Universal vs Disney: The Battle for Orlando | Epic Rivalry | 4

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22:49David Brown:Hey there, welcome back to Business Wars. My guest is theme park journalist Drew Taylor. Let's dive in a little bit further into that business model of Disney World and Universal Studios. Seems like as they expand, they're both doubling down on this whole multi-park model. Absolutely. Universal now has four, I think it's four distinct parks in Orlando. They call the water park a theme park, but three or four. Yeah. Okay. And then, of course, you've got Disneyland and you've got California Adventure in Anaheim. Guests have so many options of what kind of pass they're going to buy. I have wondered sometimes whether it's good business to make you have to do so much homework before you go to a theme park, you know, deciding what kind of ticket you're going to get and whether this is the right theme park and whether there's a better package here versus there.

23:40David Brown:What do you see as the business strategy here? Well, it's sort of insidious, but I think the park shutting down for the pandemic really gave Disney this out to say like, oh, there are these things that we've kind of wanted to implement but couldn't figure out how. And now that the parks are shut down and we have to kind of do a hard reboot. Oh, it bought them some time to think about this. Oh, absolutely. And it gave them the opportunity to implement some of these more kind of nefarious things like park reservations, which were never a thing beforehand. and kind of redoing the whole model of the annual pass.

24:16You know, Disneyland is really the most visited regional theme park in the world. You know, nobody wants to say that, but it's really true. And it's really fueled by local visitors. By the local visitors. Absolutely. You know, people who will pop down after lunch and, you know, ride a couple of rides and buy a T-shirt and go home. I mean, these are really the people that can prop up the parks when there's some kind of fallow periods. So, you know, I feel like they kind of turn their back on those folks in an effort to maximize ticket buying at every turn, whether it's adding in the stay at one of the hotels or adding in Lightning Lane.

24:58And even things like I did a story about dynamic pricing and how dynamic pricing is coming to the theme parks. And it's really an opportunity for them to literally change the price of a ticket based on the time of day you want to go, which is just insane. It's going to it's going to be like a like an airline kind of model.

25:20David Brown:I don't know how people budget for something like that. Well, that's a great question. I mean, there was a great New York Times story last year or the year before about how many families go into debt just going on one of these vacations. And I really sympathize with them because they are hugely expensive. And adding in this idea of dynamic pricing, which from the people that I talk to is not only going to come to tickets, but is also going to come to merchandise and food and beverage. meaning that the price of a coca-cola could change depending on how many people are in the park or what time of day you're there yeah i mean it's it's insane if you look at some of the merchandise now they are they don't actually have prices on them they have color coding so that they can change the price of that color of merchandise i have to ask you then is there is there a a better time to get your soda or I mean, not yet.

26:15We haven't gotten them yet, but I mean, it will, it will happen. I mean, you're paying hundreds of dollars to go to these theme parks every day. It's really, it's a lot and you have to budget and you have to go into these things like you're, you know, talk about wars. You're going into kind of a military invasion. Okay. We've got dinner reservations here. We've got to look at our, you know, our lightning lanes here. We've got to do all of this stuff. And he used to not be like that. I heard what I thought was an

26:44David Brown:apocryphal story about Walt Disney going down to Anaheim after Disneyland was up and running, maybe a few years after it had gotten off the ground. And he was looking around the city of Anaheim and what was starting to surround the theme park. And there were all these sort of Travelodge style motels and all kinds of souvenir shops. And the thought occurred to him, why don't we own that? Of course, by that point, they'd already sort of purchased the land and there were limits on what they could actually do. But a big part, as I understand it, of how they were thinking about building out in Florida was to make sure they had enough land so that they would have people locked into that ecosystem.

27:28David Brown:People were spending money not just at the parks, but to, you know, stay overnight and to buy the stuff. And it was part of, in a way, what Apple does, right? Yes, absolutely. It's exactly like Apple. It's that kind of closed loop ecosystem referred to in various states of derision as the Disney bubble is sort of the Disney bubble. You know, you're right. It is a closed loop. You know, when Walt did the video about, you know, Epcot and what he wanted to do in Florida, he said, here we have the blessing of size. And it's true. It's, you know, it is a it is a giant piece of property. I mean, they could literally do anything that they wanted to.

28:06And, you know, there is there is definitely a component to being in this ecosystem where you you cannot walk five feet without giving some money to the Disney Corporation.

28:17David Brown:Let's talk about those Park Hopper passes. This is where you can go between the parks. Are guests going all in for these passes? They absolutely are. People love doing that. They love getting on the monorail and going, you know, oh, we've got a dinner reservation at Epcot or, you know, whatever. And Disney has tried to, you know, make that process a little bit easier. There's a thing called the Skyliner now, which is kind of these kind of sky buckets that you use to travel from one area of the resort to another. So they're sort of incentivizing park hopping, I guess, giving you reasons. Oh, yeah, for sure.

