We are not amused
Coming soon to a neighbourhood near you: not one, but two, amusement theme parks. Aussie World down the hill at Palmview is about to receive a serious makeover, with the addition of a water park. And near Caloundra, we’re getting a $110 million Adventure Waterpark.
Any parent who’s thinking it might be nice to take the kids to one of these places, be advised: stay away – unless you’re happy to part with $500 for a day of standing in queues and paying outrageous prices for bad food.
Yes, we’re getting our local answer to theme park alley near the Gold Coast. There you can find Dreamworld, WhiteWater World, Warner Bros Movie World, Wet ‘n Wild World and a world of other worlds, all designed with one thing in mind: to fleece you.
I recently made the mistake, never to be repeated, of taking the kids to Dreamworld. This place will live forever in my mind as Nightmareworld.
I remember when this monstrosity first came along. Entrepreneur John Longhurst in the early-eighties pursued a dream to create a world where people paid good money to be scared witless. In those days it was relatively good value: you paid to get in and thereafter all your fun and terror was free.
Alas, the corporates have moved in. Macquarie Leisure Trust has taken over and the good folk at Macquarie Bank are world-class at enriching themselves by extracting fees from the public. At Nightmareworld, they have gone way beyond marketing; they have perfected the art of fleecing.
First you have to get through the front gate and that costs a family of two adults and two kids $230. As you enter they try to coerce you into signing up for season tickets for hundreds of dollars extra.
Once inside, you queue for 45 minutes for rides that last 45 seconds. But before you set off on your blink-and-you-miss-it adventure, they make you pose for the hidden camera. Fifty seconds later you’re climbing out of your roller-coaster harness to be beset by spruikers trying to sell you the photos.
The landscape is dominated by venues designed to relieve you of more money. A photo booth where you wait an hour to have your picture taken in period costume for $60. Shops selling things only tourists would want at jaw-dropping prices. Amusement arcades where it costs $5 for kids to win prizes worth 50 cents. Fast food outlets and candy floss sellers and snow-cone vendors and artists who will sketch your face on to a colourful background – all at prices that would make my hair stand on end if I had any.
Want to sample the FlowRider? That’s another $20 for four people. Want your photo taken with a tiger? That’s $495, would you believe. How about a helicopter flight? Fifteen minutes in the air costs $860.
Then there’s the recent addition of WhiteWater World, where you can get wet in all kinds of interesting ways. That’s another $145 for the family of four. You need to change into your swimmers, of course. The storage lockers are $8 each.
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