That “Legend Library” is still the foundation of this site. But in the years since, I’ve tried to work toward something bigger – offering ways to see the parks we love through new lenses. That mission has created over a hundred hand-drawn ride layouts, data visualization projects, and hundreds of stories written just for those who support this ad-free, quality-over-quantity theme park storytelling site for even $2/month.
Now at last we get to return to a genre here on Park Lore that I love most: full-scale theme park Build-Outs. Many of us grew up doodling our ideas for what we we do to our favorite parks given unlimited time and money, but I always have to shout out S. W. Wilson of Ideal Build-Out, whose work inspired me to take this mix of art and science seriously. Maybe you’ve even checked out my Build-Outs of California Adventure, Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, Islands of Adventure, and Epic Universe – a growing collection of multiversal variants that I love very deeply…
Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.
This article and hundreds more are available for Gold and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!
If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Gold and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.
“Here you leave today…” Since Disneyland opened in 1955, that simple invitation has served as a de facto mission statement for Disney’s “castle parks” around the globe. From Anaheim to Shanghai, each subsequent “Disneyland” has evolved in its methods and cleverness, but always revolved around that same essential idea: whisking guests away from the world they know and into the worlds of “yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy.”
At their core, it’s been said that Disney Parks trade in the “architecture of reassurance” – of physical, built places that are steeped in romanticism and idealism; hints of the world we know, but swirled with rose-colored visions of the world as we wish it would be.
Walking right down the middle of a glowing, incandescent Main Street, U.S.A. of ice cream parlors, streetcars, and fresh popcorn; torch-lit Adventurelands drawn from the pulpy exoticism of yore; epic ideals of an Old West that never really was, but fits to a T with the western Frontier we’ve learned to imagine; utopian Tomorrowlands of mass transit and forays into the universe… And through it all, you’ve likely had one persistent thought repeat again and again in your mind: “I only wish I could leave this storybook nonsense behind and get back to reality.”
It’s one of the most anticipated data drops in all of theme park nerd-dom… Every year, the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) partners with a consulting firm called AECOM to compile an annual report on the ups and downs of theme parks, waterparks, museums, and other “thematic” experiences from the year prior. (Supporting Members of Park Lore can read our broad strokes summary of industry trends gleaned from 2022 and 2023 in dedicated Extra Features!)
Though renamed from its previous title (the Theme Index Report) this year’s 2024 Global Experience Index continues to be an annual publication of note for theme park fans in particular, and – as always – is worth an in-depth read. It’s filled with the highs and lows, global contexts, and stories that permeated theme park news in the year prior. But most importantly… it also contains a ranking and roll-up of the year’s theme park attendance.
To be clear, most theme park operators do not disclose their parks’ attendance, and even if they speak in broad generalities, totals, or percentages at investor calls, they almost never divulge specific attendance figures for specific parks… However, it’s known that many operators do work with AECOM to come up with fairly accurate figures since it’s in the best interest of their share price, financial disclosures, and year-upon-year narratives that their attendance be discussed vaguely, but honestly.
As far as industry observers are concerned, TEA / AECOM’s October report is as good as a lock on last year’s attendance numbers, providing (as always) a captivating quantitative estimate that offers some compelling trends and talking points to the community… This year, the global rankings of the top eight parks are unchanged from 2023, with only slight increases at each:
Magic Kingdom (17.8 million, +.7%)
Disneyland Park (17.3 million, +.5%)
Universal Studios Japan (16 million, no change)
Tokyo Disneyland (15.1 million, +2.6%)
Shanghai Disneyland (14.7 million, +5%)
Chimelong Ocean Kingdom (12.6 million, +.9%)
Tokyo DisneySea (12.6 million, +2.9%)
EPCOT (12.1 million, +1.3%)
It’s not really a surprise that the ranking of these eight is unchanged from 2023. These parks are highly stable, built-out destinations. (There are obviously two exceptions. Chimelong Ocean Kingdom is a relatively new park buoyed by the same kind of growing middle class in China that spurred Shanghai Disneyland and Universal Studios Beijing; EPCOT has been in the “top eight” for two straight years, but will inevitably rejoin the continuous rotation of Disney World’s auxiliary parks soon enough.)
Image: Universal
Meanwhile, some parks shuffle their ranking for the next batch of the top 15…
9. Disney’s Hollywood Studios (10.3 million, +.3%) (up from spot 10 in 2023) 10. Disneyland Paris (10.2 million, –1.8%) (down from spot 9 in 2023) 11. Disney California Adventure (10 million, +.5%) (up from spot 12 in 2023) 12. Universal Studios Beijing (9.7 million, +8.6%) (up from spot 15 in 2023) 13. Universal Studios Florida (9.5 million, –2.6%) (no ranking change) 14. Universal Islands of Adventure (9.45 million, –5.5%) (down from spot 11 in 2023) 15. Disney’s Animal Kingdom (8.8 million, +.3%) (up from spot 16 in 2023)
Which brings us to some big picture takeaways that these numbers suggest…
1. Universal Orlando hopes this is the darkness before the dawn
Image: Universal
Fans of the underdog story had a lot of excitement this time two years ago when the big news in the 2022 rankings was the jaw-dropping suggestion that Universal Orlando might have done the impossible and used the pandemic as a one-shot to the moon. In 2022, Universal Islands of Adventure ranked as the fifth most-attended theme park on Earth, beating out EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom and essentially ranking among the vaunted “Castle Parks.” (Universal Studios Florida didn’t do much worse – it was seventh!)
