Tagged: theme-parks

This Season Pass Gives You Access to All the Six Flags Parks in One Region. Is It a Good Deal?

A silver lining to living in an age of corporate consolidation is that loyalty rewards and points programs have increasingly long lists of participating locations. Ominous—but…

Kiddo Not Quite Tall Enough for a Theme Park Ride? You Might Get to Skip the Line Next Time

You would think measuring a kid’s height would be a pretty cut-and-dried process. And yet, more often than you might imagine, theme park ride operators and attendants have to be the…

Coming Soon: The First-Ever Minecraft Theme Park Land

One of the best-selling video games of all time is getting its first-ever theme park land. Minecraft World (eat your heart out, Tetris) will debut at the U.K.'s Chessington World of…

Disney Price Hike Pushes Some 1-Day Disney World Tickets Past $200 for the First Time

We're beginning to think Disney's ideal customer is Scrooge McDuck.As often happens this time of year, the Walt Disney Company has once again increased prices for tickets, annual…

Best Places to Go in the Fall: USA Travel Picks for September, October, and November

Updated June 27, 2024 There are those who find summer oppressive and winter dreary, but does anybody not like fall? Okay, maybe third graders bummed about being back in school. But for…

Orlando Sanford International Airport's Name Could Confuse Passengers Going to Orlando

A small airport an hour away from Walt Disney World has trademarked its name to associate itself with the tourist powerhouse of Orlando—and that inclusion can cause confusion when…

Disney's Lightning Lane Is a Scam. Why Do People Keep Buying It?

Forget creativity, forget "magic" and "dreams," forget Walt's "vision." The Disney brand of our day is built mostly on cash grabs.Disney routinely hikes prices far past the rate of…

Universal’s Epic Universe: New Details About the Florida Theme Park’s Rides and Worlds

Florida's Universal Orlando Resort has at last released the first official details about its hotly anticipated upcoming theme park, Universal Epic Universe. First announced in 2019…

2023 in Review: These Top Travel Trends Were Hot on Frommer's

As 2023 draws to a close, a look back at the year’s headlines shows it was an eventful one in travel—and much of what happened wasn’t great. Wars raged. The planet roasted. Prices…

Our Q&A with Dolly Parton at Dollywood, Quite Possibly the USA’s Best Theme Park

You could argue that Dolly Parton now fills the pop-cultural role once occupied by Mickey Mouse. After all, both figures are beloved, theme park–affiliated, and easy to recognize by…

What You Must Reserve in Advance at Walt Disney World—and When Bookings Open

Even when the economy sags and disposable income drops, Disney's theme parks usually find a way to increase revenue. In the company's last financial quarter, despite a sharp collapse…

Disney World to Make Big Changes—But Will They Make Visiting More Pleasant?

Bob Chapek, the unpopular former CEO of the Walt Disney Company, had the misfortune of presiding over the entertainment giant throughout the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic. Under his…

Would You Travel for Disneyland's Disney100 Promotion? A Look at What's On

Disney's U.S. parks are launching a new promotional period, Disney100, which marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of Walt Disney's empire—and you're going to hear a lot about…

4 Signs That Disney Parks Are in a Lot More Trouble Than People Think

In November, the proverbial wishing star really came through for Disney fans. The company's boardroom power struggles culminated in the abrupt firing of former CEO Bob Chapek. Many…

Go to Disney Parks for Free Any Day of the Week—the Streamer Army Will Take You

This week, a staggering new price increase took effect at Walt Disney World in Florida. Now if you want to spend a single day at the world's most popular theme park, Magic Kingdom, it…

Should You Buy MagicBand+ When You Go to Disneyland? (Spoiler: Not Yet)

Florida's Walt Disney World introduced the MagicBand in 2013. It was met with some scathing negative publicity over privacy concerns that have since seemed to evaporate. It took about…

2022's Most Exciting New Roller Coasters

This is a thrilling year for thrill rides. Roller coasters that were supposed to open in 2020 and 2021 but didn't due to the pandemic are finally ready to begin inducing screams and…

San Diego Water Park Reborn as the West Coast’s First Sesame Street Theme Park

To the venerable query "Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?", a new theme park in Southern California has an answer: by inner tube. SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment is…

Year in Review: 2021’s Top Travel Stories, According to Frommer’s Readers

In 2021, as in 2020, the seemingly never-ending Covid-19 pandemic dominated every aspect of public life, from the economy to the arts. Here at Frommer’s, we covered all the…

Can a Computer-Literate Great-Grandmother Figure Out Disney World's Genie+?

Disney's parks did not emerge from the pandemic unscathed. They're in a period of drastic change. As thousands of the brand's biggest fans return to theme parks after several years…

Walt Disney World's First 50 Years—Through the Lens of Orlando's Newspaper

Nowadays, Florida's Walt Disney World—the most popular theme park destination on the planet—cultivates its global image through heavyweight marketing, synergistic sister brands, and a…

Walt Disney World’s 50th Birthday Is an Anticlimax—So When Should You Go?

In 2021, Walt Disney World in Florida turns a half-century old. On October 1, 1971, Walt Disney's brother and business partner, Roy, dedicated the East Coast version of California's…

Disney Officially Kills FastPass, Will Charge Extra to Use the New "Lightning Lane"

FastPass is dead. Long live FastPass! For a generation, Disney's iconic FastPass was a famous signifier of the company's premium product and its generosity with its customers. For no…

Going to Disney Is Different Now. Someone Should Warn You About These 10 Things

The return of travel brings the return of reassuring old habits. Just as some people feel incomplete until they can root for their favorite baseball team in person again at their local…

Almost Fully Assembled, Legoland New York to Open This Summer

Legoland New York Resort, a 150-acre theme park devoted to colorful plastic bricks in the Hudson Valley north of New York City, was supposed to open on July 4, 2020. But like an older…