Gazza

That was a rhetorical question.

Are the passes free?

Since the other topic is closed I'll put this in here. I'm not normally one to speculate on when parks are going to do stuff, but I'm actually going to say now I think a coaster could be on the cards by the end of 2008. Since the park has opened, it has roughly been 3 years between coasters (there was a 5 year drought between LW and Roadrunner, though I think that could be due to other factors, supposedly the parks weren't doing that well in that period, plus the $20mil WWF was in the mix) But the park is faring well at the moment, hard to believe its almost 2 years since Superman opened, so 18 months would be ample opportunity to open another, we have had a couple of quiet years (Batwing, and the smaller attractions this year were fairly cheap) plus Motocoaster opening is a bit of an incentive. The strong AUD (.90 USD at the moment!) could be a good incentive to make this sort of investment, especially if it were an American manufacturer...(fingers crossed for GCI woodie ,given they are an American manufacturer) Edit: Nobody likes a spammer ↓

I think in this case it comes down to the "Anabel Principle", you might be able to save a couple of bucks using the DW food discount (You make that sound like the greatest thing ever), but you have to wonder if its worth it considering MW's products are a bit cheaper anyway, and the fact you waste time going to DW to get lunch, plus bus money for the trip. One thing, not everyone has annual passes like you so cant take advantage of the savings. DW are going to cop flak not because of anti DW sentiment, but because they work out to be more expensive than the others despite poorer quality, this is because the majority of visitors have to pay full price. Also, it's not anti DW sentiment, i mean take WWW, a great park, but still the same poor food. PS, would "anti dw" people exist for no reason? something to think about....

Its called "Made For You", not "My order now". Pretty much all stores are using the made for you system now (Some of you may have noticed that burgers now come in a box rather than a wrapper, that was all part of the change to the new system) As for salads, well in my experience its usually the people doing close that steal them at the end of the night. In any case they can only be held for 8 hours. Poor customer service, yeah Ive had it, but NO company is immune to bad service IMO. WTF? The stuff that is microwaved is hotcakes, tandoori chicken, thai chicken portions, pasta zoo and lean beef burger patties (they used to be done on the grill, but considering they only sell maybe 15 or so a day they switched to precooked ones, plus grill space was an issue) The normal burger patties (4:1 in Quarters, Double Quarters, McOz etc and 10:1 Cheesburgers, Big Macs, Double Beef'n'Bacon etc) are cooked on the Grill, not microwaved. Nuggets are cooked in a fryer vat, but they are batch cooked by the bag/ half bag, not cooked up in individual serves of 3,6,10,20 etc. Try Yummy Yummy in wiggles world. White Water World had fresh fruit at the main food outlet. Though it just seems easier to toss an apple in your backpack.

^I'd rate Maccas above theme park food, better value for starters, its actually freshly made for you rather than the stuff from warmers they serve up at the parks, plus the range is better (not just burgers), and I like the stuff anyway. Subway would be good, but one problem (just like theme park rides) comes down to the capacity. An example can be seen with the one out the front of Telstra dome in Melbourne. On game day the line is always out the door and the store is overwhelmed. By comparision the Nandos next door have adapted and have a separate counter normal stores dont have that operate more like a normal takeaway place rather than the fast casual type operation normal nandos are. You would need to look at this issue carefully (maybe some kind of 'double' subway) I'm actually for the idea ash.111 posted about having franchises in the parks. I think the margins would be higher given they would be getting their stock through a large centralized distro rather than the smaller suppliers they would probably deal with, and the stock they would be getting would be cheaper given the head office of the respective franchises takes care of all the wheeling and dealing for them. Not to mention all the brand recognition and leverage from the promotions (I mean if you were walking with a kid past snack shack in ocean parade it would draw little response, but if it were a maccas pester power would immediately kick in) Every park I went to in the US had some sort of tie in with major food chains, so clearly the strategy has some merit. Even the royal shows here often have representation from fast food chains. If we aren't careful, well have a 4th topic split about fast food restaurants in general.

But each department at the park should be drawing it's own income and paying its own way. The F&B department shouldn't be subsidising ride maintenance, that should be covered by ticket sales. I just dont see why a F&B outlet at a theme park is intrinsically different to one anywhere else in terms of how it runs. But most restaurants can provide stuff at a reasonable rate, while meeting staff expenses. Woah, so your food bill was $133! But DW doesnt have any fancy restaurants. In any case you proved my point about food prices.

2 hours is twice as long as 1 hour, and at least with that you know you are getting a better ride. And MW weren't running 1 train during the peak opening period when the ride is a novelty. If 1hr waits happen when you are up there next, you need to go to guest services and complain. PS, nobody said 1hr waits for SE were ok. I can see how the meal can get up to $15 though, want water instead of a soft drink? That's $1 more. Want tomato sauce? 50c there. Want a different meal, perhaps something healthier or better than a run of the mill fast food item? even more of a price premium. Still, the F&B prices at DW are a load of bollocks for the product standard you are getting. I mean at Pizza Hut $5.95 gets you a large pizza with the lot, at DW it gets you a crummy little "personal pizza". Soft drinks were around $3, pretty bad considering a box of post mix stuff (which does a couple of hundred serves from memory) is around $20

^WTF, both articles have the same subject matter, but you can tell each has been written independently of the other. This is a change from previous articles This is incorrect, Hippos are not an Australian first as there are already hippos at a number of zoological parks in Australia.

