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Corporate Park News
---- THE LATEST INDUSTRY NEWS ----
(11/2/2025) Comcast/Universal Should Purchase Warner Bros
(11/2/2025) Discount Prices Still Available For Many Six Flags Season Passes
(11/1/2025) Comcast Details Q3 2025 Earnings Results From Theme Parks and the Impact of Epic Universe
(11/1/2025) Disney Sets Date for Q4 2025 and Year End Earnings Report
(10/29/2025) Six Flags Entertainment Sets Official Q3 2025 Report and Earnings Call Date
(10/26/2025) Are the buzzards starting to circle around Six Flags?
(10/26/2025) United Parks Being Targeted By New Lawsuit Over Hidden Junk Fees
 Disney - (11/1/2025) A quick note… The Walt Disney Company is expected to release their Q4 2025 and 2025 Year End earnings report on Thursday, November 13, 2025. Follow the link for directions on where you can find it that day as well as how to listen in to the audio webcast of the earnings report that will begin at 8:30am ET.
(10/5/2025) The latest updates from Forbes reports that the Disney Abu Dhabi project will be attached a very interesting new project announced for Yas Island and nearby areas. At the Global Rail Transportation Infrastructure Exhibition and Conference the Abu Dhabi Transport Company announced plans for the simple sounding “Tram Line 4” which is anything but simple. The line will run through Yas Island nearby residential areas to the nearby Al Raha distruct and on to the Zayed International Airport with trams able to carry up to 600 passengers. The loop for Tram Line 4 will circle around Yas Island, with stops at all the major attractions (Ferrari World, SeaWorld, Warner Bros World and shows it runnning up to the north shore area and looping back, which is supposed to be the location of the new Disney park and resort as well. This will obviously make it extremely easy to transport future Disney guests directly from the airport to the new resort via the new rail line. Having just visited Disneyland Paris myself earlier this year and riding the train that runs directly non-stop from Paris’ CDG airport straight to the Disneyland Paris resort made that part of our trip so easy, so it is nice to see this happening here as well. Construction on this new line is expected to begin as early as next year and possibly ready to open around 2030, which also falls within some early estimates of when the new Disney resort could possibly be nearing completion.
In addition to the Tram Line 4, a system of robotaxi style service called Urban Loop is expected to begin testing in Yas Island in the next six months. Urban Loop was said to be testing at the Paris Olympics last year using self driven 12 passenger vehicles that said to be able to connect riders from their locations to the various Tram hubs. I haven’t seen this system in action myself, but on the surface is sounds a bit like a larger version of the 4-passenger Zoox cars that just began service in Las Vegas last month.
(9/1/2025) I had heard this rumored before, but now Forbes has confirmed that Disney has now registered the internet domain, EmiratesDisneyland.com. Until now Disney has only referred to the project as Disneyland Abu Dhabi, but no official name for the new park project has been announced so far. So by registering the domain name, this at least indicates that “Emirates Disneyland” is being considered for the new Disney theme park project.
(8/7/2025) The Walt Disney Company released their Q3 2025 earnings report this week, which was the quarter than ended as of June 28, 2025. Overall Revenue increased 2% to 23.7 billion compared to Q3 2024, and Operating Income increased 4%.
The Entertainment side of the company saw a small decrease during the same time-frame comparison, though streaming subscriptions to Disney+ and Hulu were up. ESPN however saw operating income decline 7%, which they say is a reflection on higher programming and production costs. Narrowing the focus down to just the performance of the Disney theme park division, they say income grew by 22% to a whopping $1.7 billion.
(7/25/2025) The latest word from Miral about the announced Disneyland park for Abu Dhabi confirms one item… that the proposed park would “never work” if placed entirely outdoors due to the scorching heat that can reach over 110 degrees. Miral is well versed in creating wonderful indoor theme park experiences with the existing Ferrari World, SeaWorld and Warner Bros World theme parks, and they describe the new Disney park as being a hybrid experience that will be both indoor and outdoor.
In fact, they also reveal an interesting factoid about Abu Dhabi and sun exposure. There is actually a government ban on having any kind of work take place in direct sunlight in open-air spaces between 12:30pm and 3pm between June 15th and September 15th. You know… the kind of time exactly when Disney parks are known to hold afternoon parades, so that kind of experience just wouldn’t be allowed.
Personally, I’m kind of imagining the concept being similar to Epcot in layout, featuring large experience pavilions where you go indoors for all the themed experiences of that area, and only venture outside while walking between one pavilion and another.
(7/23/2025) Forbes has posted a new update about the upcoming Disneyland Abu Dhabi project… or will be Disneyland Yas Island? It’s worth mentioning that Disney has yet to give the park an official name yet, and as such Forbes points out a few different website domains have already been gobbled up. Most interesting however is that the DisneylandAbuDhabi.com website was actually grabbed by someone other than Disney about month before the big announcement.
(7/3/2025) Ever since the staggering announcement that Disney is planning to bring a new theme park resort to Abu Dhabi, everyone has wondered just what the new park experience will be like. While we still have very few official answers to this question, Mohamed Abdalla Al Zaabi, the CEO of Miral, has given some official comments about the project.
“This destination will be authentically Emirati in style, but fully Disney in experience.”
“We want visitors to fell the culture of the UAE while enjoying the magic of Disney.”
While it isn’t much, it really is what you would expect from a project of this magnitude. Having just visited Disneyland Paris for the first time myself in April, I would say that those same style comments could essentially be applied there as well, where you can see and feel the influence of French culture throughout the Disneyland Paris result, while it still retains the essence and “magic of Disney”. So I would expect nothing less from this new resort in Abu Dhabi.
(6/5/2025) Disney’s Emily Dow (Architecture and Design Studio Exec, WDI) and Caitlin Krasovic (Sustainability and Design Strategy Manager, WDI) spoke with Blooloop this week to discuss Disney’s progress with sustainable designs, including new innovations they are working on in projects around the globe. The company has a goal of achieving “zero net emissions for direct operations by 2030.”
Some current projects include a Solar Canopy over the Team Disney parking lot in Hong Kong, exploring new low-carbon fuels for the Disney Cruise Line, new designs incorporated into The Island Tower at Disney’s Polynesian Resort, using AI’s armed with previous year’s data records about energy consumption and weather charts to help optimize energy requirements for Hong Kong Disneyland, and more.
(6/4/2025) While we’ve been hearing a lot about Six Flags laying off staff, this latest news article now claims that The Walt Disney Company has begun laying off “several hundred” staff at posts around the world, with most from the “Disney Entertainment” division.
(5/20/2025) Disney and Formula 1? Yes… apparently the two will be joining forces with some sort of new collaboration that will include Disney’s Mickey and Friends brand. Exactly what form this will take, we may not find out until it is ready to launch sometime in 2026.
If it was me… I’m willing to bet that some sort of Video Game may be part of this, giving Disney the chance to create their own form of MarioKart. Though some may argue that this already happened two years ago when “Disney Speedstorm” launched on the Windows and the various game platforms in mid 2023, and followed on mobile platforms the following year.
(5/14/2025) A great follow up piece on Forbes about the new Disney park announced for Abu Dhabi has a confirmed comment from Miral’s Chief Exec, Mohamed Al Zaabi, that “Disney will be an indoor park. We will make it easy for then to arrive, convenient experience on arrival, getting in and enjoying as many rides as possible.”
Comparisons are made to Miral’s other parks in Abu Dhabi that are mostly indoor experience as well, though often the big roller coasters do venture outside of course. This also fits with clues Screamscape sources also delivered to me, claiming that while this will be a Disney theme park, it will not be quite what anyone was expecting. In other words, don’t expect this to be another partial clone of Disneyland or the Magic Kingdom. In fact, the Forbes article goes on to wonder if we might even see some sections of the Disney park built under giant environmentally controlled domes.
I’m not sure about Domes, though the Circus Circus’s Adventuredome in Las Vegas could certainly serve as an early example of just such a concept on a smaller scale. However, there will be a focus on keeping guests comfortable and out of the harsh outdoor heat during the warmer months of the year. I also I believe this new park will likely feature a number of innovative and never-before seen attraction concepts featuring Disney’s extensive catalog of IPs.
Strangely though… I have also heard rumors that even Disney may not be free to use “anything” they want from their IP vault, as there may be some other previous agreements in play within the region that could restrict them from using select properties in this new Disney resort.
(5/7/2025) As we had heard rumored over the past week, Disney has confirmed that they are planning to bring a theme park and resort to the UAE in Abu Dhabi. The location makes sense, as while Dubai was the hot ticket for a time for large scale developments, Dubai’s push to create major theme park projects like the massive Dubailand, Six Flags Dubai and even a Universal Studios resort failed to move forward, though smaller theme parks like Legoland and MotionGate have opened and survived.
Abu Dhabi on the other hand has proven itself as being a successful site for several major theme park projects starting with Ferrari World, Yas Waterworld, Warner Bros. World and SeaWorld Abu Dhabi. Just like those other successful ventures, Disney too will be coming to Yas Island, in a partnership with Miral.
I don’t have all the details, but the deal to build here sounds more akin to how the Oriental Land Company owns and operates the Tokyo Disney Resort as a sort of almost “franchise” operation, with OLC running everything according to Disney’s standards, while hiring out all design work to Disney’s Imagineering department. Disney’s advantage here is that while they’re essentially getting paid to design this park, they won’t be paying a dime to build it, which is sure to make the stockholders very happy. The entire cost of the Abu Dhabi project will be funded by Miral, which is essentially how Miral also created the other parks on Abu Dhabi with their other partners.
Of course, like most of Disney’s big announcements these days, this one is all about the presentation, with no hard dates or timelines able to be shared, so don’t start to plan your trip just yet. Similar to how he set up the creation of Shanghai Disneyland, Bob Iger has described their plans for the UAE as being “authentically Disney and distinctly Emirati” This will be Disney’s 7th resort destination in the world and as their newest, the plan is to make it very high tech as they are building everything from the ground up, but they aren’t ready to even talk about what kind of themes or IP’s will be included in this newest resort.
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(5/6/2025) Forbes has posted a great article about “The Biggest Deal Bob Iger Has Yet To Do At Disney”, which drops many more hints about the rumored announcement for a Disney project in the UAE.
Give the article a read yourself to see what you think about what may be in the works. One thought is that this could be some kind of hybrid project, that might involve a resort, or may involve Disney building some kind of stand-alone experiences at a resort project. They’ve been pushing a lot of Star Wars themed posts on their Social Media this week as well, (it was just May the 4th after all), but it does make me wonder if they might try to build some kind of indoor Star Wars themed attraction space that could offer shopping, themed dining and maybe an attraction or two. It wouldn’t be difficult to perhaps create a scaled down version of Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run for example… especially since that attraction can be updated and re-programmed over time to offer new missions and experiences. Something very re-rideable, like a Star Tours attraction could also work, as there are hundreds of possible combinations to experience that would keep the experience fresh.
(2/25/2025) While The Walt Disney Company's growth seems completely unstoppable, the cost of this also seems to be a never-ending series of price increases across the board. It's easy to blame Disney itself for this… but instead, I do wonder if we are all instead to blame for continuing to pay the ever rising prices. Follow the link to read more about Disney’s new growth plan for the theme park and experience empire, and where things actually did seem to go a little too far.
(3/4/2025) Despite numerous reports claiming that The Walt Disney Company has announced the intention to bring the new dynamic or “surge pricing” concept to their US theme parks, it was pointed out to Screamscape that Disney has not officially announced any such action. Yet…
It has been confirmed that it did go into effect at the Disneyland Paris theme parks in November, where they are working out the kinks in the concept, so I do feel that it is likely that it may still come to the US parks eventually. But…for now… it is worth stating that nothing has been officially announced by The Walt Disney Company at this time.
I discuss this concept further in my latest article posted to Blooloop this week, so please do follow the link over to find out the latest on this new pricing concept. Spoiler Alert… I’m not a fan, but there are some ways it could be used for good.
(2/23/2025) Imagine a world where you wouldn’t know the price of a ticket into a Disney theme park until the moment you try to buy one? Disney’s theme park pricing strategy has gone beyond all expectations to evolve into the complicated beast it currently is, featuring a number of different price tiers based on expected crowd levels on any given day, in addition to the insanity of still requiring reservations to visit the California parks still being in effect.
Now a new expected kink is expected to come to the system in which the actual final ticket price for admission into the Disneyland and Walt Disney World parks this year that would actually fluctuate even further under a “surge pricing” strategy. This surge pricing is expected to be similar to what you might experience when buying seats on an airline… as the more crowded it gets onboard, the higher the ticket prices will climb, and guests buying at the last second will pay the highest prices.
There is a world of difference between airline surge pricing and a Disney park trying to copy the same concept. Seating is LIMITED on an airline… while it takes a major event like a holiday to generate the kind of crowd where Disney would actually close their gates due to capacity. On an airline, adding more passengers also comes with some actual increased expenses for the flight, notably added fuel to compensate for the added weight or passengers and luggage on fully loaded flight compared to a half-empty flight.
Disney parks on the other hand are typically fully staffed with all rides open on a daily basis regardless of crowd levels (though they can bring in more staff or extend hours on more crowded days as needed). But otherwise, the only reason to raise ticket prices on more crowded days is to serve as an incentive to get a percentage of potential guests to simply stay home, to either avoid the crowd or to wait for a more price-friendly day to visit.
