I have no grievance with the GC water parks reducing hours over winter. WWW haven't reduced hours; WWW has locked the gate.
Theme Parks and water parks are different beast and you don’t operate them the same.
A theme park, you want a person to stay in the park as long as you can hold onto them because there is a ton of situations to get your fingers into their wallets & purses, to get every cent out of the guest.
An example of a park holding onto guest:
When Universal Hollywood is open during the quieter periods, the first showing of WaterWorld doesn’t happen to after lunch because Universal know people will stay in the park to see the show. Some of those people waiting will get hungry and buy lunch.
An example of a park not holding onto a guest
I turned up at DW the other day at opening, just to see the new SV production. I entered the park, watched the show, and left straight away. DW didn’t make 1 cent out of me. Now if I had turned up and the new experience did not happen for a few hours, 1. I would have purchased a coffee. 2. If you have a child with you, the kid would have started asking for food.
DW spend a lot of time, effort and money getting people into the park in the first place, and when the guest are inside, DW should capitalise on keeping the guest in the park, spending money and not shutting early. One sure way of not making money is not being open.
A water park has limited opportunities to get extra money out of guest.
WWW, one gift shop & and one food eatery. (arcade but Dapto said no)
A water park you’re not making extra money keeping the guest in the park because little Jenny can only eat so many hot chips. The water park makes its money by people entering the front gate. You let the guest in, you feed the guest & you kick the guest out.
I've been on a water slide while it's snowing, so if you can't keep a slide open in winter in Queensland, you're doing it wrong.