DW's current offer for annual pass renewals.

 

 

Free bowling and arcade time? If only they owned AMF\Timezone...

Can't remember the last time I went bowling. I took my daughter to time zone in surfers after the big refurb or should I call it the big regress.  Talk about pulling a Scooby refurb and going backwards.

When I was a wee lad annual passes were 3.5 x the one-day price.  It took me a whole year of doing a paper run buy my annual pass.  The parks are cheap now, but the quality of our parks have suffered.

Edited November 1, 20223 yr by New display name

It’s nice that they’re including those bonus offers with third party groups, really helps to increase the value of the pass and sweeten the deal. 

5 hours ago, New display name said:

I took my daughter to time zone in surfers after the big refurb or should I call it the big regress.  Talk about pulling a Scooby refurb and going backwards.

What’s wrong with the Timezone refurb? Apart from losing some classic games (especially those from Sega World Sydney) I don’t see what’s so bad about it? 

17 hours ago, Noll_57 said:

What’s wrong with the Timezone refurb? Apart from losing some classic games (especially those from Sega World Sydney) I don’t see what’s so bad about it? 

They gutted it to make LT bigger and more open instead of being based on CQB, Downgraded the minigolf from something you would see at Mermaid Beach to a stale blacklight course, randomly clumped games together on the western side, more bottlenecks, eatery takes up valuable arcade space, pinball corner no longer has a focus on new, classic and interesting machines, looks tacky. 

I'm sure theres more, but its one place i ALWAYS made sure to visit when i was up from Sydney and they realy earned those "best arcade in the world" awards for those 3 years. Then they brought it under the new umbrella and ruined everything that made it worth a visit. My last 2 visits i didn't even go because of how bad its become.

@jjuttpyou are on the money.  The refurb took away what made it great.

That and Big Buck Hunter used to have a few machines now its just the 1 and the guns aren't calibrated last time I checked.

Total aside, I went to the new bowling alley at Timezone Surfers recently. They now have wire on the top of the pins to pull them up when they've been knocked over. I'm not a purest in any sense, I go bowling like once every 2 years, but more than once I noticed pins being knocked over by the wire, and not because they were hit by another pin or the ball. Booo ghetto bowling!

Edited November 3, 20223 yr by joz

Ya The new Timezone is pretty crap, I loved the dingy 90s aesthetic of the place and the 12-person Daytona at the back was awesome, but the refurb just turned it into another generic modern minimalist aesthetic which is done to death at this point and quite boring.

Edited November 3, 20223 yr by Smol bean

25 minutes ago, joz said:

Total aside, I went to the new bowling alley at Timezone Surfers recently. They now have wire on the top of the pins to pull them up when they've been knocked over. I'm not a purest I'm any sense, I go bowling like once every 2 years, but more than once I noticed pins being knocked over by the wire, and not because they were hit by another pin or the ball. Booo ghetto bowling!

If you're talking about the four lanes inside the Timezone itself (as opposed to the purpose-built alley adjacent) then they are the same Highway 66 systems they had in the same spot (albeit rotated 90 degrees).  They have always been pinspot-by-wire:
https://www.qubicaamf.com/bowling-products/mini-bowling/highway-66

They are based on smaller balls, smaller pins, etc, and are targeted at young kids.

Nah, it's the full size alley that now has the wires. It makes me sad.

 

Also the reason you don't like the new aesthetic is because you're/we're old and nostalgic for what we liked when we were younger. I think it went down hill when it changed from Grundy's to Funtasia.

Edited November 3, 20223 yr by joz

It is very sad, especially to see the majority of Zone centres have now replaced their pin loaders with stringed pins.

I know the pin loaders were a maintenance nightmare at times, and costly to repair, but the traditionalist in me hates the new set up 

It's such an 'old man yells at cloud' thing to get mad at, but it bummed me out when I noticed the wires interfering with the game and knocking the pins over. Like this isn't proper ten pin bowling any more it's some other very slightly different game 

honestly it depends on how much you pay in my opinion

Jesus, that's pretty dire.  They'd only get away with that in tourist traps.

21 minutes ago, webslave said:

They'd only get away with that in tourist traps.

That sounds like a challenge.😂

. 

.

Took me 3 seconds.

Is Chermside a tourist trap?

19 minutes ago, New display name said:

Is Chermside a tourist trap?

You don't have to be a tourist to become trapped in that hell-hole.

I can't imagine any of the centers that run stuff like league, etc would go for this.

Edit: Jesus, bowling is done:
https://brunswickbowling.com/bowling-centers/equipment-parts-supplies/center-environment/pinsetters/stringpin-pinsetter
"Brunswick StringPin meets International Bowling Federation (IBF) specifications. This includes specifications related to kickback, kickback plates, pin deck, pins, gutter, and installation. The IBF announced in November 2021 that it has approved string pin technology for sport leagues and competitive tournament play worldwide. After careful study, the IBF concluded that string machines help proprietors address multiple business challenges, including keeping experienced maintenance technicians on staff, high equipment costs, and machine reliability concerns. The IBF also reported that bowling averages on string machines are very close to those bowled on freefall machines and that string machines do not give the bowler any significant scoring advantage."

Edited November 3, 20223 yr by webslave

59 minutes ago, webslave said:

Jesus, bowling is done

Omg agreed!

This is great news for people like me that need a lot of help.   😀  I agree bowling is done.

I have to admit, that’s very sad. Seems like most new centres are installing these systems now. 

Yeah I mean half the thrill is pins flying bloody everywhere on a massive strike. That just doesn’t happen with these systems. 
Pay the techs what they are worth to run the proper machines, it’s not like they charge $5 a game anymore. 

10 hours ago, rappa said:

it’s not like they charge $5 a game anymore. 

They need all that extra money to pay for blacklight tubes and AmericanDJ disco lights.