Wizard of Oz - Movie World Arkham Asylum Replacement

[Park Addict 93]

9 hours ago, CR4ZE said:

Excited, but it seems there were no lessons learned from the Atlantis opening debacle. I see no good reason other than "getting ahead" of the competition to not just soft-launch tomorrow with a proper opening on Boxing Day. But I guess I'm not an executive, so I wouldn't know any better.

Exactly this, it feels very petty “we want to open before DW”. I’m really curious as to if there will be any real fanfare/proper opening festivities. I’m confident the original plan was to soft open today.

According to the app no Oz shows are even happening today. I don’t think they are stupid enough to open the land without the characters appearing however.

The standard Dorothy “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” performance that has been on Main St for years has been moved to the new land according to the app, but is only listed as from the 27th along with the other 2 new shows as part of H4H. The H4H show schedule on the website states this show is still taking place on Main St.

They have also put this on the website presumably for Guest Services to point at when people inevitably complain about the ride not operating.

“Flight of the Wicked Witch is opening under technical rehearsals and operational times may vary while our teams fine-tune their operations of the attraction.”

[themagician]

1 hour ago, Park Addict 93 said:

“Flight of the Wicked Witch is opening under technical rehearsals and operational times may vary while our teams fine-tune their operations of the attraction.”

I saw this and the first thing I thought was they’ve rushed to open the land so they can beat the competition. I’d imagine they probably did plan to soft open the land today (like a few people heard) and then officially open on Boxing Day. Interesting that they’ve only said that for one of the attractions too.

[Ash]

Gold Coast bulletin just put a sneak peak through looks actually quite good the house with the swinging lights, que lines etc 

[Naazon]

2 hours ago, Park Addict 93 said:

Exactly this, it feels very petty

Sure but petty drives competition

[themagician]

1 hour ago, Ash said:

Gold Coast bulletin just put a sneak peak through looks actually quite good the house with the swinging lights, que lines etc 

The headline for the article says "From two ground-breaking roller coasters to high-tech holograms, no expense has been spared in this $100m new theme park attraction recreating the world of the Wizard of Oz."

Since when were the park spending $100 million on the Wizard of Oz? That's three times the cost of Rivertown. That's the roughly the same price Universal spent to build VelociCoaster. The bar has now been set very high if they really spent that much.

[New display name]

What's so ground breaking about 3 off the shelf coasters?  

I know,  It's ground breaking for MW, they haven't broken down yet. 🤣

[Ash]

23 minutes ago, themagician said:

The headline for the article says "From two ground-breaking roller coasters to high-tech holograms, no expense has been spared in this $100m new theme park attraction recreating the world of the Wizard of Oz."

Since when were the park spending $100 million on the Wizard of Oz? That's three times the cost of Rivertown. That's the roughly the same price Universal spent to build VelociCoaster. The bar has now been set very high if they really spent that much.

I actually laughed at both of those statements, Movieworld love throwing out these big statements 

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Interesting to drop that literally the day prior. it does sort of feel a bit keeping up with the joneses but we have no idea how long they've had that date in mind. 

Sounds like a bonus for anyone going to the final nights of White Christmas with the new land open there'll be night rides on Oz well before the After Dark rides on Jungle Rush in January!

[New display name]

48 minutes ago, Ash said:

I actually laughed at both of those statements, Movieworld love throwing out these big statements 

MW preparing to go on a first date:

[downunder]

But which one is more iconic? Put a second sock in for that.

Personally, if I had to choose, I'd take DW's coaster over the pretty standard ones at MW. But that's just my preference.

Edited Thursday at 11:59 PM by downunder
Correction

[themagician]

27 minutes ago, downunder said:

Personally, if I had to choose, I'd take DW's coaster over the pretty standard ones at MW

I’ve been on TNT at Gumbuya World (same ride as Flight of the Wicked Witch) and it is a surprisingly very enjoyable and re-ridable experience. It’s much quicker than you expect, has some great little pops of airtime, good forces and is super smooth.

From what we’ve seen I think Rivertown is a better and more immersive land, but Jungle Rush might not necessarily be the best coaster of the 3 (I haven’t been on it so I can’t compare accurately).

[Noll_57]

It’s open! 

