How To Fix Universal Kids Resort

Universal Kids Resort has been widely panned – but there is a relatively simple fix. (Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News via Getty Images)

The Dallas Morning News via GettyImages

It seems unthinkable that a major theme park could attract almost universal criticism from influencers, industry titles and mainstream media. It’s even more difficult to imagine this happening to a park operator which is famed for having the highest of standards. However, the latest outpost of industry giant Universal has earned this sad accolade and remarkably it managed to do it before its gates even swung open. There seems to be a simple way to fix it without even spending a dime.

Called Universal Kids Resort, it opened in Frisco, Texas, on July 1 and is the first ever Universal theme park built for children, specifically 3 to 8-year-olds. While other Universal parks have rides and attractions aimed at this age range, they are primarily designed for older kids and adults. In contrast, everything about its Frisco complex has been customized for very young kids.

On a macro level, the park itself covers just 20 acres which is around five times smaller than Universal’s three parks in Orlando, Florida and it’s not due to cost cuts. The small footprint enables young kids to cross the entire park in minutes without needing to worry about getting tired which is one of the biggest gripes that parents have with the sprawling sites in Orlando.

The smaller size enables Universal to offer cheaper tickets there than in Orlando with a one day pass starting at $54.99 which is less than half the cost of its bigger brothers.

Unlike Universal’s parks in Orlando, the franchises which appear in the seven lands of its Texas resort are entirely children’s favorites such as computer animated show Gabby’s Dollhouse, Puss in Boots, SpongeBob SquarePants, the Minions and Trolls. Even the Jurassic World Adventure Camp area is based on the kids’ animated spin-off series rather than the scarier movie series.

There are around 30 attractions in the park ranging from a slow-moving, outdoor train ride to kiddie coasters, an aerial carousel and a raft ride. Themed menus in its restaurants satisfy both adults and kids while the basic decor and bunk beds in the 300-room on-site hotel are clearly targeted at young ‘uns. The hotel’s intentions are clear long before you set foot through the door as the property’s exterior looks like it was built from brightly-colored toy blocks. However, its price isn’t Mickey Mouse as rooms start at between $200 and $250. There is good reason for this.

The estimated cost of building the entire resort comes to $550 million so the margins in the hotel help Universal to make its money back.

Although $550 million may sound like a lot, it’s actually a drop in the ocean in the world of theme parks. For the sake of comparison, the superhero-themed Avengers Campus that opened in 2022 at Disneyland Paris cost precisely $404.1 million (€370 million) to build according to its design manager David Jaraudias. That land only has one new and one rethemed ride so the average cost of the 30 in Universal’s kids complex is far lower. It shows.

Concrete, Concrete And More Concrete

Ahead of the official opening, Universal hosted a press day and it didn’t take long for the guests’ photos to go viral. They revealed the park’s basic design and spartan theming, right down to posters of characters simply attached to railings rather than being subtly integrated into them as you find in many other major parks. That was just the start.

Critics pointed out that the park has an abundance of concrete, no indoor rides and, making matters worse, minimal mature landscaping or shade to shield guests from the intense Texas heat. “This is an ugly, underthemed theme park,” wrote industry title ThemeParkInsider. “There are aspects of this park that look quite nice, namely the Puss in Boots Del Mar area. The Jurassic World area is also perfectly fine. The rest of the park is rather dire. Barren concrete stretches as far as the eye can see, young trees are still being supported by wooden beams around the park, and there’s just not enough shade or indoor space to retreat to.”

The Bello Bay Cruise raft ride themed to the cute Minions characters has become the focus of a lot of the ire thanks to its grey concrete channels which have been compared to the Los Angeles River, an engineered waterway which snakes through similarly barren trenches.

“Concrete, concrete and more concrete. It’s about as whimsical as a freeway overpass,” read one Instagram comment, while another said “I just feel like it’s unfinished.”

Another attraction which came under fire was Shrek and Fiona’s Happily Ogre After, a ride in faux-wooden four-seater vehicles which slowly chug past static and animated scenes that retell the events of the computer animated Dreamworks movie. “That Universal managed to do so little with this attraction is shameful,” said ThemeParkInsider. “There are several flat pieces of art, some (bad) sound-alike voice performances and then the attraction is over.”

