joz

The thing is people don't budget over a whole year. They budget over whatever their pay period is, so I think there are a lot of people who would buy a pass at $4.50 a fortnight than who would pay $99 a year, even though the $99 is cheaper. I don't think they'll be able to change the price once people are members, and are just hoping people don't cancel their membership to increase the number of passes sold. They might increase the price for new 'members' down the line but I reckon that'd be it, though they've shown a real lack of willingness to make money on the gate. As I always say, I hope one day they can bring in a tiered ticketing system to stop the parks from overcrowding on some specific weekends and school holidays. If not, I hope they invest some money on extra capacity to help the parks cope, wether that's by leaving the parks open after 5 on expected busy days, putting on more staff or using extra cars on rides (or all of the above).

Sorted, carry on :)

I'd be very interested to know the psychology behind advertisng it as '$9 a month' instead of '$2 a week'

I'd be pretty shocked if they got away with building new facades for under a few hundred thousand, and really if they're going to spend that much on the ride I'd like to see them buy a 3rd train so they always have 2 available to use. $10,000? You might be able to get a bit of the low hanging stuff, but creativity aside, you wouldn't even notice if they spent $10,000 on that ride.

Nah no to a maze on in HSD. The park still has to do day trade and there is a school holiday period in there. You can't take apart and rebuild a maze every day. Just put a crowd soaking show in there, maybe put more effort into it and put it on more than twice a night. I'd love to see Movie World do a version of Bill & Ted or Hanging and the HSD venue would be a good place for it.

The screen doesn't have to stay. Get rid of it, and rebuild the set. If you want to keep the buildings where they are, fine, but you'd want to completely want to change the look of them and make it a Mad Max show, rather than HSD does Mad Max.

I must admit I hate the 'filming a fake movie' theme. The original HSD did it better than LMA, but those types of shows tend to have no flow. It's do things, stop, do things, stop. Don't pretend to film a sequel to Mad Max, because you're not and that'd be lame to watch. Make the Stunt Show the sequel. To me that makes the show so much more compelling. People don't want to watch the making of Mad Max, the want to see Mad Max, otherwise the DVD extras would be playing at the cinema rather than the actual film.

I think somewhere in the old Lethal Queue/ cinema would be a winner, though maybe it would be cost prohibitive to flatten the area to make it appropriate for a maze, as I can imagine being over different levels would create a few OH&S issues. There's also the issue of covering it, but if they can work it out its be worth it. Ditto to a maze in Supermans Heilex. I think a scare zone in the old China Town alley, and a maze or two in the old Lethal Queue and around behind Scooby and in Superman's Heilex would mean not closing a ride needlessly for 4 months. Just saying.

Wow they really went all out with the design didn't they?

In the middle of winter? Probably them

Well colour me surprised that Pirates hasn't taken over the entire studio!

Ah! But Sea World is a former Mine.

Exactly, I mean are there Whale sharks and Great White sharks at Sea World? Aside from the fact that the Antarctica ride is basically seen as a miss, purely from a theme point of view it makes no sense to have the same thing duplicated on the other side of the park. For my taste, I'd like to see MACK given a call and given the chance to create one of those brilliant launched coasters they do so well.

Why bother when there are real Polar Bears on the other side of the park?

Why have a portable sign? Is the attraction going to be moved? Also if they do make a sign, I hope they can omit the word safety. It gets tedious listening to people say 'for safety reasons' all day.

A sign that says 'Watch your baby for dingos'

Really? It sounds to me like it was written by someone who was really looking forward to go there, only to find the place is a rip off and the vibe is 'you aren't welcome'. I think if the report said 'Grand Canyon' instead of 'Ularu' you'd probably agree that this whole arrangement sounds crappy. But because it's in Austrlia people will feel a compulsive need to defend it, particularly from being criticised by someone from overseas. My take from the trip report is it's an honest account written from the heart, which doesn't hang crap on the main draw, only on what surrounds it. I'm pretty confident that had I visited my opinion would directly line up with the writer's.

The funny thing is up the road at Aussie World they ARE offering a discount off day tickets because a couple of rides are down for maintenance.

That article is pretty stupid. Park experiences busy day, two rides closed. There were signs out the front, and what, are they supposed to make Scooby Doo go faster? What the hell are you talking about with that Bulletin? Having said that, why wasn't Wild West open if Rick's is shut? Why are Taz cars closed? Why do you have a policy which forbids outside food and not have the means to feed all the guests in the park? Why are Lockers for a ride $2? Why not quietly reduce the day ticket by $20 while all that stuff is closed? The general vibe Movie World's policies give out is 'We hate you, and we won't spend a cent on making your day better than the bare minimum'. Management is good at passing that sentiment on to the staff too, and people notice. That contempt for guests is why WnW Sydney has been such a failure, and that's why people are queuing up to hang shit on Movie World now. If they were just so nice and awesome or the atmosphere in the park so amazing people might forgive them, but considering most things Movie World (and the Village theme parks at large) do comes across as a middle finger to guests then people will complain and loudly. And they wonder why VIP pass sales are down. If anyone from Village is reading, you can make money without ripping people off. Price things in the park reasonably, drop guest unfriendly polices, and treat the staff better so they aren't so uninvested with their jobs.

They don't want you to visit once, they want you to visit a bunch of times. The one day ticket is artificially high to make the year passes seem better value.

I think you could improve MDMC a lot by replacing the trains with ones similar to Jet Rescue. The gimmick of riding a motorbike isn't comfortable, leads to horribly slow load times, is bad for the staff from a manual handling point of view, and frankly isn't fun. I'd happily see it taken down and turned into a new themed land, but failing that new trains would help.

I think the shark on toothpicks is an attempt to join the areas, but it just looks silly and out of place. Honestly, both halves of the attraction work well on their own, and I think the need to join them isn't really needed. Overall I was very impressed, it's a much better fit to the park than Dinosaurs, and most of my negative comments are pretty nit picky (Difficult to read the information signs inside, and the blurring of the lines between what's real and what isn't). A better effort was put in as well, from landscaping to the path. It's on an Australian theme park budget so one can't really be mad at the fact the piping for the fog and speakers are out in the open. Like I said, it's a good fit for the park, and an effort was put in to presenting it well, and it pays off. And yes, a sign at both entrances that reads 'Creatures of the deep will close between (what ever the times are) inclusive to allow for the performance of 'Jet Stunt Extreme' would be a welcome addition.

Scooby Doo is the only Movie Themed ride in the park. I think it's perfectly relevant considering it was filmed in the studios, and the ride is so well done it goes beyond the source material anyway. As for putting monsters or props in the disco room, personally I think if you're going to do anything with that room, either 100% theme it or just add more lasers with a reliable hazer. For my tastes that's really all it needs.

For some annoying reason I can't get the release through the asx at the moment, but really there's not much to go on in the article. From what I can see the article talks about the Revenue results for one month, and poor weather in March, which their definitely was. Much of that weather also interrupted Chinese New Year, which is a week and a half where any attraction with Koalas is pretty much granted a license to print money. Would like to read the full release, there isn't much to go on here to draw any kind of conclusions.

I don't think they'll get rid of Cyclone, because once you get rid of it there's no way you'll be able to reuse the same land for an equally big ride. Just because they haven't done anything to it yet doesn't mean they won't in the fullness of time.