Lending some assistance regarding TEA/AECOM's estimated Orlando 2024 stats (Please correct me if I am wrong):
Walt Disney World (Six Parks)
Magic Kingdom - 17,836,000
EPCOT - 12,133,000
Disney Hollywood Studios - 10,333,000
Disney's Animal Kingdom - 8,800,000
Typhoon Lagoon - 1,817,00
Blizzard Beach - 897,000
TOTAL WALT DISNEY COMPANY ORLANDO GUESTS (2024) - 50,919,000
Universal Orlando (Three Parks)
Universal Studios Florida - 9,500,000
Islands of Adventure - 9,450,000
Volcano Bay - 1,800,000
TOTAL COMCAST ORLANDO GUESTS (2024) - 20,750,000
Two things about these stats are noteworthy:
- In 2024, the Walt Disney Company's Orlando theme parks outpaced Comcast's Orlando theme parks by more than 30 million guests.
That's stunning.
- At the 2023 annual Disney shareholder meeting, specifically regarding Walt Disney World, Robert Iger (in what seemed like an offhand remark) said "about 50 million visitors will go through our gates this year alone ...". That was the first time (in a long time) that I recall a Disney executive making a public statement about specific numbers associated with Walt Disney World attendance.
From my perspective, that matching 50 million number gives a degree of credibility to the TEA/AECOM estimate.
Disney sent a press release shortly after the report was issued. It cited the TEA numbers and felt like a victory lap.
@Robert: That's Hilarious. We have a long wait ahead of us -- Fall 2027. I suspect that report will show Epic's 2026 numbers north of ten million. That would put a damper on Disney's victory lap.
There's always one wild card in the equation for Universal Studios that I wish TEA would provide some clarity on: Halloween Horror Nights.
Has anyone here ever gone outside of the media nights? It' always crazy packed with some of the highest crowds any theme park haunt sees. This year alone, Jason Universe, Terrifier, and Five Nights at Freddy's were routinely commanding 100+ minute waits all night every night.
Does TEA account for a separately-ticketed event when they come up with their calculations. HHN alone is why I wouldn't worry about a major drop at USF over the coming years. Islands of Adventure on the other hand...
JT: There's always one wild card in the equation for Universal Studios that I wish TEA would provide some clarity on: Halloween Horror Nights.
Me: Yep. And then there's Mickey's Not-So-Scary, Jollywood Nights (LAME!) and Mickey's Christmas party -- all of which seem to sell out quickly.
True, those events sell out. But they don't get nearly the same amount of guests that Halloween Horror Nights gets. That's by design because Disney limits capacity with lower wait times for rides being a big selling point.
@JT: Fair point. But keep in mind that there were a total of 48 HHN events in 2025. Disney, however will be holding a total of 76 MNSS, Jollywood (LAME!) and MVMC events this year.
Those numbers do not include Epic and Private events at Universal..
Correct?
@Brian Emery: If by "Those numbers" you mean the TEA/AECOM Index then no they don't ... Because the report covers 2024 ... And Epic Universe wasn't open in 2024. But if you'd like an estimate regarding how many people Epic Universe welcomed in 2024 then I would guess it would be zero.
Some additional numbers to add to this analysis...
If we average the four WDW theme parks, we get that average daily attendance at a WDW theme park is 33,632. Obviously, that's not a real number for each park as the capacity limits for the parks vary from ~30k (DAK) to ~54k (MK), sourced from The Park Database, who now partners with this report. If we go by park, MK averages 48,866 (~91% of capacity), Epcot averages 33,241 (~87% of capacity), DHS averages 28,310 (~88% of capacity), and DAK averages 24,110 (~83% of capacity). Those seem like pretty high numbers for daily averages, especially since half the operating days should theoretically be above those.
If we perform the same analysis on the two Universal Orlando parks, we get that the average daily attendance at one of their parks is 25,959. Split by park, USF averages 26,027 (which is ~90% of their capacity) and IOA averages 25,890 (~96% of their capacity, which is slightly lower than USF). Again, we're seeing really high numbers, especially given how much the daily attendance can vary throughout the year.
Let's extend this to SoCal. I'm just going to list them out...
