What I do find fascinating is how different Phantasialand appears to be to other parks in Europe, and how different Europe appears to be compared to other regions in the world. I’ll try to give a few examples.
China – we’ve seen a huge amount of growth in China, but besides the odd ride here and there, they’re all reasonably similar. One or two big steel coasters, a big woodie, a handful of flats and some big shows, all with some reasonably good theming. It’s a formula that they mostly appear to stick to, and it works. Really well. There are loads of these parks seemingly being really successful and plenty more starting up. They’ve obviously hit a formula that works well.
UAE – similar to China, we’re seeing massive growth here, but again they’re all very similar parks. There will be environmental factors here too (i.e. it’s too ****ing hot most of the time), but look at the new parks out there. They’ve all got a couple of mid-size steel coasters (likely one or two clones), and a load of flats and simulators. They’re all fastened to big franchises (WB, Ferarri, Lego, Marvel, CN, DreamWorks, Lionsgate, etc), with a general focus on all round, family attractions. Again, a formula that seems to be working well.
USA, Florida – Florida is a bit different to the rest of the USA, with a very similar arrangement to the UAE (as I’ve touched on above). These parks are all competitively adding new rides, new areas and new themes. They’re clearly competing with each other, and it’s proving to be a good thing as we’re seeing some really nice investments from Harry Potter to Mako to Avatar.
USA, other – the regional parks in the USA are generally very different to the Florida parks. With a generally larger focus on big coasters, big numbers of coasters and midways. Whilst yes, they are all different, in a generic sense could you really identify the difference between most of them? Cedar Point – midways with large coasters on each side. Kings Island – midways with large coasters on each side. Carowinds – midways with large coasters on each side. Six Flags Magic Mountain - midways with large coasters on each side. They’re all basically the same. This is fine, as they’re catering for that market, but the promotional material for these parks often revolves around “tallest on the east coast”, “fastest in the south”, “wildest in the west”, meaning they’re clearly competing with each other. This is also helped by the big chains, driving massive amounts of investment.
I don’t feel like this is the case in Europe. There doesn’t appear to be very much competition, with parks like Phantasialand and… er… hmm… let’s just say Phantasialand, really leading the way. It’s interesting to see how far ahead of the curve Phantasialand are, and it’s clearly working as they’ve got bucket-loads of money to be spending on these upgrades and new rides/areas. I wonder why we don’t see other parks trying to compete with them? I think there are small glimmers of it happening here and there, but it really doesn’t feel like the other areas mentioned above.
Obviously, there are plenty of exceptions to these examples. Please don’t start saying “but what about Dollywood”, “but what about Shanghai Disneyland”, “but what about Disneyland Paris”, etc.
Ask people for the best park in the USA and I guarantee there’s a big debate to be had. Do the same in Europe? I doubt it…
Can’t wait for my visit in a few weeks!