Otherwise the concept of never knowing what to expect for your ticket price to visit a Disney theme park, until the actual moment that you try to buy it, is kind of insane. It also would allow for the very disturbing trend of Disney being able to simply raise their ticket prices any day, any time of the day, they want… forever masking away from view such as annual price increases under the concept of the chaotic ongoing surge pricing.
I’m not familiar with the pricing in effect at Disneyland Paris, but it was stated that the Paris parks have already put a similar pricing plan into place in November. If anyone has more information on how that has affected their plans to visit the Paris resort, I’d love to hear more about it.
(12/31/2024) It has been rumored for some time that Universal may be preparing to let their contract to use The Simpsons IP expire when it ends. While Universal has not confirmed anything, the attractions that replaced the former Back To The Future: The Ride in both Orlando and Hollywood parks opened in 2008. Generally I’ve found that IP contracts for this kind of thing usually come in 10-year renewable terms, if so, the second 10 year term would be coming to an end in early 2028. This would make it likely that Universal would seek to shut down the attractions (along with rethemeing nearby restaurants and gift shops) no later than the end of 2027.
Adding a little fuel to the fire, just as we are on the verge of kicking off 2025, Disney apparently sent out a guest survey this past week to judge how Disney theme park guests would feel about the idea of including new brands and experiences in the parks, which included a section on The Simpsons. They survey asked if guests felt adding lands, attractions, or character “meet & greet” experiences to the parks would be a valuable addition. Other options includes just using them for merchandise, video game, other animated formats (movie, shorts, tv) or even live action… (and we know Disney loves getting the chance to make a Live-Action version of just about every animated IP they own). There was also an option to create an “Immersive Experience” that could exist outside of a Disney theme park. (Who’s up for turning the former Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser into the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant?)
Herschend Family Entertainment - (10/12/2025) We reported back in July how Herschend had struck a deal with Lucky Strike to sell off some of the newly acquired attractions they had purchased as part of the deal to acquire the Palace Entertainment properties. The five property sale included Castle Park, Raging Waters and Wet ‘n Wild Emerald Point along with two Boomers FECs in California (in Vista and Palm Springs).
This left Herschend with two FECs left from Palace, both in great Atlanta, Georgia area: Malibu Norcross (just East of Atlanta off I-85) and Mountasia in Marietta (just North of Atlanta, near the I-75 and I575 split). It has been confirmed that Herschend has now closed both of these locations permanently, with September 28th being their last day of operation.
While nothing has been said about trying to sell either attraction to a new owner, it is worth noting that both locations were positions right next to major freeways, in locations where the property could easily be sold to developers for either commercial or residential use. Herschend CEO’s (Andrew Wexler) own statement about the closures was just to say that “This decision is in no way a reflection on the hosts or the quality of the experiences offered, but rather a recognition that Family Entertainment Centers operate differently than the types of attractions we are best structured to support”.
In other words, running FECs fall outside the scope and scale of the attractions that Herschend typically owns and operates. But my guess is that the land under these attractions was far more valuable than the lower level of profits that the FECs were able to generate. Thus, selling off these valuable properties could generate a good bit of profit for Hershend, and put towards paying down the debt added to the company from the purchase of Palace Entertainment. While I haven’t found a commercial listing for the Mountasia property yet, the Malibu Norcross site is already being listed for commercial redevelopment on Loopnet, and available on July 31, 2026.
(5/27/2025) It’s official, a new press release from Herschend has confirmed that they have completed the acquisition of Palace Entertainment’s U.S. Attractions, bringing the total number of properties open under the Herschend banner up to 49.
(5/13/2025) Herschend is moving forward with their planned acquisition of the Palace Entertainment theme parks and attraction properties, and has launched a “$1.1 billion leveraged loan” to help fund the deal according to Blooloop.
The huge deal will add more than 20 new properties to the Herschend’s portfolio of family attractions, aquariums and theme parks.
(3/20/2025) While the actual sale price that Herschend is paying Parques Reunidos to obtain Palace Entertainment’s US parks was not released, industry expert Dennis Speigel (CEO of ITPS) says that it was likely more than $500 million.
(3/19/2025) Back in August it was revealed that EQT, the Swedish private investment firm who essentially sits at the head of the table over at Parques Reunidos, had hired JP Morgan to conduct a review of the possible sale of their Palace Entertainment division, who oversees all their US parks and properties.
Jump ahead to the present day and it looks like those efforts have worked out as Herschend has announced that they have signed a definitive agreement with Parques Reunidos to acquire all of Palace Entertainment’s US properties. This deal marks a huge period of expansion for Herschend, as well as a great way for Parques Reunidos to exit from the US market, while gaining a good sum of cash in the process in which to refocus themselves on the their core European market.
You may be aware of Hershend’s primary properties (Dollywood, Silver Dollar City, Kentucky Kingdom and Wild Adventures) as well as several aquariums, a few water parks, the Callaway Resort & Cardens and Pink Adventure Tour. However, you may not be quite as familiar with the over 20 Palace Entertainment properties that will fall under Herschend’s control once the deal is finalized. The list of Palace Entertainment properties includes:
7 Amusement Parks - Adventureland, Castle Park, Dutch Wonderland, Idlewild, Kennywood, Lake Compounce and Story Land
6 Water Parks - Sandcastle, Wet ‘n Wild Emerald Pointe, Raging Waters, Noah’s Ark, Water Country and Splish Splash.
2 Aquariums - Living Shores Aquarium and Sea Life Park
4 FEC’s - Boomers Vista, Boomers Palm Springs, Mountasia Marietta and Malibu Norcross
Along with the Cartoon Network Hotel, Old Mill Stream Campground, Lake Compounce Campground and Adventureland Campground.
Keeping these all in mind, I’m not really seeing any areas where the two chains were in competition within the same market, so overall the expansion should be well received. That’s if Herschend opts to see all of the properties.
While it is far too early to tell what will happen, I’m not entirely convinced that Herschend will keep them all. I think most of the amusement parks are safe of course, but I could see them looking to shed some of the smaller FEC attractions and maybe Castle Park off to someone else who is more specialized in those kinds of attractions. On the flip side, I think some of the Palace parks will fit in rather nicely and even thrive very quickly under Herschend’s ownership, especially parks like Kennywood, Adventureland and Lake Compounce.
IB Parks & Entertainment - (12/21/2024) IB Parks & Entertainment, the official company name of the organization set up by Gene Staples to purchase and save Indiana Beach, Clementon Park and Niagara Amusement Park, surprised this week with the announcement of a purchase to add a 4th park to the chain’s collection.
Big Kahuna’s Water Park in West Berlin, NJ (formerly known as Sahara Sam’s) has now joined IB Parks & Entertainment. Big Kahuna’s is a rarity in the US as it operates as an indoor waterpark and arcade, without featuring an attached resort. The location also features an outdoor section that is open for the Summer season that adds on a wave pool, a regular swimming pool and a kiddie lagoon play area.
The former Sahara Sam’s was first purchased by Apex Parks Group back in 2015, with Apex itself having been formed the year before with the purchase of 15 small park and FEC style properties from Palace Entertainment, which included the original Big Kahuna’s waterpark location Destin, Florida. Apex grew and later bought a couple of parks of note… namely Indiana Beach and the former Fantasy Island, which they later shut down in 2020 and then sold to Gene Staples, causing the formation of the new IP Parks & Entertainment company.
Apex Parks Group itself filed for bankruptcy, shutting down several Boomers properties in the process, and then shut down themselves. Kinda… a new company named APX Operating Company, LLC purchased a number of the former properties including Sahara Sam’s and Big Kahuna. The history gets a little murky here, as somehow it sounds like Palace Entertainment may have gotten involved and with APX, created a private spin-off company known as Boomers Parks to continue to operate these properties, with the exception of two surviving Boomers locations in California (Vista & Palm Springs) that are now completely owned by Palace Entertainment.
Boomers Parks opted to makeover and rebrand the Sahara Sam’s location under the Big Kahuna’s name when it reopened in May of 2022, further labeling it as a Boomers Park location. Now 2.5 years later, the New Jersey location has been sold to IP Parks & Entertainment, while Boomers Parks is retaining ownership of the original Big Kahuna’s in Florida. The interesting thing is that the official BigKahunas.com website not only features information about the Florida location, while all the information for the New Jersey location is now online only at the former SaharaSams.com website URL, which features a slightly modified version of their former website, along with an copyright ownership at the bottom as “Sahara Sams Oasis LLC”. Based on this, I wouldn’t be surprised if IB Parks is allowed to keep the Big Kahuna’s brandname for 2025 while they plan a potential rebranding of the park into something new afterwards.
According to the press release from IB Parks, they are looking forward to a collaboration of Big Kahuna’s with their nearby Clementon Park property, and the opportunity to “provide our guests with options to visit both Big Kahuna’s year-round water attractions and the outdoor fun at Clementon Park.” The two attraction’s are only 4.5 miles away from each other, so I can also see that there are great opportunities for some cost savings between the two locations by merging certain tasks and operations duties. It also makes me wonder if we might eventually see Big Kahuna’s sacrifice their outdoor attractions in order to expand their indoor offerings since Clementon already has the outdoor waterpark attraction’s covered.
Lucky Strike Entertainment - (7/31/2025) LuckyStrike Entertainment, known for their chain of Bowling fun centers (AMF, Bowlero, and of course Lucky Strike has entered into the more traditional amusement industry with the purchase of 2 well known waterparks and 3 iconic FEC locations.
The ever iconic and original Raging Waters waterpark in San Dimas, CA and Wet ‘n Wild Emerald Pointe in Greensboro, NC, along with Castle Park in Riverside, CA, Boomers in Vista, CA and the Boomers in Palm Springs have now been sold to and will be run by Lucky Strike.
All five of these properties were in the news earlier this year as they were part of the huge attraction sale of all the former Palace Entertainment properties to Herschend Family Entertainment that was finalized at the end of May 2025. As I mentioned back in March when the deal was first announced, “I’m not entirely convinced that Herschend will keep them all. I think most of the amusement parks are safe of course, but I could see them looking to shed some of the smaller FEC attractions and maybe Castle Park off to someone else who is more specialized in those kinds of attractions.”
That prediction seems to have held true, with Herschend having shed all of their newly acquired properties in California (Raging Waters, Castle Park and Boomers), and for some reason included the sale of their only North Carolina property (Wet ‘n Wild Emerald Pointe). My only thought is that perhaps they felt that park was too close to their huge investments in Pigeon Forge, TN and decided to divest themselves of it.
With this move now official, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Herschend working on deals to sell off some of the other various minor attractions and FECs they purchased from Palace Entertainment to others, especially if they are located away from Herschend’s more focused core attraction locations.
Meow Wolf - (8/5/2025) Meow Wolf Grapevine has added something new this season… themed cocktails! Look to get served at the new “Prime Materia” exhibition bar located within the attraction itself.
(5/25/2025) Blooloop reports that the Meow Wolf Grapevine location in Texas, also known as “The Real Unreal” will soon open a new “interactive bar” within the attraction space called Prime Materia. The addition will feature some unique signature cocktails as well as some snacks in addition to expanding upon the attractions lore of interactive exhibits.
According to the article, some new characters will be created to inhabit Prime Materia to be known as the “Gizmo_Mancers”, who are also behind the lore for some new speciality beverages, such as the Overclocked Margarita, as part of their expertise at combining “alchemy and circuitry, turning rare decoded elements into delicious brews.”
This isn’t the first interactive bar experience at a Meow Wolf location however, as the Houston area location (aka: Radio Tave) also features an afterlife themed dive-bar experience called “Cowboix Hevvven”.
Merlin Entertainment - (10/25/2025) Financial Times says that Merlin Entertainment is under increasing pressure as of late as a result of financial strain leading into a period of “critical refinancing” for the theme park and attraction owner. A review of the company’s current state by Moody’s on Tuesday claimed that “maintaining a sustainable capital structure will be challenging without further asset disposals or shareholder support” as they also downgraded their rating of the company.
Merlin currently has £630 million of debt that will mature in 2027, and an overall debt load of more than £4 Billion. Mix this with rising costs, decreases in customer spending, and new parks that have not generated the results they expected (Legoland New York and Korea) have already led the company to sell off most of their secured bonds earlier this year. The sale of the Legoland Discovery Centers to the LEGO group will also bring in some much needed cash when the deal is completed in early 2026. Still, this has led some financial ratings agencies to ponder if the company might begin to run low on cash next year, and claim that a major restructuring was needed to make things right.
(8/16/2025) Previously this year Merlin Entertainment indicated that they might be looking to sell off their Sea Life branded aquarium attractions, as it was reported back in May that a bid to purchase some or all of them was being placed by a London based private equity firm, Epiris, as well as anticipating further bids from other groups to be forthcoming.
The latest update from Merlin Entertainment indicates that a proposed deal to sell off six of their Sea Life aquariums in the UK has now been shelved after determining that all of the prospective buyers “failed to submit sufficiently attractive bids.”
(4/13/2025) Blooloop has posted a fun article with interviews from their Festival of Innovation 2025 event, featuring Universal’s Lora Sauls (Ast. Director for Creative Development and Show Direction) and John Burton (Senior Creative Lead at Merlin Entertainment). The discussion goes over the idea of maintaining a level of constant innovation in order to drive the creation of new thrills for guests, both in the element of thrill rides (the Hyperia coaster at Merlin’s Thorpe Park for example) as well as the non-stop roll that Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights crew faces to keep each year’s Haunt content both fresh and new, as well as keeping the feelers out to know what their guests want to see next.
