GoGoBoy

The place is packed all the time at the moment and has been since the closure announcement. Even the threat of rain does not stop people now. The park is bursting at the seams most days, it's incredible. I certainly wouldn't want to visit on a weekend, or anytime now for that matter. I believe some of the staff are finding it a bit difficult and management are also finding it difficult to roster the adequate number of staff each day. I have noticed that they are still constantly advertising for new staff... even just a few days ago. It will be interesting to see whether the easter show and luna park take away some of the crowds. I doubt it though

Please do keep giving us info Kenny, it is much appreciated. What you need to understand though is that these are discussion forums and people are always going to debate rumours. So don't take it personally... this is what it's all about

As I've said before, the reason the Ranger has a rainbow painted on its backdrop is because the Rainbow ride was originally meant to go there. Yeah I don't really like the look of the Ranger. In fact basically all of the rides at LPS are just old travelling amusement flats. They are not very special at all but the management is trying to promote them as 'historical' and 'all time favourites'. The only truly unique rides there are the giant ferris wheel and wild mouse

Just to add a bit more fuel to the fire... I was just looking over the Sunway website. It seems that the company is investing millions of dollars into a NEW water theme park (in addition to their existing parks) for Malaysia with a new 5 star resort and shopping complex to go with it. The complex should be open by mid 2004. I would like to remind everyone of one of the main points Wonderland's CEO made in his address to staff regarding the parks closure - *Sunway simply wasn't able to invest the required capital into Wonderland as the parent company had been badly affected by the asian economic crisis*. So... they have plenty of money to invest in their own country's leisure and tourism projects but for some reason not enough for ours. Here is a quote from Sunway's chairman regarding the new water theme park and resort - "The development of this theme park reflects our commitment to the community and nation and I would like to assure the State authorities that we at Sunway are determined to deliver and be part of creating another signature resort township which we all can be proud of". Enough said

I like your new avatar graphic Johno - very appropriate! That's a keeper I reckon

Screammachine - what a smug little comment that was you made about my post. Did I contradict myself? No. Here's why - The Human Resources Department manager is part of the executive team. As mentioned above, all of the exec team would be on good salaries and have overall very decent packages. I was referring to the operational managers which, in terms of pay, are a huge step down from the execs. I believe a lot of these ops managers are/were not good at managing staff and keeping them happy which has led to a few internal issues. This is simply because Wonderland was not always able to hire the most experienced people for these particular roles as they could not cough up enough cash for them. I am certainly not saying that this is the case with ALL of the ops and dept managers. Obviously there would be a number of them with good management skills. But in general terms you are not going to get great managers to stick around if you pay them lousy wages. Simple as that. Regarding what I was saying about the Human resources department being good at hiring the right people for the right jobs... I was talking about the level 1 general park positions ie. attractions, food & bev, guest services etc. The majority of them are friendly, enthusiastic people as i'm sure everyone will agree

willsy you are basically in the same boat as ASHLEE. It's not even neccesarily about spelling... it's about making some sort of sense. Are we experiencing a bizarre phenomenon here? Either a large number of users joining this site are under 5 years old or else there are some mental health issues going on... the latter ofcourse being a slightly more sensitive issue. It must have something to do with the fact that we are discussing theme parks - they seem to appeal to a 'broad' range of people. Luckily there are a number of users on this site who actually are on the same planet as the rest of us and are able to offer somewhat intelligent and insightful posts... or at least make some kind of sense

Yeah this is a total waste of time and I don't think any words of encouragement are going to improve ASHLEE's posts. What is it about this site that seems to attract these sorts of people? Even Shifty with his minimal grasp of the english language puts together posts FAR more worthy than this one

Weren't there some rumours around that the Olympic Park site was going to be turned into a theme park? I remember reading somewhere on these forums that the government was trying to encourage a theme park to take up residence there. It would be the perfect spot. It's kind of a middle ground... not to close to the city and not too far. Lots of the infrastructure is already there as well as plenty of transport options. I think judging by the attendance Wonderland was getting over the last year, even though nothing had been added to the park for 10 years, is proof that there is demand in Sydney for a large outdoor theme park. Not to mention the numbers which are streaming into Wonderland now to have one last visit... this has made the potential even more obvious

Yeah I agree that $85 is way too much otherwise I would definitely go. Am interested to check out the new 'Big Top' venue. Don't forget Luna Park needs everyones support this time round. They have had a lot of trouble already with the local residents and had to make a lot of concessions which could lead to financial troubles for them in the future. We all need to get to Luna Park at some point and support them as much as possible. At least it is owned by an Australian company with the best interests of the site at heart. Don't forget entry is free

