3 Park annual pass

[joz]

Well it was really only a matter of time since the buyout, but Village have now released a 3 park year pass, as well as a two park year pass. The three park pass is obviously good at MW, SW and WnW for a year, and is priced at $299 (or if you want another way to think of that, its pretty much $100 per park). As for the two park passes, well at the moment you can get either of the dry parks (MW or SW) and WnW for $249. If you want a pass for just MW and SW, then as it currently stands, you'll have to go the 3 park pass. Price wise the 2 park pass works out roughly double the DW/WWW duel passes, which are still running for the bargain basement price of $254 for two years (meanwhile a Dreamworld pass would cost $370 for two years ). On the flip side, the 3 park mega pass ($299) works out better value then 3 separate passes (about $400+) and much better then a years worth of 3 park super passes, ($4602). So what do you guys think? Will you buy a 2 or 3 park pass or stick to your one park pass?

Edited October 31, 2007 by joz

[Gazza]

I might get a MW/WnW one as those are the two parks I'd like to hit most often. Its good they have finally started doing these, I'd be interested to see how these compare to things like the Six Flafs, Cedar Fair, Tussauds etc passes though.

[dreamworld_rulz]

As i have DW/WWW 2 year pass I'll just stick with my MW pass. I also noticed this on the myfun web site which i think is great. My Football club has this. It's called "Advantage membership" It's great. anyway back to topic. The Ultimate Annual Pass is finally here! Now you can visit your favourite theme parks for a whole year! You can purchase upfront now online, call 133 FUN* or visit the front gate at any park. Payment Plan coming soon! Pay for your membership in easy monthly installments. Join MyFun now to be the first to be notified when this hot offer is available!

Edited October 31, 2007 by dreamworld_rulz

[MaxThrust]

I might get a MW/WnW one as those are the two parks I'd like to hit most often. Its good they have finally started doing these, I'd be interested to see how these compare to things like the Six Flafs, Cedar Fair, Tussauds etc passes though.

Tussauds pass in the UK. a £95 ( 75 renewal ) , thats $220 gives you unlimited entry to Alton Towers Resort, Thorpe Park, Chessington World of Adventure & Zoo, Madame Tussauds London, Warwick Castle and the British Airways London Eye in the UK and All International Madame Tussauds (New York, Amsterdam, Las Vegas, Shanghai & Hong Kong), Portaventura, Parc Asterix and Heide Park. And that is really a no brainer for a coaster fan. Still looks pricey, hopefully they'll do a $150 type winter pass for MW , and WnW to match the $99 AP I got in June

[MickeyD]

Are U serious? Without comparing our Parks to others that are clearly not available for us to visit often, this is GREAT value - particularly for teens on weekends and holidays. It's also a fantastic idea for families. No more boring weekends of "what shall we do" etc - just visit a park once a month and you have MORE than got back your money's worth

[Richard]

The pricing seems a bit misguided. Obviously they're in a tricky situation as they can't price it below the Super Pass for fear of impacting sales. To that end I'd like to see WVTP introduce an offpeak local residents pass for under the $200 mark for all three parks. With postcode and date restrictions, the effects it has on Super Pass sales would be negligible, and you could guarantee it'd have a huge impact on Dreamworld's Platinum, even if it's only a one year pass. Both passes should be two years for the prices they are. I'm really surprised WVTP didn't take that route, as the value is totally lost against Dreamworld's two year option for more or less the same amount. $299 for only a year's access is totally absurd and well out of the realm of most families -- 12 months costs around $1,100 for a family of four?!? Does that not seem crazy to anyone else? Obviously a payment plan will take a bit of the sting out, but then I see no reason anyone would pay up front unless discounts were offered. Food for thought -- a Walt Disney World four-park local residents pass (with blackout dates) is AUD$250. With that you're looking at many times more attractions than either WVTP or MLT offer. No blackout dates is AUD$380. These all include full use of WDW's transport network to get between parks in a given day.

[MickeyD]

I'm sure the average family of four are spending loads more than $1100 a year on entertainment - a PS3 costs about that much and I know which present I'd prefer to give my kids.

