Wonderland Sydney

Hi Everyone...

Not sure if anyone is interested but Wonderland Sydney (Australia's Wonderland) has announced that it will close on April 26th.

The park which was created by KECO, and has ex-Paramount Parks rides such as Zodiac, Bayern Curve (Spelling ?) and copies of the Beastie and Wild Beast have cited soaring Insurance fees and massive debt as the culprit.

A press release will be issued tomorrow by the park.

See here for more (News.com.au)

Neil

I always hate to see a park go out of business... It's always very sad.

Isn't that a big park that just made a lot of new changes?

Well, over the past few years a lot of big changes have been made. Some good, some bad. What this shows is that really the plug was pulled very recently and without much warning. The park's management operate as a separate company, with the owners only acting as a parent company, assigning budgets and whatnot. It shows that they had a dedicated team of management who were in it for the park, even if the owners were just waiting to pull the plug to sell the land off and make a killing with industrial developments.

Have to say that this is very disapointing and while not surprising due to the lack of investment from the parent company still shocks you that a city the size of Sydney with over 4 million people will be left with no proper theme park at all.

With a small amount of investement this park, which for those that have not been, consists of a wildlife park, theme park and water park, could have been (imo) a good little money earner. Granted you could make more in property and investment, but it would still make money. There is definately the demand for a medium size theme park with a couple of good coasters, flats and water rides here in Sydney. The Aussies are typically an adventurous race and love to spend time outdoors- perfect for Theme parks.

I really hope that the local government make it really hard for the parent company Sunway to sell the land off for factories. If they don't re-zone the land maybe it will be bought and kept as a theme park. If only Six flags was not in such bad financial trouble and Universal in the process of being sold. That leaves us Mcquarie leisure (who own Dreamworld) or Tussauds perhaps? Maybe a management buyout?

If not i hope the rides get used and not scrapped- The Demon (a vekoma boomerang) is the easiest to recycle- probably off to dreamworld, the inverted ship would be ok to move, but the space probe (intamin 2 gen drop tower) would be very hard and expensive to move.

All in all a really crappy piece of news. Fingers crossed that something good might come out of this mess.

They have announced via television news that the site has been sold to ING and will be used for Industrial purposes. More factories on the way.

If you are looking for fun theme park wise, do not come to Sydney.

A sad day for Australian's.

Neil *** Edited 2/17/2004 8:23:29 AM UTC by coasterfreak_au***

Well that sucks. Oh well, we now do not even have a decent water park to cool down in during summer, crazy for a place this hot.

It will be interesting to see where they end up and for how much the old rides get sold for.

Old used boomerang anyone?? Think it would fit nicely somewhere at Dreamworld, (cant see how it would be themed into WBMW.

Wonderland being my home park I was very sad to hear that it was closing down. But with the lack of new rides to the park it's no wonder that it was struggling to pull in the crowds.

It's a fair drive up to Queensland to go to Dreamworld and Movie World to go on some coasters. :P