''We want our guests to feel like, 'Man, I'm in the middle of an action movie,''' Mr. Trowbridge said. ''That takes advances in technology we've been working on for a long time.''

Theme park operators are looking for any edge they can get lately, as the decline in tourism in recent years and a drop in foreign visitors have affected the business. Reporting fourth-quarter earnings last Thursday, Vivendi Universal Entertainment, parent of Universal Studios, said revenue at its theme parks was down 5 percent in 2003.

The company's bigger and main theme park competitor, the Walt Disney Company, has said that its parks and resorts revenue declined 1 percent in the 2003 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. Both companies say the declines are a result of general problems in the travel industry, which has been hampered by fears of terrorism and upheavals in the airline industry.

Universal and Disney do not disclose attendance figures for their theme parks. According to estimates compiled by Amusement Business, a trade publication, attendance at 5 of the 10 most-visited theme parks in North America was flat in 2003 compared with the previous year -- that estimate would cover two Universal Orlando parks, Universal Studios (nearly 6.9 million) and Islands of Adventure (6.1 million).

But Susan Lomax, a spokeswoman for Universal Studios, said attendance at the Orlando Studios park set monthly records in July, August and October and a daily attendance record in late December.

Amusement Business reported that attendance was also flat in 2003 at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, which leads the industry with 14 million visitors, but was up 4 percent at Disney's Epcot park. The research company said Epcot's growth was spurred by a new space capsule simulator, Mission: Space. Both parks are in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., competing in the hotly contested Orlando market with the Universal parks and Seaworld, owned by Anheuser-Busch.

Karen Oertley, publisher and editor in chief of Amusement Business, said new attractions were critical to getting visitors through the gates. ''Whenever they debut something,'' Ms. Oertley said, ''there's a lot of interest in what they've done and people want to get down there to see it.''