Wet’n’Wild Sydney

It was a great day!
Yes, I know I’m rating it a 3 stars, which is positive, but only kinda okay-​ish. Let me explain.
While my friends and I ultimately had a great time, it really was due a lot to circumstance. Add to that the fact that we’d read a lot of reviews (mostly negative), so we came with relatively low expectations.
We had purchased discounted tickets on Groupon for $ 50 (it went for as low as $ 42), down from the original $ 80. We came late in the season, on April 11^th — the second-​to-​the-​last weekend. It was cloudy and gray during the morning, no doubt turning off a lot of people from going to the park, but it actually did not rain, and it cleared up around noontime.
Because of that, we had the double whammy of not paying as high a fee, to be in a park with a fewer number of people, hence getting way more use out of the facilities! Yay!
THE SLIDES
There are four slide towers, not counting the kids’ section. All the towers were open, with the exception of a few slides that were not open. These turned out to be the more extreme slides, like the Bombora and Half Pipe. The lines were really short. Sometimes, we didn’t have to wait at all. Maximum wait would be maybe 5 minutes? Not long at all. The slides were fun, with some slides being more exciting than others, heh. For two towers, the slides were for groups of 2 – 4. One of the towers had slides only for 2 people. And only one of the towers had slides where you could go solo. So you really have to come here as a group.
OTHER FUN STUFF
There was a SkyCoaster, where you’re strapped into a harness, lifted 75m up into the air and released into a free fall. WE DID IT!!! I wasn’t planning to, but they were doing discounts more than 50% off, so we figured, what the heck. Hehe.
We didn’t go into the wave pool. We went into this «lazy river» pool. It was a little short for me. The kids’ section was really cool, though, with status of Spongebob & friends and the Ninja Turtles in it.
I like the wristband, which you can take home. Unfortunately it doesn’t come in a lot of sizes, and it was really awkward for my friend who was in between sizes. They program the locker «lock» in it, and if you want a photo, you put the photo against a machine, the camera goes off when you’re on the slide, and you can pick up the pictures later by scanning your wristband. We wanted photos, but the photos were way too expensive.
An added plus: awesome exercise climbing the steps to get to the tops of the tower! Haha!
LOCKERS AND SHOWER FACILITIES
My friends and I (3 people total) were able to share a large locker. The shower facilities are kinda lacking, though. In one of the shower areas, there were only three shower heads in an open area, so you can’t rely on taking a shower if you’re shy about stripping in front of strangers. :P The water was nice and hot, though.
PARKING
Parking was $ 8. We didn’t think it was too bad. That’s so much cheaper than parking in Sydney!
FOOD
There are signs saying you can’t bring in food, but we saw a lot of people bringing in food and drinks, and while their bags were inspected, nothing seemed to be confiscated? Weird. The food they sell inside is blah, though. It’s typical fish and chips, burgers, hotdogs, that kind of thing. I think a grilled chicken Caesar salad was the healthiest thing I saw on the menu. I had pizza. It was meh (it was doughy and bland), but the garlic bread it came with was tasty.
CAVEAT
While we had a fun time, we could definitely see how chaotic it could be during peak season. There was a huge parking lot and it was empty… my friends and I could tell that if we had paid the full $ 80, then had to deal with large crowds so that we could barely go on the slides, we’d be annoyed, too. As it was, it turned out to be a pretty good day. :)

The place is well build and the rides are okay (not outstanding, but okay). Aside from the ticket cost, the biggest downer is the lack of top-​of-​tower staff. All the rides require a staff member to send you on your way, for perfectly acceptable safety reasons. Typically at the top of a tower there are 4 or 5 separate rides to dispatch. But Wet’n’Wild seems dreadfully short-​staffed of these staff. So instead of, say, sending someone down a ride every 2 minutes, it blows out to 6 or 8 minutes as the poor staff person runs around trying to keep each ride going. And it’s not a problem of staffing overall — there are plenty of staff wandering around the grounds, and they are helpful too. But the management really needs to sort out where the staff are allocated. Queue times are blowing out to 45 – 60 minutes, when they could be down to 10 – 15.

One of the great water parks of Australia. I would say that the rides do take up around 15 minutes to wait in a queue for just about 1 minute of fun. However they are really fun and on a hot day it would be perfect. However the big let down is the price. At $ 79.99 during the summer months, it’s very pricey. And when it gets to around March, then the price drops to $ 50. Still pretty expensive. Overall an enjoyable experience.

Went end of season — $ 50 a ticket — almost no queues — only drawback is it was cold and a wetsuit is needed but worth it to avoid the crowds

This place is actually a lot of fun, barring a few issues, mainly cost.
Protip: If you’ve never been before, you can sign up for the first time online so you can get by the $ 80 fare and pay $ 50 instead.
$ 50 is way more reasonable so we went with that. If you do this, make sure to upload a photo of yourself so that you don’t have to queue up to take one when you pickup your ticket.
They really go for your wallet here though… on top of paying for parking ($ 7,) you’ll need to pay for a locker ($ 10.) That’s not all! This place is pretty big and has a lot going on; there are essentially 4 towers with rides, and for $ 20 more you can purchase a fast pass to skip the queue to ride one ride at each tower (4 rides total) While the fast pass isn’t essential, you may consider it because the queues are straight RIDICULOUS.
Come early to make sure you ride a ride on each tower more than once, because you can expect to wait 15 – 45 minutes per ride, and each ride lasts less than 1 minute.
The wave pool was OK, so was the lazy river… though the lazy river is a lot shorter than I expected it to be.
The bungy swing is $ 90 or something crazy for up to 3 people, you may as well do a real bungy jump for that price.

