joz

They're calling Corkscrew with a new train "An exciting new attraction"? They really don't want anyone who comes to the park this year to ever come back do they?

"It stinks out here, I'm going in the shops!" I must admit I originally didn't pay that much attention to this thread, it seemed such a weak thing to complain about. There's a bad smell on Main Street? Sure there is. But sure enough I was in Movieworld the other day and turned the corner onto main street and there it was. Curiously though unlike the reader 4 posts above I was pretty much next to the emporium when I smelt it. If I was to hazard a guess I'd say clogged drain, but I've got no idea. All I know is it was really not a fun thing to be walking through.

^ My advice would be to take a photo of something that's both easily fixable and that's been broken for a while, post it here and see if it gets fixed. I don't know if posting ideas on how to fix something would be of much/any use, but showing photos of exactly what is broken might well be.

Well the results are in and I think got the overall trends right (except SW, I still blame marketing for over selling HWSD and underselling JR. Not their fault when half the marketing staff were sacked just before Xmas though)... Movieworld's attendance was up 5.9% Seaworld's attendance declined by 2% Wet 'n' Wild's attendance was up 11.6% Dreamworld's attendance dropped 5% For what it's worth the parks per cap spending remained pretty much flat despite the introduction of Q4U and a new upcharge attraction. White Water World's attendance was up by 15%

Huh, never mind me, it turns out the answer to question 3 and 4 are the same.

1. Yes, the inside of the castle is where the theater is. 2. The Wild Wave / Thrillseeker was located between the Flume Ride and what is now Shark Bay and Polar Bear Shores. On the middle pic, it's to the top left of the castle 3. World of the Sea Theater. It began life as a dive show called Shark Encounter, where divers would enter the tank with all sorts of old diving gear (cane snorkel, air bladder, hard hat) with feeding towards the end. A later incarnation of the show also had a 5min slide show about sharks at the start. It later became Reef Discovery, an educational display about the reef, which, sadly, they neglected to make interesting. Despite last min reworking, the show wasn't well received and didn't last too long before it was replaced with Dugong Discovery. As part of the the change to house the Dugongs, the seats were removed and replaced with museum like Exhibits. At the moment, the building is used for a holiday day care/ educational program, and if the plans for the water coaster mentioned here are still current, then the building will be demolished soon. 4. Nothing / Grass.

From what it says on the website, I'd still expect Scooby, Batman, Road Runner, LTRR and everything else (Shrek and Tunes rides included) to be open until 11pm. If Shrek, nearly everything in WB Kids, and Hollywood Stunt Driver aren't open, then it really should say so. I think there is just cause for complaint here.

That's a brilliant find there mate! Really love the old school photos, and there's a few in that gallery well worth a look. Since we're doing a bit of the nostalgia thing here, please enjoy the full promo (WITH SONG!!!)for the Pirate's of Paradise waterski show, This is a segment from from an old souvenir video, and the Surprise! Surprise! ad is included at the end. Also included within the ad is a small dose of irony, when the lines "We're hotter then hot, never ganna stop!' are sung over video of the ski show.

Don't confuse what should happen with what will happen. What should happen is the train be plussed with new audio or video screens and Waterski WipeOut be replaced with another ski show. Bermuda should be fixed so it doesn't look like a crap Carney ride inside, and people who give a crap about the park and its heritage should take over. Obviously none of those things will happen and the park will continue to fall to crap. I'd love to be proven wrong, everyone knows I'm a SW fanboy, but the sad fact is that SW is the park where the standards have dropped the furthest over the past year. The only exception in the park is the Marine Sciences division, which for the most part is still as it was, so the animals are still being given the same level of care they always have, but the rest of the park? As a Gold Coast local for 25 years, I can say that in my opinion, I've never seen the park in such a poor state.

None of the reasons listed above are good enough to keep a ride closed. Fact is any time there has been some construction in park the tracks have been covered in sand dirt construction material and all sorts of crap. Turns out the solution was to get rid of the crap over the track and re-open the ride. If the person in charge can't figure out a solution to the fence issue then they may as well hand in their swipe card and get a job get a job cleaning windscreens at traffic lights since they're clearly of no use in a real job.

Its a sad state of affairs when the nicest thing that's been said about the parks lately is that they decided not to run with a really bad show. It's also sad to hear that they only just learnt people don't like being given a half finished product. All I can say is if company has learnt about the importance of not creating 'silent customers', then they may want to rethink the food policy, the closure of attractions, the declining standards in those which remain, cutting the operating hours and the reduction of front line staff. I'll give this new show a shot, hopefully the people rewriting the show can throw something good together. If not, hopefully a ski show comes back sooner rather then later. No sense in being stubborn about getting rid of 51 years of tradition for crap show.

Holy crap, that poll is like the Iranian election without the civil rights violations. Only 6 voters and 12 of them voted 100%!

Either that or 'Adrenaline Ally' thing will have a few live acts to draw the punters in. Figure 300/500 is a reasonable estimate of how many people would attend with so little of the park open.

