jayw

Just wondering if any existing VIP Gold pass holders could tell me exactly what they have been offered as a renewal ie. How much does it cost and what is included. I currently have a VIP Gold but haven't had a call yet offering renewal and would still like to keep a gold pass if it includes fright nights and white christmas. From what I can gather from the discussion so far, the gold pass is only available as a renewal and current only has the advantage of fright night and white christmas access over the current VIP offer. If that's all correct i'm just wondering what price they are charging for that. Thanks!

A agree! It used to be my regular location for food and drink a couple of years ago as the prices weren't too bad, they had some decent relatively healthy food options and it was a nice place to chill out. I'd like to see utilised again! The front corner of the park could now use it with so many key rides located there. Jay

Got my first ride on them yesterday! What a rush! Was by far the scariest water slide I have ridden and the drop and fall at the start is great! Rash shirts were required and being handed to everyone without one and all those wear a shirt. Some are red and others I think grey in colour. We were also being asked to tuck them in before riding. What didn't seem to make sense (logically to me at least) was that the girls riding seem to be taking their boardies off when they got their rashie before heading up. Not 100% certain that they were being instructed to do so but it seemed that way. Didn't see anyone get given boardies to use. They were only running the yellow and green slides last night but there seemed to be a lot more people valley out on the inside slide than the outside...we were also trying to work out if they were identical but the insides did seem to maybe be slightly different with the angles as mentioned above. Jay

I too went on Scooby yesterday and sunday and neither times were we stopped from bringing bags on the ride and putting them at our feet. We were just instructed to put sunglasses in the bag so that's promising! Jay

This! Simple things like this that add value to the *premium* pass, heck, extend to something like wet'n'wild and I'd even consider paying more. Back when I was paying near on $300 for a 3 park pass, these are the sort of perks I expected to make the pass worthwhile. Meanwhile Universal Japan had a simple key on a wrist band locker system for the rides you couldn't take things on. Worked fine. Also, has Scooby gone the way of superman with a strict nothing in pockets rule, or just a no lose items such as bags, sunglasses etc? Jay

I have to agree with the comment made regarding scooby! I went on saturday night and the main room was close to the best I've seen it. The whole ride was running superbly. They just need to get into the jungle room at the end with some brown paint and paint the bit of foam that is within reach of riders and has a big groove scrapped out of it, or reshape it back out of reach a little bit. The ops were running it superbly also which would have had it running at fairly high capacity. which is more than I can say for lethal weapon on the night. Interestingly I dont think Saturday night was a sellout. Not sure how sunday went. It felt to me like about the same number of people there as the first Friday night, maybe a few more but not significantly more. I guess that could be considered a good thing as it means the pricing is spreading the crowds over the entire month. The other interesting thing I noticed about Saturday was the admittance from 4:30 pm. I never noticed it before and only noticed it on the ticket too late to take advantage of it but could see it as a great move to enable people to fit more into the evening, combat the early ride closures and add value to the night. Jay

Just a quick note on the close time of the queue's - on Friday night I actually waited outside the queue for the psycho 3D maze as it seemed apparent to me that they had killed the queue too early and sure enough at about 10:40 they re-opened the queue as they had filtered through all the people waiting. No doubt they will be able to identify the right time to close the queue's in order to close up shop at 11 as the nights go on, but it was good to see it re-opened on friday when they realised they could run for another 20 minutes. Jay

Wow some old stuff there! Thanks for posting, was great to see. Reminds me of the first times I went to dreamworld.

ok wth?! I'm confused as well...surely it can't be aqualoop, they were after a name for each of the 4 slides weren't they? I must also be missing something or the obvious in front of me... As a side note, I saw an email went out to current VIP passholders with the option to get a new pass running till the end of June 2011 for $99 plus an offer to buy 4 for the price of three making them $75 each. Glad I wasn't stupid enough to renew my two $280 passes in april....

Depends on how you judge it... I'd consider Superman Escape as probably the best all round thrill ride however for straight out thrill factor...it would have to go to the Giant Drop. Jay

Hey, I have to say that I tend to agree with MickeyD. I can't see the parks drawing much of an international crowd in the future with asia getting and having so many world class parks, parks that are CLEARLY a level above ours. There certainly seems to be a heavy strategic push for the local market, and even the national market by our parks and it will probably continue down that path - how that will influence the quality of our parks and attractions, will be interesting to see. The next 12 - 24 months will be telling. As for the dismissal of singapore or asian countries in comparison to the gold coast as a park destination...then perhaps a little more research is in order. From the research I've done, Singapore in particular is a very westernised country, also extremely clean and efficient and is supposed to be a fantastic place to visit. With the opening of Universal there...(which looks to be a fantastic park) I'm planing on making the journey from brisbane over there and its only logical to visit Hong Kong as the flight is less than $100 from singapore...in fact...I'm currently entertaining the idea of saving $500 on season passes to put towards a trip to singapore, up to hong kong, across to tokyo and home. The chance to visit some of the world's best along with experiencing different cultures of our world is far too appealing! Jay

