aaronm

I don’t often bother with HWSD2 but decided to give it a go on the weekend to see if it was as terrible as I remembered. It was worse. The plot never made much sense (Aussie race, Italian town, American cops?) but apart from a few pratfalls the show is now completely devoid of stunts. It has been reduced to five minutes of drifting to break up the cringeworthy script. The driving has been watered down to remove any perceived close calls. Your average Westfield carpark probably sees more thrills on a Tuesday morning. There are no “wow” moments that people will remember any more, just some hoons jumping around and almost doing burnouts. It’s not like other similar sized parks can’t offer anything better either - Mirabilandia has a fantastic Hotwheels-themed stunt show, featuring (gasp) more than two cars, explosions and a freaking loop stunt. If a regional Italian park can put on that kind of show, Movie World has zero excuse for the current mediocre effort.

I'd be going even further when they have these periods of substantial maintenance. "Buy a day, come back again for free later in 2024" would be an easy promo to run, acknowledges that the full park offering isn't available, and has the added bonus of guests likely spending more money again when they come back.

Went tonight, pretty much the same event as last year. Good for night rides on Leviathan and Jet Rescue, and the Aqua Light Show was decent. Apart from that there’s not a whole lot to recommend - if you’re after some interesting food options Dreamworld’s night market blows it out of the water. The entertainment and atmospherics were fine, I suppose it’s an environmental positive that Village have managed to keep reusing the old parade floats year after year? I certainly don’t think this event is worth the $69 entry price. As a pass inclusion it’s ok but it’s a shame that Sea World don’t seem to be aiming to improve Carnivale each year. If I had to sum up the experience in one word: stale.

A bit bleak at MW today, SE, WWF and DD all with unscheduled closures. Not much they can do about unexpected downtime once it happens but it seems to be a very regular occurrence these days, and a terrible guest experience when so many rides are impacted at once.

I’d be a little more forgiving of the extended maintenance windows if the parks acknowledged the impact it has on the guest experience. Their current attitude is basically “too bad, suck it up, something something safety” which is pretty poor when half a dozen attractions are down simultaneously (MW for most of March this year) plus whatever unexpected downtime happens. Anyone on a single or multi day ticket is going to feel royally ripped off when they see that maintenance A-frame on arrival.

A great opportunity to revisit some old faithful “only one in the southern hemisphere” marketing. A serious replacement might be a Zamperla NebulaZ, they are popping up everywhere and have the added benefit of being more of a family ride than Doomsday.

Probably a maintenance nightmare but a Huss Giant Jump (https://www.canadaswonderland.com/rides-experiences/sledge-hammer) would be a fantastic replacement for Doomsday. Quite possibly the most fun I've ever had on a flat ride, when it worked.

We used to head up mid-term to avoid crowds but in recent years I've found the week immediately after school holidays to be the last reasonable time to visit, given maintenance/shutdown windows are much lengthier than pre-covid.

I agree, however based on queues most people were skipping the po'boys and chowder bowls and picking up hot dogs and chips instead. They are catering to what their market wants, hence the current generic lineup.

That’s annoying. Visiting next weekend, didn’t expect it to be down for maintenance so soon, these sort of rides are usually pretty reliable.

No idea how you got that impression. My comment was about the park’s bad theming choices.

The broken mirror turntable makes zero sense in the context of the ride. Rides shouldn’t rely on people having seen a low-budget sequel to be coherent.

If by “around April” you mean sometime in the 2024 calendar year, then yes I would think that is possible.

I hope someone from VRTP has visited Prater and tried out Insider. The absolute gold standard of how to theme an indoor mouse, no unnecessary weird mirrors, broken screens, mistimed audio or other gimmicks, just a very well thought-out series of lights, plenty of fog, and a banging soundtrack. It really shouldn’t be too hard to get right.

Thing is, it's rarely the safety checks that slow things down. The Gold Coast ride ops seem to lack any sense of hustle when it's busy - everything is done at a very leisurely pace. I'm not blaming the park staff for this. At some point management have confused safety with just doing everything slowly, so there's no incentive or encouragement to reduce wait times. Add on non-safety related steps that lengthen load times further (such as waiting for the entire station to clear before allowing new riders to board) and it's no wonder operations are slow and wait times high. Agree paper maps are dead. A handful of printed map signs around the park, combined with digital wait/show time display boards would be helpful even when the app is working, and especially if it isn't.

Surely with the ride being out of action for so long a 3D sign would have been worth the investment? 😉

Normal operations at the Gold Coast parks make Six Flags look like Disney, and in the past few years the parks have consistently taken steps to make them generally slower still. While nobody should be surprised to find the parks busy during school holidays it’s unfair to blame guests if adequate crowd control/mitigation measures aren’t in place.

I’m not sure I consider wave swingers to be a “spin and spew”. They’re fairly gentle rides, perhaps the fountains add a little excitement but it would be pretty rare for someone to experience nausea on one of these.

Makes sense that Leviathan would go down for shorter periods but more often, gotta look after that wooden track. 2 weeks maintenance, 6 weeks operational cost savings 😄

I still remember seeing someone try to bring a full size rollaboard suitcase onto SDSC one time. Staff politely wheeled it through to the unload station.

We're coming up on 18 months since they announced this project and they're still just pushing around dirt. I'm going to be shocked if it's open in 2024.

If this was a Village park they'd be raving about having "Australia's only powered coaster that isn't portable"

This was my immediate thought as well. An indoor stage show would be a welcome addition to the park, particularly while Scooby Doo is out of action for an extended period and Oz is still mostly dirt.

As a child of the 1980s I wholeheartedly endorse this new sign.

It’s priced to sell One Passes, not individual tickets. If White Christmas and Carnivale cost >$80 each the One Pass looks like excellent value, especially for locals.