DaptoFunlandGuy

Ehh. I'm not one for parades or shows, so the majority of people working in a park that I see are wearing their Ops costumes. When you see other parks and compare it to village, it's pretty damn bland. And I think it sucks.

I've stayed here once. It was 'fine' and kids certainly get a lot of value out of it. It's self rated three stars and I'd say thats about right. The advertised package has about 15 months validity, so this price will be the cheapest package available in that time. It's likely most folks will be booking this during school holidays, given the resort is heavily targeted at kids, so i've done a comparison for the first week of July (next week). YMMV. A few points to make about the package inclusions: Free kids club session - not a perk of this package, and 1 is free with every booking made directly with the resort. I've priced this up for a family of 4 with two teenage kids - this just kept the math simple where some pricing varied for younger kids, so this will show the most value. Younger kids will cost less in some places so the savings are also less. Most prices i've sourced directly - Dreamworld, Jetboat, and the resort. Some i've had to take a stab. You might disagree with my pricing and you're welcome to, I couldn't care less, so have at it. 'Thrill n Chill' This is a minimum 5 night package, so i've quoted it for July 1-6. This does avoid the weekend peak room rates, so the per night price for 'room only' was about $300 per night. The package includes: 5 Nights accommodation ($1503.75) 2 day dreamworld pass ($129pp) Breakfast each day (22.50pp) 1 x Kids Club (included) Ice Skating Session ($20pp) Kids get free Paddle Pop ($3pp) Purchased Separately: $2555.75 Advertised starting price: $1299.00 Actual Package cost for these dates: $1679.00 Saving: $876.75 The continental breakfast does a lot of heavy lifting here - at $22.50 per person, with 13 year olds charged as adults, this adds up to $450 for a 5 night stay. When it's included, Families should try to get their money's worth out of it, but as an optional extra paid separately, I can see most families opting out of this cost and opting to self-cater, or pick up a cheaper breakfast option where needed. "I Want It All" This is a minimum 7 night package, so this one is quoted for July 1-8. Weekend peak rates are unavoidable so the room only price for this period increases to $326.04 The package includes: 7 Nights accommodation ($2282.28) 2 day dreamworld pass ($129pp) JetBoat experience ($59pp) Breakfast each day (22.50pp) 1 x Kids Club (included) Resort Activity Credit ($150) Resort Food & Beverage Credit ($250) Dinner for 2 in Penguins ($164 max) (using two of the most expensive entrees, mains and desserts not including platters) 2 Welcome Drinks ($20) Late Checkout (Price unknown, only an extra hour) Purchased Separately: $4248.28 Advertised starting price: $2599.00 Actual Package cost for these dates: $3378.97 Saving: $869.31 Again, breakfast is going to run you $630, which is going to take up the majority of your savings here if you opted for something else. The resort has plenty of things for you to spend your credit on, but as is usually the case with included credits, you'll either not spend the entire value, or you'll have to top up your final credit spend with some extra when it doesn't quite cover the full balance. You'll have to do your research to use the credits to their best value, but you can definitely make it work. There's only $240 left in the savings after breakfast is taken into account, so a thin margin if you aren't going to use everything that's included. The dinner pricing is the maximum possible, but could easily be as low as $70 cheaper if you ordered the three cheapest items on the menu. Dreamworld Annual Passes only run you an extra $40. If you're a savvy holiday planner, you could book week 2 of the holidays this year, and week 1 next year, and save yourself almost $360 on park tickets too. TL:DR - there is value in these offerings, provided you'll use all of the inclusions. The Thrill N Chill gives you the most value if you aren't likely to make the most of the inclusions as even without breakfast, you're essentially getting 2 days at Dreamworld for free (though if you book this across a weekend, the price is likely to increase a bit). The I Want It All package is less valuable unless you spend a lot of time at the resort using their facilities. After paying for your room and dreamworld passes, you'd still have about $500 in your pocket to spend on whatever you wanted rather than trying to spend it at the resort, though the jetboat experience (if you like that sort of thing) would take up almost half of what is left.