Interestingly though, they have dropped the price again as we get closer to June. I wonder what they will offer once we hit June... Jay

I have to say I echo your sentiments ENTIRELY! (to the point of wondering if I had actually written this reply and had forgotten doing so..I actually did check the author while reading!) I have purchased two mega passes for two years running now and with a renewal email sent this week (how about a friggen expiry date in that email)...and am considering not renewing. Mainly because I think the the pass has lost too much value... Being a fully paid, 3 park pass holder should come with some perks...especially when they are out there flogging essentially the same thing for a third of the price. Some of the ideas I had were (mostly identical to those previously posted) Exclusive Events (such as the early opening of kamakazi) Better discounts or included entry to halloween Complimentry locker hire at WnW Decent discounts when bringing guests...dropping this to 25% from 50% during b'day month is cheap and crappy and 10% is nothing...I can get cheaper off a supermarket receipt Not to mention, that now every man and his dog has his own VIP pass...the parks are busier than ever and I'm waiting longer in queues...for $250 I should be the damn VIP. And losing the ability to pay month to month after the first year was a pain too. (what a failed attempt at marketing that was...it should have been a killer...monthly payments and auto renewing membership till you opt out...seems like a no brainer, but something that they failed to implement) All I can suggest is sending your thoughts through to the company...I'm certainly planning to..and what sort of response I get will probably determine if I renew. There needs to be something in it for my extra $150 over a VIP pass other than freakin discounts on spending more money in their stores. The fact of the matter is that $250-$300 can get me one way to singapore or tokyo...and considering that I'm getting nothing special from WVTP, I'd rather spend the money on that and visit some world class parks. Jay

It's funny, I have had discussion about essentially that exact idea with friends while at the parts a year or two ago when the signs appeared. Ours varied in that it would count the people in and out of a queue automatically which loses the advantage of eliminating queue jumping but removes the trouble of having to scan in and out. The great thing about a system like that is it automatically takes into account the efficiency of staff operating the ride in the queue time esitmates and would also be able to be recorded and used in training and assessment of ride operations. Jay

So the boards are back again. They seem to be brought out at all three parks during peak holiday season. This is at least the second year I remember seeing them. I think wet'n'wild ended up using whiteboard markers over magnets last time, I little less prone to being messed with. Jay

Rode Scooby while at movie world's fright night on the 24th and I'm pleased to say them main room has finally returned to its former glory in all aspects! All lasers seemed to be running and I noticed mirrors placed correctly adding to the laser *density*. There was a good amount of smoke in the room, The laser at the turntable was working perfectly and FINALLY I could hear the music clearly and not muffled! It makes such a difference. Unfortunately...the final room and drop were completely smokeless. even though the laser *appeared* to be on, but to be honest, if they get the main room right, it lifts the whole ride as you spend the majority of your time there. So nice work on the main room Movie World! Jay

Yeah I understand the logic behind it from the parks view, but it's annoying for customers! And if you drop the price and get a sudden surge of sales, perhaps that's a sign that the price is too high, not to jack the price back up to what it was, so that you sell the remaining tickets at whatever the customer will pay. I almost had two tickets to go, and was going to get at least two other people to come along as well, and had I bought two tickets only for the other people I invited to have to now fork out more than twice the price is crazy....and had I forked out 24.95 two weeks ago to come along, only for them to drop more than 50% I'd be pretty peeved too. Hence my suggestion to just come up with a system that gives the customer some idea of what's going on....drop a certain number of tickets to begin with at a reduced price then go to the full price after that, give people some idea that the cheap tickets are limited and will then return to full price meanwhile still achieving the ends of having a profitable, well attended event. Jay

For the love of sanity! Does the way movieworld are handling the pricing of this year's event annoy anyone else?! They start with tickets for tonight at 24.95 they drop em to 9.95 then they decide to jack em back up to 24.95 and drop the prices on next week's event...but the tickets to the week after that are the same price still..will they drop? won't they drop? will they sellout? If you buy early you get penalised, if you buy late you get penalised, if you buy when the moon is at the right place relevant to the 6th planet from the sun at midnight, you get a cheaper price! It's as bad as buying airline tickets and makes getting a group together to go a nightmare, because you tell people one thing and that they should come along and all of a sudden, the tickets are more than twice the price. The whole damn thing is screwy and will surely start to leave a sour taste in people's mouth... Just have some early bird prices limited to a certain number of tickets and then put the price up or at least do something people can understand and has some reference to something other than movie world wanting to scrounge the most money out of every persons pocket!

