A Longer Look at the 2019 Golden Ticket Awards

As MickeyBlog has chronicled the last two years, the Golden Ticket Awards stand above the rest of the industry as the most respected theme park awards. Each year, Amusement Today honors the various rides and parks across the world, and a win can elevate something relatively obscure into the public consciousness. Let’s take a look at the 2019 Golden Ticket Awards to learn how Disney did.

About the Golden Tickets

As discussed last year, the voting process for these awards is a bit unusual. Amusement Today selects a group of respected theme park analysts from all four quadrants of the United States. Then, they send out ballots to international voters to ensure that the results aren’t overly America-centric.

You can actually become a Golden Tickets voter should you meet the criteria. I’m still about 10 theme parks short of the suggested total, but filling out a ballot someday is a career aspiration of mine. I feel this way because it’s one of the greatest things to vote on anywhere. By filling out a Golden Ticket Awards ballot, I’d get a say in which theme parks and rides are worthy of major awards consideration. Who wouldn’t want to do that?

Also, I’d like for Disney to get a bit more representation. The truth about the Golden Tickets is that they’re skewed mainly to non-Disney theme parks. It’s almost as if this series of awards exists to celebrate the less-heralded attractions rather than the most popular ones.

To an extent, that’s an admirable goal, but it arbitrarily punishes Disney for being so consistently excellent and successful. You can probably tell from these comments that Disney rarely does well at the Golden Tickets. While that’s undoubtedly true in recent years, the company emerged victorious in two major categories this year.

Disney’s Dark Ride Dominance

Over the past three years, Disney has dominated in the category of Best Dark Ride. Their famous attraction, Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, well, towered over its peers from 2016-2018. This year, a new contender usurped Disney’s timeless classic.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure is the new and rightful champion in the category of Best Dark Ride. Since Shanghai Disneyland opened in June of 2016, Disney fans have awaited this moment. The modernized version of Pirates of the Caribbean embodies the pinnacle of 21^st century Imagineering.

Guests board gigantic pirate boats and journey into the unknown. The first part of the attraction is a conventional Pirates of the Caribbean experience, with the detailed set pieces that you’ve grown to expect from Disney.

Then, you plummet into the Graveyard of Lost Ships, where digital displays akin to Soarin’ tell a darker tale. It’s one that involves Davy Jones and the Kraken. Interestingly, later scenes may remind you of Na’Vi River Journey.

Yes, Battle for the Sunken Treasure is so immersive and innovative that it merges the best ideas from three other attractions into a composite one. And its victory here represents Disney’s fourth straight win in the genre that Walt Disney invented, the dark ride.

The Other Disney Winner

Disney’s second win is one that I’d call an upset. The way that the Golden Ticket Awards work, nominations and voting are done during the summer. By that point, Disney’s latest endeavor, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, had only been in operation for a few weeks. It faced an uphill battle simply to earn a nomination, much less for anything to win.

To the credit of Imagineers everywhere, Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run still won. Specifically, it’s the victor in the category of Best New Family Attraction of 2019. This category is actually new this year, as the Golden Tickets retired four old categories. We’ll discuss another new award in this next section.

To Golden Tickets voters, nobody possessed enough information to judge Smugglers Run relative to existing attractions, ones that they’d ridden many times before. Instead, they created this category to indicate their extreme satisfaction with the clever design of the Disney ride. Its ability to host a party of six in a joint adventure elevates Smugglers Run above the competition and makes it the clear choice for this award.

Other Orlando Winners

As always, we’re open-minded here at MickeyBlog. We understand that you may visit other theme parks during your Disney vacation. As such, you want to know what’s great. I’ll start with a longstanding favorite.

Revenge of the Mummy at Universal Studios Orlando is so great that the Golden Tickets retired the category of Best Indoor Roller Coaster. It had locked up that award for many years now.

Among the new stuff, Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure at Universal’s Islands of Adventure also emerged victorious. It won Best New Attraction Installation of 2019, a fancy way of saying that voters love everything about the ride including the line queue and the pre-show.

Universal also won an award for Best Halloween Event of 2018. Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Orlando is extremely popular with voters. It’s not a surprise since many of the ballot-holders are adults who don’t necessarily have children. But those of us who adore Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party always do a spit-take at this result…which is very, very, VERY wrong.

Finally, SeaWorld Orlando claimed the title of Best Wildlife/Marine Life Park. I’m not getting into the uncomfortable politics of that situation, merely relaying information. If your family loves SeaWorld, you will clearly have a great time there, and that’s all that should matter to you.

The Other Major Winners

In case you’re curious, the Best Steel Roller Roaster on the planet right now is Fury-325 at Carowinds. The Best Wooden Coaster is Phoenix at Knoebels Amusement Resort, a singularly unique park that everyone should visit at some point. The Best New Roller Coaster this year is Steel Curtain, the Kennywood ride that Pittsburgh Steelers fans, in particular, will love.

In terms of park awards, Germany’s Europa-Park is once again the Best Amusement Park. You’re right to feel outraged right now, as Disney was robbed. Similarly, Dollywood won Best Guest Experience and Best Christmas Event of 2018. I live 45 minutes away from this park, yet I visit Disney more often, which should tell you everything about what I think of these results.

Similarly, Knoebels is the champion in the category of Best Food of 2019. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry about that. Disney gets shamefully overlooked in so many different aspects of the Golden Ticket Awards.

Now that I’m done griping, here is the full list of Golden Ticket Awards winners for 2019:

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