Wizard of Oz - Movie World Arkham Asylum Replacement

[Baconjack]

1 hour ago, Levi said:

i’m not sure if i’m remembering correctly, but wasn’t Wicked Witches station meant to have screens and show the Monkeys flying away as the train departed the station? i swear this was announced when the whole area was announced.

Yeah this is what I thought. It looks like a screen with an accompanying animation should be in the place of that mural.

It’s a shame that the standards have gone backwards from Leviathan while the budget has gotten bigger. This area had a lot of potential (and shows that in portions of the area) but it really needs to be finished, I’m not sure if there’s anything left to finish given how long this land has spent under construction when by comparison Rivertown was built at the last minute

Edited Friday at 04:22 PM by Baconjack

[themagician]

6 hours ago, Baconjack said:

There's no way $100m has been spent on 2 off the shelf rides with incomplete theming past the preshow and the start of the queues for the coasters (which I'll admit is pretty good). I thought the land was $60m a few months ago, why's the figure been almost doubled? $100m is approaching Universal/Disney territory

And to put this into perspective, The New Atlantis at Sea World cost $50 million. Wizard of Oz cost double what New Atlantis did. Crazy.

[Flynn_Smith]

News outlets pumping out these stories about “$100m theme park attraction” with “ground breaking roller coasters”? Who is MovieWorld paying off for this sort of garbage?

Expense clearly has been spared considering the poor state of the FotWW queue, and the poor planning/design overall. It’s pretty disappointing seeing this as the final product after years of hype and the concept art released. At least Dreamworld’s somewhat matches what was promised?

Reading through social media reactions and reviews the feelings on this area are pretty much the same. So much hype for such a disappointing final product.

[omega237]

Seeing the vid on YouTube looks amazing. Wonder if Universal would beat out Warner Bros Movie World’s Land of Oz if they do make a Land of Oz based off Wicked as a 5th spot for Epic Universe?

[themagician]

2 minutes ago, omega237 said:

Wonder if Universal would beat out Warner Bros Movie World’s Land of Oz

Without question, they absolutely would. Universal have done a pop up store for Wicked and it was very well done.

[Brad2912]

14 hours ago, aaronm said:

I’m getting the impression this is like Nintendo Land at Universal Hollywood. Small, cheap and unimpressive.

Haven’t been to SNW at USH, but have at USJ and it’s anything but cheap and unimpressive 

[aaronm]

5 hours ago, themagician said:

Wizard of Oz cost double what New Atlantis did. Crazy

Even crazier when you consider they were able to reuse the existing AA queue building. It’s hard to see where the money was spent for sure. If Gumbuya and Luna Park can afford a family invert and boomerang respectively they can’t be all that expensive!

Edited yesterday at 02:19 AM by aaronm

[dbo121]

9 hours ago, Baconjack said:

Yeah this is what I thought. It looks like a screen with an accompanying animation should be in the place of that mural.

It’s a shame that the standards have gone backwards from Leviathan while the budget has gotten bigger. This area had a lot of potential (and shows that in portions of the area) but it really needs to be finished, I’m not sure if there’s anything left to finish given how long this land has spent under construction when by comparison Rivertown was built at the last minute

Was it at last minute ? Don’t think so . Perhaps in tighter timeframe.

Edited yesterday at 02:21 AM by dbo121

[omega237]

15 hours ago, aaronm said:

Appreciate the pictures and reports from those who’ve visited. I’m getting the impression this is like Nintendo Land at Universal Hollywood. Small, cheap and unimpressive. Will be nice to +3 the coaster count but nothing in this land suggests it will have the perennial appeal of SDSC or (lest we forget) LTRR.

That’s because Universal Studios Hollywood is much smaller than its sister parks around the world since it’s an actual working studio, and has to put attractions in current places.

[LoZza]

I just find it constantly baffling that they insist on having ride queues outside. Like have the execs ever experienced the Queensland heat, especially in summer? Like why not have the queues fully indoors or better yet have an indoor ride?

Even the area itself barely has any shading for people to get out of the sun unless they wanna go in the building 

[Gobbledok]

Lets be real realistically its more like the execs have never experienced a wait for anything 

[Coppertine]

13 minutes ago, LoZza said:

I just find it constantly baffling that they insist on having ride queues outside. Like have the execs ever experienced the Queensland heat, especially in summer? Like why not have the queues fully indoors or better yet have an indoor ride?