Last year’s attendance estimates, meanwhile, suggested that the boon was short-lived. Both Universal Orlando parks were estimated to have lost attendance to the tune of 9% in 2023, falling to 11th and 13th in the ranks, respectively. Obviously, that’s a devastating blow for parks that had otherwise tracked upward trajectory for years and even seemed to have come out the other side of the pandemic right back on track and even stronger than before – something no Walt Disney World park even approached.
According to 2024 estimates, that slide continues, with Islands shedding 5.5% from its attendance year-over-year, and Universal Studios Florida decreasing by 2.6%. Those are better losses than the massive drop-off in 2023, but still worrying for a resort whose substantial investment and pervasive internal narrative over the last few years has been predicated entirely upon the presumption that Universal finally had the gravity to change tourism in Central Florida.
Obviously, Universal’s explanation here would be that 2024 was a year of guests delaying vacations in anticipation of the crescendo of that growth spurt: the 2025 opening of Universal Epic Universe. But very much like Ant-Man: Quantumania, these results have to have even the most resilient Comcast executive wondering if their inherited theme park division has the limitless potential and infallible trjactory that made a third theme park seem so obvious a few years ago… Speaking of which…
2. Speculation around Epic Universe’s impact is beginning…
It’s worth remembering that Epic Universe didn’t open until May 2025, meaning that we wouldn’t expect to see any data from or impact of the new park’s attendance until the next edition of the TEA / AECOM Experience Index is published in fall 2026… But even that will only represent a year with six operating months for Epic Universe (and artificially limited by excluding “Park Hopping” and Annual Passholders, at that), so don’t expect Epic to debut anywhere within the top 15 next year.
Frankly, it won’t be until late 2027 (when TEA / AECOM publishes 2026 data) that we begin to get a complete picture of Epic Universe’s affect on Central Florida. As to what that effect will be? On one end of the spectrum, Universal would very much like if Epic Universe would be the project bright and loud enough to finally establish Universal Orlando into a self-contained, “bubbled,” multi-day resort destination. In Universal’s dream scenario, a family would land in MCO without Disney World being on their itinerary at all, hunkering down at a Universal hotel with a Park-to-Park ticket, resulting in all three of Universal’s theme parks seeing continued growth in attendance.
Image: Universal
On the other hand, Disney is probably crossing their fingers that Epic’s effect will be what some industry observers have warned about since the park’s announcement: that it’ll “cannibalize” the resort’s other two parks. That would mean that rather than adding a day to their overall vacation to visit Epic Universe, guests would simply replace an existing day – probably a visit to Universal Studios Florida. That would be trouble indeed, resulting in Universal attracting no more guests overall; just spreading them more thinly across three parks instead of two. Gulp. No wonder earth is already moving on major projects for both Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure…
By the way, even if the latter scenario comes to pass, the 2024 data suggests that Disney isn’t exactly in the clear… If guests do end up replacing a day to visit Epic Universe, it could very well be a Disney park that drops off the itinerary… It looks likely that one Disney Park will fall out of the top fifteen entirely, and data reveals that rumors of flatlining attendance may be more than myth… Read on…
Telling the story of Disney and Universal’s theme parks isn’t easy. Some of these are parks have lifetimes now measured in decades, generations, or human lifespans. Like people, their stories are full of growth, change, “phases,” mistakes, reversals, triumphs – and often, core pieces of their identities that tend to stick around for their whole lives even as they change and arrange around them.
I call these diagrams LANDLINES – timelines of the lands that have come and gone from each of these parks. My hope is that these “zoomed out” views of the spaces inside of these parks will provide yet another lens to tell their stories; ways for even us diehard fans to somehow see the parks a little differently. I hope you enjoy.
Special Features are typically available exclusively for those who support this evolving theme park history project with a monthly Membership.It’s been unlocked for a limited time, but if you enjoy what you read, consider becoming a Park Lore Member for as little as $2 / month!
For almost as long as designers have been adding things to Disney Parks, they’ve been taking things away. In the name of progress, expansion, modernization, changing trends, or funding, sometimes beloved attractions are simply lost to time. As readers of ourLost Legends or our THEN & NOW layout series know, even Walt Disney World’s “blessing of size” doesn’t guarantee that classics are spared from the wrecking ball.