What the backdrops have just been painted? Does that one in the middle still look like a caravan?

That's quite interesting about the 'taggers respect' stuff, never heard of that before. Having said that, next time you're at the school where you teach yourself, you don't suppose you could give yourself an English lesson do you?

See there you go Alex, I thought he'd already had a Birthday this year. Goes to show how much attention I'm paying. Happy belated Birthday good sir! *Back on topic in the off topic topic* Does anyone else find it funny that in the government link above, they show photos of a skate park covered in graffiti?

^ Win!

WPH&S is important, but WVTPs have some of the strictest policies in the world, WPH&S could take quite a few steps back and things would still be safe. Alex, they could set up a bar every 20 meters in the park and still have enough RSAs to keep it well staffed. Since the staff are all trained in responsible service of alcohol, I don't expect over supply to be a major problem. I think the only extra measure they need with the grog sales is to have plenty of security around the park, with maybe one out the front of the queue to every ride to assist the ride ops in rejecting anyone who does happen to drink in excess, since security is better trained to deal with drunks. But as Dj said, dark + scary + booze = fun night out!

^ What I'm getting at is this: If the only place you can get alcohol from on the night is Dirty Harry's then it will be lame. If they open a couple of bars around the park then I'm Big Kev excited!

Thank god this came along, I've been wanting to say something positive about WVTPs all year, and finally something comes along to get excited about. I've not had much interest in the 'family fun nights' but something a little more adult orientated has definitely got me paying attention. Just a couple of things I'd like to mention (I have no inside knowledge of this so just a few random thoughts): 1. Alcohol is a must. Sorry non boozers, but alcohol is a key ingredient for a Halloween event. As much as I'm not a fan of Universal, this is something they understand. To make a Halloween event targeted towards adults a success, Alcohol needs to be readily available. If Dirty Harry is the only grog shop in the park (or if its closed) then not only have will they have missed a great revenue opportunity, but many may find it not as fun as it could be. 2. The rides closing at 9pm: I hope that means the queue is cut off at 9pm and everyone in queue gets to ride regardless of what time that takes things to (surly an hour should be plenty though). What I don't get though is why Lethal Weapon isn't on that list? Isn't it closer to the residents then Superman? (not nitpicking, but I honestly would love to know). On the whole though, love the extra hours. 3. No refunds payable. Sure you say that, but for goodness sake if someone does bring their kids by mistake for the love of god give them their money back or a ticket to return to any park (the kids may not be keen on going back to MW) during the day. I'm excited about this, and so long as nothing stupid comes up to ruin it, I will go along to check it out. I've been wishing these events were more adult focused since they started, so I'm stoaked to see it heading in that direction. Basically, I'm happy to see them expand their offerings, and hopefully an adult event is the best way to do Halloween at a theme park, because its the sort of event I'd like to go to year after year. This gets two (increasingly rare) thumbs up from me!

Discuss Ocean Rescue here. Or don't, it's cool.

Lol, I notice that the best pizza poll now has an extra 3 votes to Eagle Boys. Its now 6 for Domino's and 5 for Eagle Boys.

Well out of the 8 people who voted, 6 prefer Domino's over Eagle Boys. Sadly for me, I'm in the group that doesn't like the stuff at all. I swear they're doing this to me on purpose I got an idea... I really hate nighttime shows at theme parks, new rides, good operational procedures, and customer friendly polices. I also hate things at theme parks that are tastefully done. Come on, disappoint me! In all seriousness though I don't really have an opinion either way. So long as the price matches what Domino's normally charges I don't think I really care. I can't see it going down well if the exact same Pizza all of a sudden has a huge mark up simply because it's in a theme park. Perhaps the only thing I want to know is if we'll still be able to get a meat pie down that end of the park at SW since it was always a nice option when you weren't hungry enough for a full meal.

I'm not going to go into why our names don't appear here, but i will say we are far from anon. to many people in the parks. As for the whole terms of contract thing, there are two very important things to remember: 1. We don't post inside information. Everything that comes from us (including the stuff where it looks like inside info) is stuff that you can see simply by visiting the park, or is info you can get elsewhere if you know where to look. We don't post photos of backstage and don't reveal sensitive information, and keep to the conversations that are in the public domain anyway. 2. Since more often then not this site is not considered 'media' for the purposes of promotion of the parks it'd be a hard line to pursue to say that we are commenting to the media. Even so, I don't post as a WVTPs employee, I post as Joz, theme park fan. As a final thought, remember that I never said anything about what the current CEO is like in this thread, I was just saying what I'd do if I were CEO. So if anyone thinks I'm making a comment about the current boss clearly has their own opinion about the situation in the park. Djrappa was merely rejecting me from that job, again, without passing judgement on the current boss. Also The fact that JSM is involved with the new AOS is known to many people outside of the parks, so it isn't really much of a revelation for it to appear here. Thanks for playing

Must admit, depite not being much of a Universal parks fan, this place is starting to look quite impressive. Maybe I'll have to go to Singapore after all.