Sea World Spooky Nights

[themagician]

Now that the event has been on for two nights and I know there’s a few people on here that have been, what are your thoughts on the event?

[Jay Jay The Jet Plane]

21 minutes ago, themagician said:

Now that the event has been on for two nights and I know there’s a few people on here that have been, what are your thoughts on the event?

I’ve been to the first two nights and I should have something to post here sometime next week.

I wanted to hold off from making any review after 2nd night as they tend to have teething issues on 1st night (which they do for every event) which I’m glad I held off as there was a lot fine tuning made for last night.

All I say for the time being is, while I’m not the target demographic for this event. I’ve been impressed with what SW has come up with and I can’t wait till check it out through later dates to see it in it’s full potential when all the fine tuning they have to make is complete.

[Jay Jay The Jet Plane]

Okay peeps 

I promised I would have something for everyone this week and I delivered 

A review will go up later in the month but here’s an overview of what’s to be expected in the event 

 

[Itried]

This was a horrible experience. Just an excuse to sell food for dinner. Nothing special on offer, the 'light show' is lacklustre to say the least. In addition, the entrance and parking traffic for a 3-4 hour event is a disaster and horribly managed. I will never go back and do not recommend to anyone.

[Im Hungry]

Tonight's Happy Halloween at Dreamworld tells a contrastingly different story - it being one of the best nights I've ever had in a while...

[rappa]

Im interested in the light show. The videos I’ve seen make it look pretty huge. 
Why lacklustre? 

[Brad2912]

1 hour ago, rappa said:

Im interested in the light show. The videos I’ve seen make it look pretty huge. 
Why lacklustre? 

I thought it was really well done 

My only explanation for @Itried’s comments would be if they were expecting Vivid Sydney or Riverfire level productions

[LaurenHope]

I am currently at the park and lightning has caused all the rides to close. Also, the lines for trick or treating are insane.

However the event has been fun for kids and people seem to be quite happy about how the event is being handled.

[Naazon]

9 hours ago, rappa said:

Im interested in the light show. The videos I’ve seen make it look pretty huge. 
Why lacklustre? 

 

7 hours ago, Brad2912 said:

I thought it was really well done 

My only explanation for @Itried’s comments would be if they were expecting Vivid Sydney or Riverfire level productions

Look, compared to last years I don't think its anywhere near as good, but being realistic and completely honest it was a different style.

It was really short (as they run it 3 or 4 times a night)
There is a minimal firework and minimal pyrotechnic display.

Essentially it was just a musical number (which was good) and a few water jets.

The lights also weren't as good as last year.

 

My theory is that they did a smaller/cheaper show scaled back due to covid limitations. If NSW was allowed up it would have been bigger/better.

 

I'm not concerned and think this was just a dip in the quality. 2022 Seaworld will have new rides and I hope the monorail running, bringing a new vibe to it and Spooky Nights 2022 will be their biggest ever.

 

Quick Edit: Captains Dinner was well worth the money. Good was nice, drink was good. A dedicated table and space away from crowds was awesome and super friendly staff

Edited October 30, 2021 by Naazon

[Rivals]

51 minutes ago, Naazon said:

I'm not concerned and think this was just a dip in the quality. 2022 Seaworld will have new rides and I hope the monorail running, bringing a new vibe to it and Spooky Nights 2022 will be their biggest ever.

at this point let’s not get our hopes up the new rides will be up and operating by them, at least not both of them anyways 

[themagician]

I checked out Spooky Nights last night for my first time. Overall the event is pretty good and great for kids. I’ll bring down the varying aspects of the event.

Parking and entry

As expected the Sea World carpark did fill up and they used the overflow when required. We arrived at 5 and just parked on the street, as I’d learnt from previous SW events that was always the best option. They had plenty of traffic control on and they managed the situation well. Entering the park didn’t take too long. We entered through the usual pass holder entrance and even though the queue was back to the road, it was quick. 
 

Food

We had the Bao buns, foot long Dagwood dog and chips. All very pretty good. And all the other food looked good too. The amount of food was good for the theme park prices. 
 

Rides

I believe the vortex was down due to technical issues because I saw maintenance staff working on it at 5. Because of the rain, the Vortex was under testing at around 8, but I’m now sure if it opened for the last 30 minutes. Because of the rain, Storm and Nickelodeon didn’t operate for most of the night.

Atmosphere

A part from some lighting and smoke machines, there wasn’t a lot happening throughout the park. There were a few skeletons, photo ops and the ‘monster’ towers where you hit a button and lights flashed and there were some sound effects. The Plaza was the area with the most atmosphere, with the DJ and a couple roaming characters/dancers.

Lightshow

It was a bit underwhelming. I don’t know if it’s because I had the expectations it would be to the level of the Carnivale shows. But there wasn’t actually that much water effects. There were a few lights and projections, but not too many. The fireworks was a really good touch and I’m glad they were a part of it. The show was mostly about the characters signing and dancing. The story and songs were pretty good. But as a whole, I waa hoping for a lot more from it. 

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

I went on Friday, and it was a first for us to do spooky nights. I haven't seen prior year's lake-shows, but what I saw was pretty good. The lighting design, the water screens, lights, pyro and dancers were a great 'together' package. I'd consider it a smaller show, yes, but given it ran multiple times a night, it's understandable - and at least having that many shows meant a greater opportunity to see it if the first or second shows were full. 

The monster towers were a cool touch for the kids (although, my wife pointed out how much of a 'high touch point' those buttons were if someone had covid). 

The food offerings looked good (we ate elsewhere after we left), and the various activities going on around the park looked great. 

We didn't experience many of these as we had other things to do but we got in early (around 4pm) got wristbands, got in a few rides, browsed the offerings, caught the show and left. Sea World Drive at about 6:45 was a shambles, but traffic control was managing it as well as they could. For both Dreamworld and Sea World (and Movie World for that matter) i'll never understand people who arrive ~20 minutes of start time and complain that there were delays.