Top 25 Theme parks in US 2004

[Nemo88]

And I might add; Don't point to the three(3) spinners in Fantasyland, and use that as an excuse to fill an entire third of your new second gate with carnival rides. (Nemo is fond of doing this).

hey carnival rides are carnival rides,just because Walt put them there doesnt mean they arent carny.Skyway wasnt exactly a highly immersive themed attraction either.

[Jspider]

hey carnival rides are carnival rides,just because Walt put them there doesnt mean they arent carny.Skyway wasnt exactly a highly immersive themed attraction either.

Nemo he's pointing to the fact that it wasn't ALL carny rides it wasn't even MOSTLY carny rides

Fantasyland is counterbalanced by the dark rides it had (I belive it opend with three? and now has four not counting Small World)

[WrongWay]

I think Nemo's argument is valid to a point. Yes, Disneyland had cheap carni-spinner rides at opening. Dumbo, Teacups, Carousel. To balance these rides, Fantasyland had Toad, Pan, Snow, Casey Jr, canal boats (not storybookland)... and it had the VERY cool theme of being in a fantasy castle in a land far-far away.

Tomorrowland was a placeholder, as was Frontierland.

Disneyland was a pretty sucky park when it opened, by today's standards..... But by 1955 standards, DL of opening was awesome.

I don't think I would have had nearly as much of a problem with the wave swing, zephyr, and maybe even the mad mouse, had they been built in a land like Fantasyland or Bugsland. I still wouldn't have a problem with them if they were moved to Frontierland and themed to a more imaginative theme that better fit the land.

DCA's spinners and carni-rides were/are in mundanly themed lands. It seems to me that much of DCA is just a place holder......

Is that to be expected? Sure. Does it make DCA an awesome amusement park? Heck no. It makes it a theme park with lots of placeholder lands...... That means pretty sucky by today's standards.

Still, I'm glad they've been able to sustain attendance growth after the lackluster debut.

[Nemo88]

Still, I'm glad they've been able to sustain attendance growth after the lackluster debut

I agree,I am glad DCA is getting more and more crowds each year,it will bring more money into the park which equals more rides,which is always good.

[WorldEpcot]

Sad how some people can not accept the fact that DCA went up, and are scrambling to make excuses.

[WrongWay]

Sad how some people can not accept the fact that DCA went up, and are scrambling to make excuses.

Excuses? Who is making excuses? I said 6 months ago that without 2-for-1 or some other serious promo, DCA's attendance would likely be flat or down for the calendar year.

I was wrong...... No excuses. I was wrong.

Heck, I'm the one that went to DCA and June, then came here and created a thread about how crowded DCA was.

But, let's look at the numbers.

DL was up 650,000-700,000.... Somewhere in that ballpark.

DCA was up 500,000, or that ballpark.

So, it looks like DCA was able to drag in a significant portion of DL's incresed attendance. I'll admit it. I'm shocked. I figured DCA may be able to pull half of DL's marginal... I'm pleasently surprised they pulled 75-80% of DL's marginal. Quite impressive.


I think it will be interesting to see what happens next year.

1) No major additions to DCA.

2) There will be 5 more months without 2-for-1 this year than they had last year.

3) The significant increases to the AP prices, I believe, will drive people to the lower level APs, increasing revenue and margins, but decreasing total attendnance (a good thing in my mind).


I do think DL will show at pretty good increase in attendance next year. New fireworks and parade, Buzz Lightyear, Space Mt, major advertising campaign.

If DCA can get even 50% of that marginal attendance increase, they should have another solid up year..... A good thing for the park, the resort, and DisCo as a whole.....

Won't mean the themes are suddenly no longer mundane and the rides no longer mostly carni-style.

[Nemo88]

So, it looks like DCA was able to drag in a significant portion of DL's incresed attendance. I'll admit it. I'm shocked. I figured DCA may be able to pull half of DL's marginal... I'm pleasently surprised they pulled 75-80% of DL's marginal. Quite impressive.

Its very impressive,and I think next year with the 50th it will do even better,then in 2006 we should have Monsters Inc which will help that year a little bit.So the next few years for DCA look good,if they can keep this upward trend,I think they can hit the 7 mil mark in a few years.

[Mortimer]

If DCA can get even 50% of that marginal attendance increase, they should have another solid up year..... A good thing for the park, the resort, and DisCo as a whole.....

Agreed. I believe the 50th celebration will only continue to push the attendance forward for the resort, along with the new attractions set to open. I for one believe the new attractions will help the entire resort by drawing new and existing customers to check them out. Now that it is a no-brainer to buy the single day Park Hopper over the one park ticket, DCA will benefit from Disneyland's new attractions next year.

[MagicWDI]

I agree DCA's attendance will continue to go up during the 50th. But we have to remember only one park can be counted per one visiting guest that day and only the park that is first visited by that guest will be tallied into the attendance. So in order for DCA to have a higher attendance people would need to either solely visit DCA or visit the park first before entering Disneyland, and that somewhat worries me because Disneyland will be the draw and not DCA. But with the projected increase in hotel guests during the years of the 50th Anniversary and the marketing that will focus on attracting guests to the resort as a whole, I have no problem imagining the guests choosing a 3+ day stay will be selecting at least one of those days for DCA, and those are the guests the resort wants.

So even though the main draw would be Disneyland and even though people will want to visit Disneyland overall, I still see a lot of guests venturing into DCA (even if they may have visited Disneyland first that day) and spending those Disney Dollars there, which is one of the main objectives.

Also, one has to realize that because of this factor, that only one resort guest can be counted for one park (even if that guest visits both parks in the same day), each park could actually have more guests than the numbers shown. But I do not know if AB gets their numbers for the Disney resorts by taking the overall numbers of the resort and dividing them up for each park or if they actually get their numbers from the actual persons count in each park. So I don't know what those numbers from AB really mean.

And like I said before, because some of the listed companies, including Disney, do not confirm or deny the numbers shown by AB the figures can never be used as fact (unless otherwise confirmed) but only as potential references with little to no evidence as being potentially true.

[getbak]

But we have to remember only one park can be counted per one visiting guest that day and only the park that is first visited by that guest will be tallied into the attendance...

...Also, one has to realize that because of this factor, that only one resort guest can be counted for one park (even if that guest visits both parks in the same day), each park could actually have more guests than the numbers shown. But I do not know if AB gets their numbers for the Disney resorts by taking the overall numbers of the resort and dividing them up for each park or if they actually get their numbers from the actual persons count in each park. So I don't know what those numbers from AB really mean.

This is the thing that I wonder about.

If the attendance figures are calculated using only the first entry of the day, it means that since DCA opened, I have visited DL for five days and I have never visited DCA. In reality, because I had a Park Hopper on each of those five days, I actually probably split my time about 60/40 (60% in DL), and I also likely spent more money on food and souveniers in DCA than I did in DL because I like the tacos and beer at Pacific Wharf.


If these numbers actually mean that the entire Disneyland Resort had 18.9 million day visits last year, I don't see how anyone can be disappointed.