This also includes discussions on blending the use of self created content vs IP driven content in the realms of both attractions and Halloween content, such as the creation and ongoing expansion of Merlin’s “Nemesis” storyline, or the ever growing mythos and lore of homegrown characters created just for Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights.
Speaking of which, I know it used to be that planning for the next year’s Halloween Horror Nights at Universal would begin just as this year’s event was launching to the public, but according to Sauls, the current development time on HHN has now stretched out to 18 months ahead of the event, which means that team members are starting on the early creative thought process for HHN 2026 right now, while they’re in the midst of the build process for HHN 2025 that is still four months away from opening to guests, which is a bit insane when you think about it. Nevermind that Universe is also in the midst of the final build-up of their new year-round Universal Horror Unleashed attraction that will open in Las Vegas in August, so I’d say that in addition to being highly innovative and creative, a knack for extreme multi-tasking has got to be in their veins to keep everything straight.
Puy du Fou - (9/1/2025) Blooloop reports that Puy du Fou has now submitted their planning application to build a £600 million history-based theme park in the UK near Bicester. If everything proceeds as planned, the park could be ready to open the first phase as early as 2029. The project is more than just the themed park environment and shows however, it will also feature up to three different themed hotels on the property as well as a conference center.
(7/1/2025) Puy du Fou has taken another step forward for their planned expansion into the UK. Blooloop reports that they have teamed up with an Oxford-based college group, Activate Learning, to form a ‘working partnership’ to provide training and employment opportunities for local young people at the attraction. Under the current timeline, the new park isn’t slated to open until 2029, though recruitment will start in 2028 to ensure staffing is ready and trained in time for the opening.
(2/4/2025) While we’ve been talking about a proposed Puy du Fou park for the UK, it seems the group has now signed some kind of letter of intent to develop another park in Brazil that could see another park built in the Marica area.
Of course, I’m still waiting to see any sign of construction on the attraction Puy du Fou is supposed to be building just outside Pigeon Forge, Tennessee to get a taste of what Puy du Fou has to offer.
(1/28/2025) Puy du Fou has released details from a 10-year masterplan for a proposed UK park that would showcase their brand of historical-based entertainment to Great Britain. You can read up on the breakdown on these plans over at Themeparks-UK this week. From what I’m seeing the plan is to create a seasonal park experience that would be open from about April through October each year, featuring four themed areas, each themed to a different time period in history. The plans also include building three themed resort hotels on the site as well.
A second wave of public consultation meetings about the project have been set to take place in February, and you can read more about the dates and locations for these here.
(1/21/2025) The latest update about the proposed Puy du Fou park planned for the UK describes the experience as a way to take guests back in time to experience historic periods from the past. Exactly what periods Puy du Fou would focus on has yet to be determined, but they claim they will work with a group of British historians to decide where to focus their efforts.
Follow the link to read more about Puy du Fou’s vision for what a park in the UK should be like.
(1/13/2025) A quick correction, it was mentioned that the location Puy du Fou is looking at in the UK is about 60+ miles outside London proper, in the town of Bicester. I believe this is roughly the same basic distance outside of London as the proposed Universal resort property to be located in Bedford. Both attractions will obviously market themselves to the bigger city market to generate guests, but are each located in their own regions outside of the city itself Puy to Fou to the North-West and Universal more directly to the North, with both sort of sitting around the mid-way point between London and Birmingham.
(1/12/2025) MyLondon has posted an update about the proposed plans for Puy du Fou to build an all new attraction in the London area. While there is still a lot of work left to do, it seems Puy du Fou did submit a “scoping document” to the local authorities, ahead of an expected filing of a planning application sometime this Summer.
Ripley’s Entertainment - (8/31/2025) Given all the theme park deals, mergers and sales over the past few years, I’ve been kind of watching and waiting to see when Ripley’s was going to potentially step into the fray and make some kind of purchase to expand their own attraction empire. That finally took place this week with the modest announcement that Ripley’s was purchasing the three Hawaiian Falls waterparks in Texas: with locations in Roanoke, Mansfield and Waco. Ripley’s has a vast chain of company owned attractions that include the original “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” odditoriums, along with assortment Aquariums, Mirror Mazes, Simulators, Mini-Golf, Wax Museums, Haunted Houses and much more.
Note: These are not to be confused with two former Hawaiian Falls locations in the Dallas area (The Colony and Garland), those locations were rebranded as Hawaiian Waters in 2023 and are under the management of Premier Parks. Originally I believe those may have been the first two Hawaiian Falls locations, but they were sold off to CNL Lifestyle Properties (a REIT) in 2006 who CNL later sold off their portfolio of parks and attractions to EPR Properties in 2016 who still own them to this day.
 Six Flags - (11/2/2025) While I can’t guarantee the accuracy of this database, a reader sent in a link to a page posted at ThemeParkWeekly that has gathered the style and prices for Season Pass and Membership options available across all the parks within the merged Six Flags / Cedar Fair chain. This includes what appears to be current sale prices available at select parks, as well as showing off how the price of a Gold or Prestige pass can vary quite a bit from park to park, even though both will grant you access to every park in the chain.
There is even a difference between parks within the same market, for example if you buy a Prestige Pass from Knott’s Berry Farm it will cost you $250, but if you drive across town to Six Flags Magic Mountain their Prestige Pass is $175. A current promotion that is putting many prices on sale runs through November 3rd, with Gold Passes at many parks currently available below $100. Follow the link and compare your options before the sale ends.
(10/29/2025) Six Flags Entertainment has officially set their Q3 2025 earnings report and investor call to take place on November 7th, 2025, with the call starting at 8am. You can listen in online at the investor website.
(10/26/2025) Are the investment buzzards starting to fly circles around Six Flags? As we are rapidly approaching the next big financial report update (Q3 2025 is expected to be released sometime around Nov. 5th) there have been a lot of news updates about investment groups increasing their share of ownership of Six Flags (FUN) stock.
The last time around the top shareholders were Blackrock with 13.35%, Vanguard Group (9.89%) and Darlington Partners (8.59%). Last week we read the report that Sachem Head had increased their ownership stake to nearly 10% (as of June 30th it was only 4.82%) and had a member elected to serve on the Six Flags board. Then a few days ago the news broke that the NFL’s Travis Kelce (the future Mr. Taylor Swift?) had just teamed up with Jana Partners to build a 9% stake in Six Flags with plans to actively “engage” with the board.
While taking as big of a slice of the pie as others, a report posted yesterday from Marketbeat.com also reports that a number of other groups are also now increasing their ownership percentages in Six Flags. This includes purchases by Bleakley Financial Group, Catalyst Capital Advisors, Peregrine Capital Management, Veracity Capital, Barefire LLC, Wealth Enhancement Advisory and Contravisory Investment Management. We’ll have to wait until the next report to see if any of these are breaking into the Top 10 list of biggest holders.
For as much criticism as Six Flags has been getting since the last report, it sure looks like a number of investment firms are lining up to go along for the ride and see what the biggest investors have in store for the company, and what changes will take place going forward with the already announced management changes.
(10/22/2025) It seems another big activist investors has gained some significant shares in Six Flags.
According to various news reports the NFL’s Travis Kelce has teamed up with Jana Partners and a few others to invest in Six Flags (FUN) and now holds roughly 9% of the company, which caused shares to shoot up about 15 to 17% yesterday. According to the reports the investment group is planning to engage with the Six Flags board and management to explore ways to “enhance shareholder value and improve the guest experience”.
At least one positive thing of note is that Travis Kelce claims, “I am a lifelong Six Flags fan and grew up going to these parks with my family and friends”. “The chance to help make Six Flags special for the next generation is one I couldn’t pass up.” Hopefully that experience will keep some of their focus on actually improving the guest experience.
(10/18/2025) As the final weekends for Haunt season are approaching, something interesting has been happening at select Six Flags theme parks. Well… technically this is only happening to select Legacy Cedar Fair parks. To be specific, if you visit the official websites for Dorney Park, Kings Dominion, Worlds of Fun and Valleyfair, you will find a notice at the top of the site that now says that for the final weekends of the season “Haunted Mazes are included with your admission”, instead of requiring guests to purchase a separate haunt pass for admission to the haunted mazes.
The mainline Six Flags parks have almost always charged extra for their haunted houses, so the merger did not really affect those parks. I say “almost always” because historically, back in the day, select Six Flags parks that faced competition from other regional parks that offered free haunted houses (the Busch, SeaWorld, Universal and Cedar Fair parks) then you would often find that the haunts at those parks also included.
Starting this season, post merger, the Legacy Cedar Fair parks all switched over to charging extra for their haunts unless the entire haunt event itself was an extra ticket event, such as Knott’s Scary Farm. It has been no secret that there has been a lot of guest push-back against this unexpected change, especially from passholders who bought their 2025 passes back during the 2024 haunt when the mazes were still free. With that in mind the change of heart for these four parks is also likely to be very regional specific.
Dorney Park faces stiff competition from Hersheypark who’s fairly new Haunt event is only an hour away. Kings Dominion has always had to make some concessions to their haunt event over the years due to the close proximity of Busch Gardens Williamsburg that always offered a free all-day park and haunt after dark experience. Worlds of Fun being included here is interesting, as their main competition is now sister-park, Six Flags St. Louis. Valleyfair is also another interesting addition, as the park retired its scary Haunt event for a couple of seasons only to announce that ValleyScare was back with much fanfare earlier this year, but the sudden switcheroo to trying to revive the event with extra cost haunts may have simply caused too much of a negative reaction at a time, when the returning event really needed to shine once again.
Sadly, everywhere else… Carowinds, Cedar Point, Kings Island and so on… the haunts are still an upcharge item this year. However, the change at these four parks does show that the guest reaction to this change is something that Six Flags HQ is keeping a careful eye on, so voting with your wallet about what you are willing to pay for and what you are not will indeed send a message.
(10/18/2025) Another big change has been announced for the Six Flags board of directors. According to the press release Six Flags has appointed Jonathan Brudnick to join the board, effective immediately. This will temporarily increase the number of board members to 13, just ahead of the previously announced departure of Selim Bassoul and Danial Hanrahan at the end of the year, when it will drop down to 11 seats.
Brudnick is a partner at activist investor “Sachem Head Capital Management”, which currently owns nearly 10% of Six Flags at this time after increasing their ownership over the past few months while the company’s stock price dropped after last quarters poor performance results. I’m not personally familiar with the history of Sachem Head and the other companies they’ve invested in to know what kind of influence Brudnick may try to have over the future direction of the company. They are reported as being fairly effective in their strategy of gaining board seats and then not only influencing for changes from the inside, but the company will also run PR campaigns to other investors to back their efforts up to make the changes they think will generate the best profits for the investors. So in short, once they get in, they do so with an iron grip, begin to make waves, and if they continue to invest and grow you can expect them to try and gain even more seats.
Regardless, with all the management and board changes taking place, there are bound to be some “shake ups” and other changes in store over the coming year.
(10/11/2025) Six Flags announced some major changes are coming to the corporate office by the end of the year. On top of the previous announcement that Richard Zimmerman would be stepping down as CEO by the end of the year, the chain confirmed that Exec. Chairman Selim Bassoul and Lead Independent Director Danial J. Hanrahan will both step down from the board at the end of the year as well.
The departure of Selim Bassoul was expected, as his current contract only ran through to June 30, 2026 anyway, and he had already accepted a new position as Chairman of Goodfood Market. Following his departure from the board, Selim will serve as a “consultant” to the opening of the new Six Flags Qiddiya City park in Saudi Arabia that is expected to open just before the end of the year.
Dan Hanrahan came to Six Flags as part of Cedar Fair’s own board prior to the merger and will have completed 12 years of service on the boards of Cedar Fair and then Six Flags.
Marilyn Spiegel has been elected to serve as the “non-executive Chair of the Board of Directors” effective Jan. 1, 2026. Spiegel has served on the Six Flags Board since January 2023 where she served as Director at the time. She has over 30 years experience in the gaming and hospitality industry in Las Vegas where she served as President for the Wynn Las Vegas for two terms (2010 to 2013) and then came out of retirement to take the reigns of the Wynn once again in early 2019 through to Sept. 2021, following the resignation of Steve Wynn from the company. Prior to that (2004 to 2010) she was also President of several different Harrah’s Las Vegas casino properties (Bally’s, Paris, Planet Hollywood, Harrah’s and Rio).
(10/5/2025) You may recall that in the era prior to the merger, the legacy Six Flags chain was dealing with a pain-in-the-rear Activist Investor group known as Land & Buildings Investment Management who was trying to take advantage of the pandemic era around 2022 to invest in the chain and urge them to essentially sell off the land under the theme parks to REITs and put them all in a lease-back situation in order to take advantage of the cash benefits. Wisely, Six Flags told them to go take a hike, as we had already witnessing what happened to other parks who went that route in late 2020, when Apex Parks suddenly announced the closure and liquidation of parks like Indiana Beach and Fantasy Island.
Flaring up like a bad disease, Land and Buildings were at it again once the merger between Cedar Fair and Six Flags was announced and attempted to block the deal by, once again, pressuring that Six Flags did not need a merger to survive if they would just tap into the value of their land holdings.
