Can Theme Park Stocks Recover From 2025's Turmoil? What Investors Need to Know

The year 2025 was supposed to be triumphant for America’s theme park operators. Instead, it turned into a nightmare for shareholders. Three major publicly traded players in the industry — Comcast, Six Flags Entertainment, and United Parks & Resorts — each watched their stock prices crater between 20% and 68%. Even Disney, the sector’s most resilient performer, limped through the year with a modest 4% gain while the broader market surged ahead. What went wrong? And more importantly for investors eyeing a bounce-back opportunity in 2026, can these park operators turn their fortunes around?

The 2025 Stock Decline: When Industry Tailwinds Become Headwinds

The cards appeared perfectly dealt heading into 2025. Comcast had just unveiled Epic Universe, its first major new theme park in over two decades. The Orlando attraction was generating significant buzz and drawing record tourist traffic to Central Florida. Both Disney and United Parks seemed positioned to benefit from increased regional visitation. Meanwhile, Six Flags and Cedar Fair’s 2024 merger promised operational synergies and cost savings that should have lifted profitability across a combined footprint of 40+ parks.

Yet the stock charts told a completely different story. Six Flags suffered the steepest decline, losing 68% of its value. United Parks plummeted 35%. Comcast dropped 20%. Even Disney’s 4% rise paled in comparison to the mid-teens market gains, effectively making it an underperformer relative to broader indices.

The severity of these declines wasn’t driven by sector-wide recession or economic collapse. Rather, investor sentiment soured because the expected benefits simply failed to materialize on schedule.

Epic Universe: A $5 Billion Reality Check

Comcast’s Epic Universe opened in May 2025 to enormous anticipation. The $5 billion investment was supposed to showcase cutting-edge attractions and cement Orlando’s position as the world’s top theme park destination. Initial foot traffic looked strong, but the operational execution proved problematic.

Guest reviews painted a troubling picture. Long wait times for attractions that frequently broke down, poor crowd management during peak hours, and strategic weather-related closures all contributed to ratings that fell notably below Disney World and Comcast’s existing Orlando parks. While this doesn’t indicate the park is a complete failure, it does signal that Epic Universe will need substantial operational refinement throughout 2026 to reach its full revenue potential.

From a financial perspective, Epic Universe did provide the bright spot in Comcast’s portfolio. During the third quarter — the first full three-month period after the park’s spring opening — Comcast’s theme park segment posted a 19% revenue increase and a 13% boost in EBITDA. However, this growth proved insufficient to offset steep declines in Comcast’s legacy cable and broadband operations, which continue hemorrhaging subscribers. Since theme parks represent just 9% of Comcast’s total revenue and 10% of adjusted EBITDA, the park’s success cannot rescue the parent company’s deteriorating core business.

Six Flags: The Merger That Never Delivered

Six Flags provides perhaps the most cautionary tale of the group. When Six Flags and Cedar Fair announced their combination in mid-2024, the logic seemed airtight. Six Flags contributed brand recognition and geographic reach. Cedar Fair brought operational competence. Together, they would reduce costs, improve margins, and generate significant shareholder value.

The reality proved far messier. Rather than operational synergies driving profitability higher, Six Flags watched both EBITDA and net profit margins contract during 2025. The combined entity posted an actual loss in 2025 — a devastating outcome for what was meant to be an accretive merger. Management has already begun exploring asset divestitures to shore up a heavily leveraged balance sheet, effectively retreating from the original expansion thesis.

Management expectations for 2026 profitability have been substantially scaled back. Breaking even in 2026 now represents success — a sobering shift from pre-merger ambitions of margin expansion and double-digit EBITDA growth. Some activist investor interest, including speculation about sports celebrity involvement, has emerged, but so far it has failed to reverse the steep stock decline.

United Parks and Disney: Stability That Masks Deeper Challenges

United Parks & Resorts, which operates SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, Sesame Place, and several water parks, represented a different problem. The stock actually traded higher throughout much of 2025 before a dramatic November collapse. An earnings miss in November — driven by disappointing attendance during the crucial summer quarter — triggered a 35% plunge that wiped out the year’s gains.

Disney navigated 2025 more successfully, with its experiences segment (including parks, resorts, and cruise lines) delivering a 6% revenue increase and an 8% EBITDA gain for the 2025 fiscal year. Yet even this solid operational performance failed to excite investors. Gaining 4% while the S&P 500 climbed into the mid-teens looks like underperformance, not success. For Disney’s shareholder base, even good results proved inadequate given elevated expectations for such a dominant company.

The Valuation Case for 2026: Why Prices May Have Become Too Attractive

While 2025’s results were genuinely disappointing, the silver lining for contrarian investors is that theme park stocks now trade at levels that haven’t been seen in years. The valuations have swung from expensive to compelling.

Comcast trades at just 7 times forward earnings — a multiple that’s historically very attractive even accounting for the company’s cable business struggles. United Parks fetches 10 times forward earnings. Disney sits at 15 times forward earnings. For Six Flags, the analysis becomes more complex. The current valuation doesn’t align with 2025 or 2026 earnings because of ongoing losses. However, looking out to 2028 (when the company expects to return to profitability), Six Flags appears reasonably valued relative to its healthier peers.

More importantly, Six Flags management’s decision to sell non-core assets, while unpalatable as a growth strategy, does serve a critical function: it addresses debt concerns while allowing the company to focus capital and management attention on top-performing attractions where margins can expand.

2026 Outlook: Why Recovery Remains Plausible

Several factors suggest the pessimism priced into these stocks heading into 2026 may be overdone.

Epic Universe should see substantial operational improvements throughout 2026. The park will benefit from a full year of learning curve advancement, with management now understanding guest pain points and able to implement solutions. Capacity utilization should improve as attractions run more reliably, and the park’s reputation on review sites will gradually recover as execution improves. This improvement won’t happen overnight, but the trajectory should shift positive.

Six Flags, despite current challenges, possesses valuable assets. If activist investors can help streamline management and accelerate synergy realization at the remaining portfolio, a recovery path emerges. The company’s popular attractions — like roller coasters at flagship parks — still draw crowds despite operational missteps. Strategic focus on these proven draws could restore margin expansion by 2027-2028.

United Parks’ earnings miss occurred largely due to a single quarter’s attendance shortfall. The company’s underlying business model remains sound, with diversified attractions across multiple park types and strong seasonal scheduling. Investor pessimism stemming from one weak quarter could prove temporary.

Disney’s fundamentals remain solid. The experiences division is genuinely growing revenue and EBITDA. The question isn’t whether Disney operates good theme parks — it clearly does. The question is whether the market will give credit to a large, mature company growing single digits when investors expect double-digit performance. Given the valuation now available at a 15 forward multiple, Disney’s risk-reward may be reasonable for investors with longer time horizons.

The Investment Case Moving Forward

Theme park operators aren’t guaranteed to bounce back in 2026. Operational execution must improve, and consumer spending patterns could weaken if economic conditions deteriorate. However, the combination of compressed valuations, genuine operational improvements underway at most properties, and the potential for activist intervention at Six Flags creates a risk-reward profile that favors bulls over bears for a 2026 rebound.

For investors considering exposure to this sector’s recovery, current price levels offer significantly more attractive entry points than existed at 2025’s outset.