2 hours, what a joke! The last major coaster I rode in its opening season was Superman, about 2 weeks after it opened and rode at least 10 times in one day. Here we are 2 weeks after the opening of this one and queues are hitting a whopping 2 hours, yes Superman can put through an extra 74 people per hour, but both rides have 2 trains, and separate load/unload platforms so they should not be getting 2 hour queues. Superman in 1 train operation never gets this bad. Even at SFMM, a park known for its terrible operations I never waited remotely close to that. They really need to lift their game, you can only seek to boost operating margins so much before it will send things backward, over a 1/4 of your day spent standing in line for a boring ride less than a minute in length really isn't good enough at all.

^I think the point AlexB was getting at was that underwater viewing wouldn't really help since Hippos live in murky water.

Yeah, but it's not a distinct thing like a sun lounge (In other words, if you put a sun lounge indoors, it would still be called a sun lounge) They are probably just normal stools, sun stool just sounds like a funny name. So how long till we see Wez n Wills -spicy Hungarian- sausage service.

Yeah true, though it is across all parks When I said more freedom I had other things in mind too, In the peak season at WnW what would stop them from putting up rental prices. At SW maybe they could do hourly rentals rather than full day ones at the water park. Promos would also be possible,at WnW for example a reduced rate for season pass holders. These are just examples, it could also be something much better. Makes me wonder why parks would let out operations of lockers (and in DW's case the arcade) to 3rd parties, these would be simple enough to run yet make a lot of money. In any case, I can see the 2.7mil being paid off very quickly. I mean with 1mil visitors a year at wet n wild, and if the usage rates between visitors was just 25% (4 people sharing) then that is $1.75mil coming in through WnW alone. Now, as for a couple of other things in this. I guess it was inevitable police academy was on the way out, given its popularity I think they should say it's closing to get the 'one last time' crowd. Disney did a similar thing when the main st electrical parade was on the way out. With the new show, I hope somehow they do work in some elements that relate it to the movie theme (like what has been done with Lights Moteurs Action at Disney studios Paris) it would be a shame if it were just a generic car show. As for the Hippo exhibit, I think it is a good addition, I look forward to something of the same standard as their past couple of exhibits. Any news on where in the park it is going (surely that is not ASX sensitive info) Another interesting thing MW is getting 1,323,524 Whereas DW is getting 1,368,141 Thats just 44,617 people between them (So on average DW would get 126 extra people per day) If there is such a small difference between attendance, why is there such a big difference between queue times at both parks?

What on earth is a sun stool? Can't say I've heard of that one.

Notice in there, one of the things was a "locker hire buyout" for 2.7mil, I wonder if being the owners they could have more freedom to control prices, they could for example remove the usage charge for the SE lockers.

Yeah, seems pretty ridiculous, especially since its only just opened so they should be running at peak capacity. If I were to visit now, I would probably wait that amount of time for the motocoaster given I haven't ridden it. But for anything else, like 2 hours, then 1.5 hours for Cyclone is a bit ridiculous, I'd never do it. Personally, I think if waits are getting to 1 hour on any ride in normal situations and on a regular basis (So not rides in their début season) then the park absolutely must look at underlying operational problems. Re ads068, I think its a bit much to not sell single day tickets, families could see the park in the day if they only went on kids rides, and also some people are content with only seeing some of the rides. Better ways of doing things could include running rides more efficiently, and of course extending the trading hours. Is it just me of does opening a park from 10am till 5pm seem a bit tight, the US parks I went to all opened at 9am, and at the earliest closed at 7pm, and often were open till late at night) I think our parks get the numbers, so they should look at widening trading hours, at least during all holiday periods. Works a treat at WnW.

JSM? Ta for finding that out, a tour of Superman probably would be the best thing, though to be honest I dont think anyone would have wanted to be in the engine room during launch, I like having eardrums.... I reckon the former two (Steve Peet ad/or the themed construction manager) would be the most interesting to talk to if we were to have a talk, they would interest more people than just the technically minded, I'd just love to know more about how parks are run. Though knowing me, the themed construction manager would be my pick.

^Well, all coasters are 'fun' to a degree (I find roadrunner fun for instance) But the main things that disappoint me are; -Lack of airtime -Relies to heavily on its gimmick -DW trying to say it's a big 6 thrill ride when it isn't -The fact far better rides could have been built for $10mil I mean, yeah, it'd be fun to ride, but it does not impress me in any way, i don't actually see what it offers that exceeds what Superman offers for instance.

^Who drove home?

There is an interesting site devoted to Thematic Design here: http://www.themedattraction.com/ and has plenty of stuff focused on Disney. Also, along with the other two Australian thematic design companies, another one is Can Create ( http://www.cancreate.com/ ), this was the company responsible for the Main St hot dog at DW Personally, I don't really like much of the work of any of the Australian firms, the WVTP owned parks seemed to have achieved more doing it in house. Though Thinkwell ( http://www.thinkwelldesign.com ) is a company I like the work of.

Personally, I think 40 would be a good minimum number to aim for, given the extra numbers that can be brought along, that would easily tip things over the 50 person mark.

If I were going I would just stick to Superman given the lines move fastest on that ride.

Just remember, Six Flags are probably getting rid of that thing for a reason, it even used to have zero g rolls in the layout but for some reason they were a problem. Besides, its not a B&M, it was built by premier rides. I think getting hold of Dominator from would be a better purchase (since it wouldn't be yet another launched coaster)

I had to go down to fill up the car, so I decided to suss out the line up, Crazy Coaster, Space Roller, Extreme Speed were there which means it hasn't gone backwards. But, today in the local paper I found an article about Carnies with a very interesting picture that speaks volumes. You decide.

True, but if people are doing a whole GC trip around this they might want to stay somewhere less chatty.