Theme Parks Reopening Post COVID-19

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

On 25/09/2020 at 3:56 PM, Brad2912 said:

Wristbands for DC Supervillians have also been removed

That's probably a smart thing to do, to be honest - so many people touching the same wristband. It'd be nice if they could have them set to 'free play' so a wristband wasn't required, but you'd then end up with effects triggering all throughout the day without anyone actively playing it. It sucks the bands are gone, but its the smart thing to do.

On 25/09/2020 at 9:54 PM, themagician said:

Why do they only have the wedgie operating for an hour? Why not do the usual 1 or 2 hour on, 1 or 2 hours off? 

The wedgie is a single person slide, and is far less popular than the green room. Just like Aqualoop - the drop start puts a lot of people off.

[AheadMatthewawsome]

Manly Surf n Slide reopened 2 days ago for their new season. There wasn’t that much notice into the announcement. Nor was there that much attention.
 

They can only have a maximum of 50 people on board, they have put a few physical distancing marks, you can only book online, And that’s it! You can actually see how may tickets have been bought for your session, which I think is fantastic! You can choose either 1 hour or 2 hour tickets. But people enter every half a hour. There are also Family’s of 4 or 5 tickets available. And also Groups and Parties tickets. You can have a minimum of 10 in your group, and a max of 25. The opening hours are now: Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday are 10 till 12:30, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday are 10 till 2. After the holidays, the park will only be open on weekends between 10 and 2. Tomorrow will be the busiest these holidays, with it being 3 quarters full between 12 and 2. It seems like that people are not even aware that Manly Surf n Slide has reopened. And Manly Cove Beach has been mostly empty for months! I really don’t think locals want to go to Manly now after stuff like Manly Aquarium has disappeared. 
 

I went and had a visit to Manly Surf n Slide today. And the only people who were there are (I think) are the owner’s family, me, and 1 or 2 other people. In total there were about 10 or less. It’s impossible to wear a mask of course, and physical distancing was not enforced. There was enough room when there was about 10 people. But  if you’re going on a day where there’s 50 people, you will have problems. It also seems that the rules aren’t enforced as much as they used to. You used to be kindly shouted at you to leave the pool. But now you can stay in there for a little while in the quite rough currents in the pool. You’re also not supposed to fall out of the mat or lie down or be on your tummy. But I did see lot’s of people breaking that rule too, and almost every other rule. Correct me if I’m wrong, it seems also seems like they now have a cafe behind the entrance to the park, which I think is operated by the park. It was better then what it was about a month ago. Manly Cove Beach was deserted, Manly Surf n Slide was a construction site with just one man with his truck fixing the place, Manly Aquarium (and still is) a abandond building well preserved with a few vandals around, but there were few people walking too.

 

Overall, eh it’s fine.

[Gazza]

I feel too old for a place like that, but at the same time I really want to experience those old school water slides.

[Jobe]

1 hour ago, Gazza said:

I feel too old for a place like that, but at the same time I really want to experience those old school water slides.

Just find yourself a kid Gazza...or alternatively you can borrow mine!!

 

[Jdude95]

I thought Gaz wasn't allowed to just "find kids" anymore 

[A.H]

They should buy the aquarium clearly enough room for a Giga

[Whombex]

On 28/09/2020 at 7:13 AM, AlexB said:

That's probably a smart thing to do, to be honest - so many people touching the same wristband. It'd be nice if they could have them set to 'free play' so a wristband wasn't required, but you'd then end up with effects triggering all throughout the day without anyone actively playing it. It sucks the bands are gone, but its the smart thing to do.

A motion sensor might be a suitable replacement.

[red dragin]

Or a large button that can be depressed by foot.

[AheadMatthewawsome]

Hi there everyone! Today is October 3rd 2020. Which means it's the first day of a COVIDSAFE Raging Waters.