28:51I mean, if they could incentivize turning you upside down and making sure that your last nickel fell out of your pocket, they would do that. But the technology is not there yet.

29:02David Brown:It's amazing how well they can hide that if it were indeed as crass as you say. Yes, yes. With a smile and a lovely wave from your favorite Disney character. Yes, yes, yes. Well, speaking of add-ons, we got to talk about these lightning lanes and fast passes. Get a sense just in terms of the conversations that parents have with each other that there's a little bit of resentment going on there. And I wonder whether you see that in the bottom line. Are these essential to enjoying the parks now? They are essential in terms of enjoying the parks. They are also essential, as we are talking about the business side of this company, in terms of what is getting greenlit to being produced and built.

29:45David Brown:Oh, say more about that. Okay. So I did a story recently about a new land coming to the Magic Kingdom called Villain's Land. And from everyone I talked to, there was a real emphasis on making sure that there was at least one attraction that met the standard of what they call individual lightning lane. You know, Lightning Lane is a package and you can get access to different rides, but individual Lightning Lanes are sort of the top tier attractions and the ones with the longest lines that you can actually pay an individual fee to get a better spot in the line. Now, these fees can go up to like, I think, excess of$30 per person.

30:26So if you're going with a family, I mean, you're talking about hundreds of extra dollars. I was in Florida for the Star Cruiser, the Star Wars Hotel in 2021, and I rode the Ratatouille attraction in Epcot. And I think it cost me$14 just to do that by myself. Wow. So they're saying we have to have at least one attraction in this new land that clears that individual lightning lane criteria so that we can make money. I mean, I've heard this literally makes them hundreds of millions of dollars per attraction. like on Star Wars Rise of the Resistance or Guardians of the Galaxy, Cosmic Rewind. I mean, hundreds of millions of dollars.

31:07And you're right, it has been baked into not only the experience and the budget of families' vacations, but also the time management because you have to be on your phone now. Oh, a new Lightning Lane has opened up. Let's get this. It's almost gamified the experience of going to a Disney resort.

31:25David Brown:But do you think that this has this can reach a sort of a critical mass where patrons are just like, look, you know, I'd love to take my kids. And yet it becomes sort of an unpleasant experience, especially for adults who have to do all that all that management. I keep waiting for the moment to happen. I really do. I I think that there is something happening there. If you look at the attendance of the parks domestically over the past few years, they have either flatlined or dipped slightly. Now, where they're making up for it is that the per capita spending is actually up. So what that means is that they are still getting the Lightning Lane tickets.

32:07People are still buying a sweatshirt on their way out of Magic Kingdom at the end of the night. I bought a bottle of water at Disneyland a couple of trips ago, and it was$9.75. sense. So, you know, all of that stuff is still rising. So I keep waiting for people to actually say, you know what? You pushed it too far. It's just, it's too complicated. We're going to stop going. But for so many families, this has been baked into the kind of Americana rite of passage. You know, your first trip to a Disney park, your first photo in front of the castle, The time that you got Pluto to sign your autograph book.

32:46I mean, these are really, you know, primal memories that families will spend years either saving up for these vacations or spend years paying them off after going. Yeah.

33:00David Brown:Certainly Disney, it would seem to me, would have a certain advantage when it comes to the generational capture. But of course, Universal has a lot of IP that's attractive as well. But it has me wondering, what do you see, Drew, as the fundamental difference between Disney and Universal when it comes to how they operate and how they position their brand and their parks in the marketplace? Is there a fundamental difference? I think there is. And I think what's really interesting is the way that Universal is expanding in ways that Disney could not or would not, let's say. Just a few weeks ago, they opened the Universal Kids Resort in Frisco, Texas, which is, by all accounts, a really crummy park.

33:46It's aimed at little kids. There's not much theming. The water ride looks like some kind of water processing facility. and there is no way that Disney could get away with something like that not only in terms of trying to go after a specific demographic slash attendance level but also in putting something what they would call guest facing that that by all accounts is not really finished you know Disney will delay projects months and years to make sure everything is sort of tightened up But these kind of regional expansions are really interesting to me. You have that. And then you also have something called Universal Horror Unleashed, which is in Las Vegas at the Area 15 complex.

34:31That's sort of the Universal Halloween Horror Nights model applied to a single destination where you can go any time of year. It's not exclusive to Halloween and it is a regional kind of experience. So those kind of things I'm really keeping an eye on in terms of like, is this tenable? Is this something that's going to work?

