Wonderland Sydney Update!

[Daniel]

Mate, where do I start on this one? The reason the park is going down the shi*ter is not spending money. Have you ever been during the week? I'm tipping no. Some days they are pushing sh*t up hill to get 30 people in there. No lie. Mate, compared to lets say even 3 or 4 years ago, attendance is rubbish. 90 minute waits at rides were not uncommon, now the only real day like that would be union day. I don't know, but how many Wonderpass holders do you think they have compared to a few years back? I'm tipping it's on the decline. I doubt there's been an increase, but if you plan on going even twice in a year, it's worth it. There is no way known to man that you can say attendance is improving on the long term. There's not a hope in hell. Anyone that has been a regular for a few years or any employee will disagree with your statement about attendance improving. I don't think the general population supports them. Sure, there are a few regulars that are there every week, in one case every day, but overall, definately a high level of dissatisfaction. To be quite honest, they're getting fed up. All you've got to do is get staff to record the number of complaints they receive each day. Everybody I speak to whether it would be family, friends or to someone in conversation, rate Wonderland as high as a lobotomy these days.

[B&Mfan]

Goboi wrote:

If all these families and kids stopped going then maybe Wonderland would start improving or adding attractions.

Trouble is while most people don't have very kind words to say about Wonderland these days they have not very much to compare the park to. Wasn't til 5 years ago when I visited my first US park that I realised just how ****e we have it here (this includes the GC parks but to a much lesser extent than that of Wonderland). Haven't been back to Wonderland since my first O/S trip and don't plan on going back until they can justify to me that parting with a $50 for a day in their park is indeed a good investment; only way they can do that is by putting in some decent rides/attractions. In the meantime Wonderland will keep serving up the same tired old ****e they have for the last decade - which the general public will keep lapping up........ Vote with your feet people! Say to them enough is enough Wonderland.

[joz]

You know guys, I ask every customer I serve where their from. If their from Sydney, I always ask "How do we compare to Wonderland?". I this answer 9 times out of 10: Don't know, haven't been there in years. They never add anything. People are voting with their feet, and will continue to do so for a while to come.

[Daniel]

Bloody oath B&Mfan. I'll keep my 50 bucks to get on the cans like a mongrel with.

[Nightshifter]

i will say the last time, wonderland attendances are actually beggining to be the highest in over 3 years. ever since they introduced the after 5 pm the attendances soared, and its very packed of a saturday night. everyone is at skool. who would go to wonderland during the week, hello. sydney is a working city and everyone in sydney works a hell of a lot, no one has time to go to wonderland anymore. at christmas i will gurantee you that the park wil be packed, i swear on the holy bible. yes the park is going to the hill, but they have introduced park competitions, they have introduced many more shops and redevelopments, imo i think they are fetting prepared to start all over again for a brand new fuure.

[Flea]

wonderland attendances are actually beggining to be the highest in over 3 years. ever since they introduced the after 5 pm the attendances soared, and its very packed of a saturday night.

You're viewing attendance by what they get on weekends. Sure, the park gets a little busy on weekends, but nothing compared to the 30 - 90 minute lines major attractions were getting a few years ago.

sydney is a working city and everyone in sydney works a hell of a lot, no one has time to go to wonderland anymore.

Sydney is a working city? So is every other city out there mate. If no one has the time to go to Wonderland anymore, then why did people come a few years back?

at christmas i will gurantee you that the park wil be packed, i swear on the holy bible.

Correct. But I'll swear on the holy bible that the attendance in the christmas holidays won't nearly be as good as the park was getting (once again) a few years back. Unfortunately, Wonderland is deteriotating SFMM style. The reason for low attendance is simply because nothing new has been added. People aren't going to come back for newly painted shops, a new bin, and a variation of chicken wings. ~Liam

[rappa]

HAHAHA That is the best line I've heard in a long time! Too true

[Daniel]

Sure it's packed on a Saturday night, no comparison to the numbers of years ago. Get a few more people on a cheap Saturday night, less on a SaturDAY or SunDAY. Weekend numbers are basically sh*t compared to years back. Holiday numbers are sh*t compared to years back. 90 minute waits were the norm. Union day is the only day the gets even close to the numbers of old. I'm with Flea Boy on this one. How about tourists mate? Why aren't they there during the week? There's days when operators out number patrons. If numbers are better, why does Zodiac load from one side now? Why do you enter and exit from the same side at Endeavour? That's just to start. The numbers aren't enough to justify them operating with 2 person op. The ride efficiency of old isn't required as much these days. Not even in the same ballpark. Are you cracking jokes?