The review was accompanied by a video and, unsurprisingly, a stream of cutting comments ensued. “The Shrek ride looks like a ride through a sparsely landscaped office park with some plywood cutouts every thirty feet. My 5 year old would be bored, and likely complaining about being out in the sun,” said one user while another added that it “looks bland as rocks.”

A Real Merry Fairytale

It is all the more astonishing as the Motiongate park in Dubai already has a groundbreaking kid-friendly Shrek ride which presumably could be exported. Dubai has a similar climate to Texas so of course the Dreamworks park is indoors and it makes the most of this. Its scenery is much more elaborate than in outdoor theme parks as there is no danger of it being damaged by the wind or bleached by the sun. This immerses guests in ways which its rivals can only dream of doing.

Shrek’s swamp is dimly-lit and dotted with thatched cottages as well as reeds and artificial moss covering fake wooden logs. The plants in the fields look just like the ones in the movie and there are nods to it all over the land. Tinkerbell, who is seen as somewhat of a weakling in the Shrek films, is flattened against a lantern in the land which is also home to props previously only seen digitally on screen. One is a full size replica of the carriage formed from an onion that Shrek’s ogre bride Fiona rides in. There are cobbled floors, full size trees and a towering stump where Shrek himself lives.

An inconspicuous opening in the stump leads to Shrek’s Merry Fairytale ride. As the land is indoors its hulking ride buildings can be completely hidden by the interior facades to ensure that the structures don’t spoil the immaculately-themed landscape as they often do in outdoor parks. It also means that guests don’t know what they are in for which adds to the sense of anticipation. It builds throughout the queue which winds through the ogre’s cottage and then a replica of the swamp. Everything has been carefully thought through and even the lights are hidden behind branches hanging above.

Then comes the main event as slow-moving trackless ride cars pull up and give guests a new take on the story from the film. Ingeniously, the ride starts with movie-accurate life-size models of Shrek and Fiona telling the story of the movie to their children through a puppet show. The scenes that follow are set in that show and tell the ogre’s story through life-size wooden puppets complete with mock strings attached to their arms.

The ride makes the most of its trackless vehicles and at one point they split up to travel down separate aisles in a church when a good-natured dragon saves the day at Fiona’s wedding to the evil Lord Farquad. At around five minutes, it is longer than the average indoor so-called dark ride though it’s so well done that it still leaves you wanting more.

In contrast, ThemeParkInsider’s review concluded that “there is nothing at Universal Kids Resort that would make me more intrigued by what Universal has up its sleeve.” Many of the comments below the review noted that its Shrek ride looks “cheap” particularly for a company which has created many of the world’s most eye-catching and beloved theme parks. Several outlets noted a steep drop in quality compared to Universal’s original concept art for its Texas park which was filled with lush foliage.

However, some observers said that the end result actually fulfilled its objective. “It’s an amusement park…for young children,” said a user on Reddit “The aesthetic and color palette are to catch attention. It looks the way such a thing should look.” That’s as may be but there is no excuse for limited shade and no indoor attractions. It’s fine for a fun fair which people only visit for a few hours but not for a theme park where many visitors will expect to stay all day.

When the park was announced in January 2023 Frisco mayor Jeff Cheney proudly proclaimed that it will have no dark rides and if that was a condition of it proceeding then Universal should have perhaps reconsidered the project given the respite from the heat that these attractions provide. Nevertheless, neither this nor the target audience excuses the limited amount of shade which is so surprising that even rival theme park operators in distant states poked fun at it.

An Abundance Of Shade

In a witty Instagram post, doubling as promotion for its own 150-acre park, Legoland Florida wrote “what does the ULTIMATE kids’ theme park actually look like? Welcome to LEGOLAND Florida, where the entire family gets to enjoy themed thrills, indoor attractions, and shaded areas all throughout!” It was accompanied by a video of the resort which took a further dig as it carried the message: “btw…this is what a theme park built for kids looks like.”

Fans caught on immediately and the post triggered a stream of comments which ironically referred to the “shade” that Legoland was throwing at Universal. “The shaaaaade of it all” wrote one reader while another said “Lol the shade!”

It soon came to the attention of theme park luminary Jim Shull. A former designer in Disney’s Imagineering division, which is named after its imaginative approach to engineering, Shull is one of the most talented artists to have worked for the Mouse and now hosts the Disney Journey YouTube channel. “#UniversalKids has no parade and the water play is useless for 4 months of each year. Shade and dark rides are needed to fix the park,” he said adding that “#UniversalKids needs their version of #itsasmallworld High capacity, weather proof, kid friendly.”

