Universal Orlando-Epic Universe

[Eric Smith]

If only Disney was a museum serving up our favorite attractions from the past and present no Disney is Now Wall St Disney concerned about the short term stock price.

disney subscribes to the blue ocean theory that they have no competition. Just imagine if Merlin and SeaWorld do a joint venture where their markets overlap. SeaWorld has a lot to offer including some incredible coasters. What does Disney have to offer thats fresh and new. Disney did the impossible they reduced Star Wars once an evergreen IP to total irrelevance and disinterest. I’d rather watch ‘The Incredible Mr Limpet’ or’The apple dumpling gang’ than any of the new star wars movies.

Why are you on a Disney board if you feel so negatively about Disney?

 

[maverik85]

3 major new gates vs new lands, no comparison. Having expansion plots is great....theyve had those same plots for decades. Disney is content to be more of a museum.

Yea just from a marketing standpoint it's a big thing. Especially when Epic Universe opens. Disney can open a few new rides or a new land, but Universal will have 4 new lands and a hub with numerous rides. If giving the choice of a couple rides versus a park there's a clear winner for choice. After the first couple years it will settle back out, and even after it opens Disney will still have more to do but a new park will be a huge draw. Universal has been slowly closing the attendance gap and this will give them another bump for sure.

 

[hertamaniac]

Yea just from a marketing standpoint it's a big thing. Especially when Epic Universe opens. Disney can open a few new rides or a new land, but Universal will have 4 new lands and a hub with numerous rides. If giving the choice of a couple rides versus a park there's a clear winner for choice. After the first couple years it will settle back out, and even after it opens Disney will still have more to do but a new park will be a huge draw. Universal has been slowly closing the attendance gap and this will give them another bump for sure.

I think they will also have a centralized hotel/resort.

 

[Eric Smith]

Yea just from a marketing standpoint it's a big thing. Especially when Epic Universe opens. Disney can open a few new rides or a new land, but Universal will have 4 new lands and a hub with numerous rides. If giving the choice of a couple rides versus a park there's a clear winner for choice. After the first couple years it will settle back out, and even after it opens Disney will still have more to do but a new park will be a huge draw. Universal has been slowly closing the attendance gap and this will give them another bump for sure.

That attendance gap is pretty massive though. Here's the attendance for the theme parks for 2019:
Magic Kingdom (1) - 20.96M
Animal Kingdom (6) - 13.89M
Epcot (7) - 12.44M
Hollywood Studios (9) - 11.48M
Universal Studios (11) - 10.92M
Islands of Adventure (12) - 10.38M

Water parks:
Typhoon Lagoon (2) - 2.25M
Blizzard Beach (3) - 1.98M
Volcano Bay (6) - 1.81M

Disney attendance:
Theme Park - 58.77M
Water Park - 4.23M

Universal attendance:
Theme Park - 21.3M
Water Park: 1.81M

Universal has a long way to go to close that gap. A new gate will help some, but it's not going to bring them close to parity.

 

[ford91exploder]

Why are you on a Disney board if you feel so negatively about Disney?

I love Disney - I hate the way current management is running the Disney parks into the ground for the sake of short term profit. Unfortunately changing that trajectory requires forgoing my 'Disney Fixes' because any time you pay for a Disney experience you are tacitly approving of their behavior. One person cannot make much difference but a large number can.

Just think the only way you can get a 'Disney Decade' experience is to visit Japan... Where Disney does not own the park or influence it's management just let that one roll around in your mind.

I know we don't agree often but you seem like a thoughtful individual. Japan is the only place where Frozen is getting the attraction it rightly DESERVES, Japan has seasonal parades. In 2015 there were 5 parades at WDW, I'm going to exclude Covid now there is ONE how is that an improvement to guest satisfaction?, RoL is gone I could keep going but it's painful.

Now what's left is 30 years of photos from Disney in everything from Kodachrome, Ektakchrome, Portra and digital images all of which remind me of attractions, meals and experiences which were replaced with nothing.

