Is DWWP going to have what it takes?

[GoGoBoy]

I visited Wet 'n' Wild in April and I was going to put a TR together but thought I might put my thoughts into this post and relate it to Dreamworld's upcoming waterpark. I have to say Wet 'n' Wild with all its recent improvements is just plain fun. There is now such a large offering of slides and attractions, you can easily fill a whole day (and I'm not one of those people who love re-riding the same thing all day). It took us aaages to get through all of the slides even though the queues were really short... basically because there is just so much to do now. What a change this is from a few years ago when there wasn't nearly enough. This got me concerned about DWWP. Is Dreamworld Waterpark really going to have enough to compete with the 'new' WnW? They only have around $50 mill to spend and we already know part of this money is going on a wave pool and a flow rider (boring). I just can't imagine that the rest of that money is going to buy them enough fun slides and attractions to create any serious competition for WnW. The one advantage DWWP will have over WnW is the fact that it's brand new. One of the down sides to WnW is how some of the areas have deteriorated. The main pathways for example look terrible. And most of the attractions are not particularly colourful. I was very disappointed with the layout of the new Extreme H20 Zone and the non existant theming and landscaping. The temporary tent/shade thing was not a good look either. It really looked like the whole area had been so rushed and just plonked in the far corner, probably all true. However we all know that the Aussie general public doesn't seem to care overly about this stuff and the fact is the new slides at H20 extreme zone are excellent regardless. So, so much fun. Couldn't fault them - especially loved the Black Hole. So anyway the one area DWWP may be able to excel is with bright colourful slides and heaps of theming similar to a lot of the new waterparks overseas. I'm still so surprised that we haven't heard anymore rumours re the parks attractions. I think all you DW fans out there need to do a bit more work and dig up some more info for us... and hopefully my fears about DWWP will be proved wrong

[Spotty]

LOL... I'll see what I can dig up Provided I am allowed to reveal it

Edited May 8, 2006 by Spotty

[OzCoasterFreek]

I can not WAIT until the line-up is released! I REALLY hope dreamworld pull out something pretty special here. Surely that must be aware that they will have to in order for them to be any competition for WnW?

[joz]

I've wondered this same thing myself Goboi, and really, $56million is a pretty tight budget for an entire new park (paths, lockers, retail and food & bev outlets etc. Heck, even something as mundane as the uniforms will cost a small fortune) but I'm keen to see what they come out with before dismissing it. I agree that Wet 'n' Wild really is a full day out, and if anything is really under valued by many people. H2o Zone may not be the best looking area in the park, though if you look back through the history of the parks, most new areas took a year or three before all the plant life had matured. Again though, its hard to judge a park before you know anything about it. It may suck, it may blow us all away, we'll just have to wait and see.

[Adam]

Rest assured Macquarie Leisure know how to make people happy -- just look at Dreamworld's financial reports, they're through the roof! I'm sure that the water park will start off with some cool attractions and themeing (what part of Dreamworld isn't themed?). I'm also confident they will be able to put together something pretty good for 56 million, and if they can't, I'm sure we'll see them investing further.

[Gazza]

Heck, even something as mundane as the uniforms will cost a small fortune)

Not necessarily, i know for a fact it cost $15,000 to deck out the entire maccas i work at with new uniforms, and thats 80 people, i think DDWP will have about double that so it would be expensive, but not too much overall out of the budget.

[GoGoBoy]

Ok so we now have 3 confirmed attractions for the waterpark - a flow rider, wave pool and some kind of standard slide/s. My question is, how much more do you think the park needs to be any kind of competition for WnW? I'm interested to hear peoples opinions on the bare minimum you think this park needs to be even remotely decent. Keeping in mind their budget (which has been partly eaten up by the wave pool and flow rider), the relatively small size of the area (I still can't work out how big it is but it doesn't appear to be too large) and the fact that they are building a new park from scratch. We already have a few rumours going around about the manafacturers - White Water West and ProSlide are possibly in the ring. Someone on OzCoaster mentioned Australian Waterslides & Leisure. I am certainly hoping it's ProSlide after looking at their website but unfortunately I have a funny feeling that Gazza could be right about White Water West. Interested to hear everyones thoughts

[aidan]

I hope they get a master blaster and some kind of enclosed mamoth falls slides.

[GoGoBoy]

While we're on the subject does anyone have any idea how much a Flow Rider and giant wave pool would cost? This might give us an idea of how much money they have for the real attractions. Also, considering how much space the wave pool will take up, how much more room does the waterpark have? Are they going to use the entire Thunderbolt area in addition to the car park?

[OzCoasterFreek]

I'm still not entirely sure just how much room the waterpark has, it's been a while since I've driven past. However I remember reading something in the press release about how the park will use innovative methods of water conservation to reduce waste by ninety-something percent, I think. Could this mean using only run-out's instead of splash pools...this would create more room for more attractions wouldn't it??? As for the prices of the Wavepool and Flowrider, I'm not too sure. I wouldn't imagine they'd be extremely expensive. I'm really starting to think we can expect to see a good quality park. Only time will tell. . .

