WET AND WILDER
Movie World to mark three decades with giant parade plans
THE Gold Coast’s biggest theme park operator is splashing out on a suite of new attractions including Australia’s tallest water slide.
Village Roadshow Theme Parks is pumping capital into a new complex of thrill slides at its Coomera-based Wet ‘n’ Wild site, the Bulletin can reveal.
Village will officially announce today the showpiece will be Kaboom, a raft slide starting 23 metres above ground, with water jet propulsion plunging users down a 10m drop into corkscrews.
Other slides in the new complex are described as “not for the fainthearted”. A huge event is being planned for sister park Movie World’s 30th birthday whilst a meerkat display is permanently coming to Paradise Country.
Village chief operating officer Bikash Randhawa said: “This is a huge investment and we are confident this is the right step for driving tourism.”
THEME park giant Village Roadshow will build Australia’s tallest water slide on the Gold Coast in a multimilliondollar revamp of its facilities.
The 130m-long slide, already under construction at Wet’n’Wild, is one of three attractions being unveiled on Friday to launch celebrations for sister park Warner Bros Movie World’s 30th birthday.
In a major boost to the city’s struggling tourism industry, the new mega slide structure is being targeted for a pre-Christmas opening in time for the school holidays.
New Village attractions include:
• A new water slide complex with several standouts led by the Kaboom raft ride starting from 23m up, making it Australia’s tallest. It boasts a “master blaster” start – with water jet propulsion – sending riders down a 10m drop and into a tailspin featuring multiple corkscrews.
• A Super Ripper which is two new body slides dubbed “not for the faint-hearted” from 12m up, and what’s described as a “heart pounding” Double Barrel option.
• H2Oasis, an 872sq m familyfriendly water park as part of the slide complex.
• A meerkat family to go on permanent display at Paradise Country in June for the winter school holidays.
• A celebration of Movie World’s 30th, dubbed Hooray for Hollywood, with displays of props from classic films plus the theme park’s largestever parade each afternoon of the June-July school holidays.
While reluctant to disclose the exact value of the investment, Village Roadshow Theme Parks chief operating officer Bikash Randhawa said new attractions were critical to the city’s success, short and long-term: “The sector was heavily impacted by COVID-19 so what we are trying to do is drive visitation back to the Gold Coast.
“This is a huge investment and we are confident this is the right step for driving tourism and bringing people back here to support the economy.
“New rides and attractions incentivise the local market but we are also investing in products which will bring more tourists and there is a flow-on impact because it fills up hotels and gets people into restaurants and other small businesses.”
Village’s new attractions are part of a dramatic recent uptick in theme park activity to lure visitors back to the city.
In December 2020, it launched the first stage of the $50m New Atlantis precinct
at Sea World with the Vortex, a Wipeout-like ride. The Leviathan wooden roller coaster and Trident ride which spins people around 42m off the ground are still under construction and expected to open in late 2021.
Village Roadshow has also lodged trademark documents for a hotel it plans to build at Movie World on land occupied by its northern car park.
Ardent Leisure is ramping up its own new attractions, unveiling plans for a $75m hotel at Dreamworld. Dreamworld Resort will include a four-star, 250-room resortstyle hotel, 40 bungalows and a five-star tourist park.
Construction continues on its new Steel Taipan inverted loop rollercoaster.