That's right - upgraded not updated.

After the debate on MW's new park map and the news of updated websites for DW and MW, Jamberoo has made some small changes to their website which are above and beyond anything in the Australian theme park industry.

Let's set the scene. Here's Jamberoo's latest online park map (since the 7th of September 2016):

Until now, it was just the same static image with ride descriptions/images appearing when you click on a ride's blue information button, which is located near the ride on the online park map (Not seen in the image above). These features still remain.

Now click here - this takes you to the current park map webpage. It's the same but...

Firstly, you should notice in the bottom right hand corner, Jamberoo has added a 'live chat' feature. Just by adding your name & e-mail address, you can chat with Jamberoo! Social media, in general, already has similar features in commenting/messaging but they are more 'optional' - that is, businesses may take their time or even not respond at all to comments/messages. A 'live chat' feature on Jamberoo's website displays their dedication to customer service as a response should be guaranteed every time and providing your e-mail address allows a more detailed answer to be provided later if it is too difficult to answer instantaneously.

Secondly, you may notice pink buttons located around the park map. The pink buttons have an image of a 360 degree webcam with spinning arrows around it. That's right - it's a virtual tour! And it's not just a 360 degree panorama of selected locations in the park - you can pretty much 'walk' around the park! Simply, it's like Google Street View. A menu on the left hand side allows you to access views of all the rides/attractions/amenities quickly while arrows around the image you are viewing allows you to move around the park. It also includes descriptions of the rides/attractions/amenities and an embedded YouTube video of The Perfect Storm TV commercial as well as the static park map in the bottom right hand corner.

For those who rarely visit or have never visited Jamberoo, why not start your virtual tour by 'driving' into the car park? The first view you should get is looking north up Jamberoo Road.

Haven't been to Jamberoo since The Perfect Storm opened? Go check it out!

Impressive, huh? But wait, there's more! You can even use this new feature with virtual reality headsets! So you can 'visit' Jamberoo in virtual reality! Just click the 'VR Mode' button in the top right corner - it even works in a 'headset-free mode' but this is no more than a 'full screen mode'.

Unfortunately, you can't access the top station of the Chairlift/Bobsled entrance but you can access different vantage points of the Chairlift ride. Hopefully, it can be added in the future.

Overall, this 'Virtual Tour' feature allows potential visitors to learn how to navigate the park prior to their visit in more detail than ever before. It brings a new meaning to a park map online. This is something the Gold Coast theme parks should take note of when they do their next website upgrade (which is probably next decade ). Adding more features such as food outlet menus, ticket prices, lists of souvenirs and their prices, ride/attraction videos & online (non-food/drink) shopping capabilities to the Virtual Tour could allow those visitors to plan their visit with even more precision. However, this 'Virtual Tour' as it is is impressive enough. What do you all think?

Someone get @Roachie a towel....

 

Welcome back JF!

Judging by how excited @Jamberoo Fan is about a live chat plugin on the website, I get this vibe like he now works for the park.... 

Anyway, we'll gloss over the marketing copy, here's my honest thoughts:

For starters - the website is totally fine and up to spec for 2018. Most websites have live chat portals and most of them have & should be decent enough to handle different screen sizes, so by comparison to say Sea World's website, it's incredible, but up against 99% of what most outsourced Wordpress developers make these days it's par for the course. Not poo-poo-ing Jamberoo's site at all, just setting the bar appropriately. It's solid, and it's doing exactly what it should be doing.

Looking at the map page - the map itself is a great map, because at the end of the day, it's function to get me from point A to point B is clear and concise.

Now, onto the VR stuff - firstly I had to come back to your post to figure out what to look for just to open the VR portals which suggest to me that everyday guests who aren't as proactive as me will be clicking through and not bothering. Jamberoo should check their analytics on this and improve the UX accordingly. Also, being real here - the VR stuff is a passing trend, not a mainstream thing (Forbes, The Verge, Esquire & Wired have all written about VR being a trend) - plus, the VR stuff would be good if when I clicked on it, it wasn't taking me to see things like this:

No customer will care about or want to click on VR / normal pictures of carparks, tables or retail spaces. And that's where my I think they could improve - I speak from first hand experience, no amount of flashy, cool ideas or design will ever replace quality photo & video that's wrapped in great design & marketing. For the same cost as a VR company coming in to do stuff like the above (i've seen prices ranging from 10k right up to 70k, so we'll just say 20k to be safe) you could have photography that would last the park 5+ years and film content that could be spread out over 12 months, net more engagement overall and would deliver at least double the ROI. Then simply wrap that in a more cleaner, modern corporate brand and WNWS would be rightfully concerned.

Edited February 28, 20188 yr by Roachie

Is that rope or a LAN cable wrapped around the poles?

#classy.

I'd say it's a rope @AlexB

On 2/28/2018 at 1:45 PM, Roachie said:

Judging by how excited @Jamberoo Fan is about a live chat plugin on the website, I get this vibe like he now works for the park.... 

No, I don't work for the park. Also @Roachie, remember the Virtual Tour & the virtual reality headset mode are 2 separate things. I'd say the VR headset mode was just an extra feature at little or no cost.

Didn't realise this until now but Jamberoo's smartphone applications for iOS & Android were also updated in January to include the Virtual Tour feature & some other small improvements.

