MisterSG1 Posted August 17 Share Posted August 17 The “most visited seasonal theme park in North America” is no longer Canada’s Wonderland. Back in 2019, Wonderland had just missed the 4 million mark, something they’ve never accomplished to my knowledge. Of course, then came COVID, and with that the totally canceled 2020 season and highly restrictive 2021 season. Even back in 2021, things seemed more optimistic about the future of the park. 2022 had a recovery of guests but not back to where we were understandably, they had 3.76 million guests that season which is close to where they were before. But last season, 2023, was a totally different story, they had only 3.23 million guests, that’s a drop as I said of 500,000 guests, meanwhile in the same year, both Kings Island and Cedar Point both had more guests, Cedar Point even cracked 4 million last season. I do have a theory why this happened, as life in Canada severely declined after the pandemic, but that’s something that would take longer to explain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnjniehaus Posted August 18 Share Posted August 18 Wow! I had no idea that wonderland had fallen behind CP and KI... hopefully that means they will increase our budget even more and give us that Vortex replacement! Just kidding of course we already have a pretty good budget and I hope they continue investing in wonderland as well. I really loved that park the one time I was fortunate enough to visit in 2023. Definitely want to try to get up there next year! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MisterSG1 Posted August 18 Author Share Posted August 18 This is the actual table from the report in case you wanted to see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TombRaiderFTW Posted August 18 Share Posted August 18 It's worth noting that the TEA attendance report is an estimation and not based on figures released by parks. If that's the only data point we're discussing here, we don't have definitive proof that Wonderland's attendance dropped that significantly. That being said, it's my opinion that the TEA report does an okay job of estimating overall attendance trends for parks based on the events of the year. I'm curious, @MisterSG1, what do you think happened this year at Wonderland to cause an attendance drop? Admittedly, I don't specifically follow what's happening at every park beyond big announcements, but I haven't been aware of anything big happening at Wonderland this year. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MisterSG1 Posted August 18 Author Share Posted August 18 58 minutes ago, TombRaiderFTW said: It's worth noting that the TEA attendance report is an estimation and not based on figures released by parks. If that's the only data point we're discussing here, we don't have definitive proof that Wonderland's attendance dropped that significantly. That being said, it's my opinion that the TEA report does an okay job of estimating overall attendance trends for parks based on the events of the year. I'm curious, @MisterSG1, what do you think happened this year at Wonderland to cause an attendance drop? Admittedly, I don't specifically follow what's happening at every park beyond big announcements, but I haven't been aware of anything big happening at Wonderland this year. Well, I think the real thing at play is the increase substantially of cost of living involved, with less disposable income means that people would spend less time at Wonderland. I mean seriously, go look at the price of renting anywhere in southern Ontario, you’ll probably be shocked. Many of the associates at Wonderland now have a very low customer service attitude, this has been especially true since the pandemic, and I presume this has caused patrons to stop going. Combine that with more recent situations of teenagers acting up, and the line jumping often without consequence, and the customer is upset. A friend of mine from university who formally worked at Wonderland as a ride op for years told me that Cedar Fair had brought in people from their headquarters to Wonderland by the end of last season. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeeastFarmer Posted August 18 Share Posted August 18 @MisterSG1, just went there last summer for a couple of days. Few questions maybe you can answer: 1. Is the park normally as dirty as it was in early June? Trash everywhere, castlebins overflowing etc. 2. Why very limited drink fountain refill stations inside the restaurants? 3. What's the deal with the teens spitting? 4. Is is normal in that part of Canada for the population to not have a sense of personal space? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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