 

[ford91exploder]

That attendance gap is pretty massive though. Here's the attendance for the theme parks for 2019:
Magic Kingdom (1) - 20.96M
Animal Kingdom (6) - 13.89M
Epcot (7) - 12.44M
Hollywood Studios (9) - 11.48M
Universal Studios (11) - 10.92M
Islands of Adventure (12) - 10.38M

Water parks:
Typhoon Lagoon (2) - 2.25M
Blizzard Beach (3) - 1.98M
Volcano Bay (6) - 1.81M

Disney attendance:
Theme Park - 58.77M
Water Park - 4.23M

Universal attendance:
Theme Park - 21.3M
Water Park: 1.81M

Universal has a long way to go to close that gap. A new gate will help some, but it's not going to bring them close to parity.

The most visited is not necessarily the best, Disney is still on top but for how long???. Uni has Hagrid's, WDW has some projection shows in the same timeframe. big quality difference right there. Disney can coast a while yet but not much longer the other park is upping it's game. And Merlin well they have the resources but will they use them in Orlando.

 

[maverik85]

That attendance gap is pretty massive though. Here's the attendance for the theme parks for 2019:
Magic Kingdom (1) - 20.96M
Animal Kingdom (6) - 13.89M
Epcot (7) - 12.44M
Hollywood Studios (9) - 11.48M
Universal Studios (11) - 10.92M
Islands of Adventure (12) - 10.38M

Water parks:
Typhoon Lagoon (2) - 2.25M
Blizzard Beach (3) - 1.98M
Volcano Bay (6) - 1.81M

Disney attendance:
Theme Park - 58.77M
Water Park - 4.23M

Universal attendance:
Theme Park - 21.3M
Water Park: 1.81M

Universal has a long way to go to close that gap. A new gate will help some, but it's not going to bring them close to parity.

Overall attendance counting each individual park yes Disney is still well above Universal. But on an individual park basis they are getting fairly close. Aside from Magic Kingdom the parks are all within a few million of each other. So in a hypothetical setting, if you took it out and only factored in AK, HS, and EPCOT and compare it to US, IoA, and assume a similar figure for EU if it was already there, you would have around 32M attendees at Universal Orlando Resort versus 37.5M. Still a decent gap but overall still fairly close. And looking at the water parks Volcano Bay and Blizzard Beach have very similar attendance figures. So the water park difference really only comes from Disney having two to factor in versus one.

If you look at each resorts growth over an extended period Universal has outpaced Disney on that scale. Here are the figures from 2001 (not looking at water parks):
US - 7.29
IoA - 5.52
Total - 12.81

MK- 14.78
EP- 9.01
AK- 7.77
HS- 8.37
Total - 39.93

So in the same time frame Universal has increased their attendance by 66%, whereas Disney has only gone up 47%. At that rate, while it would still take awhile, Universal would eventually reach Disney's numbers. And a new park is only going to help that more.

All this said I don't necessarily feel that Disney needs to add a 5th park to stay competitive but I think a focus on updating and adding to the parks as a whole and at a good pace is needed. And there needs to be more additions versus replacements, they need to expand offerings and not just update.

 

[Missingmypooh]

Overall attendance counting each individual park yes Disney is still well above Universal. But on an individual park basis they are getting fairly close. Aside from Magic Kingdom the parks are all within a few million of each other. So in a hypothetical setting, if you took it out and only factored in AK, HS, and EPCOT and compare it to US, IoA, and assume a similar figure for EU if it was already there, you would have around 32M attendees at Universal Orlando Resort versus 37.5M. Still a decent gap but overall still fairly close. And looking at the water parks Volcano Bay and Blizzard Beach have very similar attendance figures. So the water park difference really only comes from Disney having two to factor in versus one.

If you look at each resorts growth over an extended period Universal has outpaced Disney on that scale. Here are the figures from 2001 (not looking at water parks):
US - 7.29
IoA - 5.52
Total - 12.81

MK- 14.78
EP- 9.01
AK- 7.77
HS- 8.37
Total - 39.93

So in the same time frame Universal has increased their attendance by 66%, whereas Disney has only gone up 47%. At that rate, while it would still take awhile, Universal would eventually reach Disney's numbers. And a new park is only going to help that more.

All this said I don't necessarily feel that Disney needs to add a 5th park to stay competitive but I think a focus on updating and adding to the parks as a whole and at a good pace is needed. And there needs to be more additions versus replacements, they need to expand offerings and not just update.