Posting a photo of some posters on a railing in the park, Shull also wrote that “digital posters against a steel fence on concrete damages the #UniversalKids brands in the eyes of the guest. It looks cheap.” AllEarsNet offered an opposing view as it said that “kids don’t care about theming”. However, even if that is the case, it’s no reason to dumb down the end result. If movie studios took the same attitude there would be no need for A List voice talent or songs from Oscar-winning composers in animated movies. On the contrary, a great deal of the comments about Universal’s new park note that it seems surprising that it took such a bare-bones approach.

“I thought they’d try to market towards creating kid-friendly rides that are more innovative,” wrote one Reddit user while another added that “kids deserve much better than what they are offering here.” All may not be lost.

As Shull points out, when the Disney California Adventure (DCA) park opened in Anaheim in 2001 it faced similar criticisms so billions were poured into updating it. “#DCA opened much as same as #UniversalKids – bare concrete, flat and small trees. Once the public rejected the park the investment flowed. If a park has good structure – good ‘bones’ then it can succeed,” he explained.

It reflects comments from former Disney chief executive Michael Eisner who told us in an interview in 2019 that he “had a little bit of criticism in Anaheim because we didn’t build the second park for Easter Sunday, we built it for a reasonable amount of money and then when it became successful, it was doubled.” It had a magic touch as the latest data from the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) shows that DCA is now the 11th most-visited park in the world with 10.1 million visitors streaming through its turnstiles in 2024.

However, if Universal decides to take this approach in Frisco it could have its work cut out for it as the park would need many more updates than DCA. Unlike the Universal Kids Resort, even DCA had a dark ride when it opened.

It’s All In The Name

It seems that the new addition to Universal’s portfolio has a completely different ethos to other major theme parks so perhaps it would be best to fully embrace it. Comments on Reddit got to the heart of the matter with one noting that “it’s all…carnival rides” and another saying I “wish they did more than just kid friendly flat rides and carnival level coasters.”

Observers may wish that it had more than just carnival rides but the fact is that it doesn’t so calling it a theme park or a resort seems like a stretch. The most logical solution to almost all of the problems faced by the park seems to be to simply rename it ‘Universal Kids Fun Fair’. Then there would be no disappointments. No over promising and no under delivering. The only cost would be changing any physical branding. The site looks like an extremely professional and promising kids fun fair but it looks like an extremely underwhelming resort or theme park.

Renaming it a fun fair would not be demeaning as professionally-run fun fairs are very few and far between and almost all of them are transient. None of Universal’s competitors has built a permanent fun fair before so it would create a new category of entertainment which could be exported worldwide. In turn, it could even sidestep the limited shade as visitors tend to stay at fun fairs for short periods of time and don’t expect to find covered areas between their traveling attractions.

As with any matter of branding, it’s all in the name and calling Universal’s Texas site a ‘theme park’ or a ‘resort’ comes with expectations.

“This basically is not a theme park, but it’s a big playground for kids,” said the AllEarsNet reviewer noting that you would be disappointed if you traveled to Texas just for Universal Kids Resort. She added that her “kids loved it. Everywhere I looked kids were smiling, kids were laughing, kids were having fun.” It is exactly what Universal intended.

Molly Murphy, president of Universal Creative, told The Dallas Morning News that “we designed this park for young kids.” She added “that was our intention: the unbridled creativity of young kids – and their grown-ups and families. So we really looked at it from that lens throughout the whole design process.” This may well be the case but renaming the park Universal Kids Fun Fair wouldn’t change that.

The big question is why it’s necessary to design a theme park for kids in the first place. Walt Disney essentially invented modern-day theme parks in 1955 when he swung open the doors to Disneyland in California. The amusement parks of his era had few rides that parents could enjoy with their offspring but Walt changed that by infusing his attractions with the stories from his blockbuster movies which he knew appealed to adults as much as children.

Walt succeeded in his objective as Disney’s parks have become quintessential vacation destinations for families. This appeal to all ages is embedded in the ethos of the parks and the irony is that Universal has followed Disney’s format in many ways. However, its DNA diverts when it comes to the age range its parks are aimed at with Universal appealing to older guests. It has made a name for itself with thrilling and edgy attractions headlined by its annual Halloween Horror Nights event. However, if Universal had competed with Disney directly there would probably have been no need for it to build a kids park. Early indications suggest that it would have been a missed opportunity.

