{"id":399695,"date":"2026-09-14T19:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T19:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/399695\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T19:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T19:00:08","slug":"epic-universe-legoland-level99-are-golden-ticket-winners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/399695\/","title":{"rendered":"Epic Universe, Legoland, Level99 are Golden Ticket winners"},"content":{"rendered":"

Universal Epic Universe<\/a> and Legoland Florida<\/a> theme parks were among the winners of Golden Ticket Awards<\/a>, recently announced by Amusement Today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Epic\u2019s Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment<\/a> was named best dark ride. The park\u2019s Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry ride was second in the category, while Rise of the Resistance at Disney\u2019s Hollywood Studios was third.<\/p>\n

Galacticoaster<\/a> was the best new theme concept of 2026, the trade publication said. The indoor coaster, which debuted in February, operates at Legoland Florida and Legoland California.<\/p>\n

LEVEL99<\/a>, which opened at Disney Springs<\/a> in June, won as \u201cstandout family entertainment center.\u201d The social-gaming venue<\/a> features physical and mental challenges, some<\/p>\n

First look: Magic of Disney Animation at Hollywood Studios<\/a><\/p>\n

Franceen Gonzales, chief operating officer of Windermere-based Enchanted Parks<\/a>, received the Golden Ticket leadership award.<\/p>\n

Winners in 22 categories were determined an international poll compiling more than 500 ballots that were sent to \u201cknowledgeable people within the industry,\u201d Amusement Today said. Voting was done in July. Results were announced at a ceremony at COTALand<\/a>, a theme park set to open in Austin, Texas, on Sept. 26.<\/p>\n

Dollywood<\/a>, a theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, won four awards, including best kids area, most beautiful park, best family coaster (Big Bear Mountain) and best guest experience.\u00a0 It finished second in the best park category behind Europa-Park<\/a> in Rust, Germany.<\/p>\n

A complete list of winners is posted on goldenticketawards.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

First look: Shout-outs for SeaWorld\u2019s Howl-O-Scream, the \u201990s<\/a><\/p>\n

dbevil@orlandosentinel.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Universal Epic Universe and Legoland Florida theme parks were among the winners of Golden Ticket Awards, recently announced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[558,2659,104,28,29,9571,114,19041,266,115,1335,139,141,140,109,76687,76688,76689,2411,106,1316,107,3434],"class_list":["post-399695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-business","tag-disney-world","tag-entertainment","tag-florida","tag-florida-news","tag-lake-buena-vista","tag-latest-headlines","tag-legoland","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social","tag-social-entertainment","tag-social-theme-parks","tag-social-travel","tag-theme-parks","tag-things-to-do","tag-tourism","tag-travel","tag-universal-orlando"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}