This exactly.

and let’s not discount proper marketing. If Uni really pumps it up with targeted ads and offers, they could see a very large bump over the next few years. Disney has enjoyed top of memory privileges for a long time, but uni could easily outpace them with the right plan

 

[Eric Smith]

Overall attendance counting each individual park yes Disney is still well above Universal. But on an individual park basis they are getting fairly close. Aside from Magic Kingdom the parks are all within a few million of each other. So in a hypothetical setting, if you took it out and only factored in AK, HS, and EPCOT and compare it to US, IoA, and assume a similar figure for EU if it was already there, you would have around 32M attendees at Universal Orlando Resort versus 37.5M. Still a decent gap but overall still fairly close. And looking at the water parks Volcano Bay and Blizzard Beach have very similar attendance figures. So the water park difference really only comes from Disney having two to factor in versus one.

If you look at each resorts growth over an extended period Universal has outpaced Disney on that scale. Here are the figures from 2001 (not looking at water parks):
US - 7.29
IoA - 5.52
Total - 12.81

MK- 14.78
EP- 9.01
AK- 7.77
HS- 8.37
Total - 39.93

So in the same time frame Universal has increased their attendance by 66%, whereas Disney has only gone up 47%. At that rate, while it would still take awhile, Universal would eventually reach Disney's numbers. And a new park is only going to help that more.

All this said I don't necessarily feel that Disney needs to add a 5th park to stay competitive but I think a focus on updating and adding to the parks as a whole and at a good pace is needed. And there needs to be more additions versus replacements, they need to expand offerings and not just update.

66% isn't that big of a difference from 47%. Disney actually had a problem pre-pandemic with their parks being too crowded. Disney hit the cap on what they can support in the parks. Universal had more headroom. Disney has added lands to all of their parks except Epcot in that span. They've also added individual rides.

 

[New Mouse]

66% isn't that big of a difference from 47%. Disney actually had a problem pre-pandemic with their parks being too crowded. Disney hit the cap on what they can support in the parks. Universal had more headroom. Disney has added lands to all of their parks except Epcot in that span. They've also added individual rides.

Hit the cap according to whom? Disney wants to add less and draw more.

 

[Eric Smith]

Hit the cap according to whom? Disney wants to add less and draw more.

It's pretty widely accepted that the parks were too crowded two years ago. Standby waits were out of control.

 

[New Mouse]

It's pretty widely accepted that the parks were too crowded two years ago. Standby waits were out of control.

Disney disagrees. They would like the parks NYE full every day if they could.

 

[maverik85]

66% isn't that big of a difference from 47%. Disney actually had a problem pre-pandemic with their parks being too crowded. Disney hit the cap on what they can support in the parks. Universal had more headroom. Disney has added lands to all of their parks except Epcot in that span. They've also added individual rides.

Universal definitely had much more room to grow in that time as they were much lower, but until Disney turns people away they still have plenty of potential for growth as well. And I'm not saying Disney isn't doing well in general, and I don't see Universal catching up anytime soon to them, but long term they could continue to the close gap and expanded offerings will help them. Using these figures and again assuming Epic Universe having similar attendance to IoA, this same rate of growth would result with Universal being even with Disney's non-MK parks over the same time period. There is even the chance that Universal could potentially build a fourth park in that time. IoA opened within 10 years of UO and EU was announced 20 years after. So we could potentially have news of a fourth park ("fifth gate") for Universal. Their new land acquired will likely be developed further than what the initial Epic Universe area will bring as the site is about the same size as their current resort overall. Not to say Disney couldn't possibly build a fifth park themselves in that time as well but they've made no indication of this in any manner yet.

And while Disney has added new lands and rides to the parks, many of these have more been improvements than additions with them replacing previous attractions. A big example is the massive New Fantasyland expansion they did for Magic Kingdom that netted one new ride. Universal is very much a culprit of this as well with many of their new rides replacing a previous attraction. Would like to see both resorts do more on expanding offerings or replacing defunct sections (like the Toon Lagoon theatre at IoA) both seem to be slowly taking steps in that direction with recent additions like Ratatouille and Tron at Disney and Kong plus a new park in the near future for Universal.

In general, this should result in an overall win for us fans as Universal becomes more competition for Disney it will push them to do more to stay on top and maintain their firm grasp as the top destination.

 

[hertamaniac]

Disney disagrees. They would like the parks NYE full every day if they could.

I feel that is fundamental with any profit driven theme park.