Today I read an article on how the attendance at USF for the first 4 months of the year are down 5% over last year's first 4 months.
http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060611/BUSINESS/606110317/1003 This section of these boards isn't terribly active but thought I ask some Disney fans the question.

I know there is a strange need for Disney regulars to feel the need to compete with Universal (read: bash on it) but for those of us that love all of them, what do you think Universal needs to respark the parks?

Honestly, the first time I went to IOA I felt that the park was the first perfectly executed theme park. All of the rides have almost unbelievably good theme to them, the right mix of rides, etc. My kids love USF/IOA and they are ages 5 and 3. The playgrounds are great, the little kid roller coasters are great, the Sinbad show is great, what's not to love? I don't understand the bias that says it isn't kid friendly.


And yet attendance is down. So for ideas, what do you think they need? Is their advertising to older kids not good? Do they need new rides? Is there no competing with the Disney Magic Your Way (which encourages people to never step off Disney property)?

I'm not really sure what it is, but I think Disney just has such a huge grasp on tourists that USF gets overshadowed big time. For our upcoming trip, we are doing 4 days at Disney and 1 at USF...and I have to say I'm not nearly as excited about USF as I am about WDW. I think it has to do with the promotions and extreme commericialism of Disney (which isn't always a bad thing). I definitely see way more Disney merchandise around than I do Universal, therefore making me more excited because I'm completely submerged in Disney, Disney, Disney. So I think the corporation in general combined with great new Disney offers may have something to do with the decline in USF, but that's just my personal view.

maybe the attendance rates will stay down and we will have the park to ourselves :fez:

I love IOA/USF and enjoy the time I spend at the resort. I think part of the problem is that they do not have the magical connection to kid-things like Disney does. They don't have princesses, beloved movies, or characters that people are dying to see. They also have not kept up by installing new rides on a regular basis.

For me its the advertising of USF/IOA, i dont spend money on companies that openly advertise the bashing of competing companies. Seen the commerical "I dont want to have to hug another Princess?" its an open attack against Disney and I find that wrong. Id rather go to Busch Gardens or better yet Dollyland then set foot in IOA/USF

I love IOA/USF and enjoy the time I spend at the resort. I think part of the problem is that they do not have the magical connection to kid-things like Disney does. They don't have princesses, beloved movies, or characters that people are dying to see. They also have not kept up by installing new rides on a regular basis.
Seems like we have one common thread which is the missing "magic" theme and timeless characters. But I think that Aimros hits on it well too when saying that it's the merchandising and positive publicity of the characters because I'm hard pressed to find anyone that watches or remembers watching Mickey cartoons regularly as a kid, but it clearly isn't the cartoons that make him so beloved. It's the legacy and the iconic status.

I think that it's the fact that they don't have what nursemelis and aimros mention that caused them to choose their ad campaign, for better or for worse.



So, if you were in the creative seat, what ideas for a better ad campaign would you choose? Any ideas? How about focusing on the "Adventure" theme? Something better?

And what could they offer to merchandise? Do they need a Mickey and pals? Honestly Nickelodean has some incredibly popular characters but they don't have the iconic status like Disney.

If you go during the "right" time of year, you can get through IOA/USF in 1 day. You can't do everything at WDW in 1 day so you are more likely to stay there (at least for us this is the case).

There's no doubt the rides at IOA are geared towards teens and adults. There's no "Peter Pan" or "snow white" rides and although Seuss land is neat, it's not enough entertainment for a whole day. Just MHO.

So, if you were in the creative seat, what ideas for a better ad campaign would you choose? Any ideas? How about focusing on the "Adventure" theme? Something better?

And what could they offer to merchandise? Do they need a Mickey and pals? Honestly Nickelodean has some incredibly popular characters but they don't have the iconic status like Disney.

I don't think USF/IOA does enough to get their advertisements out there. Although I have seen the commercial noted earlier (about the no princess thing...), I don't think they advertise the great vacation you could be having there enough. Instead of bashing the other parks so much maybe they should show the awesome roller coasters they have at IOA...they seem to have a pretty good idea going there, with the themes and everything. And I've heard great things about Dueling Dragons and the other coasters being awesome, so why not focus on that?

I think a main contributor to the slowing of attendance at USF/IOA is the fact that Nickelodeon has moved away from a lot of their earlier game shows which people could have participated in at USF, such as Figure it Out, Double Dare, and especially the shows which depended solely on audience participation, like What Would You Do. I don't watch Nick any longer but it seems like a lot of these audience attention grabbing shows don't air anymore. I'm sure those drew much more people to USF because the fact that you could actually be on a Nickelodeon game show and possibly get slimed was a great goal for vacation!

So no, I don't think USF/IOA needs merchandise, they had a great fan base through all of those Nickelodeon shows. They just need better advertising and enticements to get you there.

