Gumbuya World Theme Park — Local services in Melbourne

Curriculum Day in May My 5 y/o daughter had a curriculum day late May so I decided to take the day off and was initially going to take her to Luna Park which I discovered was closed on the Friday in question. After already verbalising this plan to her I quickly looked for alternatives. Gumbya Park was somewhere I visited as a kid in the 80’s and it looked as if it had been kept up to date so opted for that. Only to realise when punching it into gps it was over an hour from town. My girl is tall and adventurous so I checked which rides she would be allowed on and it looked like there was a coaster - the miner’s coaster that she could go on but knew she would want to go on the bigger ones which she is just too short for, which from website appeared to be closed on weekdays anyway. It was a drizzly ol Melbourne day but we made the trek anyway. Traffic was brutal but she dealt with it like a champ and was excited. Upon arriving, the loops of slides and roller-coasters built the excitement and the very empty carpark gave me a sense of possibility yet also fear. The rain cleared and for a moment the sun beat down on our jubilant faces. $72.78 later and we were both in just after 11am. June was just shy of 120cms. As I’d gleaned from the website, the wildlife stuff was open early with rides available from midday. The wildlife walk was actually really wonderful and the grounds / enclosures were well appointed and welcoming. We met some cuddly koalas, fed the roos and patted a quokka. June was enjoying it but keen for the rides. At 12:05 we were done with wildlife and ready for rides. The water-park section was obvs closed but we remained optimistic about the theme park ride element. We were the only family that moved from the wildlife section to the ride section and I suspect the other families present were locals with annual passes. Two friendly staff met us near the kiddie rides and informed us that we could go on anything in the small shed and a couple of the rides close nearby. The miner coaster was not mentioned. The rides in the shed were very ‘twee’ for an adventurous 5 y/o and I could feel the light dying in her eyes. She began to clam up after the spinning car and on the very tame tea-cup esque Berrie ride. We visited the playground near the cafe which was little more than a community playground and walked the grounds looking at the closed amusements. It was at this point I realised the day was an unmitigated disaster. We stood next to the miner coaster and June expressed how fun it looked. I checked in with the friendly staff who advised that the wet weather meant that the miner coaster ‘couldn’t get up the hill’ and seeing the disappointment managed to convince her to go on the dodgem cars. Her smile was forced as the ride came to an end. As the rain started to come down we headed for the exit and she began to cry. I held her an apologised as I hurried her back to the car for the hour 20 back to Northcote. She sobbed and repeated ‘it wasn’t fun, I thought it...

We recently visited Gumbuya World with family visiting from New Zealand, including young children. We thought a day at the park would be perfect — the website clearly stated that both the rides and wildlife park were open, and the freeway sign even confirmed that the waterpark was open too.

After parking, we entered through the Bush Shop (as the main ticket booths were closed) and started our day in the wildlife park, which was lovely. We then made our way over to the rides area, only to find it completely deserted. Confused, we eventually found a staff member who told us that the rides had closed at 2 pm. This was news to us — and information that really should have been made clear when we purchased our tickets.

We went back to the Bush Shop and were told to speak with the duty manager, Jemma, at customer service. Unfortunately, the interaction was disappointing. Jemma explained that the rides were only open for a school group that day — which completely contradicted the freeway sign and the website stating they were open. When we pointed this out, she said she “had no control over the sign,” and that if we had gone through the online ticket checkout, we would have seen more details. However, we bought our tickets in person, based on the same website information.

She also mentioned there were digital displays showing ride hours, but these are located at the closed ticket booths — not the Bush Shop where we entered — so we had no way of seeing them. With four kids in tow, we certainly wouldn’t have known to go hunting for signs outside a closed area.

To top it off, Jemma said we had paid a “discounted” rate ($55 instead of $67), something we were never informed of, and refused to offer any meaningful solution other than booking a return visit on the spot, which we couldn’t do due to other family plans.

To make matters worse, when we returned to the car park we realised one of the kids had left a drink bottle inside the office. When we went back in to retrieve it, it was clear the staff were laughing at the situation — which, after the disappointing day we’d just had, felt really unprofessional and disrespectful.

Overall, the lack of clear communication, contradictory information, and poor attitude from staff and management left us really disappointed — especially after paying full admission and trying to show our visiting family a great day out. We left with upset kids and a sour taste about what could have been an...

Utterly overrated. For the cost of entry, you're entering into a seething mass of bodies as they clearly cram as many people in as possible - to hell with the actual experience.

The water park is a stew of people, the heated pools churning with kids and adults.

The lazy river is great but has this stupid system where you queue on one side of it to pick up an inflatable ring, then have to walk back across the water park - going over a narrow bridge which is busy with people going the opposite way to pick up rings, back to the entry point on the complete other side. You could quite easily start the river where the others exit - whoever came up with this layout...sheesh.

Also enjoy how this mass of inflatable wielding folk is then led through the two small heated pools full of people, ensuring it's a constant high traffic area.

The kids water park tower has this awesome design where people are packed in, queuing for the two shorter waterslides at the top, while this bar of 8 or so water jets which can be turned on/off by kids, is aimed directly at the line, beaming them with freezing cold water.

Between this and massive lines for basically every ride or slide - the cost is a kick in the face. If you paid the $1-200 extra for a private seating area, lol - you'd feel like you'd actually been robbed.

The entry to the place was also a disaster. After queuing in the car to get into the carpark from the M1 - you're then queuing to get into the place as there's no facility for all of the people, these random lines with no signage where they're first checking bags, then 3 haphazard lines to get a ticket to enter where everyones confused as nothing is clear.

It's just amateur hour. If you've been to the Queensland parks - they're busy but never feel overcroweded like this, and actually have the facilities to take care of it.

I didnt mention the human swamp that is the changing rooms - where the floor is soaked with mud and gunk, is slippery as hell - people trying to buy or unlock lockers - the franticness in there was next level.

The place would have been fine had half the number they allow in been allowed in. Given the premium cost of the tickets, this is how they should be operating.

If you love being in a human soup for a day, you'll love Gumbuya.

2 stars as the lazy river is actually fantastic - ignoring the terrible design of the system to actually get onto it.

My...