[Richard]

Current RRP of a PS3 is $700 and the key difference I see is that you don't have to throw out a PS3 after a year and buy a new one. For brevity we can assume that the cost of new games would be more or less equivalent to that of transport and food & beverage at the parks. Assuming a five year life of the PS3, that's $140 per year or $35 per family member.

[Gazza]

Why is there a concern about impacting on super pass sales? With tourists, In effect they would use the park equally as much no matter whether it was a super pass or a Ultimate pass they used to get in. Any lost super pass sales would be absorbed by Ultimate pass sales. Locals wouldn't buy super passes so its not like they would impact on that market segment either by offering an unlimited pass at a cheaper rate. I think the pass should be a little bit cheaper considering other park chains have better value ones, or at least do Richos idea and have a restricted pass available, which could help drive attendance outside peak times.

[joz]

I reckon though its expensive, the 3 park pass really should be. I don't think we need a situation like at DW where a 2 or 3 park pass has effectively eliminated the one park pass, and such the extra park passes should be cheaper then the price of separate park passes but still more expensive then the various other tickets. I still think the DW 2 year pass is undervalued, and poorly worked out. I don't think it should be cheaper to get 2 years for WWW/DW then it is to just get to 2years for just DW. Just on the thought of DW passes, what happened to their off peak pass?

[Richard]

I'm sure if you looked at the usage stats on Dreamworld's two year pass, the visits would become so infrequent by the end of the two years that the added costs of facilitating that extra year is outweighed by the revenue generated. You'd naturally have a spike around summer for WhiteWater World, but there'd be almost no visits to that park 6-9 months of the year; it'd all be Dreamworld. From the first year to the second year, I'm sure usage would on average drop by at least 50%, which is more or less the price difference between the one year and two year pass. I suspect market research would show there is a significant market of locals who buy a theme park annual pass each year and that many of those alternate parks each year for variety. This would be the main reason both companies offer discounts for buying your next pass at one of their parks. Dreamworld have managed here to lock in two years of business -- two years of food & beverage, arcade/upcharge and souvenirs. I think pricing it so close to the current annual pass and actually making it cheaper in the long run is a pretty clever tactic. They obviously have no real desire to maintain existing levels of single-year annual passes, and by pricing them so closely they'll manage to get an extra $70 out of many customers who only originally intended on getting the Dreamworld pass. WVTP seem to have approached it a bit like economy vs. business class on flights, whereby the price difference is so much that they are pitching it to an entirely different market than their single-park passes. Dreamworld on the other hand seem to be taking a sort of fast food approach whereby they get the customer to "upsize" even if they had no intention of originally, because the perception is that even though you're paying more, you're getting better value for money than you would otherwise. Granted, WVTP's three park pass does cost less than what three annual passes cost, but the reality is you're not getting three annual passes, you're getting three one-thirds of each annual pass based on the buyer's actual ability to use it. I'd be very surprised if such a pass would get twice as much use from anyone, which is roughly how many times you'd need to visit for the per-visit price to get down towards that of the single-park pass. By contrast the way MLT are pitching it is you get one year at Dreamworld followed by one year at WhiteWater World for less than what those two passes cost together, AND with the ability to use both parks for both years. The thing I find interesting is that Dreamworld now have this great illusion that their pass is half as expensive as WVTP's equivalent. I can't see too many families choosing WVTP over MLT if they're doing their research and want (perceived) value for money. As it stands I'm not totally convinced this'll be a big seller. As for the off-peak pass at Dreamworld, that died a quick death when they decided to go with the Platinum. It'll be interesting to see how this goes for WVTP and whether we see them do any flip-flopping as we saw with DW/WWW over the past year with their passes. As it stands I'm not convinced that this'll be too successful for WVTP.

[peter241]

I scored a Movieworld annual pass off ebay for $65. Two months later I upgraded it to the Mega fun pass for around$150 - what a bargain - I Love it!!

[Gold Coaster]

That was even better the second time around. Cheers, champ.