How did they handle tickets in those cases? Did they just let people in for free?
Also, those are both parks adjacent to existing parks. This is a park you have to prepare/pack for differently, not just saying "Oh hey, did you like that theme park? Come check out this theme park!" while waving people in. It's relatively far away, and you kind of need specific equipment (bathing suit, towel, etc)
For VB, they could have done soft testing with ALL 2 park UOAPs for a couple days before. Then they'd get average attendance and it would maybe entice some people on the fence to upgrade?