It was good only at certain times. The wave pool was not open for most of the morning. They said it was running. But there were people from maintenance scrambling all around the pool trying to fix it. Queue lines were dependant on the slides. You would be able to get on Whirlwind at most 12 minutes. But it would take over 40 minutes to get on Tantrum! And you only have around 700 people there! This seems to be because there's sometimes a gap of over 10 minutes for clearance to go down.

Physical Distancing just didn't exist here. Especially in the queues and the Wave Pool. Masks could not be used in the pools. So I was the only one wearing a mask in the whole park! And that's only until I got in the Cabana for the first time. Announcements and signs were planted around the park too.

The food was good. But there were some shops have been closed like Luigi's Pizza. And some have had to change what they're serving. So the chicken shop now did all of the voucher orders just for today, for an example. 

The Nickelodeon Splash Area is now Raging Waters JR. So all theming to Nickelodeon have been removed. And almost everything has been repainted. Tower 4 has been closed for no apparent reason. It's all filled with dust. And I don't think they'll reopen it until at least the first weekend of term. The Skycoaster has been shut because of COVID Restrictions. And Dinosaur Lagoon has been shut for maintenance. You can see when you are going up to Riptide all of the lagoon empty. In that corner of the park, it's like a ghost town! 

And worst of all was the Customer Service! My dad, who was trying to get a cabana. Because he's had Open Heart Surgery recently. So he really needs some shelter where he can rest. So we were gonna get a platinum pass. Then they asked us about 3 times with our phone number, credit card, and drivers licence. So he had to pay more then the advertised price! They said it was a IT error. And got us a cabana for 50% off. And told us to come back at the end of the day when it'll be fixed. We had a mostly nice time. And then when we came back. They did the same thing again. And then everyone behind Dad was laughing at him! He felt like he was going to explode! And he started to feel ill. Because of his heart problems, he's not to have this much stress arguing. So we had to dash over to him with me already exhausted from accidentally swallowing water in the wave pool. And he was very tired and angry. So we had to go home and having to calm him down. I'll have to come back. But he's not coming with me! There hasn't been any response from Raging Waters yet.

It's quite clear that these new employees for this season don't have enough training and caused a ruined day for my Dad! And it's also quite clear that Raging Waters is losing money with only getting on average $100,000. And with expenses even more then that. They're had to shut down a quarter of the park, and are still losing money! I really doubt the future of Raging Waters now. The 2019-2020 season seem to be the peak. And it's all going downhill fast.

Really, you would only expect a reopening day like today in the Gold Coast. I think Luna Park Sydney is the leading example of how to open and operate a park during this Pandemic in Australia.

Come for the slides, food, and wave pool. Then get out! And drive as far away as you can without turning back!

I've also put some photo's of today below for you all to see. I do apologize if it looks rushed. I was being rushed when I was already exhausted from the wave pool and was becoming shaky.

 

[themagician]

@AheadMatthewawsome thank you for your review of opening day. When you say physical distancing just doesn’t exist, did the park not have floor markings to show where people needed to stand? Or was it just people being incapable of standing on a marker and staff weren’t enforcing it? Because there are multiple slides on each tower, how did that queuing work? Was it just like normal (before COVID) or did the park try and encourage spacing for each queue within the tower?

[AheadMatthewawsome]

4 minutes ago, themagician said:

@AheadMatthewawsome thank you for your review of opening day. When you say physical distancing just doesn’t exist, did the park not have floor markings to show where people needed to stand? Or was it just people being incapable of standing on a marker and staff weren’t enforcing it? Because there are multiple slides on each tower, how did that queuing work? Was it just like normal (before COVID) or did the park try and encourage spacing for each queue within the tower?