[Scared of Jack]

roll Please, Please, Please Let me just clear a few things! Nightshifter is talking about attendances! What attendances? Xmas wont be that busy this year and never has been. Yes saturday night trade was succesfull last year when they bought it back, probaly the best thing they ever done! But u must feel for the poor operators who get constantly abused by rude and arrogant members of the public who think they own the joint. Which brings me to my next point! Management dont give a hoot about their workers! All they think about is flashy cars and treating the workers like s**t. Park competitions? What u call picking 30 people who come into the park to try and win 1 million $ from thousands and thousands of coke bottles a competition? Oh please! Wonderpasses! The only reason why people go back to buy wonderpasses is because they are half price! Wouldnt u? Most of the holiday attendance is from these wonderpass holders who have bought them half price anyway. Where are the new guests? hey Tazzie Devil! Have u guys noticed that it is passed the 14th november? Has there been any improvement on taz? well the answer is NO! Will it be coming back? The answer is NO! Wonderland will not be closing. If it does close it wont be for another 5 years or so. Tony Laffan will not be leaving Wonderland. Why would he? He has it secured there. They wouldnt have spent so much money bringing the tigers in. If they kept Hanna Barbera Land opened and kept the old characters, yeah they would have a chance of keeping the attendances up. They should have kept Beastie open and kept Skyrider operating! There are alot of people there that have brown rings around their mouths! Goodnight roll

[Daniel]

9000 coke bottles... "apparently" a million bucks in one. I bet there wasn't. That's something they'd do. haha. Wonderland don't care about Wonderpass holders. They're not getting any income from gate receipts from them are they? For the cost of a visit and a half, you can go back as many times as you want for a year! When they can get the right price for the land, that's when Wally World will go. The comment about brown rings around mouths is partially true. It's more a case of sticking up for yourself around there. I said it before, some have too much say and some not enough. Past and present employees will know exactly what I'm getting at! It pisses me off to be honest that some can be so intimidated. :evil:

[Richard]

Regardless of how you think Wonderland has treated you or employees of the park, I don't think it justifies some of the negativity that is in this thread. I'm all for free speech, but if all you're going to do is bag the place, then it's going to get very tiring very quickly. You know what's odd? That Warner Bros. Movie World has had frequent deals (including right now) that get you a year pass for just a day-and-a-half, same goes for Sea World. Together they bring in more attendance than any other two parks in Australia (you'd be looking at a combined total of close to 2.7 million in most recent years). Dreamworld it seems is really the only park that doesn't offer frequently discounted year passes (not by coincidence; I'd bet that they've also got the highest number of passholders of any park in Australia). This is an absolutely perfect technique for marketing - one that's used by Cedar Fair, Six Flags and other market leaders in America. You're pretty well guaranteeing guests through the gates. Spend say $50 over the course of the year (which is probably well under the average season pass spending per year), and that's $50 minus costs that the park would otherwise not have gotten. If the treatment to staff is as bad as you're suggesting, then why isn't everyone getting out? Don't tell me that there's no alternatives for a hardworking, polite young person out there in the workforce. Let's be friendly to others, regardless of their opinions. It's one thing to disagree, and simply state so, but to start flaming etc., because they're "wrong" in your eyes is unnecesary. This goes for everyone.

[Daniel]

Wonderland bring it all on themselves. They deserve every bit of sh*t that's thrown at them at the moment and everyone, including themselves, know it! Simple things such as not replying to customers correspondence leaves a nasty impression on everyone's mind. That's just the tip of the iceberg for all these guys. Basically, staff love their job and what they do without all the political crap. They are like a big family some of the longer serving employees. Many are just staying for each other I can assure you. What a fun job though hey? Bloody oath it is! Staff will stick it out for as much as they can take because where else are you going to find a job like that? What a piece of piss! I don't think anyone was 'flaming' anybody. Everyone is just giving their opinions on the issue. I haven't come across any unfriendliness as yet. All these people, including myself, are entitled to their opinion and it's democracy at its best Most here have the same goal- Work together to get Wonderland off their asses. Some are just here because they wanna tell the truth. That will be all the employees. Some of them need somewhere to take out their frustrations, you can't even look sideways at someone above you without getting your ass escorted out the door.

