was 2017, other than Dorney Park and Michigan's Adventure all of the parks got something at least every other year. Meanwhile, of the eleven parks, only seven have added something since reopening from the pandemic, and no park has added a headliner attraction in that time period. For Six Flags, throughout the entirety of the 2010s at least 13 of the 15 parks added something new each year, while only 8 of the parks have added anything new since reopening. It's not the sole factor, of course, but if your audience is used to new attractions every year or two and you go three or four years without anything, people are going to stop coming.

I think it's less about people not being into theme parks and more about guests becoming more discerning when it comes to where they choose to spend their money. Poor customer service has become quite common across the industry, admission prices have increased without much to justify them, and various upcharge offerings like skip the line passes have become so prevalent it significantly diminishes enjoyment for those who choose not to purchase them. The key to getting an audience back is offering new attractions worth visiting the park for, then providing a positive experience that makes them want to return. A lot of parks have instead opted to coast on the wave of heightened interest that followed the pandemic closures, but as I've been saying for a while, that wave is likely parabolic rather than linear. I'm feeling pretty confident we're past the peak of the parabola at this point, so it's time for parks to start investing again if they want to maintain and grow their audience.

AJ: "The key to getting an audience back is offering new attractions worth visiting the park for, then providing a positive experience that makes them want to return."

Me: Absolutely! Back in the 1980s I was working in hotel management. My message to my team was, "whenever a guest arrives at a hotel, we are starting to sell them on their next visit."

I think the closure of the Galactic Starcruiser has been the biggest story of the year. This was supposed to mark the next step in immersive storytelling, and it's coming to an abrupt end. Destination companies are going to be paying very close attention to what went wrong and what it means for the future of themed experiences.

Let's not forget, the ... "let's wait until Epic Universe opens" way of thinking, is starting to have an effect. Maybe not much just yet, but next year Orlando could be relatively quiet?

I think the lack of visitors so far this season is due to a couple factors. One is obviously, the heat. While there are some nice days, this July 4th was the hottest recorded day of all time in the US. Bar none. Sure, some areas were cooler, but overall this Summer has been a scorcher. Another reason is partially the fact that money is tight right now, but also that there are only so many experiences to spend your money on. That is particularly impacting the movie scene right now, where this June was the most packed month for Summer blockbusters possibly ever, and as the Summer has gone on, it seemed like movies were making less and less money. Compare the box offices of Guardians of the Galaxy (which currently has the highest box office return), which had a month headstart, then there's Spiderverse, The Little Mermaid, Flash, Indiana Jones etc. etc. I feel like the fact that there are so many new movies, video games, and streaming services to spend money on recently, the general population is splitting on deciding how they spend their entertainment money each week. Another factor is the fact that a lot of people went last year. 2023 was absolutely insane for theme parks across the country with record profits across the board. Since so many people went last year, it would make sense for a lot of them to skip a trip or two this year, especially to the destination parks (disney, universal, cedar point). There's probably some more that I didn't think of, but that's all I've got so far.

I think TH is right about the weather being too hot. I can stay at the Shades of Green Resort and I've been getting emails from them letting me know of room availability in July, August, and September which isn't usual for non-pandemic years in the summer. Thinking that they may be getting a Bud Light-type boycott, I checked the fall and winter availability, and they are booked solid. The only answer I can come up with is that it is the weather.

Speaking for myself, I would be just as happy if theme park operators and designers were as focused on creating shaded areas and interior/exterior cool down systems (operated by renewable energy power sources) as they are on new attractions.

@Mako - I think that's a consideration for big theme park fans like contributors here and those in the know. However, for most of the GP that barely know the difference between WDW and UO, they probably have no clue about Epic Universe, which is probably why Universal is doing so little publicity for the new park and will likely wait until next summer before announcing specific details for EU.

I would guesstimate that there are probably somewhere between 5-10% of guests that would be impacted by Epic Universe and be considering holding off a potential trip between now and early 2025, but I don't think that explains the lack of crowds now, and certainly not the lack of crowds at other theme parks around the country right now.

Good points Russell. I agree, but it'll still be interesting to see how Epic effects the crowds, especially when an opening date is finally announced.

As to other posts mentioning the heat. Can't disagree, it's a toasty sauna right now, but the lull in the afternoon suggests people are just doing the mornings and evenings. I wouldn't say there's any less tourists here when compared to previous July/August timeframes.

@Russell, it actually hit 90 degrees 7/4 just around noon at BGW, which is why we didn't go.

@sxcymike - It hit a high of 93 in Williamsburg last year (and similarly cracked 90 around noon), so hitting that threshold isn't uncommon for the holiday. Frankly, it's been surprisingly "mild" in the DMV so far this summer with the temperature exceeding 90 just a handful of times this year. We've had years over the past decade or so where it's been above 90 for 2 weeks solid.

I know other parts of the country are really feeling it right now, but there are other parts of the US where the weather has not been that extreme.

Hot humid Hot, every day, every year is nothing new for Orlando, there’s more reasons than just heat - my guess are international trips, cruises ,etc held off are now happening for domestics and internationally slowing economies and huge airline fares are resulting in lowers numbers