Given that fan-favorites are talked about like the timeless, definitive highlights of Disney Parks, sometimes it can be shocking to discover that… well… time moves on! Here, we’ve collected 9 rides Imagineering fans still tend to think of as mere “replacements” that actually lasted longer than the “classics” they took the place of! Prepare to have your mind blown.
There’s nothing quite as distinctly Disney as the “Disneyland-style” theme park. Since Walt’s original magic kingdom opened in 1955, the tenets of a “Castle Park” have been written and rewritten, from Anaheim to Orlando; Tokyo to Paris; Hong Kong to Shanghai.
Here at Park Lore, we explored that evolution in our must-read Park Paths Special Feature, seeing how the histories and personalities of each park can be read in its pathways. That’s probably as close as we can get to comparing the more qualitative aspects of each “Castle Park” – their malleability and rigidity; their revelatory spaces and discovered ones; their naivete and certainty.
Image: Disney
So today, we wanted to compare those six sister parks more quantitatively. Luckily, our By-The-Numbers miniseries in Park Lore’s Extras Collection gives us a perfect place to start: their rides (note that as in that feature, we mean ride – not attractions, shows, walkthroughs, etc. which would be far too subjective and cumbersome to include as you’ll see below…).
After many, many, many drafts and attempts to get it just right, we’ve assembled a one-of-a-kind, six-way Venn diagram to see both the shared rides and – just as interestingly – the rides exclusive to one “Castle Park” versus its sisters. We’ll reveal each park’s exclusives one by one below, but if you’re as fascinated by this “Comparing Kingdoms” graphic as we are, you can purchase poster and canvas prints (or tees to give people behind you in line something to study) at Park Lore’s Shop.
Special Features are typically available exclusively for those who support this evolving theme park history project with a monthly Membership.It’s been unlocked for a limited time, but if you enjoy what you read, consider becoming a Park Lore Member for as little as $2 / month!
“I am a big believer in tradition,” Disney’s then-CEO Bob Iger toldThe Hollywood Reporter in 2018. “This just seemed like one of those traditions that if we changed it the empire wasn’t going to crumble.”
As with most of Disney’s most controversial changes, it was a subtly worded post on the Disney Parks Blog that made the announcement: when Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge opened at Disneyland Park in May 2019, one of its in-universe food and drink stops adding to its “Living Land” status would be Oga’s Cantina – an alien-run watering hole servicing pilots, bounty hunters, smugglers, and galactic travelers with “choices for kids and libations for adults.”
Fans knew exactly what that meant. For the first time in its sixty-year history, alcohol would be available to the public at Disneyland. True to form, that ruffled a few fans’ feathers. Of course, the ban on booze at Disneyland and its “castle park” siblings isn’t quite as cut and “dry” as generalizations would have you believe… And the story of drinking at Disney Parks is far from finished… Let’s dive in…
Special Features are typically available exclusively for those who support this evolving theme park history project with a monthly Membership.It’s been unlocked for a limited time, but if you enjoy what you read, consider becoming a Park Lore Member for as little as $2 / month!
Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.
This article and hundreds more are available for Gold and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!
If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Gold and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.
Theme parks are living creatures. Sure, they grow and change and “will never be complete…” But even more, they’re made of complex systems and elements all working together so effortlessly, you may not even realize they’re working at all. Berms act as skin, insulating parks from the sights of the outside world; intuitive layouts are a skeleton, giving the park structure; pathways act as veins and arteries, pulsing guests instead of blood; restrooms are… Well…
No one likes to wait. And for the last few decades, Disney Parks have been experimenting with not just how to get guests to do less of it, but who those lucky few should be… Once upon a time, Disney’s patented FastPass system gave all guests the chance to gain priority boarding at popular rides… and at no additional cost! Though it now seems like a folksy throwback to a simpler time, the idea that skipping the line could be available to all – and “free” – was a defining factor of a day at Disney Parks… until it wasn’t.
Today, we’ll take a whirlwind tour of the six Disney Resorts on Earth to see the unique line-skipping system at each. Balancing guest service, operations, and – of course – revenue, each Disney Resort has developed its own system for skipping the line… From pay-one-price, one-time-anytime-access to ride bundles, virtual queues, and a la carte upcharges, it turns out that if you’ve been to one Disney Park, you really haven’t seen ‘em all… Which line-skipping system do you think is best? We’ll leave you to debate in the comments below…
Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.
This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!
If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.
The best theme parks are timeless. Their names and logos? Not always.
Even though so many of Disney and Universal’s theme parks are time capsules, carrying hundreds of years of history between them. Though they may feel like they’ve been around forever, each Disney theme park on Earth is really the product of the time it’s designed in. Colors, typefaces, and even names that makes sense one year may look outdated the next. From time to time, Disney recognizes that it’s time to update the branding of their parks, or even rename parks altogether.
For fans like us, that creates a visual timeline to look back on, seeing the ways Disney Parks have changed by looking at how their names and logos shift! Take a look at the six cases below where major reinventions and surprising name-changes have changed Disney Parks history.