I agree with some of Richard's points on this one. Virtually ALL workplaces have employees who feel the business is badly run. It's a fact of life. Every now and then an exception comes along and some are worse than others but overall no job (or management team) is perfect. The WS managers certainly did have some major constraints placed on them (ie. virtually NO money going back into the park) which would have made it very difficult. The other factor is that most of the operational staff at Wonderland are on very low wages, once again due to the restrictions placed on the business by Sunway. If you are not willing to pay good money you often won't get great staff. This applies to the divisional and operational managers at Wonderland which is why a lot of them probably aren't the best suited to their roles. Wonderland simply wasn't willing to pay for top people. What makes Wonderland work well from an operational perspective only (ie. what the guests see) is that the majority of the staff are, quite simply, nice people. This certainly isn't due to Wonderland's staff training programs or anything like that (I believe most of the training is very basic and not really on-going as it should be). I feel that WS is just good at hiring friendly and enthusiastic people. They have a good human resources department which does most of the hiring. The department is run by a small group of compassionate people who are obviously good at choosing the right person for the required job

That's sad to hear but I suspected as much. Both Wet 'n' Wild and Movie World have had some great new additions over the last few years and maybe this has been enough to sustain them for a while. Do you think attendances will drop if another year goes past without any major new attractions? I know I certainly wouldn't make the trip up again without a good reason... but I guess a lot of Australians aren't as fussy as I am

Ok, so we know Dreamworld is opening Farmyard Friends (boring) hopefully followed by a gyro swing or some other ride later in the year. Sea World is set to open Shark Bay (which should be quite good, for an animal attraction)... but what about Movie World and Wet 'n' Wild? I am yet to hear any rumours regarding the attractions these 2 parks might be getting this year. We have patiently waited for the last couple of years and nothing much has happened. Has anyone heard ANYTHING yet? Please no more animal attractions or walk-through exhibits. Do you guys think this year will bring something major or do you think the money will be tied up in Paradise Country and the new outback show?

I agree. If the park manages to stay open for many more years to come (here's hoping) one day the loops will have a much more historical significance and the park will be grateful they kept them. However, if they are planning to keep the loops standing where they are and they end up getting in the way of a new ride or attraction then that won't be such a good thing. That land is now very valuable so if neccesary I think it would be okay to move the loops... but only if there is no other way around it

Well it now looks like there is a good chance Wonderland will be staying open until the 26th of April. I was just looking over the seek.com.au website and saw a job ad requesting new casual staff to work at Wonderland up until the 26th April. The ad was posted on the 2nd March. At the original park closure meeting the CEO implied that the park may not stay open due to staff numbers. It looks like he has changed his tune now. I'm guessing he has seen the phenomenal respose from the public and (surprise, surprise) is wanting to stay open right to the end to cash in on it. The closure is still over 6 weeks away but the guests are treating each day as if it is the last. There's no way Sunway would want to miss out on this sort of attendance. By the way, don't be fooled into thinking this is a kind-hearted decision on Sunway's part... oh no... it'll be all about the cold hard cash

Yeah i think u guys are being a bit hard on kennykoala. He is doing his best to bring us as much news as possible. I know he was boasting a bit about his discoveries which probably isn't neccesary. However it's better than those of you who claim to know something and then don't tell us anything about it. Let's not get too caught up about the specifics of the details when really nothing is confirmed. We should be grateful for any info we can get. Kenny - you are probably right about the September opening. The parks often do that. Gives them a chance to pick up extra crowds in the Sept holidays as well as the Dec ones

I agree about the wildlife park... I think it is a great area and don't think it needs any thrill rides too close to it. I even feel that future expansion of the wildlife park is probably a sensible idea, especially as world tourism begins to pick up. I wasn't actually aware of how far back Dreamworld's land goes. I was thinking more of adding a big coaster starting around Gum Tree Gully somewhere and expanding back out further, away from the wildlife area. I think that the whole Gum Tree Gully/Tiger Island area would have been perfect for new rides to round the theme park off. I think it was a bit silly to put tiger island where it is. Does anyone know much about the excess theme park land Dreamworld recently re-zoned? They won approval at the beginning of last year to re-zone the land from tourism uses to 'town centre' uses. This increased the value of the land significantly. Does anyone know exactly where this land sits in relation to the theme park? Dreamworld are obviously not worried about running out of space for the theme park or else they wouldn't have 'sold' this off. I sure hope we don't have another Wonderland situation on our hands (I doubt it)

