Walk Time: Is this the theme park recession?
In theme parks and entertainment, "walk time" is the name for the final paid minutes of your shift, when you gather your stuff and start heading home. At Theme Park Insider, "Walk Time" is our weekend look back at the past seven days in theme park news.
Is it time to admit that the regional amusement park industry is in a recession? United Parks - the owner of the SeaWorld and Busch Gardens parks - reported a tough 2025 this week. That follows last week's week results at Six Flags. Epic Universe boosted Universal's theme parks in Orlando last year, and Disney's theme park revenue is up, too. But the two largest regional theme park chains in the United States are falling even further behind the market leaders. We have the details from United's earnings report at United Parks reports lower attendance, revenue in 2025.
Merlin Entertainments is investing in its Legoland theme parks in the U.S. this year. The company is spending $94 million on its new Lego Galaxy-themed attractions in Florida and California. We have on-ride POV video now for Galacticoaster, which is open in Florida and opens in California next week: Galacticoaster opens at Legoland Florida.
More roller coaster news: Universal filed a patent application this week for what amounts to a shock absorber system on thrill rides. Could this take at least some of the pain out of an emergency stop?.
Disney announced this week that Avengers star Robert Downey Jr. will be the godfather of the Disney Adventure cruise ship, which is on its way to its new home in Singapore. The Adventure stopped in Tokyo for resupply and a brief press opportunity, in which Disney Cruise Line announced Downey's new gig. Disney Adventure sails its maiden voyage March 10.
Disneyland this week also announced a new guided tour at the park: Women Who Make the Magic Guided Tour. This $110 tour starts March 6 and highlights the work of women Imagineers and designers who contributed to the park, including Mary Blair, Harriet Burns, Alice Davis, Dorothea Redmond, Ruth Shellhorn, Leota Toombs and Kim Irvine. Reservations are available on the Disneyland website.
Disney this week also announced a major change in concept for the Animation Academy-style attraction that will open in The Walt Disney Studios land in Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World this summer. Live animator hosts are out, to replaced by an animatronic Olaf and recorded on-screen instruction from leading Disney animators. Is this a good move for the popular step drawing class? Olaf takes over Walt Disney World's animation class.
Finally, Efteling this week announced the opening date for its new family drop ride. Hooghmoed - which shares a theme and backstory with the Baron 1898 roller coaster next door - will debut May 1. Get the details here: Efteling sets May debut for new family drop ride.
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Every time this conversation comes up people go to "but computers and video games." I absolutely do not buy this excuse. People want to go out, people want to be withe their friends/family and share their experiences on social media. There are several factors in why these parks are struggling IMO and i'll list them in my theory order of importance.
1. Sadly the two biggest operators of seasonal parks (and Sea World/Busch Gardens) have been dumpster fires in terms of their management. We can have gripes with Disney or whatever but at least they have maintained some sort of minimum standard in terms of cleanliness and operations that is acceptable to the public. No matter what they do it seems like Six Flags doesn't know how to appeal to families, Kids Boo Fest has so much potential to be a big draw but just lacks in every way possible, it is the bare minimum to say they are doing something. Also the kids areas at some of the SF parks are poorly maintained and operated, like last year when I went to SFGAm in Kidszone every single ride in the land had tied off seats, the propellors were missing from the airplanes, the support brackets that held up the American Eagle tent were still there but the tent had been taken down years ago, there was peeled and faded paint everywhere, it was just a depressing looking kids land. And they responded this year by removing a kids area and delaying their new kids area to 2027 (maybe). IMO SF/CF/United's management is the biggest reason why they are struggling, because we have seen parks that are ran well are doing fine financially. Ultimately it comes down to the big corporation "ensh*ttifcation" mandate. The fact that SFFT has become one of SF's top performing parks financially, even though its not even close to being in the top markets for SF parks, shows us this as well.
2. Economic factors, while I don't think are the primary reason, are not helping the situation. Inflation (and now tariffs) have increased cost of operating the parks, and those the wrong side of the K (which is most people) have less disposable income at the same time the cost of operating the parks has risen substantially. As a result we have seen parks try to make up for it by making the experience better for the rich at the expense of the normies. NGL I have been out of the industry for years at this point so I don't know how the financials of this work out, but a shrinking middle class can't be a good thing for parks.
3. I said in a previous topic that young people seem to be losing interest in seasonal amusement parks as they do not have the level of investment that they once did. From the 1970s-early 2000s these parks consistently re-invested into big new attractions, but now for most seasonal parks their biggest rides were built in the late 90s/early 2000s. This has naturally led to an experience fatigue at many parks. Also the big new rides reached a point of diminishing returns where in the early 2000s a 200-300ft coaster would be huge, but now 20+ years later parks still aren't building anything bigger than that. We get one once in a while but its kind of like the skyscraper boom from the 1920s-1970s it seemed to have reached the point where they were too expensive to keep getting bigger and now we may get one once in a while but not like it was. I think adding more family oriented attractions and smaller/better themed attractions is a good strategy and seems to be working for the parks that have done it well.
When it comes to Sea World, they basically just dug their own grave with stupid decisions and bad management over the last 20 years or so. A bunch of bad things all happened around the same time, they had a weak CEO with Atchison who didn't manage the transition well, and then eventually fell into private equity shadow-management and now are stuck with a toxic culture where no one that works there takes the company seriously. Ask anyone in central Florida what they think about SWO/BGT and everyone pretty much says "that place has gone downhill."