Guest 239

I appreciate the response and insight into your comments Alex. You definitely make some great points especially in regards to the public having rather limited expectations.

Saying 'by Australian standards' is like giving an encouragement award to the kid that turned up. Our parks aren't somehow randomly isolated from the world market and shouldn't just be given a pass because our personal standards in the last few years have dropped dramatically entirely influenced on the output that all our parks have given us. You also can't randomly put our parks into the Australian basket considering that every second piece of media from VRTP boasts it's additions as being 'world class'. If they say that they're world class, then they're competing with addition such as F.L.Y which opened recently at Phantasialand and that park sees less attendance then VRTP's properties so I'm not sure why we are congratulating the bare minimum requirement for what classifies as a 'theme park'.

Just throwing it out there, ‘Bare Concrete Trough’ is a great band name.

Poor choice if you ask me. Human beings are the worst sort of people.

Could Sea World potentially use the new-ish portions of Vikings Revenge to create a log flume if they demolished the castle? I wouldn't be against them building some sort of updated log ride at Sea World in the coming years.

Good article and I agree with many of the points. Closing BRC is an odd decision and does take away a lot of the family appeal. Hopefully Dreamworld have some plans regarding a decent replacement because I feel its losing both it's thrill seeker and family appeal. Who are they catering to anymore?

Luna Park Melbourne has never really been an interest for me when visiting Melbourne. I always saw it as an even lesser Luna Park Sydney. A good, quality coaster would definitely make me more interested in visiting when I visit Melbourne almost annually.

The list of 'what's on' doesn't really have all that much but 'free' rides at night is always welcome. It's interesting that for an event which is redeemable for free with season passes they don't seem to have a huge focus on uncharges like Spooky Nights. I wonder if they'll have more uncharges visible when you get there?

Changing the name would probably have the opposite effect because people would see it as them trying to divert attention. Flynn is pretty spot on with a lot of what he's said. It'd be kinda like if airlines changed their name every time a plane crashed instead of identifying the root cause of the problem and fixing it.

Huh, Trident is looking a little different from the concept art but I’m excited to ride ‘Surf City’!

Great to see Superman reopening! That ride brings so much life to the park. It was sorely missed.

From what I know the ELI5 is that they take donuts for $2, pump them full of jelly and then sell them for $4 as jelly donuts.

If you kissed ass any harder you’d tear off skin.

Here’s our take on the reopening. It expands a bit more on my thoughts and Luke has added more as well.

It’s really bad, my kid won’t stop going on about carp.

Straw man argument. We're not talking about the website but the app that is a requirement for entry. Visiting the website is not required for entrance but having the VRTP App is which doesn't have the disclaimer. Why would the app which is required and will get more traffic choose to opt-out from a similar disclaimer to the website?

Clear as mud. To see the maintenance schedule you need to either click Info and then Park Maintenance or you go the Park, click 'Now Open' and then scroll down to 'Park Maintenance'. If you go to 'Ride Wait Times' it doesn't even bother mentioning that any of the featured attractions are going to be closed before you get to the park. Every currently closed attraction is still showing in the list of rides with no disclaimer. Under Virtual Queue it simply says 'Ride Paused'. Even if you go to a closed attraction it just says 'Wait times will show when you're in the park'. Also provided is the white corflute covering the usual ride closure sign that greeted us yesterday.

Incredible contribution to the discussion. Kudos kiddo. It's interesting getting an insight from all of your perspectives as locals. If the parks are busy you go home. If a ride is down you come back when its open. If you get hungry you can go grab something from home. You can all literally visit the parks whenever you want and that's something I'd love, but I don't get that. I get to visit a theme park maybe once every 3-6 months. I took time off work and planned a trip to come up here and support our parks at their opening. I pay more because I'm not a local but that's okay because I'm happy to support the parks. I knew what to expect and I managed my expectations accordingly. My comment was on how I felt the park felt but I honestly had a fun day even though nobody has asked how I personally felt. I'm always happy to ride Rivals and soak up that theme park atmosphere but the energy and life just wasn't there. Is that my fault? Well judging but your reactions it seems so. Will I leave on Sunday feeling disappointed? Not likely. You don't dedicate this much time to theme parks to get disappointed when you visit theme parks. I also know I'm coming back in the future and can ride all the rides that are closed so it's honestly not a big deal for me. But do other families who have come up from NSW have a right to feel disappoint? Probably. We've been locked in our state for months and were likely about to be locked down again. Many families are heading up here to catch a quick break and enjoy a holiday after they've probably lost a year worth of plans and they're seeing a fanfare from the parks about how they're reopened. If you're a family that's got a week left of school holidays and who has had since July to throw together a holiday than your last priority is to jump on and check the Movie World maintenance page because you trust that you're in good hands. Also these parks are damn expensive. For a family you're paying a lot and for many families I can imagine that a theme park holiday is a special occasion. My biggest criticism is this: We also don't exist within a bubble. Village is more than welcome to tout that it's world class but if so then they need to be ready to be compared to other theme parks on a global scale. From almost every park I've seen reopening internationally almost none has opened up in a state like Movie World and if there is one then please I'd love to know. Though then again we don't need to look internationally because Luna Park Sydney has reopened with every available attraction opened. Though I also want to know; where any of you even there today? What's the point of having this argument regarding the atmosphere of the park if none of you were to experience itself? This whole back and forth is like me saying that the park smelt like garbage with several others also saying it smelt like garbage but several of you at home saying that it didn't smell like garbage because you saw lots of photos of people not holding their nose and if it did smell like garbage well then its the guests fault because they should know its garbage day. I'm not ReviewTyme, I'm Dominic. My thoughts and opinions are my own.