Annual passes, priced at between $129.99 and $164.99, are already sold out according to Page Thompson, president of Universal’s UDX New Ventures division, which oversees development of new resorts and parks. In an interview with TheWrap, Thompson added that Universal is seeing bookings for multi-day vacations or “staycations” from Texas residents. “That’s exactly what we hoped would happen, so we’re very pleased to see that happening,” he said.

The Competition Revs Up

That doesn’t mean that Universal is guaranteed to have a happy ending as Texas has become a hotbed for theme parks. Established staples such as Six Flags Over Texas, SeaWorld and Aquatica San Antonio were joined last year by The Peppa Pig Theme Park in North Richland Hills. There is more on the way.

Over the coming months, a new theme park will open in Austin, Texas, which is only around a three-and-a-half-hour drive from Frisco. Called COTALAND, it will be nestled next to Circuit of the Americas (COTA), the only purpose-built Formula 1 Grand Prix circuit in the United States. The contrast to Universal’s new park couldn’t be much more stark. The digital flythrough on the park’s website shows that it should make an immediate impression with a striking soaring entrance corridor flanked by massive murals of flowers. It leads to a circular pool surrounded by fountains pouring onto a centerpiece golden statue of a child hugging their parent while holding a heart shaped balloon.

The flythrough shows that the 30-acre park is set to be filled with trees and attractions, many of which appear to be shaded. Its line up is crowned by cutting-edge record-breaking roller coasters to drive attention to the park while kids are catered for with junior versions of its adult attractions. One is the Lil’ Logger, a mini version of the park’s Soggy Logger log flume. Higher up the grid for thrill-seekers is the Downforce drop tower and Cloud Flyer, a 150 feet-high spinning swing ride. Two attractions are in pole position in the park’s portfolio of thrill rides.

One is called Palindrome meaning a word, phrase, number or sequence of symbols that reads the same backward as forward. It’s no coincidence.

Made by German company Gerstlauer, Palindrome is far from a carnival ride. It is the only steel coaster in the U.S. to soar over an active road and is the first infinity shuttle coaster in the country. What this means in practice is that the coaster car climbs up a vertical hill before racing across 1,230 feet of track which culminates in a vertical spire. When the coaster car reaches the top of the spire it slides down under gravity and hurtles backwards along the track to the start. Its return journey is a mirror image of the outbound one, hence the coaster’s unusual name.

Joining it is the equally aptly-named Circuit Breaker from Dutch manufacturer Vekoma. Texas’ only tilt coaster, Circuit Breaker’s car slowly climbs to a peak and stops on what appears to be a severed piece of track horizontally jutting out of the top of the ride. This piece then dramatically tilts down joining the rest of the track before the ride car rockets down it. In what could be the fastest ride in a U.S. theme park, the website shows that there will also be an opportunity to take a ride along in a race car around the actual F1 circuit.

Although the kids’ rides aren’t as exhilarating, they are equally eye-catching. Medusa, the park’s equivalent of Disney’s classic Dumbo ride, features rotating ride cars attached to intricately-detailed tentacles while the park’s train ride is immersed in models of towering flowers. The park has even developed mascots based on local animals to make its rides even more identifiable.

And in the grand tradition of U.S. theme parks, on certain nights, COTALAND will be home to a fireworks show called Where The Stars Shine Bright. The influence of Disney and Universal is clear and that may be no surprise given the talent behind the scenes.

The park’s vice president of operations Matt Hughey is the former operations manager at Six Flags over Texas while COTA’s vice president of human resources Jamey Walls worked at Universal Orlando for six years as Director of Talent Development.

His colleague, COTALAND’s vice president of entertainment Tim Hamilton, also worked for Universal Orlando as a show director and was vice president of entertainment at SeaWorld San Diego. However, the longest stretch of his career was spent with Disney. Hamilton managed iconic shows including the Hoop Dee Doo Musical Revue and was involved with the development of Cinderella’s Surprise Celebration before rising up to the role of creative producer of Disney Parks Live Entertainment.

His magic touch has yet to be seen in reality at COTALAND as the footage on its website is largely digital. However, there is no doubt the park has substance as select roller coaster experts previewed Circuit Breaker and Palindrome earlier this year. They include the renowned CoasterStudios which said that “both were fantastic.” For Universal, the race is on.

Additional reporting by Chris Sylt