Its been another big week, so let's get into another theme park news update!
Earlier this week, SeaWorld Orlando announced the death of its largest and most infamous Orca Tillikum at the age of 36. Tillikum became well known after the death of trainer Dawn Brancheau in 2010 and the subsequent movie Blackfish about the tragedy in 2013. Since SeaWorld is no longer breeding or capturing Orcas, this generation of these marine mammals will be their last.
Following Tillikum's passing, SeaWorld San Diego announced it was going to end Orca shows this weekend. The Orca enclosure is getting a revamp, and trainers will still have demonstrations of behaviors however they won't be part of a show.
Staying in the U.S., Panasonic named projection partner for the two U.S. Disney resorts. While traditionally Disney has used less screens than competitor Universal, projection is a bIig deal for parks these days. In other news, Theme Park Insider pointed out that for the first time in 2 years Disneyland is just Disneyland. It's a funny state of affairs when nothing happening is news.
More details have surfaced about the new Jimmy Fallon ride at Universal Studios in Orlando. While flying around New York, you'll be able to enjoy the smell of pizza and get wet from a plunge in the East River. Sounds vaguely interesting in what is shaping to be the year of the flying theatre attraction.
Screamscape has done a rough estimate of the throughput of Flight of Passage in Avatarland at Disney's Animal Kingdom, which is Disney's next flying theatre. It is estimate to take 1800 guests per hour (around what Star Tours can support) which a huge boost for park capacity.
At Movie World, 20 guests were inconvenienced yesterday when they were forced to evacuate the Arkham Asylum ride which stopped due to a mechanical fault. While it's news here, there was really nothing dangerous or unusual about this incident. It was only big news because of the recent tragedy at Dreamworld.
Speaking of Dreamworld, the park has reported that their revenue since reopening on December 10th until the end of December was down 63% compared to the same period in 2015. It is worth noting that a number of the key rides were closed for this period and the iconic Tower of Terror and Giant Drop rides still remain closed. This means that the park has lost around $15 million in expected earnings in November and December of 2016.
For more Theme Park coverage, follow me on Twitter @themeparknut. Until next time, Cheers!
*gasp* Tillikum died :( Although 36 sounds like a pretty impressive age - so glad to hear they are stopping the breeding and shows, I'm sure Tillikum was largely responsible for that, sad issues all round but I think SeaWorld's direction is very respectable :)
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