Well... guess what? Land and Buildings is still around and has returned once again with the same old song and dance, now that the merged theme park giant has thus far failed to really move the needle in the right direction, based on the results of the last quarter. So once again they are urging that should “unlock value from its substantial real estate portfolio”. Of course, we are well aware that Cedar Fair had completely sold off one park (California’s Great America) prior to the merger and that merged Six Flags is currently looking at offers to sell off the property under the Six Flags America park that is closing forever in a matter of weeks. Those deals are unfortunately, but as I said time and again over the years, no theme park should enter into a REIT style deal if they are serious about keeping the park running well into the future. Time and rising payments always seem to find a way to catch up to those properties and sooner or later, they all seem to end up with the park shutting down as fans of Gillian’s Wonerland Pier found out last year.
(9/13/2025) With the Summer season now over and parks are moving into the fall season that is typically still highly profitable due to popular fall seasonal events, Six Flags is looking to post some extra course correction updates after their weak Q2 report (Results from Mar. 31 to June 29, 2025) started to sink the ship when it was released last month. Often Q3 results can show a good turnaround, from a numbers point of view, as they include the busy summer months of July, August and September, which not only include the start of some fall events, but also the start of next year’s season pass sales. If you’ve been following Six Flags, you already know that those early season pass sales were extremely discounted compared to previous years, as the chain is looking to generate a large passholder base that will come to visit and increase attendance through the rest of this year and all of next year.
So as such, Six Flags quickly announced yesterday that their parks have been seeing “Strong Attendance Growth” and “Robust early sales of 2026 season pass units”. “Over the nine-week period ended Aug. 31, 2025, the Company entertained 17.8 million guests, representing a 2% increase in attendance compared to the same nine-week period in 2024.” along with the final four weeks of that period showing a 3% increase, showing the trend that attendance was increasing after a rather slow start to the summer season.
While we’re technically in the last couple of weeks of generating performance results for what will be Q3 2025, Six Flags is attempting to set the stage to their investors for a much better results comeback for the report when they do release it, probably around early November.
In another effort to aid a positive spin to their image, Six Flags was also happy to announced that three of their parks were awarded Golden Ticket Awards for 2025. Carowinds took the award for “Best Steel Coaster” for Fury 325 for the 10th time in a row, Six Flags Fiesta Texas won “Best New Show” for the park’s “Voodoo Dolls” and Six Flags Hurricane Harbor in Los Angeles wont a “Turnstyle Award” for a makeover and “bold new look” for the waterpark at the Six Flags Magic Mountain property. Of course, between the Six Flags parks and legacy Cedar Fair parks, a number of their rides were included very high up in the overall best of categories:
Best Steel Coasters - #1 Fury 325 (Carowinds), #3 Steel Vengeance (Cedar Point), #6 Millennium Force (Cedar Point)
Best Wood Coasters - #3 El Toro (Six Flags Great Adventure), #4 The Beast (Kings Island), #6 Mystic Timbers (Kings Island), #7 GhostRiders (Knott’s Berry Farm)
Best New Coasters - #3 Siren’s Curse (Cedar Point), #4 Top Thrill 2 (Cedar Point)
Best New show - #1 Voodoo Dolls (Six Flags Fiesta Texas), #3 Hide and Seek (Valleyfair)
Best Guest Experience - #5 Kings Island
Best Innovation - #4 Top Thrill 2 (Cedar Point)
Best Kids Area - #2 Kings Island, #5 Carowinds
Best Waterpark - #2 Schlitterbahn
Best New Waterpark Ride - #2 River Racers (Kings Island)
Best New Theme Concept - #3 Siren’s Curse (Cedar Point), #5 Wrath of Rakshasa (Six Flags Great America)
(9/10/2025) Snoopy and the Peanuts Gang are staying right where they are. According to the press release, Six Flags Entertainment has announced that they have extended their licensing agreement with Peanuts Worldwide to continue to use the character for another 5 years.
The exact terms were not broken down in detail, but this seems to simply be an “extension” of the pre-existing deal that allowed Cedar Fair parks to use the Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts characters. While they say the deal wil;l allow them to “enhance and extend their bands through themed areas, live entertainment, merchandise and games”, they only list the legacy Cedar Fair parks.
In other words, don’t look for Snoopy and friends to show up at your local Six Flags brand park, though merchandise options might be possible as a way to seeing if the Peanuts IP outsells the old Looney Tunes character IP over the next five years.
(8/20/2025) Screamscape previously noted that Selim Bassoul’s contract to serve as Six Flags’s Executive Chairman of the Board was only for two years, which started on July 1, 2024, so it should be set to end on June 30th, 2026 unless it were extended. With that in mind however, MarketWatch reported today that Goodfood Market’s own CEO and Chairman has stepped down and that Selim Bassoul has now been appointed as Goodfood’s new Chairman.
While Selim can obviously do both for a time, this does seem to set up a new career path for Selim to make his own exit from the Six Flags.
(8/17/2025) Six Flags may find itself in hot water, as the chain now finds itself in the cross hairs of the Schall Law Firm. According to the announcement the firm says that they are going to investigate claims on behalf of Six Flags (FUN) investors for any “violations of the securities laws” and if the company had issued any false or misleading statements, or failed to disclose anything pertinent to the investors.
This all comes in the aftermath of Six Flags’ release of their Q2 2025 earnings report that saw the chain go from being profitable in the quarter for the year prior to a loss this year, blaming weather and a drop in season pass sales. (So if you were wondering why the chain is in the midst of offering huge discounts for 2026 passes right now, there you go…) Schall Law Firm is encouraging investors who suffered a loss to participate in their investigation.
(8/16/2025) A little follow up to my Halloween rant from yesterday (see below), a very honest post was made last week by the former Cedar Fair CEO, Matt Ouimet, on LinkedIn about the dependence of his replacement, Richard Zimmerman from the merged Six Flags company. The comments are supporting of Zimmerman, but also reflective of someone who has walked in those same shoes, knowing that the job at hand can be “impossibly hard” and that things don’t always “go in your favor” and perhaps the insightful comment that sometimes “the board decided to give someone else a shot at it.”
For those wondering, this would almost seem to speculate that perhaps Zimmerman’s announcement to depart as CEO may not have been entirely his own doing, and possibly at the urging from select members of the board of directors. In fact, Ouimet himself adds some additional commentary about the current makeup of the board and how the board itself may be causing a number of the company’s current issues.
According to Ouimet, “Perhaps the weather will improve, and business results will turn positive, but I for one will remain discontented until additional leadership changes are made. My former colleagues (at least the ones still there) deserve an impressive leader and whether that is an internal or external candidate I can’t with good conscience endorse the role under the current board of directors' makeup. If the board doesn’t see the issue themselves, that is a problem. ”
Though Ouimet retired from his position as CEO of Cedar Fair in late 2023, before the announcement regarding the proposed merger with Six Flags took place, his commentary and musings on LinkedIn over the past year have been extremely insightful from someone who has been in the boardrooms and the parks, from Disneyland to Cedar Point, and are well worth your time to read.
(8/15/2025) I made a little stink about it on social media the other day but haven’t been able to update the site for the past few days due to some ISP problems at home. If you haven’t heard yet, Six Flags made a horrible decision, in my opinion, regarding their Halloween operations at most of their legacy Cedar Fair parks going into effect this year.
I’ve kind of wondered in the past what would happen here, as Six Flags and Cedar Fair had very different operating strategies for their Halloween events. Most Six Flags branded parks chose to ask their guest to pay extra to experience the haunted houses at the Six Flags Fright Fest nights. Please note that this practice has waivered over time depending on the market and those calling the shots. I do recall a few years ago Six Flags Fiesta Texas chose to include the admission into the Haunts for free for a year or two before reverting back to the pay-per-haunt model, which was rumored to have been a local management choice to try it out, but in the end the corporate office brough the extra cost back. Meanwhile I do recall for a long time that Six Flags Magic Mountain would always include their haunts for free for many many years, simply due to the competition in that local market. Fright Fest in SoCal was up against two of the industry giants in terms of providing haunt quality… Knott’s Scary Farm and Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood, so for the longest time the haunts at Magic Mountain were included for free as an incentive to come to Six Flags.
And while I’m discussing Knott’s Scary Farm, this legacy Cedar Fair park has always offered their haunt event as an extra ticket event, as opposed to the Six Flags events which are just part of the daily admission. For many years a good number of Cedar Fair parks also offered their own Halloween Haunt events as an extra ticket event as well. Historically, this practice would change to offer the Haunt for free as part of a full day’s admission only at a few parks that had competition nearby that was also offering their own Halloween events for free. Kings Dominion in Virginia is a key example, as that park has always offered their haunts for fee, and the event itself was included with a regular day’s admission to the park because nearby Busch Gardens Williamsburg always offered their own Howl-O-Scream event for free.
Over the past decade however there has been a shift at Cedar Fair, where extra ticket events like SCarowinds at Carowinds that was always a separate event, suddenly changed to become included in the regular day’s admission to the park. The transition was a little more complicated as various Season Pass styles evolved from just having one pass for everyone to offering separate tier annual passes, one that was just good for regular daytime admission and another that would also include special event admission to SCarowinds and WinterFest. Based on my own insight, I think the move away from special ticket events to a free event was used as an incentive to drive higher season pass sales, as they would often start selling the following year’s season passes and offer admission for the remainder of the current year, along with admission to Halloween and Winter events as a further incentive to purchase the higher end season pass instead of the basic pass option. Unfortunately, while this was happening, I’d also like to say that the budgets for these events began to decline. Previously you would see new several new haunts and scare zones added to the event year after year, and now this has become something of a rarity as the same attractions seem to be offered over and over, with little or minimal repackaging at all.
So many were waiting to see how things would get handled this year from the Cedar Fair / Six Flags merger. Many, myself included, were hoping that the chain would decide to drop the extra charges and just include haunts for free at all of the parks in the combined chain. This is due to the fact that the state of many of the haunts across both parks had simply just sort of declined and with budget cuts being the corporate buzz word for the year, I didn’t seem them dropping a huge budget to improve their offerings in 2025.
Maybe in 2026… and maybe the better way to handle things in an era where Chaperone Policies are the norm at most parks to handle security issues at these Halloween events, then drop some cash to improve the Halloween events to the level where they can become extra ticket events instead, which would be the best way to handle overcrowding and prevent underage guests from running wild.
Instead, unfortunately, corporations went the other way and now at any park where admission to the park is included with your full day admission (day ticket or annual pass) then you’ve now going to have to pay extra if you want to experience the haunts. I know some people don’t care, as they go for the rides, but as a self-admitted haunt fan, when I go to a theme park for a Halloween event, I’m looking to do all the haunts and the rides are secondary, and optional.
Of course, those who are really going to be angry at this change as the Season Passholders from the legacy Cedar Fair parks where the haunts have ALWAYS been free and included as part of the park’s Halloween event. When those same season passholders bought their passes for this year, likely in fall or winter of 2024, there would have been text promoting the fact that admission to these Halloween events were included. Sure… there wasn’t text saying the haunted houses were included, but there wouldn’t have been, because historically, for decades, the haunts were always included with your admission to the event, no matter if it was an upcharge ticket or included with a full day ticket. Admission into the haunts was ALWAYS included at the legacy Cedar Fair parks.
So as you might imagine, there is going to be a bit of outrage in those parks this fall when those passholders come in with their friends, family or kids… only to encounter an open hand asking for more money once they have entered the park if they want to experience the very thing that they came to do. It would be like coming in the summer, only to be told that your admission to the park is included with your pass, but now you’re going to have to buy extra tickets to ride the roller coasters.
I’m very disappointed Six Flags… Very disappointed...
(8/10/2025) According to some reports, following the release of the Q2 2025 disappointing earnings results, Six Flags is looking to “reduce capital spending” for 2026, scaling back planned investments in new rides and attractions. I know that isn’t news ride enthusiasts want to hear, especially following up what was considered a very light investment for 2025 anyway. So what was originally planned to be $475 - $500 million spent on CapEx in 2026 will be scaled back to around $400 million instead.
So what is being cut? We don’t really know for sure, though if hardware for a 2026 project has already started arriving and construction has begun, such as the dive coaster at Six Flags over Texas or the refurbishment of Monty at Knott’s, then your project should be safe. Meanwhile projects that were announced but seem to have stalled out beyond just site clearing (I’m looking at you Six Flags Magic Mountain and maybe Carowinds) could likely see their projects delayed until 2027. Some other projects may be re-assessed entirely, depending on how far along they are. Meanwhile we already know a couple of 2026 projects have already been pushed back, such as the “record breaking” coaster planned for Six Flags Great Adventure, as well the built but delayed due to technical issues family launched coaster at Six Flags New England.
On the flip side… park’s that did manage to see substantial investment completed for the 2025 season, especially Canada’s Wonderland and Cedar Point, can pretty much expect to see nothing new added in 2025 in order to focus on park’s that received nothing at all this year.
On another strange note… there has been some discussion online about what will become of the license to continue to use Snoopy and the PEANUTS gang characters at the parks. Knott’s Berry Farm has had the rights for decades now, and it was expanded over to the legacy Cedar Fair parks when they purchased Knott’s in the late ‘90s. The license has not yet been extended over to the “Six Flags” parks now that the two companies have merged, but apparently the current license is said to expire at the end of the year, so a new deal will have to be struck if they want to continue to use the characters where they are, or expand to use Snoopy at Six Flags going forward… or… they could opt to drop the IP deal entirely.