34:54David Brown:As you describe it, though, Drew, it's sort of especially when you think about Disney holding off until they can get all of the polish down. It almost seems like and correct me if I'm wrong here. Universal doesn't care so much about getting everything polished right. So long as their park is, I don't know, maybe more accessible, maybe more for the every person, you know. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Did you see the really great Super Bowl commercial that they put out, David? No. Tell me about it. OK, well, it's a really beautiful kind of heartwarming commercial that shows families, I think, from around the country who look very sort of middle class, kind of relatable, going to the Universal Parks in Florida.

35:42They just opened last year Epic Universe, which is like an amazing park that I love so much and I can go on and on about why it's so wonderful but they're going to these parks and having these great memories and you know to me it's a very pointed counterpoint to the Disney narrative whether it's right or wrong I think it's right but that that these parks have really become for the have and the have mores not the everyday American and Wow. You know, that Universal commercial really said, like, listen, these parks are for everybody.

36:17David Brown:We're going to take a quick break and then queue up for one more ride with today's guest, Drew Taylor. We'll get into Universal's new Epic Universe theme park, which Drew seems to love so much, and Disney's potential counterattack. Stay with us.

36:43David Brown:Hey, welcome back to Business Wars. We're talking with journalist Drew Taylor, who covers film, animation, and theme parks for The Wrap. Drew, I'm curious, when you step back, what excites you the most about the theme park landscape these days? What gets your blood going? Well, what gets my blood going is I think that Universal and Disney both are in really great places for expansion and sort of escalation. And I really hope that this continues because as a theme park reporter and someone who enjoys these parks, I'm just like very greedy for whatever is coming next. So I think we saw the opening salvo of this last year with the opening of Epic Universe.

37:26And, you know, Disney has a lot of stuff that they're kind of loading up to challenge them.

37:31David Brown:That raises an interesting point because sometimes I've gotten the impression that these theme parks have become so wildly innovative, certainly in recent years in terms of the rides and the attractions. Where do you go from here? Where are the parks going when it comes to innovation? Are we just talking about bigger, faster? What exactly? Exactly. Well, you know, those kind of benchmarks are things that, you know, Disney and Universal have typically shied away from. You know, you'll hear like, it's the fastest roller coaster. It's got the tallest drop or whatever. And I feel like the, you know, Cedar Fair, Six Flags, you know, monolith as it is now kind of has the market cornered on that stuff.

38:15So with Universal and Disney, it's really like, how do we make this more immersive? How do we make this sort of bespoke to only our parks? Something that you can only get if you go to Universal or Disney. And, you know, what I would really love to see, and this is maybe a pipe dream, but is an investment in original IP. One of the things I love the most about Epic Universe is that the kind of hub land, which is called Celestial Park, is completely free of IP. It's an entirely new story. There are new characters. There is lore that has been developed just for this land. And it rules. It makes me so happy.

38:57It makes me so happy to hear original music in the land that did not come from some old movie that you have to remember. You know, it's like what I think Disney has kind of forgotten about is the fact that Pirates of the Caribbean now, you know, a crown jewel of the film division started out as a theme park attraction in 1967. And it was an original theme park attraction. Same thing with Haunted Mansion. They've tried so many Haunted Mansion movies and TV shows and things like that. An original IP, you know, like if you invest in IP in the parks today in 10 or 15 years, You will have a Disney Plus show.

39:36You will have another billion dollar grossing movie. You know, that's where I think things have gotten a little lost.

39:44David Brown:Well, you're so enthusiastic about this central park ideas as this central, you know, hub, no preexisting IP. Is it too soon to call it a success? Because this has only been, you know, going for what, about a year now? About a year. What's interesting about this kind of hub world of Epic Universe is that they're testing a contingency plan where you can actually go to Celestial Park, my favorite part of Epic Universe, and you can ride the rides and buy food and whatever, and then not be charged for your ticket until you enter one of the other realms. Wow, so it's like free to enter or what? It's like free to enter.

40:28And then they're using facial technology. They've just started testing this out where you will only get charged when you go through the portal into one of these other lands. And also kind of as a as a holding area where say, oh, the Harry Potter portal is full. Go hang out in Celestial Park, ride the carousel, buy a pizza, you know, whatever. And then you'll get kind of alerted to come back into the portal at a later date. Something that I really appreciate about the Celestial Park part of Epic Universe as well is that it is a true park. I mean, there's just like grass where you could just like sit down and have a soda and, you know, stuff like that.

