Disney's 2024 TEA Attendance Report & Unbuilt Attractions: Soarin', Sleepy Hollow, & More

New Soarin' Attraction and Disney's Strategy

• ✈️ Soarin' Across America, the third iteration of the popular attraction, is set to debut in EPCOT and Disney California Adventure in summer 2026.
• 🎯 This new film, featuring over a dozen U.S. locations, aligns with Disney's strategy to lean into nostalgia and patriotic themes for the country's 250th anniversary.
• 💡 The move is part of Disney's short-term strategy of refurbishing existing attractions rather than opening new rides until late 2027.

TEA Global Attendance Report Insights

• 📊 The 2024 TEA Global Attendance Report reveals that global theme park attendance is still below pre-pandemic 2019 levels.
• 📈 Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World remained the most visited theme park globally in 2024, with a slight attendance increase.
• 📉 Disney parks saw a less than 1% increase overall, while Universal experienced a slight decrease.
• 🌍 International Disney parks, including Tokyo Disneyland and Shanghai Disneyland, feature prominently in the top global attendance rankings.

Disney Cruise Line Survey Analysis

• 💰 Disney Cruise Line is using detailed surveys to understand the impact of discount offers on booking decisions.
• 🎯 Questions focus on how guests learn about discounts, whether the offer was the primary booking driver, and if the discount influenced ship choice or price sensitivity.
• 📈 This data helps Disney optimize pricing strategies and target marketing efforts for future promotions.

Unbuilt Disney Attractions: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

• 🏰 Tony Baxter envisioned a dark ride based on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow for the Magic Kingdom, intended to bridge the transition between Fantasyland and Liberty Square.
• 👻 The proposed ride would have used classic dark ride techniques, featuring scenes with Ichabod Crane, Brom Bones, and the Headless Horseman, with cartoony ghosts terrified of the Horseman.
• 💰 The attraction was ultimately not built due to escalating construction costs for Walt Disney World, with the space eventually becoming the Yankee Trader shop and later, Memento Mori.

Disney's Interconnectedness with Defense Technology

• 🛠️ The podcast highlights surprising links between Disney innovations and U.S. military technology, such as the magnetic tape system for the Tiki Room being part of the Polaris missile system.
• ✈️ Motion simulators used in attractions like Star Tours were originally manufactured for aerospace applications.
• 📸 Early Disney films were produced using surplus World War II bombers for aerial photography.

Universal Hotels vs. Disney Hotels

• 🏨 Universal partners with Loews Hotels to manage all its properties, including value resorts, which may allow for lower hotel pricing compared to Disney's owned and operated hotels.
• 💸 This partnership structure is suggested as a reason why Universal might be able to target a broader range of income levels, as theme parks are a smaller contributor to Comcast's overall revenue compared to Disney's.
• 📊 A comparison showed Universal's value resorts to be significantly cheaper than Disney's for a similar holiday period.