There were markings. But people just bunched up at the top while announcements went off to physical distance. So there were no staff enforcing it. And at the wave pool, everyone bunch up at the top corners of the wave pool because the waves were highest and roughest. While everyone at Luna Park does physical distance on the line most of the time, and everyone is fine if you ask them to physical distance in the lines. So it was just a normal queue there. Just with markings and announcements asking you to physical distance. This was also the same when queuing up for food. But with no markers and no announcements. And every other queue had markers, but no announcements. And no staff would enforce it, even though they had COVID-19 marshals. It does make me very uncomfortable nowadays when people aren’t physical distancing or wearing masks. As I do need to keep my Dad and Grandmother safe, because they’ve just both had surgery.

[red dragin]

Normally security staff are for enforcement of social distancing. Normal staff can remind people but not much more, to avoid physical altercations. 

[themagician]

Driving past DW this afternoon, the carpark was completely full and WWW had decent queue down all the attraction towers 

[gavinfulikes]

I visited Dreamworld today and I haven’t seen it this busy for a while. The queue for the Shockwave took around 40-50 minutes. Also two things I saw today is that the giant red and white striped deck chair from Kickback Cove appeared to have be severely damaged. Its currently stored near HWSW and you can see it from riding Tail Spin. Also I found a old Wipeout sign with the old logo right behind the old Food Market near Shockwave.

[Rachelkinks]

White Water World is definitely going to be busy this year and especially when summer comes round because all the attractions are open. Wet N wild is not worth going to with only 3 attractions open absolutely shocking and no reopening dates either. 

Edited October 4, 2020 by Rachelkinks

[Gold Coast Amusement Force]

3 hours ago, Rachelkinks said:

White Water World is definitely going to be busy this year and especially when summer comes round because all the attractions are open. Wet N wild is not worth going to with only 3 attractions open absolutely shocking and no reopening dates either. 

Problem is the general public find out what's open when they buy a ticket and enter, not prior to the visit.

[themagician]

Very busy day at DW and WWW, with the carpark almost full again.

This was the first time I witnessed the entry process. 

Red entry stairs are closed off and everyone enters towards the LEGO store.

Signs are everyone telling you that you must scan the QR code and register your details before entering. But of course, this being the general public, they weren’t able to understand this simple concept. I saw heaps of people trying to walk up and the staff would have to tell them to stop and scan the code, but they still didn’t get why. 

They have also updated the signage within the carpark, as seen above 

[Rachelkinks]

Good to see that the locals are returning and actually trusting Dreamworld. Kinda surprising because Dreamworld has been on the news a lot lately regarding TRRR tragedy.  

[joz]

It'll be sad when the coaster track goes and the full Carpark becomes available again

[Troy81]

12 hours ago, Rachelkinks said:

White Water World is definitely going to be busy this year and especially when summer comes round because all the attractions are open. Wet N wild is not worth going to with only 3 attractions open absolutely shocking and no reopening dates either. 

I went to Wet N Wild on Friday.  Very little was open, and the crowd was still quite large so wait times were long.  We left after 3 slides and headed for White Waterworld.  All attractions were opened which meant the crowds were spread out and we got most slides done in under 3 hours.

[themagician]

The parks went from one of the busiest days in the year yesterday to one of quietest days today 

[Rivals]

( probably wrong forum for this post ) recently on the VRTP when you open movie world, an imagine of an unknown coaster pops up and disappears within seconds. Is it possible it could be an Arkham replacement? 

[Smol bean]

I don’t think it’s a Arkham replacement I think it might just be a error on vrtp part

[Brad2912]

Interesting find, but a reverse image search finds that to be an extremely common free to use stock photo for “roller coaster”. 

my assumption would be their cheap offshore app developer used the stock photo as a placeholder when developing something within the app and screwed up the code somehow. 

[Cactus_Matt]

25 minutes ago, Brad2912 said:

Interesting find, but a reverse image search finds that to be an extremely common free to use stock photo for “roller coaster”. 

my assumption would be their cheap offshore app developer used the stock photo as a placeholder when developing something within the app and screwed up the code somehow. 

Confirmed, Stock Photo Roller Coaster Rivals: HyperCoaster coming 2022!