SeaWorld Orlando and Universal Orlando’s parent companies reported decreases in attendance and revenue at their theme parks during their financial third quarters. Drastic weather conditions and the anticipation of Epic Universe were given as reasons.

Orlando-based United Parks & Resorts, which operates SeaWorld and 12 other attractions worldwide, said its third-quarter revenue was $545.9 million, a dip of 0.4% from the year-earlier period.

The company said it had 7 million theme park visitors in the three-month period that ended in October. That was a decrease of 1.4% from last year.

Officials said that hurricane season was a culprit.

“Third-quarter results were impacted by both a negative calendar shift and meaningfully worse weather, including Hurricane Debby in August and Hurricane Helene in September,” United CEO Marc Swanson said.

“October results were significantly impacted by Hurricane Milton, which resulted in 14 operating-day closures in our Florida market and an extended impact at our Tampa parks as that market recovered from the impact of the storm,” Swanson said.

Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, another United theme park, was closed for five consecutive days as a result of Milton’s path. It also affected its after-hours Howl-O-Scream event.

Other news nuggets from United’s earnings call with analysts included:

• An increasing number of guests in the parks are using the official app, and revenue generated via the app for food, Quick Queue and other uses is growing.

• Discussions with potential hotel partners continue.

• The company is more focused on sponsorship opportunities within the parks. “We recognize the opportunity we have to generate meaningful profits from leveraging the audience we have in our parks and the success many of our competitors have had in this area,” Swanson said.

Comcast: Epic ahead

Comcast Corp., parent company of NBCUniversal and the Universal parks, said that revenue of its theme parks decreased 5% in the third quarter.

“The majority of the decline was driven by lower attendance at our domestic parks when compared to last year,” said Jason Armstrong, Comcast’s chief financial officer. Universal operates Islands of Adventure, Universal Studios Florida and Volcano Bay water park in Orlando, plus Universal Studios Hollywood in California.

“As we’ve highlighted, our view is there was both a pull-forward of demand that we clearly saw in 2022 and 2023, which were record years for the theme parks and beyond our expectations, as well as the new-attraction pipeline, which is light this year but building towards a substantial pipeline next year,” he said.

Officials gave similar reasoning three months ago, and Armstrong said those conditions were expected to continue as the opening of Epic Universe theme park in Orlando approaches on May 22. The first phase of ticket sales for the park – designed for annual passholders and multiday plans – has begun.

“We are seeing great demand in the early days since we announced that May 22nd next year is opening day,” said Michael Cavanagh, Comcast president. “We’ll be putting together a lot of NBCUniversal Symphony effort to now raise awareness of the park, as you see in the months and months ahead and leading up to opening day.”

Symphony is Comcast’s cross-company promotional initiative.

Overall, Comcast’s revenue for the quarter was $32.1 billion for the quarter, an increase of 6.5% from the year previous. A highlight of the period was coverage of the Paris Olympics on NBC and its Peacock streaming service, which landed $1.9 billion in incremental revenue, Comcast officials said.

Walt Disney Co. is scheduled to announce its quarterly earnings Nov. 14.

dbevil@orlandosentinel.com