41:05And to me, that's a really fascinating way of encouraging engagement with the park and these amazing attractions in a way that feels, you know, fresh and new. You know, Disney tried so many different iterations of this idea in the past. You know, there was going to be a roller coaster at the Boardwalk Resort, which is just outside of Epcot, you know, things like that that never really solidified. But, you know, Universal, we talk about how they're willing to sort of experiment more with these regional parks. They're also willing to experiment more in terms of guest flow, you know, the entrance procedures, things like that in ways that Disney probably couldn't because not only are they such a huge machine, but also it's going to be picked apart endlessly on social media.

41:52David Brown:So already we've got Universal, which has pretty much gone global and in a sense gone sort of more local, I suppose you could say. For Disney, any word on a new park anytime soon? What's the latest there? They've tentatively said that the Abu Dhabi park is coming online in the next few years. It'll be interesting to see if that happens. I've actually heard an interesting anecdote from a former Imagineer that Disney is actually looking at the Abu Dhabi park in terms of how they are going to deal with climate change. that pretty soon in Florida and California, the weather is going to be so inhospitable that it will mirror what the conditions are in Abu Dhabi.

42:43And they're actually going to be able to prepare their domestic parks for the kind of climate change in the same way, you know, just by making a park in that part of the world and sort of observing what happens there.

42:57David Brown:So if someone were to say, Drew Collett, who seems to be ahead in this parks game right now? Is it Disney or Universal? Who seems to have the upper hand or the advantage right now? I think Disney will always have the upper hand just in terms of the legacy, their ability to hire the most exciting talent. But I am more excited, perhaps, by what Universal has up its sleeve. But I think Disney will always be on top as long as people are willing to pay the exorbitant fees of going to one of the parks. But of course, that's the big question. That is. Yeah. Listen, you've been incredibly generous with your time.

43:40David Brown:Before we let you go, are you willing to take on a few rapid fire questions? Oh, I'm ready. I'm ready. I've done my jumping jacks. I'm ready. All right. Here we go. Drew, what's your all-time favorite theme park ride? Theme park ride? Oh, wow. You know what? I'm going to get, can it be an extinct attraction? That's really my question. Of course. Okay. I think my favorite, maybe of all time, is The Great Movie Ride, which was an opening day attraction at Disney and Jim Studios to take it back. It's a lengthy, dark ride where you go through the history of the movies. And as an impressionable youth who was already obsessed with cinema, it was an absolutely magical experience.

44:25And I got to ride it right before it got closed down because I was there for a media event. And it was really lovely to say goodbye. It's a great movie ride, I think, will be my favorite.

44:34David Brown:So what's your favorite theme park concession? Oh, well, I love a Mickey ice cream bar, but there is currently in Disneyland at a couple of the food stands in Fantasyland this garlic cheesy bread that has cheese inside that really sets me up for success. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, those are the warmups. Put on your Imagineer hat here if you can. And if you were able to design a new attraction at any park, what would it be? Oh, that's a great question. There was a plans for a Dick Tracy attraction for a long time called Dick Tracy Crime Stoppers, which would have you firing a Tommy gun out of the side of a Model T car, which I would love to do still to this day.

45:22But I would love to kind of go back to a classic Disney IP, something like the Rocketeer, perhaps. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah, with the Art Deco and all that. Yeah, absolutely. Do something with flight. You can have a South Seas Club restaurant outside and, you know, get those dinner reservations afterwards. And, you know, there's something very classic about the Rocketeer and that spirit of Disney that kind of, you know, post-war swashbuckling kind of stuff. So I would love to see something based on that. Because God knows I can't get an original IP through the door, so I got to at least lean on something enjoyable.

46:01David Brown:Drew Taylor is a senior writer with The Wrap and the host of the podcast Fine Tuning with Drew Taylor. Got to check that out. Drew, thanks so much for joining us on Business Wars. It's been a real delight. Thank you so much for having me. I hope you get back in line and we can do this ride again sometime soon. Would love to. Next time on Business Wars, how did GoPro, the tiny rugged camera, go from riding high as a multi-billion dollar brand to fighting for its life?

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46:49David Brown:From Audible Originals, this is Episode 4 of Universal vs. Disney, The Battle for Orlando for Business Wars. I'm your host, David Brown. Our senior interview producer is Peter Arconi. Our senior producers are Jenny Bloom and Emily Frost. Our producer is Tristan Donovan of Yellow Hand. Karen Lowe is our producer emeritus. Engineered by Sergio Enriquez, our managing producer is Desi Blaylock. Kyle Randall is our lead sound designer. Executive producer for Audible, Jenny Lauer-Beckman. Head of creative development at Audible, Kate Navin. Head of Audible Originals North America, Marshall Louis. Chief content officer, Rachel Giazza.

47:27David Brown:Copyright 2026 by Audible Originals, LLC. Sound recording copyright 2026 by Audible Originals, LLC.