At the start of 2022, I decided to embark on a project for the new year. I created a spreadsheet to track every one of my park visits for the entire year. Being a local in Orlando, that resulted in a very long, very extensive spreadsheet, complete with every attraction I experience for the entire year as well.
Having started in 2022, I now have three full years of Orlando local theme park attendance data. Now, while I consider myself to be the average theme park fan, I do have a job that requires me to visit the parks so my statistics may not exactly be reflective of the typical Central Florida resident.
As was the case last year, it was certainly difficult to put any previous numbers out of my mind and not let them impact my theme park attendance or attraction visits. However, I still did not let them completely change any of my plans. In fact, they likely had less of an impact on 2024 than they did on my 2023 numbers.
With all of that being said, I once again want to acknowledge that I am incredibly fortunate to be able to experience these parks on a regular basis and in no way do I take that for granted (as you may see from these numbers).
Let’s take a look at those results, shall we?
Total Park Visits
This year’s numbers are going to be down across the board, due to my wife and I welcoming our first baby in September. Obviously, I was not out at the parks quite as often from that point on, and a lot of the numbers will reflect that.
With that being said, my total park visits were down from 117 in 2023 to 102 in 2024. While that’s not quite as drastic a drop as I was expecting, park hopping had a lot to do with it. I visited parks on just 79 unique dates in 2024, down from 96 in 2023. That means in 2024, I visited a theme park once every 4.6 days. While that still feels like a lot, it is down from once every 3.8 days in 2023.
And before we get into the parks I visited most often, I do need to take a moment to point out that 2024 was the first time I ever got the chance to visit an international Disney Park. I got to see Hong Kong Disneyland in April, which was an incredible experience. In fact, 2024 was a big year for me experiencing Disney destinations for the first time as I also got to see Disney’s Vero Beach Resort, the Disney Magic, Disney’s Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point and the Disney Treasure. All of those experiences also add up to fewer theme park visits in 2024.
With that being said, the park I visited most in 2024 was…
Universal Studios Florida
No surprise here. This is the third straight year Universal Studios Florida tops the list. Coincidentally, the gap between USF and my second most visited park, is exactly the same as it was in 2022 (28-17 both years). As always, the 28 visits do not include my visits to Halloween Horror Nights Orlando, as those were counted separately.
Once again, location has a lot to do with these numbers as Universal Orlando is considerably closer to my home than Walt Disney World is. There is also the factor of various events occurring in this park, like Universal Mardi Gras and Universal Holiday Celebration.
I do have some other interesting findings from my park visits. For starters, I have bizarrely visited EPCOT exactly 17 times for the third year in a row now. As far as I can tell, there is no rhyme or reason as to why this would be the case. EPCOT is always near the top of my list of most visited parks, but it is incredibly strange that it has been the exact same number of times each year.
Visits were up for both Magic Kingdom and Islands of Adventure in 2024, while HHN Orlando was considerably down, but with the timing of that event, that is not surprising. Another factor in the decline of my overall visits was that I visited just 10 different parks in 2024, down from 15 in both 2023 and 2022. Not getting out to the Disneyland Resort, Universal Studios Hollywood or even Universal Volcano Bay right here in Orlando, certainly impacted the numbers.
Another thing I’ve been keeping track of has been my visits to Universal Orlando Resort as opposed to Walt Disney World Resort. This year, the gap was much closer – 52 Universal visits to 47 for Walt Disney World. That 5-visit gap is considerably down from the 24 the year prior. In fact, not only was this the smallest gap between the two, but 2024 actually saw a new high for WDW park visits (43 in 2023, 44 in 2022).
Here is my complete list of parks visited in 2024:
Attractions
Just like in years past, I found most of my park visits do not include actually experiencing an attraction. I enjoy the vibe of the park but don’t necessarily feel the need to wait to jump on my favorite ride. If the wait time is short, that’s when I take advantage.
And this was even more true in 2024 than the previous two years. Of my 102 park visits, 60 of them did not include a single attraction. That 59% of park visits resulting in no attractions was up considerably from 47% each of the last two years. And my current stretch of visits without experiencing an attraction certainly plays a big role in that number. I have no experienced an attraction in my last 14 park visits, with my most recent being one of the houses at Halloween Horror Nights. Taking HHN out of the equation, my most recent attraction would have come all the way back in August.
As always, I want to clarify that for this study, I classified attractions as anything that required me to enter an existing queue. Nighttime spectaculars and some other shows and experiences that could easily be entered at any time, were excluded (example: Journey of Water, Inspired by Moana).
With that being said, my most experienced attraction of 2023 was…
The Walt Disney World Railroad/ Men in Black: Alien Attack/ The TTA PeopleMover
That’s right, it was a three-way tie between three very not new attractions. Men in Black: Alien Attack remains at the top of the list from last year, though the times I experienced it were down from 10 to 7. The same factors remained in play for this attraction in 2024: it very rarely has a long enough wait to dissuade me from riding and its game-like nature keeps me coming back.