Given Six Flags’ current situation and intention to cut costs, may see the dropping of Snoopys and the PEANUTS gang characters as a no brainer, as Six Flags’s current deal allows them to use Looney Tunes and DC Comics characters until at least 2053. HOWEVER… while we have seen Six Flags put those DC Comics IPs to good use in the parks, it has been quite some time since they really seemed to care about using the Looney Tunes characters well. In fact, Warner Bros. itself has struggled to maintain any kind of modern connection with today’s youth with those characters, while it can be argued that Snoopy and the gang are timeless and have deeply rooted connections with youth and adults, especially around the various Holidays, as the old classic TV specials were almost entirely holiday themed and have become annual watching traditions for families. Everyone knows about The Great Pumpkin How about the iconic little tree created for A Charlie Brown Christmas? Even the summer camp special: “Race for Your LIfe, Charlie Brown” is a classic. Plus I’d be willing to bet that Cedar Fair has sold more Snoopy / PEANUTS themed merchandise at their parks that Six Flags has sold anything with Looney Tunes characters on it. Meanwhile we also continue to see the legacy Cedar Fair parks moving forward with Camp Snoopy themed renovations and new rides, such as the two Snoopy themed coasters last summer, renovations to Camp Snoopy at Knott’s this summer plus two more brand new themed rides that just opened at Carowinds in the past few weeks. So it would be incredibly shortsighted for Six Flags to have moved forward with those projects if they were planning on dropping the IP in the next few months.
Going forward, I’m seeing perhaps more of a realignment… some legacy Cedar Fair parks that don’t have a lot of PEANUTS in use could possibly opt to bring in some of the Looney Tunes or DC Comics characters. And perhaps some locations that could be very light on the Looney Tunes in a Six Flags heavy market, could opt to adopt Snoopy and the Gang instead. Texas is a great example of this, where Six Flags over Texas perhaps has more ties to DC and Bugs Bunny, while the more quaint atmosphere of Six Flags Fiesta Texas could become a more suitable home for Snoopy, while keeping their current DC Comic themed attractions. The river raft race themed “Race for Your Life Charlie Brown” show in particular would serve as the perfect add-on if they ever wanted to add an IP to the Schlitterbahn waterparks in Texas.
One more thing I feel is worth noting… for those who may be pointing to the rise of an all new DC Comics shared cinematic universe under the guiding creative hands of James Gunn. Six Flags deal to use DC characters does not apply to movies and other cinematic creations… the deal Six Flags has with the IP to related only to use the characters as used in the comics (and I think some TV animation) which is why you mostly just seen two-dimensional cutouts used in the queues for the rides instead of fully fleshed out themed props. This was not always the case, as anyone who has experienced the great queues created for the Batman: The Ride coasters, as those borrow design influence heavily from the Tim Burton film. But back when the first Batman: The Ride was built in 1992 at Six Flags Great America, Six Flags was actually owned by Warner Bros. who owned the rights directly, so of course they used them in their theme parks. All the early DC themed roller coasters benefited from this, including Mr Freeze, Batman & Robin: The Chiller, and Superman: The Escape. Once Warner Brothers sold the Six Flags theme park chain to Premier Parks in 1998, there was a dramatic shift in how the design of future attractions were allowed to use DC Comics IPs that continues to this very day. Perhaps the only example where they went for something a bit more extensive was seen with the creation of the Justice League dark rides, which featured computer animated media as well as some animatronics, but the added cost for that was off-set by creating clones of the attraction at nearly every Six Flags theme park over the span of several years.
So if a future Six Flags ride wants to use a theme to tie in closely a new DC Universe movie being released, a separate and much more costly deal must be struck for each attraction… and I don’t see Six Flags currently wanted to drop that kind of capital.
(8/7/2025) Six Flags released their Q2 2025 earnings report and it did come with a big surprise. Less of a surprise was the confirmation that revenue in Q2 was down to $930 million, which was below the expected $1.03 billion they were expecting. Between a very slow Q1 and some blame on the weather for some of Q2’s issues, plus a decline in guest spending, but overall Six Flags execs were disappointed in the company’s performance thus far this year.
As for the rest… attendance was down to 14.19 million from 15.58 in the same time period from the previous year. Admissions revenue was down slightly compared to where analysts expected it to be, revenue from food and merchandise was also lower than expected as well. As a result Six Flags stock dropped from around $30.70 a share before the report was released, down to $24.60 by the end of the day.
In short, this goes a long way to explains the big sale Six Flags parks are having to push early 2026 season pass sales, as they need to get more bodies in the parks and short of huge capital investments (aka: big new rides!) the next best way to get people through the gates is to offer cheap season passes to visit all of your parks.
Now the big shocker was that Richard Zimmerman announced that at the end of the year he will step down as President and CEO of Six Flags. He will remain only in the role as long as it takes to find and appoint a successor, but will then continue to serve on the board of directors. Now let’s just hope they don’t try to bring back the last CEO…
(8/4/2025) According to an email sent to one of our readers, an upcoming tech upgrade will affect the current Park Perks Rewards Program. The timing may be different at various locations but in this case our reader who has a pass to Six Flags over Georgia was told that the current Perks system was going down on August 1st and would remain down for the remainder of the year, until the new program is ready to relaunch. As a ‘thank you’ for patience during the disruption they were told to watch their email for an assortment of complimentary Pass Perks to be delivered instead.
(8/2/2025) A new interactive experience based on The Conjuring films called “The Conjuring Beyond Fear” is said to be coming to four Six Flags Entertainment parks this fall. There are few details so far other than that this is going to be an “extra charge” experience with “limited availability”. Look for the new experience to come to Carowinds, Cedar Point, Kings Island and Canada’s Wonderland.
It has been noted that a haunted house themed to “The Conjuring” films was promoted at four original Six Flags parks last season for their Fright Fest events, so it is possible that these four new haunts may be reusing some of the props and costumes from those haunts, but relocated and upgraded as a new premium experience for 2025.
This also begs one final question many have been wondering. Haunted Houses at the former Cedar Fair parks chain were always included with admission to the park for the event, no matter if it was a separately ticketed event or included at the end of an all-day admissions plan. Meanwhile Six Flags’ traditional Fright Fest scheme usually required those park guests to pay for extra passes in order to experience the haunted houses.
Now that the chain has been mixed… which marketing plan will prevail for this fall’s Halloween season, or will each park simply continue to do whatever method they had been using previously during this fall’s haunt season.
(7/30/2025) Six Flags has announced that the company will announce their Q2 2025 earnings results on August 6 at 10am. You can listen in online through the official Six Flags Investors website by going to the Investor Information tab and selecting Events & Presentations.
With news about some project delayed mixed in with cutbacks at select parks that will cancel certain special events, such as the dropping of the Winter “Holiday in the Park” events from the Georgia and New Jersey parks, this latest report should provide some interesting insight as to how the merger has been going, as well as a preview of what the chain may be planning for the future.
(7/23/2025) According to a post at SlickDeals, a number of Six Flags theme parks have currently lowered their prices to buy 2026 season passes with the All Park Passport option, and/or discounts on early renewals of existing passes for 2026. Check out which parks are currently offering discounts to see if this is something you can take advantage of.
(7/14/2025) A quick update, but Hurricane Harbor Rockford is now closed and will remain closed at least through July 20th, 2025. I’m told that the park has been closed since last week following a storm that stuck the area on July 10th, that caused some major damage and flooding in the park.
(7/2/2025) For anyone interested in seeing how the compensation for the various Six Flags Executives has changed since the merger, an interesting collection of numbers has been posted to Panabee. The one that is sure to make just about anyone jump out of their seat is when they mention that Six Flags’ Executive Chairman of the board, Selim Bassoul, saw his total compensation rise about 277% since the merger was approved, though this was “largely driven by stock awards and non-equity incentives influenced by the merger.”
Also for those wondering, Selim’s contract to serve as Exec. Chairman is for just two years, and started on July 1st, 2024.
(6/27/2025) Six Flags has officially welcomed four new independent members to the company’s Board of Directors for a 3-year term.
Sandra Cochran (Previously served as Exec Chair of Cracker Barrel) and is also currently on the board for Lowe’s Companies.
Michael Colglazier (Previously served as President and CEO for Virgin Galactic, as well as Disney Parks)
Felipe Dutra (Chainman of Waldencast and previously CFO of Anheuser-Busch InBev)
Steven Hoffman (Sole proprietor of Python Global Ventures investment firm)
The new group replaced four departing members - Esi Bracey, Michelle Frymire, D. Scott Olivet and Enrique Mena who opted to resign from the board this year.
(6/14/2025) For those interested in a more business / investor sided view of how things are progressing so far from the Six Flags / Cedar Fair merger, a very detailed report breaks things down over at Seeking Alpha. While they admit, we really need to wait and see how things are progressing over the next two quarters, they also describe that by the numbers Six Flags may be “in serious financial trouble”. Currently we only have the Q1 2025 numbers to really go by, which is when almost every park in the chain is closed and virtual zero income is coming in.
(6/2/2025) As we previously discussed on Screamscape, the Six Flags layoff notices have been steadily moving from park to park in the chain, cutting numerous other positions in addition to the afore-mentioned park presidents from all 29 properties. Over the past week we’ve seen numerous news articles about many parks hitting the headlines, such as Carowinds (rumored to have been hit hard due to the proximity to the new Corporate HQ), SF Discovery Kingdom, Cedar Point and Worlds of Fun.
Those park presidents will be replaced by a crew of Regional General Managers who will oversee several properties within their region, though I’m unsure as to how many regions there will be. So far the only confirmed Regional GM that we know of was the elevation of former Six Flags Park President, Jeffrey Siebert, to now overseeing all of Six Flags’ Texas properties. My speculation alone here, but if I had to guess we will likely see the following Regions created in addition to Texas.
California Region to oversee the chain’s West Coast properties in California as well as Hurricane Harbor in Arizona.
South-Eastern Region for the parks in Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia as well as leading the shut-down of Six Flags America outside Washington DC.
Mid-West Region that would oversee Worlds of Fun, Six Flags St. Louis, Six Flags Great America, Valleyfair and Michigan’s Adventure.
An Ohio based Region is also likely to oversee Cedar Point and Kings Island, but would likely also include Six Flags Darien Lake and maybe even Canada’s Wonderland.
Then a North-Eastern Region would oversee Six Flags Great Adventure, Six Flags New England, Dorney Park, Six Flags Great Escape and La Ronde.
This would cut things up into six pieces rather well, though I’m not sure who would be taking over Frontier City as I’ve only heard it rumored to not be part of the Texas Region duties, and then there are the two Mexico properties but those may be better suited to keeping a local Park President type role to oversee both given the greater distance.
From what I’ve also been led to understand, the PR / Marketing duties that used to fall to each park to handle are also going to be carved up in similar fashion, and will fall under the duty scope of a regional manager to oversee in each area.
(5/29/2025) Six Flags is looking into the possibility of offering a new kind of season pass option that may appear more to fans. Right now you can buy a season pass to your local park, or you can pay a lot more for a more premium level pass that would give you access to every single Six Flags and legacy Cedar Fair theme park across the continent. While that’s a great perk… lets be honest, most people aren’t planning on taking the kind of vacation(s) throughout the summer to really take advantage of a pass with that level of privilege.
According to comments unveiled at the 2025 Six Flags Investor Day, Six Flags is looking into the concept of offering a new “Regional Season Pass” at a price-point that would sit between the current two options. In fact, Carowinds in the Charlotte, NC area was sited as an example of a primary candidate as to where they would like to test out this new strategy, where a Regonal Pass from Carowinds would also allow for guest access into Kings Dominion (Doswell, Virginia) and Six Flags over Georgia in Atlanta.
Right now the “All Park” add-on passport comes with an extra $89 cost, in addition to your regular park season pass. While they are not ready to offer a price-point for the new Regonal pass option they are considering, the add-on would be sold at a more value level price when compared to the full All Park add-on.
It would be easy to see the value to be gained by offering many different regional passes throughout the chain as a way to increase regular season pass sales to a more premium level product. Example I can clearly see would be a California pass with access to Six Flags Magic Mountain, Knott’s Berry Farm as well as the SF Discovery Kingdom and California’s Great America to the north. Obviously a Texas based Regional Pass would be of great value in the Lone Star State, as well as pases in the NE for SF Great Adventure, SF New England and Dorney Park, a Mid-West pass to SF St. Louis and Worlds of Fun and perhaps Six Flags Great America, and of course an Ohio pass for Cedar Point and Kings Island.
Now what Six Flags isn’t saying here however is that the value such a pass might also bring them in terms of loyalty visits, by selling Regional Passes to their parks, guests may put off visits to other parks from their competition in any given area. For example, those with a SE Regional Pass to Carowinds, may instead visit the Georgia or Virginia parks, and skip out on paying for a visit to Dollywood in nearby Tennesee to take advantage of their Regional Pass benefits. SeaWorld in San Antonio could also suffer a similar fate if faced with a Texas based Regional Six Flags pass offering.
(5/24/2025) As Six Flags promised earlier this month in their earnings statement, the cost cuttings have begun across the chain, not only the head-office but also at each and every park in the Six Flags chain. According to several news posts, it is being said that, amongst other positions, every single park President position is being eliminated across the chain’s 27 parks.
