Top 30 U.S. Amusement Parks - CNN/AmusementBusiness.com (http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/summer.trips/top30.html)

QuikQuote™:
1. The Magic Kingdom (Lake Buena Vista, Florida)
2. Disneyland (Anaheim, California)
3. Epcot (Lake Buena Vista, Florida)
4. Disney MGM Studios (Lake Buena Vista, Florida)
5. Disney's Animal Kingdom (Lake Buena Vista, Florida)


Note that this is based purely on attendance figures for the year 2002.

Based on attendance, Disney's 6 U.S. theme parks hold spots 1-5 most attended parks .... and 10th. With all the hoppers and 2-park APs and 2nd DLR day free, and being 100 feet from the second most visited park in the country, the newest Disney park in the U.S. can only pull 10th.

[Sarcastic mode on]
I bet DCA just needs Xgames Xperience. I bet once fans realize that the VERY lightly visited "Golden Dreams" is the heart of the park, attendance will jump. We just need critics to stop saying negative things on internet discussion boards, and then everything will be okay with this park. Every thing in "cement slab with tin buildings land" is great. Everything in Six Flags Paradise Peir is themed exactly how it should be.

It's just the rain. It's just the marketing. It's gonna be great. Just wait and see.
[Sarcastic mode off]

DCA is not thrilling enough to be a thrill park. It isn't imaginativly themed enough to be a theme park. It isn't Disney enough to be a Disney park. It isn't trendy enough to pull its original target audience. It's a little bit of everything, but not nearly enough of anything.

Note: I merged the followup post by dshimel into this thread. The topic is related to the business of the entire theme park industry, not the Disneyland Resort specifically.

Andrew,
I realized what you did, and of course it is the right of a moderator...

However, I don't see how my spin on the article doesn't directly apply to the Disneyland Resort. DCA is 10th. DCA is part of the DLR. DCA is the only Disney park that gets beat by non-Disney parks.

How about if I point out DCA was 9th last year and got passed by USH this year? Would that make my take "about DLR"?

Just trying to figure the rules of what is okay to put where.

While I don't want to get too far into a meta-discussion, I moved your post here because it was a followup to the CNN/AmusementBusiness.com article (http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/summer.trips/top30.html), which was posted in the News forum and copied here for discussion.

Feel free to discuss DLR-specific aspects in the DLR forum, if you like.

I have posted these numbers before, but here are the actual (as reported by Amusement Business) numbers in addition to the ranking...

1. Magic Kingdom, 14 million, down 5%

2. Disneyland, 12.7 million, UP 3%

3. Epcot, 8.3 million, down 8%

4. MGM Studios, 8 million, down 4%

5. Animal Kingdom, 7.3 million, down 6%

6. Universal Studios Florida, 6.9 million, down 6%

7. Islands of Adventure, 6.1 million, UP 10%

8. Universal Studios Hollywood, 5.2 million, UP 10%

9. Sea World Orlando, 5 million, down 2%

10. California Adventure, 4.7 million, down 6%

Other local parks -

12. Sea World San Diego, 4 million, down 2%

13. Knott's Berry Farm, 3.6 million, UP 2 %

San Diego Zoo, 3.5 million, flat

17. Six Flags Magic Mountain, 3.2 million, flat

San Diego Wild Animal Park, 1.7 million, flat

LegoLand, 1.3 million, down 4%
(but interesting to note, since they decided to close two days a week during the off-season, their daily attendance went up 15%)

A correction to my post. These are 2002 numbers, so the buy DL, get DCA free promotion didn't effect numbers.

DL up 3%, with really no new rides or shows or discounts.
DCA down 6%, even adding bugs land, Blast. Was the buy 3 day hopper, get 5 day going on last year? Or was it the bring a kid free promotion? Or, wasn't there an adult for kid price thingy?