As for the other two tied for the top spot, the TTA PeopleMover is no surprise as it is always near the top of the list. Increased visits to the Magic Kingdom finally moved it up to the top spot. The Walt Disney World Railroad however, is certainty a bit of a surprise to me. The with attraction reopening the year prior, I might have guessed that I would have hopped on a few times in 2024. However, the entertainment combined with the functionality of taking the train to the other side of the park, pushed it all the way up to the top.
Here are my top 15 most experienced attractions in 2023:
This list of 15 attractions includes every attraction I experienced more than once. 2024 saw the opening of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and the new version of the Country Bears Musical Jamboree in Magic Kingdom, as well as DreamWorks Land in Universal Studios Florida, which included DreamWorks Imagination Celebration. I experienced each of those attractions twice.
TRON Lightcycle / Run was down from 5 rides to 3 in its sophomore year, while Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind dropped off the list entirely as I experience it only once in 2024. Illumination’s Villain Con: Minion Blast, which opened late in 2023, increased from 3 experiences to 5, though a short wait time and a location near the park’s exit played big roles in that.
Unsurprisingly, Hong Kong Disneyland saw the highest number of attractions per visit (APV) in 2024 with 4. HHN followed closely behind with 3.8 while Magic Kingdom saw the highest rate amongst the most attended parks with 1.8. Magic Kingdom also saw the highest number of total attractions at 31, beating out even HHN (27). Universal Studios Florida was next on that list with 23, up from 21 each of the previous two years.
Also of note, I only experienced 47 unique attractions in 2024, down considerably from 66 the year prior and 95 the year before that. The most attractions I experienced in a single day (Halloween Horror Nights excluded) was 6, which came on two separate occasions at Magic Kingdom and a third time at Universal Studios Florida. It all adds up to 102 total attractions experienced in 2024, for exactly 1 APV.
Obviously, I did not get a chance to experience all of my favorite attractions in 2024. Some of the notable attractions I did not experience even once in the past year include Space Mountain, Slinky Dog Dash, Avatar: Flight of Passage, Kilimanjaro Safaris, Rise of the Resistance, The Incredible Hulk Coaster and Velocicoaster. Their inclusion on that list means it has been at least three full years since I’ve experienced Avatar: Flight of Passage and Kilimanjaro Safaris. And while I said this last year, I’ll be planning to end that streak in 2025.
Halloween Events
This is where a lot of the drop off came in. In 2023, I experienced my first run of Halloween Horror Nights with the Express Pass. The difference that made in my experience led to 19 visits and 104 total attractions. Knowing we would not be able to experience HHN nearly as much in 2024, we did not opt for the Express Pass and visited only 7 times, the fewest in three years.
Without Express, we managed only one attraction in our first two visits and the overall APV dropped from 5.5 to 3.8 and a total of just 27 attractions. And while life was the biggest reason for the decline in these numbers, if there is one thing you should take away from them, it is the value of the Express Pass for HHN.
Here are the numbers on my HHN Orlando runs:
This year’s lineup of houses didn’t seem to have any particular standouts. Ghostbuster Frozen Empire was probably my favorite while Insidious: The Further quickly built a reputation as one of the scariest houses in recent memory. However, with those being the two major IP houses of the year, they frequently had the longest wait times in the park. I found Goblin’s Feast, The Museum: Deadly Exhibits and Slaughter Sinema 2 to be good mixes of quality and shorter wait times.
Last year, I compared numbers with 2022, having the Express Pass vs. not having it. That’s not entirely fair given the massive difference in total visits from 2023 to 2024, but I will say my least experienced house in 2023 still saw 7 experiences. Again, the Express Pass makes a significant difference.
Some More Numbers
And just because I’m a statistics nerd (in case you haven’t already figured that out), I wanted to end with some other interesting stats and facts from my past year of park visits.
First park of the year: EPCOT
First attraction of the year: Soarin’ Over California
Final park of the year: Magic Kingdom
Final attraction of the year: The Museum: Deadly Exhibits (HHN)
Most park visits in a month: 14 (February and July)
Fewest park visits in a month: 3 (October – Fewest in three years of tracking)
Most unique park visit days in a month: 10 (February, July and August)
Longest stretch of days without a park visit: 26 (September – October)
Most attractions in a month: 17 (September – All HHN houses) (Fewest in three years by far – 59 in 2023, 65 in 2022)
Fewest attractions in a month: 0 (November and December – First time in three years without an attraction in a month)
Most attractions in a single day: 12 (HHN)
Most attractions in a single park in a single day: 12 (HHN)
Obviously, experiencing the parks as often as I have in the past year is a lot of fun, but I also enjoyed tracking my experiences. I guess we’ll have to see how different these numbers will be in 2025, especially with the opening of Epic Universe.