Disney Takes Home 8 Top Places in the 2022 “Theme Park Insider” Awards

 by Beth Keating

News

DisneyBizJournal.com

January 2, 2023

 

Well, 2022 was a topsy-turvy year for many theme parks, but fans continued flooding the venues to visit their favorite attractions. While some voted with their wallets, others voted online.

 

Thousands of Theme Park Insider readers took part in the 21st Annual Theme Park Insider Awards, submitting nominations and voting for their favorites in final-round polls.  As one would expect, the big dogs of Disney and Universal took home all ten of the awards, with Disney garnering 8 of the 10 top slots, though many smaller parks across the United States got nominations from their fans and made it into the final rounds.  ThemeParkInsider.com is a consumer's guide to the world's top theme parks, with more than a million visitors a month.

Readers have named this year’s winners as:

 

• Best New Attraction

 

Disney World’s Epcot landed the top spot in this category, with its very first roller coaster,  Guardians of the Galaxy - Cosmic Rewind. Anyone who’s had the joy of experiencing this amazing and innovative new ride will certainly agree. 

 

• Best Holiday Event

 

Over to the west coast for this winner, with Holidays at the Disneyland Resort beating out smaller venues like Dollywood's Smoky Mountain Christmas and Knott's Merry Farm. 

• Best Halloween Event

 

Taking home top honors in this category again was Universal Studios Florida - Halloween Horror Nights, which continues to set the bar for grown-up fright fests.

 

• Insider of the Year

 

Bob Weis, former Global Ambassador and former President of Walt Disney Imagineering, who worked on Disney projects from Tokyo to Shanghai,  recently retired from the House of Mouse, but isn’t going into full retirement mode just yet.  The Insider of the Year Award “honors someone in the themed entertainment industry whose body of work merits this individual honor, in a year when their work drew special attention.” 

 

• Best Theme Park Hotel

 

This winner shouldn’t come as any surprise to theme park enthusiasts either, as it has taken this honor in the past as well.  For the sixth time, Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge at Walt Disney World is the “king of the jungle…” or the savannah, as the case may be.

• Best Theme Park Restaurant

 

Blue Bayou Restaurant at Disneyland (California) was the very first winner in this category in 2002, and it’s the best of the best once again. The food here is great, and the setting so much fun as diners overlook the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

 

• Best Theme Park Show

 

After years of COVID closures, Disney brought back Fantasmic! to both coasts, and the winner for this year’s Best Show is... Fantasmic! Disneyland, the west coast version of the show.  The show also celebrated its 30th anniversary this year.

 

• Best Roller Coaster

 

This is always a tough category to judge and vote in, with so many varied coasters and different sized parks competing in this category.  The winner is: Jurassic World VelociCoaster at Universal Orlando's Islands of Adventure, for the second year in a row.

 

• Best Attraction

 

Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance at Disneyland and Disney's Hollywood Studios is this year’s top of the list. Shocked?  You shouldn’t be… It’s knocked out every other attraction every year since it debuted in 2019. It continues to demand hours-long waits daily on each coast as rebel guests scramble to defeat the Empire.

• Best Theme Park

 

Every fan has their favorite park, but this year’s winner is also a “bucket-list” park for many theme park enthusiasts: Tokyo DisneySea at the Tokyo Disney Resort. It takes home the “Best Theme Park” category for the seventh time!

 

If you’d like to read more about the various nominees, finalists in each category, and the winners themselves, head over to Theme Park Insider.

   

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Beth Keating is a theme parks, restaurant and entertainment reporter for DisneyBizJournal.

Theme Park Experts To Headline First Ever “Parks Con”

 by Beth Keating

News

DisneyBizJournal.com

April 12, 2021

 

Have you ever dreamed of grabbing a snack with your favorite theme park vloggers and writers, and just immersing yourself in discussions about your most-loved theme park sights and sounds?  This may be your chance. Round up your family, make yourself comfy on the couch, and unwrap a few Mickey Bars or make a faux Dole Whip, and enjoy listening to the men and women who take theme park fandom to new heights.

More than three dozen top theme park experts will be getting together virtually at the very first “Parks Con” from April 26-April 28, 2021, in what is being billed as “the world’s largest virtual gathering of parks fans, like you.” The event will uncover fun behind-the-scenes stories, share hidden secrets of the parks, delve into the best ride strategies, and help you with planning for your next theme park vacation, including figuring out how to find the best food and drinks.  

 

The three day event will begin at 10 AM (Pacific time) each day, and offer a different panel each day of ten or more of “your favorite theme park experts, superfans, and legendary designers.” Each panelist’s presentation will remain up for 24 hours for viewers to enjoy.  

 

“Parks Con ‘21” is free to watch live, but you can also purchase an all-access pass that will give you advance access to the site; lifetime access on a special membership site so you can watch the presentations whenever you’d like; a limited edition Parks Con ’21 t-shirt; a Parks Con SWAG Pack full of goodies including pins, stickers, and lanyards; and more. An early bird, discounted price of $147 is available until the start of Parks Con, with the price going up to $177 during the event, and a $197 price tag to register after the event has aired.  For a special add-on to the all-access pass, you can also grab the $27 PDF file of all the notes, tips and tricks from 15+ hours of presentations so you don’t have to scramble to take notes of your own as you are listening.

 

Kicking off the event will be Disney Legend Tony Baxter, and the three days of panels will be broken up into “Florida Parks” on Monday, “California Parks” on Tuesday, and “International Parks” on Wednesday.  Other experts appearing at Parks Con include Lou Mongello of WDW Radio; Stephanie and Danny Shuster of WDW Magazine; Robert Niles from Theme Park Insider; and Matt Roseboom of Attractions Magazine, among the more than three dozen panelists. The event will be hosted by Jason Klein, the host of Magical Masterclass.

 

For more information about the event, a complete list of the speakers, and to sign up for your free ticket, go to ParksCon21.com.  You can also purchase the all-access pass at the site. Early registrants will get advance emails with fun sneak peeks and contests to help build excitement for the first ever Parks Con as it gets closer.

 

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Beth Keating is a regular contributor to DisneyBizJournal.

 

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