[Gazza]

I think Richo said in another thread that a flowrider costs under $1mil, though im not sure about the wave pool, but I imagine it would probably be the most expensive attraction. But I dont really get the dissapointment people seem to have with Whitewater doing the slides instead of Proslide, they are basically even, its sort of like the comparison between B&M and Intamin, not much at all. Though to compete with WnW they just have to ensure it has good comparable rides, as well as some unique ones. This could be achieved by having prehaps just 3 towers, One could be entirely body slides, with 4 regular ones at middle level, and 4 extreme slides at the top. The other tower could have 4 raft slides off the middle level (like some of the SF Hurricane Habours) , at the top level could be 2 mammoth slides. The 3rd tower could have an octopus racer running off it, and prehaps on another level 2 toilet bowl slides (I think these are pretty likely as we dont have them here yet and would be the sort "unique" ride dW would be after ) But have a look at the photo I have attached below, it shows how a number of ride types can share the same tower, which would be good for DWs space problems. Look carefully and you can see provision has been made for another Mammoth slide on the right hand side of the conveyor belt. Also, another idea that is basically staring them in the face is to pay attention to their kids area, which might only cost a little bit more. Compare what WnW has: http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/gallery/b...bay-wnw/007.jpg Which is nice, but it could be so much more. Imagine if DW tried this.... http://www.themeparkreview.com/dells2005/sfhh/sfhh2.htm

Edited May 24, 2006 by Gazza

[aidan]

I hope dreamworld waterpark gets the 8th picture on that link to theme park review, that would be fun.

[GoGoBoy]

I just think ProSlide's product offerings are slightly better. I also think the slides are just generally better presented. Compare the 2 websites - www.proslide.com and www.whitewaterwest.com It's probably just me being fussy but for some reason ProSlide looks better to me. Also, I agree that the Octopus Racer would be a great addition but this is also a ProSlide attraction. Both companies do some sort of bowls though. There is SO much potential for DW to do some great stuff. They have every opportunity to get this right as they're building from scratch so let's hope they do. There is certainly no excuse to get the layout and presentation wrong - let's hope the place ends up looking really special and has the exact right mix of attractions

[aidan]

I hope dreamworld will pick all the slides they are gonna do and make a map of what they want it to look like and put it out to the public, like sort of a rough map of it.

[GoGoBoy]

I know I can't believe we haven't heard anything yet! Wet 'n' Wild announced Tornado aaages ago. I was just looking at DW on Google maps and from what I can see space for the waterpark looks like it certainly will be an issue. They would need to use all of the land in front of Cyclone and the whole ex-Thunderbolt area and even then the park wouldn't come close to the size of Wet 'n' Wild. Strategic planning may go someway to overcoming this. As we have discussed before this would surely make any kind of expansion difficult (although DW may not have plans for much expansion as usual... wanting to hold onto all that money for the shareholders). The maintenance sheds area would have to be used if any expansion did take place and who knows this may be the plan down the line. Does anyone know how far out to the road the park is being built? Or are they only using the ex-car park area?

[aidan]

I think they are using land that was there normally that wasnt a carpark. If they ever wanted to expand they could offer to buy the servo and go out there but from what i have seen it will be a good sized waterpark because slides can overlap and can save some land.

[GoGoBoy]

I suppose if anything Wet 'n' Wild is very spread out, unecessarily so in some places. This is probably because it started with nothing and very gradually over the years expanded bit by bit. Extreme H20 Zone is an example - out in the middle of nowhere

[rappa]

Well going by White Water's website the typical cost for an outdoor wave pool is around $250 000. Granted this is not for something like Typhoon Lagoons monster, but given these guys built that amazing wave pool, these are the guys we want building ours.

[Gazza]

Geeze, thats not too bad actually, there are flats in some cities that cost more than that. It really highlights how much better value water parks represent for park owners, i mean, the Claw cost 24 times that amount, but would come no where near the hourly capacity and general appeal. Hopefully we will get a nice sized pool with big surfable waves.

[aidan]

There was an update on the waterpark on ozcoaster and its looking good and the green poles around the cyclone is cool. I can imagine now with the blue, green and the purple slides there.

[GoGoBoy]

I was just discussing over on Ozcoaster the fact that some of the supports are painted and some are just exposed steel which is very odd. Lets hope they're not losing attention to detail already! Also, at this point the supports look very small. Hopefully they are still planning to increase the height and add more pole lengths

[Spotty]

I personally think the green poles are absolultley disgusting! but i still think DWWP is going to end up being a good park, but i still think WnW will come out on top, but dreamworld... Prove me wrong!

[aidan]

Goboi those poles are big and they would be higher (hopefully)

[Gazza]

With water slides, it tends to be that for lower supports they just use concrete (since at that size concrete is cheaper) , but for the higher supports it becomes more economical to use steel (since a concrete support capable of the same load would be more expensive (and large)) My other theory is that maybe the supports are for slides from different manufacturers who have their own ways of doing things. The green poles remind me of the La Trobe St bridge in Melbourne (which has lime green lights and railings), it looks ok as a modern thing, but not so good in a themed area. See the attachment (Its rabids pic BTW) of how i think the supports could work.

Edited June 1, 2006 by Gazza

[aidan]

What about that other big pole in the picture?