Limited edition foods

Image: aloha75, Flickr (license)

The Orlando megaparks developed the concept of annual festivals as a way of encouraging guests to visit during traditionally slow times of the year. Disney’s Epcot Food and Wine Festival and Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights both had humble beginnings, but they’ve grown into international destinations that must be seen to be believed.

Regional parks have started adopting these kinds of special events, throwing Halloween haunts or Christmas celebrations, and even holding their own food and wine festivals. But, they’re neglecting a key part of the special event experience: The special, limited edition foods.

Disney loves to create special cupcakes or meals for its Star Wars-themed events or Frozen celebrations. Universal creates special drinks that can only be enjoyed during Halloween Horror Nights itself. These kinds of unique food and drink options aren’t just great premium options, they also represent a kind of collectible fun that keeps guests coming back.

The regional parks can and should supplement their growing special events with these kinds of unique and memorable food and drink offerings. And, much like Universal has taken to offering themed food items like Butterbeer in the Wizarding World or the Flaming Moe in Springfield, regional parks should also look to create unique items like these within their boundaries.

Themed roller coasters

For a long time, the extent to which you could theme a roller coaster was limited. Space Mountain - a totally enclosed boardwalk-style roller coaster - represented the peak of theming for these types of rides. Even more modern attempts, like Expedition Everest, were beautiful, but still ultimately roller coaster experiences. The thrills remained the main attraction, despite the great lengths that went into the architecture and design.

Regional parks, unable to spend excess money on things that weren’t integral to the ride experience, opted to save on theming and instead go all out on thrills. That’s how you wound up with concrete slabs for queues and plywood sheds for station houses. 

That is, until Disney and Universal once again upped the ante, showing that theming actually can elevate a roller coaster into something new ... provided that theming is good enough.

Escape from Gringotts, the Harry Potter attraction at Universal’s Diagon Alley expansion, is a magnificent roller coaster, yes. But more than that, it is a true themed attraction, telling a story and transporting guests to the mysterious wizarding bank. Seven Dwarfs Mine Trine, while a simpler and more family-friendly roller coaster, similarly uses animatronics and intricate design work to elevate the roller coaster into a story-driven experience. 

It’s time for the regional parks to meet Universal and Disney in this space. There have been some misguided attempts to elevate roller coaster theming by simply enclosing roller coasters in show buildings, but they do not go far enough. A real, full-on, theatrically designed roller coaster could do wonders for an American regional park. Who will be the first to do it?

Themed Resorts

Image: aloha75, Flickr (license)

Disney, obviously, is the father of themed resort hotels, with its dozens of amazing wonders gracing the property at the Walt Disney World Resort. Then, in the early 21st century, Universal joined the party adding their highly-themed hotels (and, recently, enjoying a wonderful boom of such properties). Now, Disney is poised to transcend even this genre after it announced the construction of a Star Wars-themed hotel that will put guests right into the action of their favorite sci-fi franchise. Universal, likely, will respond in kind.

But where are the regional parks? Disney has been building themed hotels for decades, and yet the regional iterations of these ideas have yet to trickle down. Legoland’s parks has built a couple of themed hotels, but Six Flags and Cedar Fair are nowhere to be found in this space.

Resorts are expensive to build and operate, and Disney had a lot of trial and error before figuring out how to do it themselves, but whether these parks want to use the Disney method of operation or the Universal method of corporate partnership, it seems like it’s only a matter of time before one of these parks uses the intellectual property they’ve licensed to build a stunning, yet affordable, regional themed resort.

In all, the path of technology and ideas from Disney and Universal downward through the amusement park ecosystem is important. Yet, it usually only flows in one direction. So, while we’re all awaiting a Fastpass+ iteration to come to Six Flags, don’t hold your breath for a Larson Superloop coming to the Magic Kingdom anytime soon.