The year 2020 brought some challenges to the theme park industry, which saw many parks closing for at least several months, and then reopening with limited capacity.
Fast forward to now, though, and theme parks are recovering. However, when looking at attendance levels, in this case 2021 attendance levels, it might come as a surprise that three of Disney World’s parks aren’t ranking as high as Universal Orlando’s parks.
The Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) and AECOM recently released a report with the 2021 attendance levels of theme parks. The theme park with the most attendance in 2021 was Magic Kingdom. However, Universal Studios Florida and Universal Islands of Adventure ranked higher in attendance than EPCOT, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom.
Universal Studios Florida had 8,987,000 guests in 2021, while Universal Islands of Adventure had just over 9 million. That’s higher than Animal Kingdom’s 7.2 million, Hollywood Studios’ 8.6 million, and EPCOT’s 7.8 million.
In 2019, this was not the case. All four Disney World parks ranked above the two Universal parks in attendance.
Interestingly enough, Disney World’s parks were still well under their 2019 levels in 2021, while Universal was only short about 1 million guests for each park. Universal will probably continue to see more guests in the future, especially once it announces an opening date for its big expansion, Epic Universe.
Disney has seen controversy recently for many things in the parks including the paid skip-the-line service, Genie+, which recently saw a pretty major price increase. Because of this and other factors like the ease of planning, many theme park fans have enjoyed visiting Universal Orlando. For example, Universal Orlando doesn’t require Park Pass Reservations, so you can show up to the park any day and get in with a ticket or Annual Pass.
We’ll continue to keep an eye on attendance in both parks and report in on our findings, so stay tuned to AllEars for more.
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Do you think Universal Orlando will continue to outrank most Disney World parks in attendance? Let us know in the comments.
No surprise to me. Disney cannot fit any more people into it’s parks. Unless , of course, 5 hour waits for rides are your thing. When you change your approach to providing guests with a reason to come from a ‘we want to be better and more welcoming then those other places’ to a ‘we are willing to be just like them’ mentality, this is what happens. The happiest place on earth is becoming just another theme park. Wonder if Disney will do anything in response to this? A good place to start just might be listening to the concerns of your guests. Unless , of course, you don’t mind being just another theme park.
That should tell them something that they are on the wrong track. If they do not know then there needs to be a complete house cleaning at the top of Disney. Because they are not loyal to Walt Disney’s ideas and they are only in it for the money and what happens happens & they will just move on!