Also, Sydney Weekender visited Jamberoo in early April. They captured pretty good footage from inside The Perfect Storm (from 01:01 to 01:34) with the lighting effects (themed to lightning) seen very clearly:

Edited April 18, 20188 yr by Jamberoo Fan

On 27/02/2018 at 8:00 PM, Jamberoo Fan said:

...Jamberoo has made some small changes to their website...

...Jamberoo has added a 'live chat' feature.

I believe the 'live chat' feature has been removed from Jamberoo's website at least sometime in the last month.

The 'live chat' feature wasn't staffed all the time. I can't remember exactly when it wasn't staffed but evenings (which is understandable) & weekends (which is odd as that is Jamberoo's peak operational period during the season) is what comes to mind. I assume it was staffed the rest of the time (during weekday business hours at least). If it's removal wasn't because they couldn't staff it all the time, either not enough website visitors were using it or it was a website feature that was inadvertently added. That or it's temporarily off the website due to the off-season.

However, here is some neat marketing from Jamberoo showing how much they value their customers. I believe DW did something similar in the months after the Thunder River Rapids incident but clearly the context is different. As most of you can gather, Jamberoo's season recently finished so they posted this on social media (Here is their Facebook post) :

This wasn't just posted on their social media, it was also published on their website's home page as well as in Sydney newspapers with a half-page advertisement.

As far as I know, it hasn't appeared (yet) in Illawarra newspapers so it seems Jamberoo has targeted this 'thank you' notice particularly to Sydneysiders.

And with a particular competitor located in that market known as Wet 'n' Wild Sydney, whose attendance & revenues are ever decreasing, the last thing that park needs is more people visiting Jamberoo because they appreciate their customers more.

Wet 'n' Wild Sydney did do something similar though (Here is their Facebook post) :

However, whilst their post does say 'thank you', the image itself doesn't & thus, doesn't look like it was intended to appear in any newspapers. It looks mainly designed for marketing on the Internet.

Also, Jamberoo thanked their customers for 'visiting' whilst Wet 'n' Wild Sydney thanked them for 'making this season so awesome'.

If according to Wet 'n' Wild Sydney, it's the customers that are making the park 'awesome', maybe they should listen to them more often? It seems their customers know better than they do on how to run the park.

Edited May 7, 20188 yr by Jamberoo Fan

I think you overthink things too much.

Yeah, with the Jamberoo/Wet 'n' Wild Sydney 'thank you' marketing, maybe @AlexB. It just seemed significant to me that Jamberoo would publish a half-page 'thank you' advertisement in Sydney newspapers & not the Illawarra newspapers.

Broader reach?

Illawarra locals will visit regardless as it's their local, whereas the sydney market is split between them and WnWS so why not splash your message across your competitors catchment to try and sway them for next years holiday plans?

 

Seems like a no brainer to me..

Yeah, I agree @AlexB but you would just think out of courtesy they would also thank Illawarra residents via their local newspapers too. (I know they did thank them via social media and financially, it does save on marketing costs not doing an extra newspaper advertisement given it's their most loyal audience. However, that could be a sign they are starting to take their local visitors for granted)

On 13/05/2018 at 12:15 AM, Jamberoo Fan said:

Yeah, I agree @AlexB but you would just think out of courtesy they would also thank Illawarra residents via their local newspapers too. (I know they did thank them via social media and financially, it does save on marketing costs not doing an extra newspaper advertisement given it's their most loyal audience. However, that could be a sign they are starting to take their local visitors for granted)

Jamberoo may have sent out a 'Thank You' email to their database.

Hey @Jamberoo Fan are there any whispers from the park or other sources that this year will be a further expansion to the park? Its over 2 years now since we have had the Perfect Storm? I would love to see the Action Rapid River be the next attraction. If this turns out anything like the one at Volcano Bay in Orlando then it will be a brilliant move. TeAwa the Fearless River is hands down the best River attraction at any water park I have been on and nearly the best thing at Volcano Bay.

 

8 hours ago, Jobe said:

Hey @Jamberoo Fan are there any whispers from the park or other sources that this year will be a further expansion to the park?

No whispers yet. However:

• According to the original Kangaroo Island expansion timetable, this year would have been the year the final part of Kangaroo Island would've opened, Emu Mountain Rapids, but due to the inclusion of a Tantrum Alley in The Perfect Storm & a newly proposed $6.5 million large major custom-designed hybrid world-first ride (which currently has no known proposed opening date), it is very unlikely to go ahead now (but with Jamberoo, who knows?).
• Due to the delays in the Kangaroo Island expansion, the next part of Kangaroo Island to be built according to the original timetable, Koala Creek, could be built this year.
• Jamberoo has added something new every 2 years since 2012. Apart from 2016's The Perfect Storm, in 2014, they introduced Dive-In Movies (due to the addition of a big screen in Outback Bay). However, to Jamberoo, that was an 'enhancement year' - not a 'development year'. 'Enhancements' could be expected this year but the current trend for 'development' might also mean a new ride will be built this year (In 2012, there was 2 'developments'. 4 years later in 2016, only 1. The 2nd? Maybe 2018 instead of 2020?).

In the end, there is no firm confirmation yet on whether or not Jamberoo is building anything new this year.

On 18/05/2018 at 6:54 PM, Jamberoo Fan said:

No whispers yet. However, there is no firm confirmation yet on whether or not Jamberoo is building anything new this year.