I couldnt agree with you more Aimros, the old Nick shows are what made me want to got o Universal the most. To be at the Double Dare game show was lots of fun and the opening of Back to the Future was iconic for me. BTTF was alot of kids and adults favorite movies of all time and Universal took advantage of that just like Disney does (IE Monsters inc, Peter Pan, etc)

So maybe Universal needs to capitalize on the themes of their rides more rather then just superhuman roller coasters and thrill rides. Alot of people dont like comic books and dont care about those characters. It may be a generalization but i see more young boys enjoing spiderman, hulk, or doom rather then girls Who didnt like the BTTF simulator?

I would love to go to the Universal resort someday. But when I went to Florida 1 1/2 years ago, there was no way I was going to give up a day of WDW because there is so much there I already felt I had too little time to do everything. If I could ever go to Florida for 8+ days I would go to Universal for sure.

I am a fan of IOA/USF except I think management has made a LOT of mistakes.

Lets talk about IOA first. The only ride to my knowledge that is in IOA which did not open with the park is The Flying Unicorn. They are finally adding a new ride this summer but its a kids ride that was supposed to open with the park in 99. So this is going to be the first ride since 2000. They have a huge lake in the middle of the park which looks great but makes it hard to get around. If your going to waste that much space with water at least use it for something.

USF is not much better. They removed King Kong right before the remake to put in ROTM. Jaws gets shut down for several months to save money.

Overall the counter service could take some hints from Disney. The food is expensive and not very good. Merchandise needs serious work the only parks which are worse are the Paramount Park chain (Ok maybe six flags its been a few years since I went to one of their parks). I really don't like how they got rid of the free express pass and now only offer the pay express pass and to make matters worse the unlimited express pass for onsite guests makes lines a lot longer then they need to be.

What USF/IOA can do (but I can't see most of this happening with new management)
1. End the unlimited front of the line pass, stop selling the express pass books. At least stop letting people just run through the express pass line over and over again if your an onsite guest. Limit the number of times or how often you can use it on the same ride. MIB's line is twice as long as it would be otherwise.
2. Better merchandise - this is more of Universals problem then the guests but if the park made more money then you would see more put in.
3. Better food - if they would improve the food inside the park I would stop leaving the park and going to city walk
4. New advertisements - I can't believe they are still reusing the same old ads that did not work two years ago how can they believe they will work now?
5. Studios - To my knowledge the only time they are really used is for HHN. Find some live shows and get them to setup shop there by providing the studios at cost or even free. Make the shows plug the fact thats they are filmed at the park and have the audience come from people at the park. If you can't fill them even then use them for rides just use the space in a way that will help the parks.
6. Add more shows/rides there is just not enough to do at the two parks if it was not for the lines on a few rides which are were mostly from express pass/front of the line pass guests then I could have easily gotten through both parks in one day last October.
7. Combine the parks - Add a walk way between IoA and USF and just make it a single ticket.

I am waiting to see Universal 360 but it looks like a step in the right direction. I know the parks are trying to make some money to pay down the huge debt they have had since building IOA (about 1 billion). But it takes money to make money and cost cutting can only go so far before your through the fat and into the meat. I think that the parks have gone beyond the meat and into the bone. The best news I have heard out of them is that they are making some money again. I hope this continues and they can pay down some of the debt. I just think that with the land that was originally purchased for a third gate having already been sold that they are always going to be stuck with very limited options for the future.

This is just some of what I think is wrong and attendance at the parks is down so far for the year and last year was bad.

great posts Aimros, kenban.

Some additional info I got from my dad (he keeps up on this stuff): the primary money maker for Universal Florida right now is the hotels. They are consistently booked and they haven't had to discount nearly as much as they once did. This might explain why they didn't do away with the hotel fast pass system. This also might explain why they _did_ get rid of the regular fast pass system on non-peak times (they still use them on peak days). There were a couple times when I waited in lines that had a longer fast pass line than the regular line. We really liked the old system but for some reason people online seem to be happy about it (other than the hotel guests part).

Also, there used to be two sit down restaurants in UStudios that were taken out due to low customer interest. They moved all their restaurants into City Walk so that they could lease them to the high end theme restaurants which was also a profitable move (less risk for them). They have since started selling an all you can eat concept where $20 ($8 for kids) will allow you to eat anywhere except Mythos and the table service in US.

Because the parks are right in the middle of a residential area, after the first couple years US was open, the city ordinances banned them from having the nightly fireworks shows because it was too disruptive (not cost cutting move) and they made an agreement that they could instead do the show around holidays or preapproved peak days. The Cinesphere concept is to get around that issue because the fireworks and special affects will be much closer to the audience and not the same huge disruption around outside. Personally I'm pretty pumped about it. I remember way back that the end of the night had a really climactic end to it and the last few years it's been more of a "I guess the park's closing" feeling.