Wet is for what could happen if you reach the end of the queue and wild refers to the way bureaucracy has gone.
You are greeted by a super cheery helper at the front gate, unfortunately it is all old school carnies from there on. Immediately after your bags are searched, not for guns or drugs but for food which would limit W&Ws ability to rip you off with there over priced junk food.
I mistakenly took kids who by nature were at odds for the day with the guardians of the sacred yet illogical rules known as the fun police.
The most fun we had was observing the life guard who enthusiastically uses his whistle to protect patrons from the dangers of jumping and splashing, a job that distracted him from calculating launch trajectories and figuring out a cure for Ebola. What I cannot understand is how beach going and pool owning Australians have survived without a whistle man.
The rides that have sub hour long queues are closed or cost extra and if you need first aid expect to be triaged by a security guard who is running interference for the fact that the first aid crew are at lunch.
Never again

Absolutely fabulous for the grandkids. Billed as the largest water park in the world — I believe it.
It’s set up for all ages and all levels of water slide interests. Our grandkids, ages 7,3, and 1, all found water activities and slides that were right for them (of course not going alone on many of them). The teenager/​adult slides had the long lines. For the small kids the lines were very tolerable on a nice hot Sunday.
The park is spread out over quite a few acres. We rented a cabana and had our own shaded little «home» for the day. That beat the heck out of claiming a few chairs and trying to create your own space. The cabanas were set back far enough to really allow privacy and a play area in front of each.
The quality of the food is what you’d expect, or less. We were able to bring in food for the smaller kids, but they’re pretty tight about what can be brought it. Plenty of souvenirs to buy.
Bring something for your feet. The surfaces get burning hot if you try to go anywhere barefooted.

Now the park has been open for a while you’d think they’d have things sorted out, but no. Still problems with the slides needing to be shut down and the day I was there, only one queue was allowed for everything so on average we got one slide per hour. For the price of admission, not good enough, along with expensive food — and then extra for a locker, extra for some of the rides, extra for a cabana — the people who’ve got it best there are the toddlers because they’ve got a great set-​up. Wouldn’t go back, or recommend it.

If Cronulla, Penrith panthers and Punchbowl train station had a baby, it would be wet n wild Sydney.
Steroid junkies with jesus tattoos (nailed hands on the shoulders or rosemary beads) make it clear where you are. Toothless loud banchees press up against you in the hot sun with their cottage cheese legs screaming/​moaning about low IQ shit. While teenagers and annoying overweight children dramatise to you in unwelcome conversation how ‘worth it’ it is to line up for 1 hour for under 30 seconds of thrill.
Don’t bring healthy food people, they want you to buy their over priced junk food. Shitty uncooked chips and and fake grilled chicken burgers. A 450ml $ 4.50 water… Maybe these prices are expected for a theme park, but for a summer park having no bubblers and over 50% kids, I think thats quite petty.
It’s the biggest park they advertise, and I guess if you like walking long distances, they are right. This place keeps changing the rules to satisfy themselves, budget, not sure, just not surprised for them tomorrow to make a change that will disadvantage customers even more. They decrease hours depending on the crowds, add a new VIP pass ($ 50) which tricked Gold season pass buyers because they were promised premium access and weekday access till end of summer (while gold access or VIP is sold out to too many people, just changed to open on weekends, varied closing hours, no guarantee entry).
What pisses me off is after trying my luck on 6 diff. occasions, I can only ride up to 5 rides from 10am till 4pm because there is just too many people. And when there’s low amount of people, they employ less staff, rides tend to break down more (close down) and they turn off the wave pool to punish us for not making a overwhelming profit? What about reputation?
If they keep damaging their customers, I don’t see locals or tourists coming back. I guarantee regardless of your wealth status, you will feel ripped off walking out.

Great water park, ruined by the pricing.
The park itself was amazing — reasonable queues and loads of really sweet different types of slides… Including some slides with loops in! (The loops are at about 45º to vertical, but still they’re water slides WITH LOOPS IN!) If cost is not an issue I would thoroughly recommend a visit and would have given a 5* review, no questions asked.
Unfortunately though after paying $ 70 (AUD) to get in… They then ask for another $ 10 (non-​refundable) for a locker… Take some food with you, unless you want to pay $ 20 for a McDonalds standard burger! (the chips were OK though). In addition to this, the surf simulator, which does look good, isn’t included in the ticket price! They’ve also got on ride photos — which follow typical theme park pricing (i.e. extortion)… Naturally I didn’t buy any of these!
They do provide a free transfer bus from Parramatta to the Park which was good. Not only was this my only option, but I’m pretty sure they charge for parking as well!
SEASON DEALS — they seemed to do a number of good season deals… I think the cheapest season ticket was under $ 100 and there were various options that included unlimited parking (and maybe lockers) for not much more and they do a deal where you can get all your on ride photos for a season for $ 25 (digital copies). So I guess if you’re a local who is likely to visit a few times a year — they do some good deals. It’s a shame there are no good deals for single day visitors.