Even the area itself barely has any shading for people to get out of the sun unless they wanna go in the building 

It's even weirder when you compare that to Dreamworld where almost every rides queue is either inside or under shade. I can't think of a single ride in Dreamworld where you are not queuing in the shade.

[themagician]

1 hour ago, Coppertine said:

I can't think of a single ride in Dreamworld where you are not queuing in the shade.

The only two I can think of is the Play School Wheel and Humpty-Go-Round, but in comparison the only ones with entirely covered queue at MW are Justice League, Driving School, Superman, Scooby and WWF.

But it certainly is baffling that they didn’t even try to design shading into the queue, particularly when so much of it is outside and they operate with one train. Apparently someone passed out in the queue today because of the heat.

[MARK28]

Overall, I think this area looks great. I’m never going to expect mind blowing stuff from an Australian park, but I think the theming in the indoor areas of the queues are immersive and get the spirit of the movies across. Yes hopefully they dress the inbetween areas up a bit, but considering all we had was an oversaturation of DC stuff, this with Scooby doo reopening is really going to expand the feeling of being in the movies at the park. I think what would REALLY round out the area is a small store, a gentle flat ride and a justice league-sized dark ride. 

[patrick54]

44 minutes ago, themagician said:

The only two I can think of is the Play School Wheel and Humpty-Go-Round, but in comparison the only ones with entirely covered queue at MW are Justice League, Driving School, Superman, Scooby and WWF.

and recently they covered the play school wheel queue

[themagician]

1 hour ago, MARK28 said:

I’m never going to expect mind blowing stuff from an Australian park

You should go check out Rivertown

[Brad2912]

Big fail not keeping WoO open for white Christmas 

 

[New display name]

29 minutes ago, Brad2912 said:

Big fail not keeping WoO open for white Christmas 

 

Why?

[Brad2912]

2 minutes ago, New display name said:

Why?

Why? Because it is now officially open, you have a sold out event and having it opens makes for a much better experience for everyone - and last time I checked the guest experience is their key metric (or so we are told). Having hundreds of people being told at the entrance to the rides it’s closed after allowing them to all walk down the pathway and into the land etc is just disappointing people. 

[Baconjack]

2 hours ago, MARK28 said:

I’m never going to expect mind blowing stuff from an Australian park

[New display name]

I don't know how you can be disappointed because It was never on the list of rides open for WC.  

[Michelangelo]

3 minutes ago, New display name said:

I don't know how you can be disappointed because It was never on the list of rides open for WC.  

Because normally every ride eligible to be open (I.e not under maintenance or tech issue on the day) is usually open for every night event…

I was too looking forward to riding them at night today. Guess there’s always next year 😒

[Brad2912]

4 minutes ago, New display name said:

I don't know how you can be disappointed because It was never on the list of rides open for WC.  

You on VTPs payroll now? 
it’s disappointing because they had a chance to do something that would have give thousands of people a great experience and chose not to. 

[Michelangelo]

2 hours ago, MARK28 said:

Overall, I think this area looks great. I’m never going to expect mind blowing stuff from an Australian park, but I think the theming in the indoor areas of the queues are immersive and get the spirit of the movies across. Yes hopefully they dress the inbetween areas up a bit, but considering all we had was an oversaturation of DC stuff, this with Scooby doo reopening is really going to expand the feeling of being in the movies at the park. I think what would REALLY round out the area is a small store, a gentle flat ride and a justice league-sized dark ride. 

IMHO it looks like it’s been done on the cheap. MW need to ask for some refunds for their $100M, or have a serious look at their procurement processes.

I wouldn’t exactly say it’s “immersive” theming, with the exception of the one bit of queue for FOTWW. Everything else is just themed.

The rides themselves are great, and well done to MW for bringing some fun & variety to the GC ride lineup. But to harp on about the millions spent, the immersive theming and all that just set the bar too high, and they couldn’t reach it in the end.

Also, someone needs to have their execs line up for a ride in 34c+ sunshine for an hour +.

They NEED fans, shade and aircon for the inside bits.

[New display name]

1 minute ago, Brad2912 said:

You on VTPs payroll now? 

Yawn.

@Michelangeloyou get a free dose if skin cancer with with every ride.