A post by the OC Register has already confirmed that the Presidents at Six Flags Magic Mountain and Knott’s Berry Farm were notified about their job cuts earlier this week, though they are expected to finish up their run at the end of May. As former Cedar Fair CEO mentioned in his LinkedIn post that we linked to last week, these cuts are purely math and not performance based as the chain is looking to cut their operating budget and restructure the internal organization.
From what Screamscape has been hearing, it sounds as if the new organizational structure will replace individual park presidents at each location with more of a Regional Director post, with this person overseeing several parks within their region instead of just one park. Now these examples are mine only, but imagine having a Regional Director who would oversee all of the Texas parks, another to oversee the parks in California, another for Ohio, and maybe a South-Eastern Director to oversee Carowinds, Six Flags over Georgia and Kings Dominion and so on. The same idea is also expected to be put into effect for other divisional tasks, such as PR / Marketing.
While the concept would remove the idea of having a Park President on site daily in every location, it is also fair to say that not every Park President is created equal. I know if my own personal experience from working within the industry under different Presidents at non-Six Flags parks, there were some that you would see walking through the parks on almost a daily basis, and then there are other Presidents who are more likely to be found living in their office on a daily basis. The good side of how this could work however is that elevating someone with a great vision as to how their parks should work could then extend that operational vision to a whole region of parks instead of just the one. Of course, on the negative side, a more indifferent management style could also spread in the same fashion under the wrong leadership.
Before we find out exactly how the new corporate structure is going to be laid out, I believe Six Flags is going to complete the task at hand and notify everyone whose position is being cut before we learn who is staying, or how the new management structure will be laid out.
(5/23/2025) If you’ve been hearing rumors about layoffs at the Six Flags / Cedar Fair theme parks, then you are hearing correctly. The cuts were mentioned a few days ago with an update we posted that had comments from former Cedar Fair CEO, Matt Ouimet, and now the cuts have started in parks as well as the corporate office. From what I’m told we can expect the cuts to continue at least through to the end of next week, and maybe a little longer.
Unfortunately, as most involved have been able to confirm, the cuts are not performance based at all… and are just bad timing as the parks kick off the start of their summer season. This all comes down to investors… and following through with the promise of budge and labor costs made to them when the merger was initiated last year. So it’s just math at this point as they are unfortunately just looking to prove they can reach a magical number in cost savings to make the investors happy, even if it causes performance problems over the summer.
Really a shame… and I’ve said it once, I’ll say it a hundred times… in my opinion the big parks chains need to find a way to go private and buy-back their public stock shares, unless they are part of a bigger entertainment empire like Disney or Universal, where the parks are only one piece of a larger machine. For just pure theme park companies… investors have become like a parasite, because they only care about profit and being able to make a buck, and are not interested at all in the park’s being able to offer a decent experience or value to the guests. And don’t even get me started on the activist investors out there who, like a leech, seek only to suck as much profit as possible from their investment and will bail out fat, rich and happy once they’ve done all the damage they can.
Can this be done? Certainly... but I know full well that it isn’t going to be easy. It also isn’t something that can happen right away. This will take careful planning, and it is more of a long term strategy that will take years of planning to work out, but if they could, it would certainly pay out in the end of the long term success of survival of the parks. There are already companies out there that have been private and intend to remain “private”, such as Herschend.
So just something to keep in mind...
(5/20/2025) An interesting post has come to light on LinkedIn from Matt Ouimet, former CEO of Cedar Fair and former President of Disneyland and the Disney Cruise Line before that. Ouimet points out that he opted to retire from Cedar Fair before having to vote on the merger between Cedar Fair and Six Flags, and he does go into a little more detail about a couple of key reasons that he made that choice, both professionally and personally.
(5/10/2025) The latest comments from Six Flags CEO, Richard Zimmerman, confirms that currently, “we don’t have any plans to close any additional parks at this time.” However, they will “continue to evaluate all options and consider other potential transactions to enhance shareholder value.”
Translation… the rest of the Six Flags parks are safe for now, but to the rest of the business world, Six Flags would be willing to consider any kind of offers made to them for their other properties.
Elsewhere, Zimmerman also re-confirmed previous comments that they were also looking to sell some excess unused property next to the existing Kings Dominion theme park that is outside of the park’s existing development boundary. He also confirmed something we’ve been hearing some quiet rumors about, which is that the company is now also undergoing some internal corporate “restructuring”, by seeking to reduce their “full-time head count” by about 10%.
A number of “senior executive leadership positions at the corporate level” were already eliminated earlier this month, while other restructuring of the corporate ladder are still underway. Much of this was expected however as the company continues the process of relocating the and consolidating the majority of the executive positions to the new corporate HQ in Charlotte, NC as they approach the one year anniversary of the merger on July 1st.
(5/3/2025) While we’re just now approaching the one year anniversary of the Cedar Fair / Six Flags merger, a lot has been happening across the various parks as new levels of quality as well as new ground rules are being laid for company policy as they work to blend the two cultures.
While we have seen a number of changes to height restrictions on various rides starting to taking place, we thankfully haven’t seen a massive installation of seat-belts onto rides that formerly never had them. Or at least not yet… this particular item was something Cedar Fair parks were known for, and would even see rides open at their parks one season, only to add a seat belt a year or two later. The Cedar Fair Chaperone policy is also on the way to being enforced chain wide across the new Six Flags Entertainment parks as well.
However, one policy that Cedar Fair was particularly well known for in enthusiasts circles that was especially enforced to an extreme level at the Ohio parks (Cedar Point and Kings Island) involved riders taking out their cameras (or phones) to record on the park’s rides, especially the roller coasters. If you google it, I’m sure you can find plenty of clips where the ride ops would stop a coaster in the middle of a climb up the lift hill and walk up the steps to take the items away from the guests before allowing the ride to continue. At the same time, there were also numerous stories of guests filming on rides, only to arrive back in the station to be met by security that would escort them away and out of the park.
While it’s still early in the season, I can confirm hearing a couple of stories from guests visiting legacy Six Flags parks witnessing this kind of thing now happening at their parks. Now, it’s common sense, and signs have always been posted about not doing this kind of thing, but just be warned that the Ban Hammer is out and coming, and you never know where it is going to strike next. If you get ejected from the park for that, as a passholder, you can also guarantee that your annual pass is likely going to be revoked as well.
(5/1/2025) Six Flags dropped a huge bomb of an announcement on Thursday afternoon… you can follow this link to the official announcement, but the gist is this:
2025 is the LAST SEASON for Six Flags America and the attached Hurricane Harbor waterpark. The 2025 season will come to an end, with the final operating day being Nov. 2, 2025.
The property that Six Flags America sits on is about 500 acres in size (far more than the park as developed today) “will be marketed for redevelopment as part of Six Flags’ ongoing portfolio optimization program. The company has engaged CBRE, a global leader in commercial real estate service and investments, to market the property for sale.”
Now pay attention, because this next statement is MINE ONLY… and not part of the Six Flags announcement. Screamscape sources tell us that this will not be the only surprise announcement of this magnitude made by Six Flags. I’m told that a few more big announcements will be made and soon. Possibly Friday… possibly on Monday… maybe the following week, but more big changes are coming, and it sounds like they will be from both sides of the fence… Six Flags and Cedar Fair.
These other announcements may not all be closure announcements however, some may involve a deal to sell a particular park or two. There is also a good chance we may see Six Flags change the status of some of those management contracts they have at the moment with parks like Darien Lake or Frontier City.
As far as predicting the future, if you go back to a November 2023 article I wrote for Blooloop about the merger, when discussing the idea of “potential closures” post-merge, the first park I mentioned was indeed Six Flags America. I also had some concerns over the long-term survival of Six Flags Discovery Kingdom and some of those stand-alone waterparks, owner or operated by Six Flags, especially Splashtown near Houston.
As for Six Flags America itself… post-closure… I don’t see alot of items to be saved from the park in terms of rides. Sure, the new RipQurl Blaster watercoaster will find a new home as well as Harley Quinn Spinsanity, but the rest? Maybe Superman: Ride of Steel can be saved, but they may opt to just scrap it and sent the trains to Darien Lake… assuming it is kept open. Firebird has some nice Floorless trains that could be sent to another ride, or perhaps they could convert Georgia Scorcher from a Stand-Up into a Floorless with that hardware. The Joker’s Jinx is probably history, and they can source out the trains and LIMs for parts to the two Mr. Freeze coasters or Poltergeist at Fiesta Texas.
I feel bad that the park just opened SteamTown last season too… there are new comfy trains on the former Mind Eraser (now Prof. Screamore’s SkyWinder) that will likely end up at La Ronde, Six Flags Mexico or Discovery Kingdom. There is a 1-year old Zamperla NebulaZ with a Steampunk that will be in need of a new home somewhere (I suggest Magic Mountain, somewhere near Twisted Colossus). Then all those dinosaur animatronics added to the QuantumCanyon Rapids will need to find a new home somewhere…
Otherwise, I’m thinking most of the rest of the park attractions could be scrapped or sold outside of the chain on the used ride market to smaller parks.
(4/13/2025) Six Flags has announced that they will release their Q1 2025 earning reports on May 8, 2025. This will be followed by a conference call at 10am that day featuring CEO Richard Zimmerman and CFO Brian Witherow to discuss the report in more detail and answer some questions. You can listen in through the Six Flags investor website.
(3/19/2025) As we approach the start of of 2025 season at the newly merged Six Flags chain of parks, we’re hearing reports that the previous height requirements to ride select attractions at the parks may have changed from what they were before. The big changes I’ve been hearing about mostly involve an increase of the height limits for a number of Six Flags family coasters that are moving up from a previous 42” requirement to 48”.
The most common amongst these reports are the old Arrow Mine Train coasters at several parks along with a few other coasters. This includes the Road Runner Express at Six Flags Fiesta Texas, Dohlonoga Mine Train and Great American Scream Machine at Six Flags over Georgia and the Runaway Mine Train at Six Flags over Texas. As these are all parks in the South end of the country, most of which are just spinning up for the 2025 season, I’d expect to hear about more changes as the other Six Flags parks get closer to opening for the season.
(3/1/2025) An interesting note came up during the Six Flags investor call when a question arised about a comment made many months ago about the internal evaluation of the chain’s 42 parks. According to Richarcd Zimmerman (CEO), they have completed their review of the chain’s properties and have indeed picked out internally which parks they might “consider divesting under the right circumstances”.
In other words… if someone were to make a good enough offer to purchase the right park from Six Flags, they would indeed consider the offer. While this could be an offer from another theme park chain looking to perhaps boost their own portfolio and grow in a select market, or this could potentially mean another deal like the one that took place with California’s Great America, where a developer is seeking to obtain the property for an entirely other use.
Six Flags gave no hints about what parks made the list, though I think many of us can made some fairly educated guesses about a few of the chain’s smaller properties that are likely to get lost in the shuffle going forward that could be cut loose.
Currently no parks are for sale… though it was confirmed that they were looking to sell off some unused land they own next to Kings Dominion over the next 18 months. So where is this property? I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that the park does own a good bit of the woods south of waterpark, some of which is used for power lines. There is also a lot of undeveloped property to the east of the park and parking lot, across Doswell Road, but I don’t know how much, if any, of this property that the park actually owns. Given that some of the park’s biggest rides, and loudest venues (like the concert arena) are built alongside this road, I’m guessing they likely own a good bit of this mostly undeveloped property.
(2/27/2025) Six Flags Entertainment announced their 2024 Q4 and Year-End Earnings Results earlier today. The Q4 results posted are from Sept. 30, 2024 through to Dec. 31st, 2024. However the year-end results only reflect the merged results of Cedar Fair and Six Flags from July 1st through to Dec. 31st, and period to that only legacy Cedar Fair results were used for the pre-merger months. So as you might guess… some of the results are a little odd. For example, there are 878 total operating days reported for Q4 2024, 538 of them were contributed by the legacy Six Flags operations added in by the merger. There were net revenue reported for Q4 of $687 million… $324 million of which comes from the Six Flags operations added in the merger.
You get the basic idea… this deciphering this report is going to take a bit of extra work, so if you want to view all the numbers yourself, feel free to read the press release here. Richard Zimmerman, the combined company CEO, reports that they ended the year “on a high note, delivering on our goal of improving demand and increasing in-park guest spending levels, while operating our parks more efficiently. We successfully achieved more than $50 million in gross cost synergies and drove meaningful improvement in guest satisfaction scores and higher guest demand.“
“In 2025, we are building on the momentum we established over the second half of 2024 on both the revenue and cost fronts. We are making progress toward realizing the remaining $70 million in anticipated cost synergies from the merger, representing a targeted 4% reduction in operating costs and expenses, while advancing strategic initiatives to drive attendance and guest spending levels higher. We are seeing solid early demand trends, as evidenced by a 2% increase in attendance over the first two fiscal months of 2025 compared to combined attendance of the two legacy companies in the prior year period, as well as a 3% increase in combined season pass unit sales over that same period. We are focused on continuing to drive guest demand as we reopen the remainder of our parks and are thrilled to be introducing an exciting lineup of new rides and attractions, including compelling new marketable products at 11 of our 14 largest locations. Our investments in new thrills and experience-enhancing initiatives demonstrate our commitment to delivering world-class entertainment for guests and meaningful growth and value creation for shareholders.”
