United Parks posts declines in revenue, income and attendance
Posted
From the press release:
In the third quarter of 2025, the Company hosted approximately 6.8 million guests, generated total revenues of $511.9 million, net income of $89.3 million and Adjusted EBITDA of $216.3 million. Attendance decreased approximately 240,000 guests when compared to the third quarter of 2024. The decrease in attendance was primarily due to an unfavorable calendar shift including the timing of the Fourth of July holiday and a decrease in international visitation compared to the prior year quarter.
The decrease in total revenue of $34.1 million compared to the third quarter of 2024 was primarily a result of a decrease in attendance and a decrease in total revenue per capita. Total revenue per capita decreased due to a decrease in admissions per capita partially offset by an increase in in-park per capita spending.
Was just at Busch Gardens Tampa and Sea World Orlando. Those continue to be beautiful parks with decent rides, but the operations are simply pathetic. Slow one train ops on many rides turned what could have been walk ons into 20-30 minute waits in many cases. I couldn't help but feel like I was being squeezed by them as we purchased all day dining one of the days and they don't open most restaurants with the park and many of them close early as well. Combine that with an already early closing and the bad operations on rides and although we did like a lot of elements of the day, it seemed like they could do better to give me my money's worth. It will be a good long while before I give them another dime.
-Matt
This is brutal (see stock performance) and things are going to get worse. Politics aside, (which your really can’t do) any contraction of flight schedules based on govt shutdown will impact Orlando. There’s no way around that. If it impacts the normally busy holiday season, it’s going to be especially ugly for this company. BGW and SD are not fly to parks in Q4. Orlando most certainly is.
I sometimes wonder, does the CEO or anyone in leadership at United Parks understand they basically own the "Cedar Point of the South" with Busch Gardens Tampa? From Nov to April, that park should be as busy as CP is during the summer with coaster enthusiasts and snow birds willing to hand over their cash like crazy! Same with SeaWorld Orlando which has some great rides. How do you, as a theme park operator living in theme park country, screw up park operations so bad that the people who would WILLINGLY say "Please, take my money" not even want to visit your parks which then leads to poor public perception and results like we have here? Literally, all they have to do is run their rides effectively with no less than 2 trains on coasters with dispatches under 90 seconds. Is it really that hard today? In the 80's we could unload and load a train for dispatch in 30 seconds so offering 90 seconds is being super generous!
This company has gouged customers, and now they have the surpassed maximum point where people will tolerate it. Along with constsnt cost cutting that negatively affects the customer experience like Six Flags.
six Flags negative experience doesn’t cost very much if you’re on a season pass and meal plan. Thats not the case with United Parks
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