Lastly, the ultra quite rumors are that one of the reasons that there was a "hold" on new rides announcements last year (they were on the edge of announcing one recently) was because there were talks to sell off the partial ownership in the parks (still to remain Universal theme just managed by a theme park company). Some of you may know about the Vivendi/Universal issues (Vivendi bought Universal creating this huge omni-corp and then reversed course and started selling pieces off because the debt was so high). To complicate things more there is even a part ownership of NBC and General Electric (GE owns a large portion of NBC) aspect. Worse still, in financing the two parks they had a major theme park investor named Blackstone Entertainment or something like that.

I guess what that last part comes down to is that management and a revitalization of the parks may be around the corner, assuming they can finally resolve who should own/manage the parks. Also, I'm sure that they wouldn't want to start throwing more cash and debt around if they are in talks to sell. But if a single owner does show up you can bet they'll jump into the development mode. Honestly, seeing Disney finally rebounding and the steam running again, it seems hard to believe that Universal can't justify a reinvestment too.

I am waiting to see Universal 360 but it looks like a step in the right direction.
I can't wait to see how this turns out. Seems like a cool concept.

Our family loves US & IOA and have spent more time there when in Orlando than at WDW on our last trips. My kids are now 19 and 24 and enjoy both parks a lot. We have stayed on property with discounted rates since they opened. Now though they have gotten so poular it is hard to get good rates, but we are spoiled by the front of the line access. I enjoy the proximity of the hotels to the parks and to City Walk. My son could ride Men In Black all day and be happy.

I haven't been in a few years, but because they have a few new rides we decided to go this summer.

A few things that I think Universal needs to work out...

-The big lake in IOA really kills the wait times. You have to hit Hulk first and work your way around otherwise the lines at the end of the day are way too long. It's not like you could start at Jurassic Park and work your away around. Put a boat there to transport people back and forth. Something!

-I feel parts of US are very dead. Nothing is going on and there is nobody there except you and a few other families.

-I would rather wait all day until I get back to my hotel to eat than eat there.

-Their commercial has that little boy saying "Who wants to go to bed at 8 o'clock" or a time around there. Well when I go in August both parks close at 6.

- I feel like I am walking across the state of Florida to get from the parking lot to the park entrance.

I think there are some little things they could change and it would be a good start to bigger projects

The solution is to look and what has worked in the industry and then duplicate it. For example, why is Pirates one of the most popular rides of all time? Jurassic Park tried to imitate it, and added the thrill aspect to it, but in doing so a height limit came in limiting the audience. The solution? 2nd track the attraction.

Add another pathway for the boats to travel that don't take 80 ft. drops and send them through different rooms. Ditto for the Popeye raft ride.

Or look at a ride like the Haunted Mansion. All about the details, all ages attraction. Just clone it, make it a similar length with a different theme.

The mistake I'm seeing some execs making (cough 6 Flags), is to confuse toddler carnival ride with "family ride". The problem are that with that thinking, the rides can't actually seat entire families, limits the notion of family to parents with very young children as if families with older children stop being wanting to experience events together. That was the original brilliance of Disney, and WDW in particular has struck that balance.

Has anyone ever seen the big theater in the Toon Land in use?? We have been to IOA many times at different times of year and have never seen a show offered here. I remember when the park first opened and Rosie broadcast her talk show from there, but have never seen it used for anything else. It takes up way too much space to just sit there empty - develop a show for it. Why would they build it without a purpose? It seems very similar in size to me as the one used for the animal stunt show in USF. We always hop to both parks, but have had friends visit for a day and felt that there wasn't enough to do in IOA to justify the price for a one day ticket, and I would agree with them, especially if it is cold for the water rides, although Spiderman is the best ride at any park. Something new would be good for us repeat visitors.

I love IOA/USF and enjoy the time I spend at the resort. I think part of the problem is that they do not have the magical connection to kid-things like Disney does. They don't have princesses, beloved movies, or characters that people are dying to see. They also have not kept up by installing new rides on a regular basis.


Well I'd disagree that they don't have loved characters. The Marvel superheros, (Spiderman, Captain America, Hulk etc.) are certainly well-known and loved. Also Dr. Suess' charaters are well-known and loved. I do agree about the new rides though. New rides are important.

Overall I thought IOA was a great park.

Has anyone ever seen the big theater in the Toon Land in use?? We have been to IOA many times at different times of year and have never seen a show offered here. I remember when the park first opened and Rosie broadcast her talk show from there, but have never seen it used for anything else. It takes up way too much space to just sit there empty - develop a show for it. Why would they build it without a purpose? It seems very similar in size to me as the one used for the animal stunt show in USF. We always hop to both parks, but have had friends visit for a day and felt that there wasn't enough to do in IOA to justify the price for a one day ticket, and I would agree with them, especially if it is cold for the water rides, although Spiderman is the best ride at any park. Something new would be good for us repeat visitors.
This is a great idea. I've wondered the same thing many times about this theater.

I saw a random entertainment show advertised there years ago (magic show? I can't remember). Other than that, I went to a trade show where the company rented out IOA for the night and they used it for a presentation. I never attended it so I have no idea what it was like. I ended up going on Hulk about 20 times that night (there was never any line) instead.

Anyone else seen anything there?