DLR (both parks): 37,534
DL: 47,397 (~98%)
DCA: 27,671 (~97%)
USH: 23,836 (~114%)
KBF: 12,363 (~43%)
SFMM: 12,044 (~20%)
Unless park hopping is resulting in double counting at the destination resorts or there are multiple "shifts" of guests throughout the day, I'm really curious how they arrived at those numbers for Disney and Universal.
@AJ This is a totally academic question: The index is a measurement of park annual entries. These are not measurements of ticket sales. So if a guest goes to Disney's Animal Kingdom and the Magic Kingdom Park on the same day, are you saying that should not be counted as one entry for each park?
TH, I don't have an objection to counting a guest for each park if they visit multiple parks in one day, but I do wish a net visitation for the resort was also provided so we could more accurately see true attendance. Claims like yours that "the Walt Disney Company's Orlando theme parks outpaced Comcast's Orlando theme parks by more than 30 million guests" don't really hold up if some of those are double-counting the same guest.
I think what's really throwing me is the percentages of the park capacity being way higher than I thought they'd be, especially in SoCal. It's hard for me to imagine the DLR, whose parks together reportedly have a capacity of 78k, getting 76k guests between the two parks on an average day. However, if a majority of the guests visit both parks and the actual average number of guests present is more like 50k that matches up with what I'd expect. USH getting 24k as a daily average (which is reportedly down 9.9% from last year) is also insane to me when their capacity is listed at ~21k and I've been there plenty of times where even the most popular rides had 80% of their queue space unfilled. There's no second gate there, so either the after-hours events are so insanely popular they make up for the light days or despite all the investments they've made they're still struggling to keep guests for more than a few hours (or the capacity number is erroneous, though if a source TEA is citing is putting out inaccurate numbers its hard to trust theirs are more accurate).
AJ: "TH, I don't have an objection to counting a guest for each park if they visit multiple parks in one day ..."
Me: So if I edit my post to say "In 2024, the Walt Disney Company's Orlando theme parks outpaced Comcast's Orlando theme parks by more than 30 million guest park admissions" you'd regard that as more accurate?
And by the way, how telling (and frightening) is it to see Comcast Orlando's numbers drop during a year where the company offered such deep discounts on park tickets. In 2024, Comcast announced that its two-park Florida Unlimited Days Ticket for $199 plus tax. That ticket will got a Florida resident unlimited admission to Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure from July 2024 to mid-December 2024 with no blockout dates.
Despite the fact that they were peddling ticket at rock bottom prices, their stats in TEA/AECOM went south.
OUCH!
All apologies TH - I was thinking this info was this years numbers - we are getting close to the end of 2025.... argggggg....
Epic looks busy all the time and I wonder if they should have had a few more main at attractions. They only have 11 rides.
And the wait times are still high.
The continued and baffling obsession with the annual TEA/AECOM report is absolutely staggering considering it cannot be trusted by some. The fact that a coompany's success is directly proportional to a person's happiness is even more incredible.
Maybe we should talk about stock prices instead.
NB: "The fact that a coompany's [Sic] success is directly proportional to a person's happiness is even more incredible".
Me: The fact that a company's perceived failures/shortcomings is directly proportional to a person's happiness is even more incredible than that. Surf over to YouTube and you'll find a parade of vloggers who cheer out loud when the Disney company allegedly misses its mark.
Easy to trick, easy to taunt. Like the Immortals in 300.
And apparently easy to post gibberish. Wishing NB and NB's family, the very best.
I don’t think it’s fair to compare total attendances between the two brands as Disney had an extra 2 parks and 1 waterpark.
That said, it must be irritating to Universal that their best park would be Disney’s fourth park, but they must be happy that pretty much every visitor to their top park visits their second park, based on the figure being almost identical - I’m willing to put the big drop between Mk and Epcot as MK being a park that demands more time/days, but that’s a big drop from Epcot to Studios and AK.
Taking a "second look" at something claimed to be completely fabricated nonsense... (chuckle).
This year's report tells me exactly what I want to hear, however. They are solid... (second chuckle)
And let me just toss in some really substandard mathematic analysis: If you take the average 2024 attendance of Comcast's USF and IOA parks the calculation comes to 9,475,000 guests. Divide that by twelve and then multiply it by eight (number of months the new park was open this year) and Epic (maintaining that monthly average) would welcome (prediction) 6,316,667 guests in 2025.
Bump it 10% because the park has that new car smell and a generous guess would put Epic's 2025 number at just under 7,000,000 guests.