[Richard]

Hey, there may be all these political issues inside, but let's look at the outside for a second. They received two first places in IAAPA's Brass Ring Awards (1st places for best brochure and print advertisement as a class 4 amusement park). Attendance can't be slipping too much either, as they're still Class 4, which is 1 million - 1.5 million guests annually. Somehow I don't think there's too many days (that it's not cyclone or blizzard conditions) where staff outnumber guests. Hey, I mightn't go there often, but I'm looking at cold hard facts straight from IAAPA.

[Daniel]

Rich, there's been days when numbers haven't made 100 I can assure you. Just an example, Bounty's one day, 9 ppl total for the whole day. This included a second cycle done with the same 3 people on it. Sitting at a ride for 2 hours without seeing anyone does happen quite regularly. At Zodiac, you'd close the doors in winter, put your feet up on the control panel and just about doze off. If you weren't paying attention, and not cycled the ride, the grounded side would have crept up a metre! Not that I ever let that happen The figures may or may not be accurate, who is supplying this IAAPA with its numbers? Is it possible for Wonderland to supply exaggerated numbers? The point is what were their numbers 5 years ago? Not that I give a crap anyway, I'm just telling you how it is. Ask anyone that's spent a significant amount of time there over the last few years, you'll get a similar response.

[Nightshifter]

alright there are hundredds of days called school days where there may be a maximum of about 50 - 100 people in the park. i dont count those days as proper park attendance. i classify the parks attendance by the weekends and the holidays. i know there attendance wasnt as good as 15 years ago but all i am saying is that it is picking up, the park attendance is starting to get higher on the weekends and holidays. lets face it its not a good park anymore but its still hanging on by a thread. the wildlife park makes more money then wonderland thats te only reason why wonderland actually is still operating becasue the money comes from there.

[Daniel]

We seem to be going round in big circles here. Weekends and holiday numbers are definitely down and people are overall dissatisfied with Wally World and their lack of change. You're spot on with your Wildlife Park statement. That's where the mullah comes from. Wally World would not have survived this long without it. Bus loads and bus loads of tourists (namely camera happy ones), attend there everyday, spend hundreds in the shop etc. Unfortunately these people don't go into the Park as well. I don't expect the park to be crowded on a weekday unless there is a school group either, but weekends and holidays, there should be more people than they get. You cannot deny that. If numbers were improving why not load Zodiac from both sides? Enter and exit separate sides from Endeavour? Unloader on all rides? It's not financially viable for them to run 2 or more person op as they used to. Go back a few years, even all HB rides had 2 persons. Gate receipts can't justify them running the same efficiency they used to have to! You would no doubt be shocked to know how much I care about that place, everyone seems to think that people posting here hate it. That's not the case. We're all just pis*ed off with some dubious decisions. I'll leave it at that.

[Daniel]

By the way Shifty, are you about 9? You must be to spell like you do. Just from the last 2 posts: Hundredds- Hundreds There- their Then- than Te- the Becasue- because Beggining- beginning Gurantee guarantee Wil- will Fetting- getting Fuure- future Your argument will be much more convincing if ya fix up the spelling. Until then, keep dribbling

[joz]

Tell ya something, we had a 'difficult' year up north, and the only time I can recall the attendance dipping below 1000 was a rainy day, in the middle of the week in June, and that was only around 200 people. Just for the record, every ride opened that day, and every show went ahead. 50- 100 people in the park in one day? Thats all of $5000 in gate takings if everyone's and adult, and pays full price. Doubt that'd pay for much.

[Scared of Jack]

roll Wonderland Sydney is definately not getting 1 million - 1.5 million people per year! It would be a great place to go, if they just add to it instead of wanting to go broke. Why do you think Dreamworld bought Luna Parks BIG DIPPER. Cause they were going down a slider. Look at it now, a new rollercoaster and a new kids themed area. What a Great Idea! Wonderland should take a note out of the Gold Coast Theme Parks! The shows they have at Wonderland are crap! The only decent show they have there at the moment is Spellbinding Sorcery. There was supposed to be a Spiderman Show (God knows how that would have turned out, if you have Action Man to go by), and the Woolshed Show is not as informative as it used to be. The Blinky Bill Show well thats just pathetic!!!!! On a ex employees point of view, it would be a great place to work if they didnt treat their workers like 2 year olds and sacking people over the most stupid reasons. They should look after their workers and treat them with respect as what they would want to be treated. Thats all Im going to say about this subject! Put it this way, If I won lotto 8) I'd buy the park and demote or sack every single person that works in admin from marketing right through to the CEO except for a select few, and make wonderland a place that it should! Cause it does have so much POTENTIAL! But thats not going to happen (me winning lotto), as I said before there are alot of people with brown marks around their mouths lol . You could compare the place to ROMPER ROOM at the moment! D