I first of all want to say that I am quite impressed with some of the initiatives Dreamworld has taken recently, especially in terms of continually upgrading the parks theming. After reading the Wonderland article from the Financial Review which interviewed Neil Balnaves, I am very confident Dreamworld has a great leader who understands the industry and the need for constant capital expenditure. One thing I am not a big fan of is Dreamworld's layout. When I look at the park map it actually kind of annoys me. The majority of the rides and attractions are spread out lengthways in a strip at the front of the park. I really think the park needs to start moving back to give it a bigger, more symetrical feel. I personally think a massive coaster and perhaps some smaller attractions towards the back of the park (near Gum Tree Gully or somewhere like that) would really help to round the park off. I also never liked Cyclone's location. Was it really neccesary to plonk it outside the perimeter of the gates in the carpark? If you look at it on the DW map it is so far out that half of it is cut off. I guess they didn't have much choice at the time with the Thunderbolt still there. A similar thing happened when Wet 'n' Wild added Mammoth Falls... on the park map it appears to stretch out beyond the park perimeter gates. Interested to hear anyone elses thoughts on this subject

I just tried changing my display settings to the resolution you mentioned Richard. It has made everything quite small though and some websites don't look quite right. I'll use the wonderland website as an example. The graphics and menu now only take up a small part of the page with lots of blank white space around the edges. When I was using the other resolution the website graphics filled the page perfectly. Do I need to upgrade my computer somehow or is this the same with everyone?

Richard - the only problem I have with the site is that it is currently a bit too long in length to navigate it easily. Not sure if this is something you were looking at tweaking. Maybe it is just my resolution?! At the moment, to see all the info I have to scroll across sideways as well as the usual up and down. Is there any way you can shrink it down to the same size as Total Thrills? With the current sizing it makes the main page look a bit sparse too

I like your point Richard about how the large influx of guests shows that Wonderland did have potential. I do hope Sunway will look at it that way and question their decision to some extent... although I highly doubt it. I was wondering though Richard, whether you think 2 months of extremely large attendances would be a large financial gain for the company? Or do you think when taking everything into account it may not be that much money afterall? I do realise that there are costs associated with closing down and also the fact that they are going to keep a number of staff on after the place closes its doors. Contrary to this however is the fact that the place would cost very little to run at the moment with minimal staff to pay (remembering that a large number of executive managers resigned recently), no major (expensive) shows, no advertising and minimal ride up-keep work. I also want to point out to anyone who may not realise it but Sunway is going to continue to have a substantial financial interest in the wonderland property as they are co-developing and co-leasing parts of the business park through Hartford Lane (their Australian subsidiary). Sunway may continue to gain from the site for some time into the future

Does it make anyone else angry that Sunway is benefiting thanks to massive crowds visiting Wonderland every day now? My guess is that more people will pass through the gates in the next 7 weeks than Wonderland would get in a year. The fact is Sunway is CLOSING the park so they can bulldoze it and make money from the land... yet they are making a fortune in the meantime with attendances and in-park spending. It doesn't seem fair to me. They haven't spent money on the park in 10 years and yet they are packing people through the gates like there is no tomorrow (which I guess for Wonderland, there isn't). Basically they are being rewarded for doing a bad thing to this city. Does this bother anyone else or is it just me? Maybe I need to relax a little. Richard, what are your thoughts on this? Do you think they will be making a killing right now? Do you think Sunway cares? I just hope none of our other theme parks get any ideas and see the potential goldmine that is apparantley available when announcing the closure of a park. Certainly more of a boost to visitor numbers than any new ride would create

I also agree that the DW article on that site is not particularly funny at all and found it kind of annoying actually. However, as someone else said, the article below it is hysterical. It's the one about Six Flags getting involved in seafood distribution to complement their exisiting theme park business and thereby adding extra revenue streams. Read it if you haven't. Very funny. By the way, where did the site gets its info about the Gyro Swing from? And do you think they really spoke to any officials at DW?

Daniel you've saved the day again. Sorry Rappa but I have to say that really was pretty bad Scenic World sounds like such a bizarre place. They must be doing ok financially though with such high prices. I would imagine all the asian tourists would flock to the place. I suppose most of them head up there after visiting the wildlife park at WS. Is that right?

The park doesn't need to advertise. It is PACKED out every day... especially weekends. Similar to when it first opened I reckon. Even during the week it is still busy. So there is no need to spend money on advertising... you can't buy promotion like this. Lucky Malaysians. The thing that doesn't add up for me is that the park is getting busier and busier every day... yet it is still well over 6 weeks off closing... and more staff from every department are leaving all the time. See, it is an equation that doesn't add up. If the park gets busy you need more staff not less. In saying that, I do believe they are going to try and pull out everything they've got to keep the place open considering the response they are getting. I would imagine it is going to be a very hard task though. It will be interesting to see what happens