Blander than their staff uniforms? (bring back themed costumes!)

Because they're experts in their field of expertise and know better than you do.

What we held wasn't a fast pass as such, just essentially a free entry pass, so no timed entry to the land was required, and we didn't need specific timeslots to experience the ride, so we could ride whenever, and repeatedly. I've seen some videos of people explaining how to do it for free, and you can, but we were happy to not have to stress about it, and consider our pass to be well worth it. Most ride queues in FS hovered around 5-15 minutes most of the day because the return timeslots were staggered for those who obtained or purchased an entry, so you do get to experience the queues (and many people stopped to take photos of the queues) but you aren't stuck in a queue room for 20-30 minutes at a go, and can practically walk on in most cases if that's what you want to do. The exception to this is the Tinkerbell buggies which did not have a split standby \ priority queue. Anyone could ride this at any time simply by lining up, so it frequently held at around 30 minutes, which was most of the queue races and occasionally spilled out onto the street. We found if it was too long, we'd go and ride either Frozen or Peter Pan (the two nearest) and when you came back the line had shrunk again. The Tinkerbell queue is mostly outdoor and very highly detailed with the 'you're shrunk to the size of a fairy, this queue pole is actually a sewing needle and this giant bench is a hair comb' kind of theming, so it was engaging the entire time. (Much of the frozen, pan and tangled queues were fairly plain, "themed" walls with a few props laid about, but not really something that you'd continue to find more and more details the longer you stood there. photo ops abounded, but not really 'engaging' queues. (ETA: I should add that the rest of the resort's attractions, where 40th passes or DPA applied, in most cases you were merged back into the GA line a small distance from the front, and most queues paralleled each other. I believe Beauty and the Beast standby queue has quite a bit of well themed queue inside the castle, but there was no way we were losing 2+ hours in standby to see it, so our package bookings and DPA were sufficient.)

Our package included unlimited entry and rides in fantasy springs. I'm currently listening to the music album of the rides. I've got mixed opinions about TDR as a whole, but insofar as fantasy springs goes: Arendelle - Hong Kong did it better. The frozen ride itself however was far better than Hong Kong. Neverland - looked great and the ride was top notch. Tinkerbell outdoor ride - a nice touch to give the fairies a place in the park, ride is jerkier than Disneyland's Alice ride, ouch! Tangled - beautiful ride, would have liked them to put as much effort into it as Frozen but we all know which franchise prints money. Restaurants are all counter service \ mobile order. No sit-down, table service options is a miss IMO. Retail space was lacking - they heavily relied on the gift shop in the ground floor of the hotel. The rockwork and water fountains were cool, but it's clear they've built it for the locals to have photo ops and it was near impossible to see these without hordes of girls and their photographers clamouring for 'space' to have the perfect shot. The current entry system required wristbands once entry had been validated, though they handed these out at the entry and at every attraction entrance, which slowed down the queues considerably. Additionally the wristbands were a cloth ribbon with a one way fastener that could be tightened, but not loosened. As the day progressed, these would work their way tighter, until it became uncomfortable. All FS cast carried scissors, so this was an obvious problem. As a benefit of our package, we hit everything in FS before most of the entry request timeslots started, so were able to lap the attractions a few times very quickly. As the day went on, it became increasingly crowded, and we elected to go spend the rest of our time in other ports, which were comparably empty and made the rest of the park a lot quieter, so we managed to tick off most of what we wanted to do in one day.

A perfect explanation of the genre. Well done sir.

I do agree. The design of the wheel and the flaws in manufacturing also impacted it negatively. It is still important to bear those issues in mind. These things clearly cost a lot to run (at Cosmoworld Yokohama, the wheel cost more than the coaster to ride) so while the upcharge shouldn't be relied upon, clearly they can subsidise a lot of their ops cost if they were able to accommodate it.

Yes. They produced merch specifically for doomsday. dreamworld produced merch for the claw. why not? My son is a huge fan of The Flash. He owns practically everything in the picture. He's been so excited for this ride - even though he isn't tall enough for it yet - but was content thinking that there'd be some new stuff in the shop to add to his collection. I'm kinda glad we decided not to renew our passes now so we have a good reason not to visit the park for a while.

