My take on today's event (or yesterday's given it's past midnight) ok let's just call it Sunday's event.
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Do you remember the last time Warner Bros. Movie World had Super Heroes & Super Villains en-masse in park? It was 2010 for the 75 year DC anniversary. Do you remember that? I don’t. I wasn’t there, but I’ve seen videos on YouTube and it looked pretty cool.
Anyway, the Super Heroes & Super Villains are back for the new, and aptly named “Super Heroes & Super Villains” event at Movie World. With a name as basic as that you’d be forgiven for thinking I came up with it. Now, lets get the important question out the way first. Do you think this event might give us a clue to the new Hypercoaster theme? Wait, no, we’ve passed that period of “magenta madness” haven’t we?
So what’s this event all about?
Well, Carnivale buggered off to Sea World in January, and Fright Nights isn’t until October, so they needed something to fill the gap, and what better way to make use of the Doomsday/DC Villain main street area, than with a new event?!
The event itself is great. The costumes are on point as you’d expect; the performances are well done (even if a couple of them are just the normal day shows anyway); and the additional theming features some old movie props and a multitude of great photo opportunities.
There are a few different ways in which you could choose to experience this event. The first, and most obvious one being just rock up with a camera for the day. Or maybe you’d prefer to have breakfast at Tiffany’s Rick’s and get some photos taken with different DC characters. You could also go all out and do the “Ultimate Experience” which gets you plenty of inclusions, more on that later. There is also one final pre-purchasable experience targeted to kids called the “Junior Justice League”. I don’t know anything about that as I don’t have kids, but I’m sure Movie World would have made it a great offering to the younger ones.
Electing to take on the “Ultimate Experience”, our day begins with breakfast at Rick’s with character photos available (and they’re free, so you may as well get as many as you can). Is the breakfast good? Well I’m not really a breakfast person, especially at an hour of the day where I’d normally be asleep, so I’m probably not the best person to ask. The available food is the same as what you’d expect at any hotel buffet and the small amount that I did eat tasted quite good.
During breakfast, you’re presented with your VIP lanyard, gift bag (containing a cape, keyring, drink bottle, RFID wristband for the DC Villains area, and a park map with meeting times for certain activities). You also get unlimited fast track, fast photos, and a locker to put everything in for the day.
What are these things to meet for? Well it wouldn’t be a tour without VIP seating for the Hollywood Stunt Driver 2 show, so there’s that. You also get a ride on Arkham fast tracked and using VR if you choose to (unless like today VR breaks down just before you get on the ride), you get a buffet lunch at Rick’s, AND a VIP area to watch the 6pm parade.
We’re probably the type of guest the park loves. We buy the tour, collect our fast track bands, then spend most of the day wandering around taking photos instead of utilising the queue jumping goodness of fast track. It’s easy money for them. We did go on 4 rides, and, side note, Scooby was looking quite dark today which was great to see given its current condition.
Having seen the stunt show so many times, we gave it a miss. Missing it is something I certainly won’t be doing when it eventually leaves the park. A day that can’t come soon enough.
Lunch at Rick’s was exactly that. The standard pizza & pasta buffet offering. The food is great there and well worth the money. Speaking of money, looking at everything you get in the “Ultimate Experience” it really is good value for money. Buying everything separately, you’d be looking at around $160-170. The “Ultimate Experience” ticket is now selling at the reduced price of $100, so that’s a pretty decent saving.
The other main selling point of this event is the parade. Now the parade itself is great and there’s more characters and performances than the normal parade, but what wasn’t great was the one thing that detracts from the overall “VIP Experience”. That was the viewing area for the parade. It was a very odd choice to place this up in the main square when the majority of the action happened down outside the Roxy Theatre. Fortunately knowing this, we skipped the VIP area and found ourselves seats on the kerb and had a great view of the shows.
That kerb though. I’m all for people doing the right thing and keeping the road clear for the performers and floats, but for a couple of the staff, even being as much as the hair on a bee’s knob over the kerb and channel was enough to get told off for being too close. Now you may think I’m talking about standing out on the street to see around the crowd to get photos. No. I’m talking about not even being allowed to have your toes touching the asphalt. Ease up a bit, guys.
Was the experience worth it? Yes.
Would I do it again? Probably not because it’s not marketed as something with repeat-ability.
Actually, let’s be honest here. It’s not really marketed at all. Does Movie World not want people doing this? I don’t recall seeing even one in, or out of park advertisement for it.
The writing is probably all over the place in this, and I do plan on uploading several photos of the event, however I had 3 hours of sleep before doing this VIP day, and it’s now almost 2am, so just writing this review was a struggle. The photos will come later.
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