There are plenty of compliments towards the park in the post below. Also 100 comments seems small but judging on attendance today and car park occupancy I'd say there was roughly 1000 guests in the park. If 1-in-10 guests felt the need to jump online and complain then you've got a problem. Disney didn't become the biggest theme park operator in the world because 1-in-10 guests was disappointed with their experience. This was actually something I was surprised by. Whilst I saw a lot of guests not following the rules, when they enforced I actually didn't see many complaining. I've seen more people in QLD taking a relaxed approach to the restrictions than those over the border. I'm happy to wait for an empty elevator or in a line to get into timezone but the amount of people I see just going 'Why bother?' has been pretty astounding.

Why is everybody getting their undies in a twist because I provided a first hand account on my experience in the park? The only opinion I provided was on the expectation of the opening and why I felt guests were justified to be disappointed but everything else was based on what I saw around the park today. Also the quote above is appalling from somebody who is meant to be fostering the community. What a sly, backhanded way of throwing away my comment because 'it's just one persons review'. See Facebook above and discover that there are plenty of others that are matching the sentiment of what I saw. Though why should I bother even acknowledging your post? To be fair this is one persons response to my post. It's also at odds with the many Facebook comments and reviews I've seen dotted around the internet.

Today Wild West Falls, Green Lantern, Superman Escape, Arkham Asylum, Parade (COVID-19 reasons) were down plus a few kids rides. From Sunday we can add Doomsday to that list with the carousel joining on the Sunday after. Rivals went down for around 90 minutes and Batwing opened after midday with difficulties meeting its opening launch. Also talking to guest relations they said virtual queue went down in the later half of the day. I think that's a fair reason to be disappointed. Judging by the comments on the post below it seems the court of public opinions is also not really on Movie World's side either.

Such a great long-term business practice they've got going there. Really shows the forward thinking of the company. "Let's reel them all in and then severely disappoint them. It's their fault that they're deciding to come to our park!" This is a fast-food tactic. Show an amazing, incredibly crafted burger and then sell an awful mass produced mess. I expect that from a company that sells $2 cheeseburgers not a company that sells $89 day passes.

Atmosphere was dreary at Movie World today. You could tell many families were disappointed with their visit and I've never actively heard children complaining about being in a theme park because they're bored until today. Village really dropped the ball on managing expectations with this one. You really shouldn't roll out the carpet and celebrate reopening when half your park is basically a construction zone. It would have made much more sense to quietly reopen with a focus on local community attendance whilst aiming to really ramp things up for the next holiday.

Cheers for the heads up Jordan, appears as though I don't even have as much insight into the situation as I thought! This is legitimately good news. I do wonder how they will address the multi-day passes.

Because not everybody is as informed as we are. When the average guest sees that Movie World or Sea World has reopened after a few months of closures then they're going to expect everything to opened and ready to go. VRTP has only mentioned that parks will be at 50% capacity but have mentioned zilch about what will actually be open within the parks other than 'social distancing will be required'. The problem that arises from this is that many of us have season passes and once Sea World reopens next week I can guarantee that the passes will start ticking over again. Though if you're not feeling safe or don't feel value in going; too bad so sad. You're still paying for it whether you like it or not because technically the parks are open and you can go. It's like being charged for a gym membership but not being allowed to use any equipment though you're more welcome to wander the building. Also they're not going be generous and provide discounted day passes so imagine the poor sod that buys a one day pass to Movie World when it reopens and gets to enjoy a handful of attractions for the same price as they could have pre-COVID. If Dreamworld isn't opened then they aren't charging anybody for an inferior product by having half the park closed and nobody is out of pocket because their season pass isn't being wasted.