Smoking is a habit that is clearly on the decline. Movies are making a point to show less smoking. Today a lot fewer people are smokers, and those that are not often make a concerted effort to avoid areas where people may be smoking. However, theme parks at least have the benefit of being largely outdoors, making smokers at least potentially less of a problem to non-smokers. Still, with so many guests at theme parks being kids, many theme parks have gone smoke-free in recent years and it looks like Universal Orlando Resort may be heading in that direction, as the parks just drastically reduced the number available of smoking locations.
According to WDWNT, as of December 31, each of Universal Orlando Resort’s two theme parks, Universal Studios Florida and Universal’s Islands of Adventure, have or will shortly have, exactly one designated smoking location. The rest of the smoking locations inside the parks will be shut down, though smoking areas at Universal CityWalk remain unaffected.
With the reduction of smoking locations down to one per park. It certainly won’t take much more to make Universal’s theme parks completely smoke-free. It seems likely that will be the end result, with these last two spots going away at some point in the future, though when that point will be is anybody’s guess. With the parks only allowing smoking in one location each it will be easy to tell at a glance just how many people are actually using the one location. That may determine just how fast it goes away.
Disney theme parks went smoke free in 2019 after a similar period of downsizing. Designated smoking locations in the parks were slowly paired down until there were simply none left. Today the entire Disneyland Resort is smoke-free. Walt Disney World still allows smoking at designated areas around hotels and outside the gates of the theme parks. Disney also makes a point to keep smoking out of movies meant for kids.
Universal Studios Hollywood is in a weird smoking limbo at the moment. The park technically has a smoking area, but it has been closed since the park reopened from the global pandemic. Smoking areas have not technically been removed, but there is no indication that they will ever reopen.
With Universal Orlando Resort set to open a third theme park in 2025, one wonders if Epic Universe will open as a smoke-free park. There’s a pretty good chance that in the two and a half years until that park opens, Those last smoking areas will go away. If not, we could see them vanish when Epic Universe opens, making the resort smoke-free as part of turning the page on the new resort.