*Cries in Viking's Revenge* A flume doesn't need a villain. It needs a drop, and a splash. that's it. I love the traditional Brer story of the original splash. I will miss it. But it had darker tones towards the end that would scare younger riders. I think the Tiana animatronics look amazing, and I think there's too many folks remembering splash with rose coloured glasses on - as many scenes only had 1 animatronic character and a lot of trees. I still think its a downgrade but that's possibly mostly down to my nostalgic memories of the original. I'm sure someone is going to produce a side-by-side comparison video, and I look forward to seeing the major differences together. How does Hawaii fit into New Orleans or Critter Country?

Having just returned from Japan where every town has a bare minimum of one giant ferris wheel, and in some cases, several, most rides completed a full rotation in 15 minutes, generally with stop\start loading. Some models can do continuous load unless disability access is needed. And a 15 minute sitdown in air conditioning while marvelling at the sights is a wonderful way to rest without 'wasting it' sitting in a corner. nobody is forgetting it happened but I think you might be forgetting the current planning allowances. I can't see village being able to deliver food as quickly as you order it on an ipad unless the kitchen is part of the wheel facility - however there are many pre-set options - Singapore (Mount Faber) cable cars offer a bento box style meal, or a three course meal with each course delivered per circuit. If you could get the position right, an upcharge night booking with meals would be a real moneymaker. It's important to remember the failures of the Southern Star Wheel though...

I can't remember Sea World ever doing a wooden coaster before covid, can you? *cough* PICO *cough*

I guess because it's offering to upsell something that is no use to him - like ordering a large big mac meal, and having them ask 'would you like fries with that?' instead of recognising there is already fries in the order, and instead substituting with 'why not try our new banana caramel pie?' Honestly though it depends how much you want to nitpick over stupid shit that doesn't have an impact on your experience. So you bought the premium product and have no use for the poor man's upsell... whoop. The additional amount of work it would take to have accesso recommend a unique upcharge experience that would compliment whatever is in your cart, instead of just a bog-standard upsell product most people would be interested in wouldn't be worth the hassle.

For Disney, yes. Universal on the other hand has shown an interest in creating smaller properties in tourist hotspots... Universal opening year-round horror experience in Vegas: What we know (usatoday.com)

Just to be clear, there's no if. The whole discussion has been about an international park chain building locally. That's even the title of the thread. Yes, it could. But as i've already said, most of those parks were built and established in a different time. As for the population You've said this before: The problem I have with these figures is - building on the site of 350,000, with a further 700,000 to the north of it, while having the 5 Million from Sydney around 90 minutes away (or more for the southern areas) doesn't make sense. It isn't "smack bang" in the middle, its on the northern fringe. Building out near Badgery's, or somewhere near Castlereagh would make more sense - build near the 5 Million locals, not the 350,000 locals. The difference of course being that in both population migration numbers and tourism numbers, people want to be in Brisbane and the Gold Coast. I don't even know many sydneysiders that want to be in Gosford. I buy this if you build in the sydney basin. If you build 90 minutes away, then you also need to include the Sunshine Coast, Ipswich, half of the Lockyer Valley, Somerset, Noosa, and half a dozen other council areas. The population is still smaller - but again it isn't a fair comparison and what you're suggesting is akin to counting all of greater brisbane when you're building halfway to Gympie. Bahahahahahahahhahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahaha Don't make the mistake of conflating a need with a want. The state has managed fine for 20 years without it. Even when the likes of Ammar Khan proposed it, few MPs gave it more than lip service. Outside of an enthusiast viewpoint, I don't think NSW "needs" a theme park, especially one the size of Wonderland. Wet N Wild Sydney never made its target numbers. While Raging Waters may be doing better, its arguably because VRTP took the loss on the establishment in the first place. Plenty of locals visit that park. Plenty of others avoid it like the plague, and it's in the centre of the catchment. Dreamworld do it too. Why else? because the $99 passes showed both companies that people won't pay $400 for an annual pass, but will pay something less than that. They drop the price to get people through the gate because people just weren't coming at the higher price points. Those who holiday on the GC typically stay less than 30 minutes from the parks. Nobody is staying at North Lakes for their GC holiday. And those who don't have cars fly into the airport and use buses, which are also 30 minutes away. Objection your honour, asked and answered. They had existing infrastructure, it was already an attraction - it was just upgraded. Big upgrades yes, but it was not a greenfields site. If Wonderland was opened in Somersby, I would argue it wasn't targeting 6 million people. I'd honestly call it a fools errand. Unless it had a significant IP behind it, it wouldn't work. You're stacking the pros, but you're pretending that the cons don't exist because of what other parks did 40 years ago that wouldn't work today. The cons have been displayed for you pretty clearly. they also stack up. Perhaps its a balancing act and the line between them is a thin one, but other places, better positioned near international airports, in the centre of 5 million people instead of 90 minutes away from them are far more likely. I do think your bias has shown a little too strongly and you need to acknowledge that may be playing a factor. Universal has recently been playing with the idea of smaller experiences and facilities. I think the main reason people are fielding the universal idea is that they've already shown an interest in doing so. Wow, and both of these options were very close to established major airports, weren't they?

