As of December 31, 2018, 93,400,929 shares of common stock were issued in the accompanying consolidated balance sheet, which includes 10,174,589 shares of treasury stock held by the Company (see Share Repurchase Program discussion below), but excludes 920,904 unvested shares of common stock and 1,696,996 unvested restricted stock units held by certain participants in the Company’s equity compensation plans (see Note 19–Equity-Based Compensation).

The Board previously authorized the repurchase of up to $250.0 million of the Company’s common stock (the “Share Repurchase Program”). Under the Share Repurchase Program, the Company is authorized to repurchase shares through open market purchases, privately-negotiated transactions or otherwise in accordance with applicable federal securities laws, including through Rule 10b5-1 trading plans and under Rule 10b-18 of the Exchange Act. The Share Repurchase Program has no time limit and may be suspended or discontinued completely at any time.

During the year ended December 31, 2018, the Company repurchased a total of 3,654,816 shares of common stock at a total cost of approximately $98.0 million, leaving approximately $92.0 million available under the Share Repurchase Program as of December 31, 2018. On February 22, 2019, the Company’s Board of Directors approved a replenishment to its Share Repurchase Program of $158.0 million, bringing the total amount authorized for future share repurchases to $250.0 million. The number of shares to be purchased and the timing of purchases will be based on the Company’s trading windows and available liquidity, general business and market conditions and other factors, including legal requirements and alternative opportunities. No shares were repurchased by the Company during the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016.

All shares repurchased pursuant to the Share Repurchase Program, along with shares repurchased directly from selling stockholders concurrently with previous secondary offerings, are recorded as treasury stock at a total cost of $252.9 million and $154.9 million as of December 31, 2018 and 2017, respectively, and are reflected as a reduction to stockholders’ equity in the accompanying consolidated statements of changes in stockholders’ equity.

In 2016, the Board suspended the Company’s then existing quarterly dividend policy to allow greater flexibility to deploy capital to opportunities that offer the greatest long term returns to shareholders, such as, but not limited to, investments in new attractions, debt repayments or share repurchases. During the year ended December 31, 2016, the Board declared or paid quarterly cash dividends to all common stockholders of record as follows:

Record Date	Payment Date	Cash Dividend per Common Share
January 15, 2016	January 22, 2016	$	0.21
March 14, 2016 ^(a)	April 1, 2016	$	0.21
June 20, 2016 ^(a)	July 1, 2016	$	0.21
September 29, 2016	October 7, 2016	$	0.10

^(a)As the Company had an accumulated deficit at the time these dividends were declared, these dividends were accounted for as a return of capital and recorded as a reduction to additional paid-in capital in the accompanying consolidated statements of changes in stockholders’ equity.

As of December 31, 2018 and 2017, the Company had approximately $0.1 million and $0.5 million of cash dividends payable recorded in other accrued liabilities in the accompanying consolidated balance sheets, which relate to accumulated dividends on unvested time restricted shares and unvested performance restricted shares with a performance condition considered probable of being achieved. These shares, which were granted prior to the dividend suspension, carry dividend rights and therefore the dividends accumulated and will be paid as the shares vest in accordance with the underlying equity compensation grants. These dividend rights will be forfeited if the shares do not vest. Previous dividend declarations on all performance-vesting restricted share awards accumulate and are paid only if the performance conditions are met and the respective shares vest in accordance with their terms.

For the years ended December 31, 2018 and 2017, dividends paid in the accompanying consolidated statements of cash flows primarily relate to shares that carried dividend rights which vested during the respective year. For the year ended December 31, 2016, dividends paid to stockholders were $65.3 million and primarily related to dividend declarations declared prior to the dividend suspension. For tax purposes, all of the 2016 dividends were treated as a return of capital to stockholders. Distributions that qualify as a return of capital are not considered “dividends” for tax purposes only.