[Daniel]

I've gotta agree with the sacking people over the most stupid reasons comment hehe. Mate, Wonderland's weekend attendance is only 3000 a day give or take. They're only going to get 1000 on other days if they have a big school day. We're talking 9 or 10 different school groups. A couple of hundred is absolutely packed during the week. They'd be over the moon to have 200 people in there every day. They'd think it was Christmas! (In other words be excited, just incase you thought I was talking about Christmas attendances). Any employee or recent employee would back that statement 100%. 9000 or 10 000 is the busiest day of the year- Union Day, and no school holiday day or weekend gets even close to this. A good Sunday would be 5000. That would be packed. To get the so called 1.5 million being referred to, Wonderland would have to get an average daily attendance of 4120. Friggin haha! Sure. Even for 1 million it's in excess of 2700 daily over the 364 days. Absolute buckley's! They'd need their Sunday's to be every day just to crack 6 zeros. TTFN. Thanks for coming.

[Richard]

There was no 1.5 million referred to. They are in the category of 1-1.5 million, and they're definitely on the bottom end of that. So, Wonderland Sydney are the ones bending the truth to IAAPA here, not a few ex-employees? I've taken what you said. We've got 6,000 people each weekend and I'll give you 1,500 total midweek (which I'll say is an undeniable under-estimate). That's 7,500 per week, and taking out school holidays (we'll get to that later), means 307,500 per year there (41 weeks). Now, holidays will have higher attendance. Again I'm under-doing it here by saying 5,000 guests per day for the 11 weeks of holiday per year. That's a further 385,000 per year. We're up to 700,000 using some pretty pessimistic figures. I wouldn't doubt at all that they reach 1,000,000. Considering less than half of the guests attending the park are actually from Sydney, you can see how they can get the million mark despite being quite unfair the Sydney people.

[Daniel]

That was the category being referred to, hence me covering both 1 and 1.5 million. Your one million is a big call, that's all. You should spend a week there in some of the winter months. I think jokes are being cracked around here. How the heck do you know it's ex-employees on here? Besides me that is . You may be shocked to the max. What might you be implying there anyway?

[Richard]

I know it's ex-employees because you've said it before, and just a few posts ago, another member said it too. Also, if a current employee were to post some of the things that are being suggested here, I don't think they are the sort of people that should be employed by Wonderland anyway, and I'd say it. Now, I'm not suggesting anything about your own occurences, but I will say that I'm sure it has had an affect on your own views on Wonderland Sydney. Spend some days at some of the Gold Coast parks during winter. They're obviously not as bad as Wonderland, simply because they do attract a lot of southerners, but it's pretty well an established fact that during winter, unless it's a holiday, you're going to find any park relatively empty. Even your Disneylands or Universal Studios will be relatively empty.

[Daniel]

You may get a shock mate. As far as I know, I'm the only ex-employee slagging the joint off. My observation of park numbers isn't influenced by anything I can tell you. You can't say they're ex-employees, you don't know that. Why shouldn't they work there? Don't tell me for a second you've been happy at every place you've worked. How do you know any of us are who we say we are? I could be anyone for all you know.

[Richard]

Daniel, no assumptions are being made. Two people who have contributed to this topic have at one stage said they're former employees of Wonderland. And I'd like to think that no one here is enough of a loser to not only post at a site like this (), but to also actually make up things about themselves. Let's be honest, it's one thing to not enjoy a job, aren't most jobs like that? No one's really forcing you to be there - there are alternatives. If you're so dissatisfied with it that you've got to come online and essentially badmouth the place, whether true or not, you really shouldn't be there, for your own good. This is why I'm suggesting that there's no current employees posting in this particular thread. You said earlier that one million is a big call. Don't you think it's also a big call for one person to suggest that Wonderland is lying about its attendance records? Call me old fashioned (and absolutely nothing harmful or offensive is meant by this comment - it's just straight up where I'm coming from), but when it comes to the word of a large company against the word of a single person who happens to be a former worker of that company, I'll go with the company.