We go next week. We've been up to our eyeballs in research for the past year. The one consistent thing we've come across is people underestimating what Disney has to offer. Followed by people who have actually been Everyone i've spoken to who has been says the park (TDS) is unmissable. Everyone. TDRExplorer did a video a few weeks back showing the morning crowds, and with timestamps he did a few loops of the monorail to show just how quickly all those crowds dispersed. Universal has the same crowds, but it is made worse by the fact that they don't open at the hour advertised. See this part just doesn't make sense. Your family think the queues at Disney are too much, but you're planning to get to Universal that early... SMH.

In your own words, you said you couldn't find it. Any reasonable person would take that to mean you had searched. And if you want to know the answer to something, generally the solution is to search for yourself, or to post a question on your local neighbourhood facebook page so someone else will give you the answer. Since you don't use facebook, I guess we know where that leaves you, right? I didn't actually notice the absence of the operating hours. Since its separately ticketed, i'd assumed a 5:30 start in order for them to clear the park of day guests like they have done with happy halloween, etc, while corralling people near the main gates if they hold tickets. We rarely make it to closing when we go to these events so the end-time didn't really phase me, which is why I hadn't noticed it.

Did you try the ticket purchase section?

Sure, most families aren't going to book a spur of the moment weekend away at the GC, but they are more likely to book a week up there, hit the 4+ Major Attractions and get value out of those flights on a per day basis that far exceeds that of a 3 hour round trip to Gosford for the day. Jamberoo and Gumbuya are out of the way, but they've also established themselves in a different era. Less than an hour is the yardstick I would use for the most part. Heck i'm about 90 minutes from the GC parks these days and I rarely visit unless i'm catching up with friends and family who are in town on a holiday. The 'if you build it they will come' mantra checks out, especially if its one of the bigger players in the game because their reputation is known - but conversely, the bigger players have shown that they want to sit closer to major transport infrastructure, and gosford is never getting an international airport to make that viable.

