White Water World Tantrum Alley and Mammoth

[Santa07]

Hey,

I was doing a bit of reading and I saw that a few years ago White Water World were planning on opening a Tornado Tantrum Alley and a Mammoth water slide. I also read it was put on hold because of the GFC, but I haven't heard much more about it. Does anybody know what happened to this plan and if they scrapped it???

[Reanimated35]

One look at the way DW is heading should answer that for you.

[gdalby96]

i think these plans r still real, but due to the finical crisis a couple of years ago the plans were put on hold. they need to do something soon to compete with wet n wild

[Gazza]

Seems dumb for WWW not to follow through. ..Adding waterslides would be cheap, and would go a long way towards making the unlimited world pass more attractive. The money they have spent on non events like Shockwave could have gotten a better ROI if spent on expsnding WWW I reckon. Have a look at what WnWSyd is doing, with those big proslide towers. Year 1 build the tower, conveyer, landing pool and say a Tantrum Alley. Year 2, build a Tornado Wave. Year 3 build a bowling alley. Year 4, build another tower, conveyer, landing pool and whatever else they want to do next. And so on.

[GoGoBoy]

Seems dumb for WWW not to follow through. ..Adding waterslides would be cheap, and would go a long way towards making the unlimited world pass more attractive. The money they have spent on non events like Shockwave could have gotten a better ROI if spent on expsnding WWW I reckon. Have a look at what WnWSyd is doing, with those big proslide towers. Year 1 build the tower, conveyer, landing pool and say a Tantrum Alley. Year 2, build a Tornado Wave. Year 3 build a bowling alley. Year 4, build another tower, conveyer, landing pool and whatever else they want to do next. And so on.

I totally agree with everything Gazza. I was just thinking the exact same thing recently in regard to the idea of building a tower with one new attraction and then simply adding one extra attraction to the same tower each year. Cost effective - especially considering the big marketing push that each individual attraction could be given.

Ardent Leisure should be ashamed of the way they've just given up on WhiteWater World. It had such promise and started really well with new slides never before seen in Australia (hydroLIM, bowl slides). The expansion plan was to include not only the dark mammoth and tantrum, but also a lazy river. All 3 of these attractions would have been great additions to the park. It's pretty crazy for a waterpark not to have a lazy river. And WWW's small size has always put it at a competitive disadvantage. Ardent could have fixed this. But they gave up...

Edited November 16, 2013 by GoGoBoy

[joz]

Here's something that tells you everything you need to know about mismanagement: Ardent Leisure made a release to the stock exchange which reveals attendance numbers for last year. Dreamworld and White Water World (and possibly Q1, it's not made clear in the report) drew in 1.8million guests combined, In that same time Movie World drew 2million guests. Those numbers don't count park hoppers, but I doubt there was any park hopping going at MW so I think comparing the two is fair.

So Movie World alone outdrew Dreamworld and White Water World. Let that sink in for a moment because truly, that is extraordinary. I'd understand if Movie World had been doing something special, like opening a couple of new rides a year, or doing something to improve customer service, or some sort of genius advertising campaign, but no, they're just doing normal stuff; the occasional new ride, and the odd improvement here or there. There really isn't an excuse for MW to be outdrawing DW, never mind both DW and WWW. The VIP pass is obviously why MW's attendance is so high, but Dreamworld is giving away the gate too, there should not be that big a difference.

I think Gazza's idea (building a multi-slide tower in stages) is a pretty good way to start addressing the decline at WWW. Fixing Dreamworld is a more difficult undertaking, but I'll tell you one thing, the first step of turning Dreamworld around shouldn't be to close pretty much every attraction in the park for a portion of the day.

[Santa07]

And it's not like they don't have room - they still have space where the thunderbolt used to be

[jjuttp]

And it's not like they don't have room - they still have space where the thunderbolt used to be

That would be where Cyclone currently stands.

[themeparkgc]

Just if anyone is interested, this was the official statement from the park in 2009, two years after plans for the rides were lodged:

When White Water World opened there was always a plan for phase two expansion but then the GFC (global financial crisis) hit, so depending how business goes, that is something we will also look at again ... we've still got heaps of land.

As others have said, expansion is what the park needs, and without this it probably won't see too much growth. With the sort of mindset shown above, that is "if our business grows, we will expand", the park won't get anywhere. At the complete opposite end of the scale you have a company like Universal's new owners Comcast. They recently announced that they would inject over $1 billion in capital expenditure annually to the NBCUniversal division, double what was originally expected. Obviously, the company is a lot bigger than Ardent, but that still is a lot of money. The reasoning behind this decision is additions such as Harry Potter at IOA caused attendance at their parks jump by 40%. Regardless of the park, without capex on good drawcard attractions, if there are any gains, they are going to be minimal.

That would be where Cyclone currently stands.

Nope, Thunderbolt and Cyclone coexisted. In response to Santa07, WWW has used some of the Thunderbolt's footprint, but yes, there is more room available.

Edited November 17, 2013 by themeparkgc

[Santa07]

That would be where Cyclone currently stands.

there was a time there where the cylcone and thunderbolt both stood - there's a big concrete patch behind the cyclone where the thunderbolt was. I think some of it was used up for avpx/zombie evilution and some of WWW but I'm pretty sure some of it still remians.

you can see the concrete patch in this photo - there's a few cars there

Edited November 17, 2013 by Santa07

[Gary86]

I think it would be better if they combined WWW with Dreamworld. They used to have "Blue Lagoon" included in park entry price so White Water World could be another "world" for Dreamworld and then it doesn't really need to expand. Dreamworld could use the remaining land for a decent attraction.

[Brad2912]

You are comparing an attraction with 3 slides and a pool to an entire water park. Operation and staffing costs would inhibit combining the 2 completely and not have 'world passes'. Well, unless you wanted to put the cost up to $120-$130 for a day pass.

[Santa07]

I think it would be better if they combined WWW with Dreamworld. They used to have "Blue Lagoon" included in park entry price so White Water World could be another "world" for Dreamworld and then it doesn't really need to expand. Dreamworld could use the remaining land for a decent attraction.

Sorry, but I do disagree, I just think they should lower the prices for WWW

[pin142]

To put any speculation as to the location of Thunderbolt in relation to WhiteWater World and the AVPX Tented area to rest here is a quick photoshop overlay of Thunderbolt over the park at 10/11/12 Getting back on topic the expansion for WhiteWater World was approved by the GCCC this will however more than likely involve the movement of the laser tag area due to it encroaching on it. It just seems really weird to have something gone to all the effort of being lodged with council, amended, approved then nothing happen. Can safely say the park is needing something new to attract guests as Aqualoop and Constrictor are two good reasons for going to Wet'n'Wild over WhiteWater.

[Gazza]

http://www.proslide.com/anapa-aqua-park/

A park in Russia is putting in a Proslide complex basically exactly as I described...Wave, Tantrum and Bowling Alley.

There is a kraken racer on the lower level, so no real point for WWW to put one of them in.