Despite all that, it seems Six Flags did miss the mark from what investors were estimating their performance numbers to be.
(12/23/2024) According to a new SEC filing (Form 8-K) by Six Flags Entertainment Corporation that was posted to their investor website today, the company has entered into a “Material Definitive Agreement” that they will be exercise their option to fully purchase the Six Flags over Georgia and Six Flags White Water Atlanta park properties from the limited partnership who co-owns those properties.
As I’ve mentioned previously about this, a similarly setup group also co-owns the original Six Flags over Texas park in a business arrangement that goes all the way back to when the parks were first created and Six Flags was just starting out, and sought out the financial aid of investors to get the first park’s built. The details for the deal for each park is typically listed in Six Flags’ annual year-end reports, where it details that the main Six Flags corporation will have a window of opportunity to purchase al the remaining ownership shares of the properties at a future date. The window to purchase the Georgia properties is 2027 and a similar purchase window opens for the Six Flags over Texas property in 2028. As I’ve stated a few times, I always felt that the Six Flags corporate office would not pass up this rare opportunity to finally purchase these properties once and for all when the time comes.
According to this new filing:
“The end-of-term option notice relates to Six Flags Over Georgia, including Six Flags White Water Atlanta (“SFOG”), and instructs the Georgia Purchaser to exercise its right to require Fund to redeem all the limited partnership units of the Fund that certain affiliates of the Company do not own as of January 12, 2027, and to acquire certain related entity general partnership and managing member interests, pursuant to and in accordance with the terms and conditions of the Governing Agreements.”
“Under the Governing Agreements, the price offered, and required to be accepted by the holders of the limited partnership units that the Company does not then own, is based on the agreed upon value of the partnership included in the original agreement, multiplied by the change in the Consumer Price Index (“CPI”) during the term of the agreement. The agreed-upon value for the partnership when the agreement was executed was $250.0 million. As of December 31, 2023, the agreed-upon value, as adjusted for CPI, would have been $483.5 million, and such amount multiplied by the 68.5% of units held by the limited partner for SFOG represented $332.6 million that would have been required to be paid to the limited partner of SFOG in connection with the end-of-term option in addition to the payments to be made to acquire the related entity general partnership and managing member interests. The actual agreed upon value of the end-of-term option will be further adjusted by the CPI until the Company acquires the units. See Note 7 to the Company’s financial statements included in its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 29, 2024, filed on November 6, 2024 for additional information.”
So in short, Six Flags is putting everyone on notice, including their investors, that they are planning to make a major capital investment at the start of 2027, and if they follow suit with the Six Flags over Texas property the following year, we will probably see another similar announcement made sometime late next year as well.
(7/24/22) Unlike how most chains essentially own all their respective theme parks, Six Flags has evolved into a different kind of beast. For example, Six Flags began leasing a number of parks from their respective owners under various Management Deals, especially in the past 5 years or so with the additions of properties like Six Flags Darien Lake, Frontier City and various water parks. The status of each property is shown in the chain’s annual report, but it is the ownership situation around of the chain’s first two theme parks that will be coming into focus very quickly.
Six Flags over Texas is actually owned by a Texas Limited Partnership group, and Six Flags Entertainment itself currently owns 54% of that group, with the remainder said to be owned by Six Flags Over Texas Fund, Ltd (a private-equity and asset management firm). On the horizon Six Flags Entertainment Corporation will have a rare option to purchase the remaining 46% ownership stake for the Six Flags over Texas property when the current lease expires in 2028.
Six Flags over Georgia also currently exists in a similar relationship with a set of partners in Georgia for that particular property, and a window to purchase 100% ownership in that park will also open when that lease expires in 2027.
It is hard to think that corporate Six Flags would pass up this opportunity to finally take complete ownership of these two important properties, but they will also have to budget ahead a decent amount of cash to fund these particular transactions as well, which could very well affect the budgets of all things to come over the next several years.
United Parks & Resorts (formerly SeaWorld Entertainment) - (10/26/2025) We’ll see if this gains any traction and turns into a bigger class action lawsuit down the line, but a new lawsuit is in the works against United Parks and Resorts about the addition of hidden and undisclosed service fees and charges when purchasing theme park tickets online. According to the report from Orlando’s FOX 35, they found that while checking out on SeaWorld’s online ticket website that it could add as much as $32 in extra fees, depending on the transaction. This flies in the face of some new laws and requirements in various locations about up-front price clarity, to prevent the promotion of cheap prices only to tack on last second “gotcha” or “junk fees” at the very end that are undisclosed.
(8/28/2025) The latest word from Forbes regarding potential future SeaWorld parks in international markets does reinforce that these future projects may indeed follow in the design footsteps of the Abu Dhabi park and be built mostly indoors.
As for the Abu Dhabi park itself, when they asked about the possibility of future expansion of that particular park, they were told that ‘whenever you design any theme park, you always keep provision for expansion”, both inside and outside.
(8/10/2025) An interesting thing was noted curing the United Parks Q2 2025 conference call. CEO, Marc Swanson, mentioned that the company is in active discussions for at least two more international projects, and plan to early “Memorandums of Understand” agreements signed with partners by the end of this year.
For many years the SeaWorld brand has tried to extend the chain’s reach into international territory. Under Busch Entertainment you may remember they had once signed a deal to build a whole integrated resort on a manmade island in Dubai that would serve as the far end of the Palm Jebel Ali project, that would have been killer whale shaped and featured four parks: a SeaWorld, a Busch Gardens, a Discovery Cove and an Aquatica park, all built side-by-side.
While the global financial crisis in 2008/2009 scuttled those ambitious plans (and halted construction to finish building the Palm Jebel Ali itself until just last year) SeaWorld eventually found a partner with Miral in neighboring Abu Dhaibi wh sought to build a SeaWorld park built from the ground up for the 21st century. No longer seen as a sprawling outdoor park with giant salt-water stadiums to serve as home to killer whales, this new SeaWorld concept is almost entirely built indoor and mixes heavily themed environments and creative rides while borrowing a bit of DNA from attractions like the Georgia Aquarium to create something entirely new.
With two possible new international projects in discussion, there is no telling if these will be for old school style SeaWorld parks, or to create something more like what was done for Abu Dhabi. A lot of this may have to do with the location, as a key factor in the creation of the indoor Abi Dhabi concept is the harsh warm weather, but if the location is somewhere more mild, perhaps an outdoor park may also work. Of course, I’m assuming this is for another SeaWorld park, as that was used as the example of how their future international partnerships would likely work, but new projects could also be for something like Aquatica or a Discovery Cove style attraction instead.
Hopefully we’ll know more by the end of the year about what and perhaps most importantly, where, these projects may come to be.
(8/8/2025) United Parks released their Q2 2025 earnings report on Thursday. The good news is that attendance at the United Parks was up to 6.2 million guests (up 0.8%) over Q2 2024. However… for the first 6 months of 2025, the overall attendance trend was actually just slightly down by 11,000 guests (0.1%) compared to the first six months of 2024.
Total revenue however saw a slight decrease of 1.5% for the quarter compared to the previous year, resulting from a 2.2% overall drop in guest spending, with Admissions in particular seeing a decrease of 3.9%.
The good news however is that the CEO reported that the Orlando area parks actually saw attendance increases over the quarter, which would fit into the same time period that rival, Universal Orlando, opened their new Epic Universe theme park. A similar trend was also noticed by Disney in their quarterly report, so it seems that the arrival of Epic Universe has helped grow business for everyone in the Orlando area by giving tourists to the region to extend their stay, rather than sacrificing days at other attractions in order to visit Epic Universe.
(6/18/2025) Anyone know what’s going on with the Intamin Straddle Coasters at the SeaWorld and Busch Gardens parks?
I’m not sure why, but we’ve heard that DarKoaster at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Arctic Rescue at SeaWorld San Diego and Wave Breaker at SeaWorld San Antonio all closed down for unknown reasons sometime between June 5th and June 7th. Currently the official website still lists all three of them as being Temporarily Closed.
(5/13/2025) United Parks & Resorts (owners of the SeaWorld, Aquatica, Busch Gardens and Sesame Place parks) posted their Q1 2025 earnings results this week. Unfortunately, the report confirms that attendance at the chain’s parks is down for the quarter, seeing a 1.7% decline compared to the same quarter in 2024. The good news is that they were also able to confirm that so far attendance in April 2025 is already up 8.1% compared to April 2024’s numbers, so it could just be that the year got off to a slow start. The late positioning of the busy Easter holiday into late April is likely the cause here.
Overall Revenue was also reported to be down 3.5% for the quarter, but they were quick to point out that major new attractions are poised to open at most of their parks in the coming weeks, which should inject a little boost to the park’s attendance numbers.
(3/3/2025) United Parks & Resorts released their Q4 2024 and 2024 Year End results last week. Attendance across the chain’s parks (SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, Aquatica, Sesame Place) saw a small attendance decrease (79,000 guests) in Q4 2024 compared to the same quarter in 2023, and overall for the year 2024 saw a small decrease of 59,000 guests for 21.5 million compared to 2023.
The overall trend was drops all around in Total Revenue and Net Income for both Q4 and 2024 as a whole, though it seems the brunt of the decline was taken in Q4. Overall the places a lot of blame on poor weather over the past year, which included impacts from Hurricane Debby (August), Helene (September) and Milton (October), and estimate that the combined impact of them all likely cost them 432,000 guests over the entire 2024 fiscal year. So in that light, when the park wasn’t being hurt by poor weather, they may have been on track to achieve increases all around rather than declines.
Follow the link to read more direct figures from the press release.
(2/27/2025) United Parks & Resorts has announced that they will add a “globally recognized IP” to their SeaWorld and Busch Gardens theme parks. While they wont say what it is yet, they did confirm that it would be something that could be used for new rides and attractions and “exciting activations”.
I’m not sure if they’ve not quite sealed the deal, because CEO Marc Swanson commented that they were in discussions with various partners to bring globally recognized IPs to their parks going forward.
On a side note, he also mentioned that the chain’s previously announced plans to add hotels next to SeaWorld Orlando are delayed, and the first one will no longer open in 2026 as previously projected.
(2/15/2025) According to guest posts on social media, SeaWorld Orlando has shocked their guests this week with a new “9% service fee” that is being added onto all purchases at the park. I don’t know if this new 9% fee has worked down to the rest of the United Parks system just yet, but this strange game of adding a service fee has been in place at all the United Parks (formerly SeaWorld Entertainment parks) for the past several years, but until this past week it was just a 5% surcharge fee on all purchases of food and merchandise sales within the parks.
Ironically, a lawsuit was filed against the chain over this back in 2024, and I don’t think they have resolved this case yet. Many expected to see the 5% surcharge dropped, as it was added as a sort of excuse for the pandemic that just never went away.
Now, as I understand things, businesses are allowed to charge a surcharge fee for all debit and credit card sales in order to cover processing fees, however the rule is that there has to be a clear notification of this before the actual sale transaction takes place. By putting notices on the credit card processing terminals, that really should cover that aspect from a legal point of view. HOWEVER… keep in mind that this purchase rule allowing for the processing fee was put into play years ago, and way before most theme parks have changed their operations to no longer allow their customers the option to make the purchase with CASH instead, giving them an option to avoid the fee. Since the parks are no longer accepting CASH for any sales, I’m really not sure if the courts will decide that it is legal for them to still charge the extra fee, and I’m expecting this argument to come up when the pending lawsuit does take place.
One other item to consider is that I highly doubt a large company with theme parks located coast-to-coast, is actually being charged a 5% transaction fee by their processing company, and certainly no way they are being hit with a 9% translation fee. Small independent businesses may be subject to a 5% fee, but for a company the size of United Parks, I’d expect that they would have negotiated a much more favorable rate, likely in the 1.5 to 2% range at most.
The big question to ask is why are they charging a random extra surcharge fee at all, rather than just raise the overall price that is posted? My belief is that this may come down to a somewhat shady business practice loophole. If I’m understanding the rule correctly, the surcharges added by a business that are intended to cover the cost of processing credit card / debit transactions are actually NOT included as part of the SALE price of an item when it comes to sales taxes paid to the local, state or federal government.
In other words, since the 5% surcharge is technically exempt from tax fees, the park's are actually able to keep the entire 5% surcharge for themselves. This would explain why they are simply just not adding 5% or 9% onto the overall posted sale price of any given item, because if they did that, then they would have to share the taxable percent, as well as use some of it for the intended purpose of covering the transaction surcharges, leaving very little
left for United to keep for themselves.
The way they are doing it now, the parks are adding and keeping the 5% (now 9% at SeaWorld Orlando) and can still try to strong-arm their credit card processing company to give them the lowest fees possible in order to keep their business account with them, so if they can get it down to 1 to 1.5%, then they are keeping the rest of the surcharge percentage as pure untaxed profit.
Again… this is my interpretation of the rules here, and how this may be benefiting the theme parks. But if I’m wrong, please let me know, because I can see no other reason as to why this practice is happening unless it was somehow benefiting the parks.
Universal Studios - (11/2/2025) With the idea being floated about that Warner Bros. is possibly up for sale due to debt issues following the Warner Bros. / Discovery merger, it has raised some questions about what could happen if certain other companies decide to buy it.
Probably a worse case scenario concept has been seen in a spoofy AI generated video making the rounds on social media showcasing a Mickey Mouse head on a Thanos’ body, wielding an Infinity Gauntlet adored with gems representing all the IPs Disney has collected in the past several years (Pixer, Marvel, Star Wars, etc) and then dropping a new gem into place with the DC Comics logo, much to Batman’s dismay.