 

 

[downunder]

@themagician good points. I've been on Orkanen at Farup Sommerland which is the same model, and I agree - that was also pretty good and re-rideable. I'll be driving by the parks on monday on the way to Bris. So if I go, I'll have to choose between DW and MW (& convince my partner to go, she hates coasters).

[themagician]

Apparently the Wicked Witch wait time is already over an hour and Kansas Twister is having some technical issues and it’s opening is delayed as of 10:30

[New display name]

[BNErider]

Yeah, Rivertown looks much nicer. Perhaps the queue makes up for it?

[franky]

40 minutes ago, Noll_57 said:

So it's a technical rehearsal too (A frame to the right of the yellow brick road).

[Lakyn17]

I definitely prefer this to river town. The queues are amazing. I haven’t been on jungle rush but from the videos I would have more fun on the rides over the Oz ride I went on but the theming for Oz is just superb. Such a monumental film that so many people love. Have seen quite a few people dress up and a lot of buzz Online in the wicked circles of people wanting to fly over to visit. 

[CR4ZE]

Well, I've seen quite a bit of footage as people are visiting today. So, my feelings are based on this, not a first-hand experience.

While the courtyard area looks good, I think there's a ways to go. There's just something sterile and "plasticky" that I can't quite articulate. Those flat, monolithic concrete walls and 2D facades aren't really selling it for me. The granular detail in the theming just doesn't feel like it's there. Anyone else get that sense?

Meanwhile, from what I've seen, the interior spaces are fantastic. Great music and atmosphere. The Gale House/Kansas Twister queue looks great, but it's the Palace of Oz and Wicked Witch areas that really are on another level.

So, well done to VRTP, two outta three ain't bad!

[TBoy]

Looking at the images, the courtyard seems underwhelming. It feels a bit too flat, and I don't like the white box in the middle of the land. I haven't seen the inside of the land yet so I hope that will be better.

[Brods]

Opening day of Steel Taipan I saw this as well, but first train I’m seeing with people on FOTWW and bro said 😃🤳 🤣🤣🤣 expect a pov soon? 🤔🤣

[CR4ZE]

3 minutes ago, Brods said:

Opening day of Steel Taipan I saw this as well, but first train I’m seeing with people on FOTWW and bro said 😃🤳 🤣🤣🤣 expect a pov soon? 🤔🤣

What a dick. I hope his phone gets snatched by a pack of Flying Monkeys.

[aussienetman]

Ooft very unimpressed based off the photos so far. What a boring 100 million dollar waste 🤣🤣🤣

[Vidgamer]

I went down for the opening this morning so thought I would try and put some ideas down on what I think works well and what hasn’t delivered. Of course these are all my first impressions and just my opinions.

At 10 we were let into the gates of movieworld at about half of the people there ran to Wizard of Oz. When you enter the world the access to both rides is through the Emerald Palace. There are test seats for both rides when you walk in and a large Wizard of Oz Chamber (which is very impressive). 
 

we decided to do Kansas Twister first and the theming for the queue line is really good, you go through Dorothy’s house and it looks really good. We were one of the first in line but had to wait for the executives to get their rides in (why they don’t do this before the park opens I do not know, but it’s never a good look a bunch of Village execs going through fast pass while others are waiting.) Kansas twister is a solid roller coaster with the capacity to take lots of people. We enjoyed it.

As we exited Kansas Twister they have the bad witch out for a meet and greet which was cute and my kids loved that, we then did Flight of the Wicked Witch. The wait for this was long and it kept going down, the queue is brilliant and very well themed. The ride was smooth and quite thrilling. We then saw that Kansas twister had gone down. They were extremely slow to load Flight of the Wicked Witch. 
 

the land itself looks immersive and well themed. The only thing I find a bit jading with the queue for both coasters is that the last little bit before you load for each coaster you are essentially in an outside queue surrounded by black metal fencing, I wish they had thought of a way to keep the queue indoors right until you load up. 

i think the price statement around 100 million is rubbish, there are still areas that clear cuts have been made (the walls in the haunted forest are painted which gives it a low budget ghost train feel when looking directly at the walls) but it’s still far away the best theming Movieworld has done recently. 

[New display name]

The caged path is one of the worst if not the worst path I have seen in a theme park.