Trip Report

[Original]

As I've already banged on about I went to the parks just before Christmas. Figure I'll just go through my thoughts since now going is a once every few years thing now instead of going once a month.

The park looked really great. Kudos to the gardeners and general maintenance team, the park looked very nice and well kept. Parts of the family noticed parts of the ghost town area looked tired. I did have to explain that's how it's meant to look. Although even parks like Knotts at times have pulled down parts or renovated sections of their Western/Ghost Town to keep it looking "fresh". However, MW's Ghost Town/Western section, really pulled off looking like a Ghost Town, the section was dead. 

HWSD, boring. Yeah the driving's cool, but that's it. The script's weak. My party hadn't been since PA and all said they thought the new show was terrible compared to what used to be there. I get the PA licence was too old, but that show had it all, a great warm up act, comedy, a good script, car stunt driving and actual stunts. 

The 4D LT movie I thought was great, probably the most use of the seats I've seen in a long time. The pre show room I thought was a little bear, but hey that's a something nothing really compared some of the past films. Maybe down the track a LT themed room.

My thoughts on the rides are already up in the thread about what MW needs to correct. I mean it was great I got on the rides so quickly, but seriously I could have got on so quicker if only operations had of been sped up. Crazy restrictions and slow staff prevent this. 

One thing I think could help with line times is making queues a little more interactive, just small things to keep guests are occupied and not noticing how long they are in line for, like how the old rides had pre shows. I think this would be great for GL, JL and Batwing, maybe some more Subway themed things for SE. GL looks great now the plants have grown up, it does feel like the ride has good theming, you know until you get to the bridge. 

Scooby, the queue rooms video does need an update. I'm not saying get rid of it, just add some more videos into the rotation, like the extra features from the DVD, the scene from the movie that is actually the spooky castle and maybe some old school Scooby cartoons. Everything was working on the ride except I noticed most of the fire sensing lasers on the cars were out and the Grim Reaper was out of action. The music was loud, the fog was non-existent and great to see more lasers, but the coloured ones did absolutely nothing without the fog. The disco room was also very hot as well, I feel like I remember it being air-conditioned??!

WWF was great, but yes a touch up to parts wouldn't go astray, some parts have gone from looking faked old to now just plain old. 

One thing I'll say with the park in the queues SE air con is hit and miss, JL was nice, but wasn't busy, I feel like it would be hot with the aircon struggling if it was full. The park I think should have themed ceiling fans as their best friend for ride like WWF and AA. Old school ones for WWF maybe painted black with graffiti for AA to keep the line a bit cooler and better themed than just big industrial wall fans.

Also, this was the first time in a long time I went with people who aren't ride people I noticed around some rides there wasn't a lot of seating for them to wait for me, they struggled to find seats as well as shade, some of them were elderly.

Don't have an opinion on F&B as we went home early to refresh ourselves and eat some dinner before heading back for WC.

Overall I loved my day, I've always loved the park, I have a soft spot for it. However, it's not as good as what it was a number of years ago. 

Whether my soft spot had me viewing it with rose coloured glasses my party really didn't like their day. They use to love the park but didn't feel there was as much for them to do before. They hated the stunt show, missed the River Ride, obviously too old to ride its replacement, missed having the extra rides, walkthroughs and behind the scenes shows. They didn't have as much to do as what they use to and since the park has grown since they left, they didn't think it was good enough. That being said, they loved JL, in fact they laughed the whole through the ride, which I rarely hear them do on rides, so while everyone says they wish it was a little more thrilling and moved around it fits its demographic perfect. While they have filled the thrill ride brief, my party who hate rides, (only half of them do Scooby), felt they'd been neglected. They also felt MW had become a money grabbing exercise, they felt at every corner MW was trying to get money out of them. Coupled with all of this the park just left a sour taste with them and said they wouldn't return for some time, and this is a group that used to love going.

SW for them was a different story, but seeing as I've already written so much, I'll leave that for another time.