WBD stock jumped the other day when a report came out that Netflix is exploring their options to purchase all or part of the company, as WBD was looking into the option of splitting themselves into two separate companies: one for the studio and steaming divisions and the other to contain their legacy TV businesses. In addition to Netflix showing interest, the newly merged Paramount Skydance also apparently placed a bit for the Studio/Streaming half of WBD.
And now it seems that Comcast / Universal is also showing interest as well for the Studio / Streaming side of the business. They obviously could merge their HBO Max and Peacock services into a bigger and more powerful streaming service that could compete better against Netflix and Disney/Hulu. Though one thing not being discussed that that might attraction Comcast/Universal to purchase WB’s studio side of things would be to gain the massive IP library. Universal has worked extensively with WB over the years on a number of projects involving their theme parks to great financial success for both sides, most notably the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Now imagine if Universal were to gain full control of the Potter IP, and no longer had to share the profits with WB. The same could be said for Universal suddenly gaining control of their own Superhero universe by gaining DC Comics, along with control of so many other highly valued IPs from the Warner Bros. vault like The Matrix, the new Monsterverse (Godzilla / Kong) films, not to mention the classic WB Looney Tunes characters.
Though a bit of inactivity of their own, Universal did watch as Disney was able to scoop up assets that they were using in their parks such as The Simpsons and the Marvel Comics, which has definitely complicated the future of things at the Universal theme parks. Now imagine if Universal were to suddenly gain control of a whole new set of IP assets that could be leveraged within their theme parks going forward, and possibly used as future replacements for things that have now fallen under the Disney’s umbrella.
In addition to the properties owned directly by WB, the studio also owns New Line Cinema which controls significant assets for huge franchises like the Lord of the Rings, fan favorite IPs like Pacific Rim, and numerous horror properties that could be used at will for Halloween Horror Nights (Nightmare of Elm Street, IT, The Conjuring universe to name a few). Just for the IPs alone and how they could benefit the studio side as well as the theme park side of things, I would almost think that Universal might be the best ones to benefit from any such deal to purchase Warner Bros, especially in light of how they did bid on buying 20th Century FOX and lost out to Disney on that deal.
(11/1/2025) Comcast (Universal’s parent company) reported their Q3 2025 earnings this week and confirmed that their theme park division's revenue increased to $2.717 billion in 2025, up 19% from 2024’s $2.289 billion. The launch of the new Epic Universe park was the key for this, and since the park opened the CEO confirmed that the new park is “The idea was to have Epic head us towards a week-long vacation type of experience. What we're seeing as Epic is now in the market is that it's driving higher per cap spending and attendance across the entirety of Universal Orlando.”
He went to confirm that they saw less cannibalization of attendance from the two existing parks than they had expected, and when it comes to Epic Universe itself he mentioned that the focus is “driving increased ride capacity. It's a new park and very technologically advanced, so working on the labour and the kinks to drive it to full capacity.“
In fact… in terms of attendance at Epic Universe, he also confirmed that the company had been “holding back a little bit to make sure the experience is what we want it to be. We expect it to fully scale up in the months ahead, and we’ll really be driving higher attendance, per caps, and improved operating leverage.”
(9/4/2025) Universal has posted a teaser for their next theme park documentary special coming to Peacock later this month. It is called Epic Ride: The Story of Universal Theme Parks and will be a 3-part series that will kick off on Monday, September 29th. The series will “pull back the curtain” to give a look at the process of creating some of the world’s greatest theme parks and themed attractions.
(8/2/2025) According to Comcast’s Q2 2025 earnings report revenue from the Universal theme park division increased by 19% for the quarter (to $2.349 billion), boosted by the new Universal Epic Universe theme park that was open for preview visits at the start of the quarter and officially open for a little over the month when the quarter officially ended on June 30th, 2025. The theme parks are part of Comcast’s “content and experiences” division, which also reported 6% growth overall.
Even better news is perhaps that Comcast’s president reported that the opening of Epic Universe had minimal impact on attendance levels at Universal Orlando’s other two theme parks, which means that most guests visiting Epic were not sacrificing a visit to one of the other Universal parks to spend a day at Epic. This would imply that guests either extended their stay at Universal Orlando by a day to visit Epic as well as the other parks, or that they might have possibly opted to spend one less day at one of the other area attractions or parks.
The “extension” concept may be the most likely consider that for much of the advanced pre-sale time-period to get a pass into Epic Universe, many guests were required to book multi-day packages to the Universal Orlando parks that included one day at Epic.
(7/4/2025) Another interesting note has come to light about the Chicago location for the second Universal Horror Unleashed attraction. According to local news reports the new Universal year-round horror attraction would actually be located quite literally across the street from a planned $1.7 billion permanent casino complex from Bally’s that would run along the river. The Bally’s casino is taking over another former Chicago Tribune owned site on the south side of W. Chicago Ave. The combination of the two projects should really reinvent this former industrial segment of the city with all kinds of new entertainment options. Reports say that the casino was intended for late 2026, but delays will likely push it back until 2027. Currently there is no timeline for the Universal Horror Unleashed project in Chicago yet.
(6/28/2025) Just in case you were wondering, that second Universal Horror Unleashed announced for Chicago may be a little more ahead of schedule than you might think. In Las Vegas, after the attraction was announced two years ago, work quickly began on constructing the massive building that UHU would be located inside, which is just one part of a huge Phase 2 expansion for the Area 15 attraction collective.
It turns out that Chicago already had the perfect building they were waiting for up for sale and available, as Chicago’s Universal Horror Unleashed will be constructed inside the former headquarters of the Chicago Tribune on Chicago Ave, located a little over 2 miles in from Chicago’s Navy Pier. In fact, the raw concept art from Universal looks like it was inspired by the Google Street View of the building as seen here.
It’s quite perfect, as the building itself already has a “Creepy AF” feel to it, located in an industrial area across the Chicago River from what appear to be more upscale urban housing and business towers.
(6/26/2025) Would you believe that ONE “Universal Horror Unleashed” attraction was not enough for Universal Studios? Believe it… because the company confirmed that a SECOND location has now been confirmed for Chicago, IL even before they’ve opened the first location in Las Vegas.
(5/31/2025) In a bit of an interesting move, there are reports online wondering if Universal may be preparing to launch their very own Cruise Line. According to a post on FB from “Universally Addicted” the Port of Galveston (Texas) is said to have signed an NDA with an “unnamed cruise line set to compete with Disney” with operations to begin in 2031.
Currently Disney only operates out of Galveston on a part-time / seasonal basis, but as Disney keeps adding ships they are expected to begin full-time cruise operations out of Galveston as early as 2027. Most of today’s more well known Cruise Lines already serve Galveston either seasonally or full-time, including Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, Princess and MSC is said to be coming later this year, so there is no telling what new player may be planning on entering the market. Celebrity Cruises is a popular line that I don’t believe comes there yet, and there is the up and coming Virgin Voyages line who will be launching their 4th ship (the Brilliant Lady) this September as well. While they don’t have a lot of ships, Virgin is slowly expanding their global footprint with departures from destinations in Europe, Australia, and in the US (they are expanding out to California and Alaska in 2026) So perhaps either of those lines may have their eyes set on doing some business in Texas by 2031.
Now, with all that in mind… could it really be Universal? Maybe… Comcast has been very gung-ho with their expansion plans for the Universal brand thus far. We’ve seen how well they have expanded within Orlando, as well as confirming plans for a new theme park resort in the UK, plus smaller attractions coming to Las Vegas (this year) and Texas (2026), and they are rumored to have more ideas on the backburner they have yet to announce. So a Cruise Line could definitely be something they’ve talked about. BUT…
I just still find this one a little harder to believe. From a casual point of view, your average person may just say, "Hey, Disney has a Cruise Line, so why doesn't Universal?" But if you really think about it, Universal's film history (and theme park attractions as well) is almost "Universally" about big exciting adventures... where something always goes HORRIBLY WRONG followed by much screaming, things exploding, and people getting eaten. Beyond the classic "monster movies" that Universal was known for, the studio was also well known for their Disaster movies, which they leaned into heavily for a large number of their theme park attractions. Attractions and movies include: JAWS, EARTHQUAKE, TWISTER, JURASSIC PARK, KING KONG, APOLLO 13, the old "AIRPORT" disaster films, DANTE'S PEAK, etc. Of course, the idea of a Universal branded “Halloween Horror Cruise” does make me very excited and giddy if they do go this route.
I'm not sure that is quite the "Universal Theme" that would make for a relaxing cruise ship adventure on the high seas for everyone else however. Now a Dreamworks Animation / Illumination Entertainment themed cruise ship would be an entirely different vibe, with characters ranging from Shrek, the Minions, Trolls, Kung Fu Panda, The Grinch, Pets, and may even the animated Super Mario Bros. Movie characters via the deal with Nintendo. That is, after all, most of the actual themed they are going for with the Universal Kids Resort opening in 2026… which just happens to be in TEXAS. It’s a bit of a long drive from Frisco, Texas down to Galveston, but hey… there could be some synergistic opportunities there. But once does not just simply create a cruise line out of thin air… the ships take years to build, are insanely expensive, and then you have to set up facilities to serve as your home ports as well that are like mini airport terminals. So if Universal really is starting to gear up something of this magnitude, then they would definitely have to be starting up their plans now… but I don’t think Texas would necessarily be where they would start off their inaugural service. Port Canaveral, is the closest port where they could tie in with the existing Universal Orlando theme parks would surely be their first operational port of operations for ship #1… not Texas.
But that’s just my 2 cents…
(4/26/2025) As most were expecting, Comcast reported that attendance and revenue was down slightly (5.2%) at their Universal Studios theme parks for Q1 2025, which ended on March 31. As I said, this was entirely expected as the company is only days away from the grand opening of their new Epic Universe theme park in Orlando on May 22nd, which is also reported as seeing very ‘strong demand’. A dip in attendance at the California park was also attributed to several weeks of wildfire issues that affected the region rather severely.
Meanwhile, the other day Universal executives also confirmed that advanced ticket sales and hotel package bookings related to the new Universal Epic Universe park are “a little ahead of our expectations” at this point. All signs point to a rather “epic” comeback once the park opens, and there has been a very strong and positive reaction to the park during preview days that have been rolling across social media. The only downside at the moment is that, in general, there is a little concern over recent price increases (and some flight cutbacks) that have been rolling out amongst US airlines to many destinations, including Orlando.
(4/13/2025) Blooloop has posted a fun article with interviews from their Festival of Innovation 2025 event, featuring Universal’s Lora Sauls (Ast. Director for Creative Development and Show Direction) and John Burton (Senior Creative Lead at Merlin Entertainment). The discussion goes over the idea of maintaining a level of constant innovation in order to drive the creation of new thrills for guests, both in the element of thrill rides (the Hyperia coaster at Merlin’s Thorpe Park for example) as well as the non-stop roll that Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights crew faces to keep each year’s Haunt content both fresh and new, as well as keeping the feelers out to know what their guests want to see next.
This also includes discussions on blending the use of self created content vs IP driven content in the realms of both attractions and Halloween content, such as the creation and ongoing expansion of Merlin’s “Nemesis” storyline, or the ever growing mythos and lore of homegrown characters created just for Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights.
Speaking of which, I know it used to be that planning for the next year’s Halloween Horror Nights at Universal would begin just as this year’s event was launching to the public, but according to Sauls, the current development time on HHN has now stretched out to 18 months ahead of the event, which means that team members are starting on the early creative thought process for HHN 2026 right now, while they’re in the midst of the build process for HHN 2025 that is still four months away from opening to guests, which is a bit insane when you think about it. Nevermind that Universe is also in the midst of the final build-up of their new year-round Universal Horror Unleashed attraction that will open in Las Vegas in August, so I’d say that in addition to being highly innovative and creative, a knack for extreme multi-tasking has got to be in their veins to keep everything straight.
(2/22/2025) According to a post in the New York Times about the growth of Universal theme park experiences, they spoke with Mark Woodbury about a number of topics concerning the rapid and global growth of the Universal branded theme park empire. An interesting comment was made at the very end, when questioned about bringing a Wicked themed experience to the parks. Woodbury commented that they have “still-secret plans for significant attractions themed to “Wicked”. When he first saw the film, his first reaction was “This is a theme park waiting to happen,” and as the man responsible for the current direction of the Universal theme parks around the world right now, those very words should speak volumes to the “Wicked” fans out there.
The unspoken truth here is that Universal Creative has had their eye on developing Wicked into a number of forms for the theme parks for quite some time. In fact, Screamscape sources once let us know about a plan that was in the works to create a broadway style theater that would host a special special effects heavy abbreviated stage performance of Wicked. The word was that the park was finally ready to demolish the old Fear Factor show venue at Unviersal Studios Florida and would raze it to the ground in early 2024 in order to build a new state-of-the-art venue for Wicked. While this clearly did not happen, I believe that as the early cuts of the film were being shown internally around the Universal corporate offices, it became clear to the creative forces involved that they suddenly saw the opportunity for so much more. As Woodbury said himself, there was a whole theme park waiting to happen around that Universe, or at least a whole themed land, and a single stage show was not going to be enough to contain it. So on to bigger and better things… let’s see what happens next.
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