But also a different time. The drive from Sydney Central to Wonderland would have taken around 45 minutes down the Great Western Highway and Parramatta Roads (which google confirms when you avoid highways and tolls). By contrast using the major highways (as that's really your only option) getting to Somersby would take around double that time, with google showing 90 minutes to arrive on a Saturday morning. So you're already comparing apples with helicopters. But go further - in 1989, flights to London were around $2300 return, which is about $5800 in today's currency. And this was at a time when the average adult weekly wage was $536.50 Today you can get flights to London for around $1400, and the average adult weekly wage is now $1958. So to compare costs - something that used to cost more than 4 week's wages can now be bought in a week, with your entire 1989 paycheck still left over. My point is - Wonderland grew at a time when local entertainment was sought after as foreign entertainment was simply unattainable for the average person. Flying to the goldcoast was a treat in the 80s, with most Sydney based families opting for the 12-14 hour drive up the pacific highway, stopping at Coffs Harbour, Port Macquarie, Kempsey or another mid-NSW place on the road trip to the GC. Now, at a time when you can get flights for under $100 to the GC and be there in less than the 90 minutes it would take you to drive to the Central Coast - its a big ask to think people are going to head that far. Parks that established in the 80s have created the destinations around them, but newer operators tend to spring up closer to the services that support them. But this would be a major player in the park game. Disney, Universal would have the pulling power to get people to drive \ travel that far, right? 2024 - Sydney to Somersby - 98km 1955 - LAX to Disneyland California - 55km 1971 - Orlando Airport to Walt Disney World - 27km 1983 - Tokyo Haneda to Tokyo Disneyland - 21km 1985 - Sydney Airport to Wonderland - 40km 1992 - Paris Airport to Disneyland Paris - 44km 2016 - Shanghai PVG Airport to Shanghai Disney - 26km 2005 - Hong Kong Airport to Hong Kong Disney - 18km 2011 - Singapore Airport to Universal Singapore - 25km 2021 - Beijing Airport to Universal Beijing - 37km The problem with your comparison is that the argument to be made today for Somersby as a site of a major international tourist destination is based out of what worked for a park built almost 40 years ago (and closed 20 years ago), and a lot has changed since then including the proliferation of cheap flights making international destinations more attainable, in some cases for less money that it would cost to holiday near Gosford. And while even if the location having all the benefits of the mid-80's going for it was sufficient of an argument... (which it isn't) it still lies more than DOUBLE the distance from the closest international airport when compared to all the big parks that have opened in over 50 years.

To be fair if an attraction of the size we're talking got built, the PT would materialise.

I guess it depends on how often people visit.

Ahem: Middle of nowhere No infrastructure an hour away Come on mate, I know you've got a bias for the region, but its a poor choice. Put it 30 minutes from a major international airport with substantial accommodation options next door and several other attractions within a 15 minute drive, or no deal. This isn't Adventure World we're talking about.

I would have thought that the timing would be fairly obvious - They wanted the focus on Flash. Now Flash is opened, they've moved onto the campaign for Oz. Honestly using pictures from March are the smart move because it shows the three tracks unobstructed. If you look at the recent video, the entire site is covered in scaffolding and isn't the sexy glamour shot you're looking for I 100% agree with you on the park's current contempt for guests. change takes time, but we are seeing positive change. I'm prepared to give praise when they do good as much as I will pour shit on the bad stuff and call it how I see it, but I do believe if we shit on the good stuff, they won't bother to do the good stuff because "why bother?". Management definitely needs to change, and the trust needs to be rebuilt. 100%. Forgive me for the corny analogy, but - ...Toto is currently pulling back the curtain on the man behind the curtain, and we're seeing a side of the park that they've almost never given us before. That to me is positive, and i'm going to applaud it to encourage more of it.

First we're complaining that one park doesn't take enough angles and the next it's that the other park's photos are... not taken recently enough? Fuck me enthusiasts are fucking dog shit. These photos are the 'sexy' shots enthusiasts salivate over. Our parks have never gone to this sort of effort before, and instead of being 'wow, that looks great, I can't wait to ride it' we're just gonna shit on them for the effort? Fuck off. And then First - I can't see what you're talking about so maybe we need a clickbait circle or arrow to point it out to everyone? (There is a small blur in the first photo at the bottom, and i'd say maybe they've cloned a vehicle out of the shot or something but that really doesn't detract from things...) Second - maybe they need to hide things. I saw all the 'secret' shots of the leviathan station taken by one of the tradies working the job, and i was still 'wowed' when I first entered the ride. Maybe there's things they want to keep a surprise, or maybe it has people, or companies that did not consent to being filmed? And so what? the photos are meant to get you excited about the three new rollercoasters they're building - and you can see all of that, right down to the fucking track joints. So just shut up. say thankyou and be fucking grateful someone in that company actually made a fucking effort for once. Because lord knows, they didn't have to.