1)What you didn't mention is cost. VB was something like $150 million total cost, same as Kong, and about $350 million less than Diagon.
An expansion for VB would be what, less than a tenth of the cost of any other ride/development?
2) "The cabanas are sold out" is what I overheard a guest say at my last visit. Minutes later I'm passing the "quick serve" restaurant with the team member saying "it'll be a forty minute line." "Park is at capacity" I've heard multiple times, and have personally been turned away. These are missed opportunities.
3) Disney and Universal are two different beasts. Universal has criticised Disney heavily for being asleep the past decades. I'm not so sure Universal is going to follow the same path as Disney.
4) If I'm not mistaken, VB management largely got transferred from Wet n Wild (correct me if I'm wrong). This leadership had been used to pushing out new slides and keeping the park fresh. There's little reason this culture would change.
5) There's a clear expansion space next to Volcano Bay. Essentially using your argument, because a new slide can't be marketed and people will come no matter what, Universal has this empty plot of land for no good reason and should never expand.
6) Considering Universal has marketed this as their "third gate" and a "water theme park", there's a strong possibility Universal will attempt to heavily market a new water ride. They could do so with a new ride like Krakatau. This would also give them a "pass" for having a year without a new attraction at USF or IOA.
All great points. And we'll see what happens in the future. I'm coming from a background of building business cases for the amusement industry and having done some of that work for waterparks, expansions were always a tough sell (again, unless it was a locals park and/or the sole business focus).
My thoughts on a few of your points:
1. True. Water park attractions are cheap(er). But you still weigh that investment versus other investments you can make at your other properties. At the end of the day, the game of long term capital planning always comes back to trade-outs. VB may finally have a space on that long-term capital plan in year 3 for a $5M new slide complex...until management finds out that Epic Universe is $20M over budget in year 4. Next thing you know, the slide complex is gone and 3 other projects took $5M haircuts. I've lived this numerous times over.
2. Cabanas sold out, 40 minute lines for food...a new slide complex doesn't really put a dent into this problem. If you increase the amount of people you have in the park due to this new slide, those cabanas are still sold out and the food lines are longer. If you don't increase the amount of people through the gate and let the slide complex make the park feel less crowded you haven't solved your "at capacity" issue. This is why expansions at theme parks usually come with an additional restaurant, additional seating, additional bathrooms, etc. At a waterpark if you just drop the slide complex in you put additional strain on the existing facilities which are already tapped out. So one would hope that any expansion comes with more capacity for facilities as well. But I'd still argue that even a good sized water park expansion has very little overall impact to capacity.
3. I agree that Disney has been sleeping. But there were times when Disney wasn't sleeping...every park gets a new attraction for the Millennium! But during this time, the water parks still got nothing despite being at capacity all summer long. The return wasn't there. You can bet if the financial return was there, they'd build it. Just now we're seeing TL get slides because it had reached a tipping point of 20+ years without improvements.
4. It may be the same management, but I'd argue the goals of the parks have changed. WnW was, at it's height, a standalone attraction fighting for it's share of the Orlando dollar. It would add slides and expand to do so. Now it's an add on to a wholistic Resort experience. The fact that it exists is enough for it to do it's job (hey, we better plan an extra 1/2 day to hit the waterpark). When you walk into the hotel lobby on I-drive and see the rack of brochures the old WnW brochure would be screaming water park and touting the newest slide. You'll find VB on page 4 of the Universal brochure (hypothetically speaking).
5. Not NEVER expand, just wait until it makes sense. Parks leave expansion plots open for decades all the time. Kong was built on an expansion plot that was there on the park's opening day...it took them almost 20 years to finally build there.
6. This is a valid point and the wildcard here. The industry will be interested to watch how they keep up with their new attraction every year promise. Especially when some of those additions start to land like duds (F&F).
I hope they prove me wrong, but my money is on a long wait until we see that expansion.
We have a trip this February where we've carved out some time to hit VB (weather permitting).