Holding a 3 park mega pass..I agree. They really need to pull their finger out and start working out ways to improve the value of the standard annual passes! Idea's such as early access, access to special events such as halloween, complimentary locker hire at wet'n'wild, better discounts throughout shops at the park would all be good places to start and would actually have me considering renewing when my pass expires. At the moment your either a VIP member or a Sucker member for buying the same thing for $160 more! Jay

Ok...well I went last year as mentioned above and it lived up to expectations! June is the rainy season in Tokyo, so if you are planing to be there then, plan for it to be wet, rains most days but it does mean less people. We decided to risk going right at the end of may/start of June which worked out fine, the 4 days we were there, we got 1 day of rain (rainy season hadn't really started yet) and the queues and crowds were anything from fantastic to comfortable over the three days in park and the hotels were at low rates. As for the best place to stay...its not even close the cheapest...stay at hotel miracosta for at least 1 night if possible, there's nothing quite like staying practically inside a themepark as fantastic as disneysea. For some cheaper convenient options, check out hotels all around Tokyo disneyland, the monorail makes convenient travel...or for cheaper options again, stay anywhere on the train line. Trains will take you anywhere. Other than that...make the effort to get there!! It was a fantastic time and I'm hoping to get back there real soon! Jay

The last show has been scheduled! As pulled from an email just sent... Might make the trip down on Monday and catch the final show. Jay

WTH! man.....I got ripped... Literally on the day the Q150 pass launched in April this year, I was at the gate with 2 3 park passes to renew...I was told of the Q150 offer...and did some quick calculations to discover that once you take into account losing the upgrade renewal discount...renewing the passes was fractionally better value. So I went ahead and forked out my $250ish * 2...and now THIS! This is a fantastically cheap deal....what happen to the "once in a lifetime offer" that was the q150....once my ass..this is better than that was! I wouldn't be quite so annoyed if it wasn't for the fact that they have continually been removing more and more value from the season passes such as changing the 50% off tickets during the month of your birthday to 25%, the reduction of the renewal discount....and now they want to give every man and his dog a 3 park pass for $100...what is going to happen when my pass expires early next year...oh..that'll be another $250 thanks... Sigh...not sure what to do now...I think I'll be lodging my displeasure with the parks...I'm just not seeing the value any more...especially with the increase in patronage the parks will see from this and the generally poor operation of rides lately. I could be putting my $500 towards flights to Japan to enjoy some more time at Disneysea. Jay

That was my thought too! I wonder if you could be allergic to getting ripped off...I definitely have an adverse reaction to it. Celiac is a good one....I'll bet there is next to nothing sold that is gluten free! The situation wouldn't be so bad if there was at least some decent meal options available...even if they were over priced...but at the moment I consider the majority of options overpriced and rubbish. This is a dissappointing thing to see...and I wonder if it is in part a reaction to the q150 passes...surely over the last 4 months the attendance has been greatly increased...but the vast majority of those attendees would be most likely to save cash and bring some food/drink along creating a disproportionate ratio to what they might be used it. Jay

Hmmm... An interesting move, pretty typical of current management...though if you don't carry an esky in, I would think it would be pretty easy to get a sandwich or two in without anyone noticing. It would be good to see some new food and beverage options (though I'm not holding my breath and would guess that comment to be nothing but public relations guff). If this policy carries over to seaworld and more critically wet'n'wild I'll be disappointed. At wetnwild especially, bring a BBQ lunch or even dinner as part of a full day out in summer is great (especially considering the installed bbq's!) Jay

Well..for the first time in serveral months I rode scooby again today, there is some definate improvement as mentioned. Fog in the main room is bettter and at the final drop, more lasers are running...however I would appear that not a single mirror is used anymore, which is a shame as they are all still sitting there and would add even moreso to the laser effect with almost no effort. Effects on the creatures, lights in eyes etc all work really well...BUT... There has been no change to the speaker system running the music and it still sounds like a muffled mess!! This for me is a deal breaker! That music should be pumping like it used to...so that you could hear it as you come up the lift and wonder what is going on up there and then rock out to as you race around the track. It still sounds like speakers are face down on the floor or a driver is blown or something...as a comparison standing around the spaceshot during a launch results in much louder and clearer sound. For me, this simple fix would lift the entire ride experience significantly and the fact that it has been neglected for so long is really not acceptable. Also the final drop laser was out, however if it was running, it looked like there was enough smoke there for it to be somewhat effective. So to sum up..it's close...but dissappointly, falls short of the experience it used to be. Jay