A month ago I visited Wonderla Bengluru park on a Sunday afternoon. Here are my notes from the visit.
Pros
Park is well built and looks new.
Lots of rides for all ages.
Rides were nice.
Cons
Park looked empty on a Sunday afternoon until I went to the water park area. 70% of the crowd was near the water rides. That area was crowded as it occupied about 20% of the total park area with 70% of the crowd.
Few rides were not operational. Some rides especially for small children had no attendant. I had to call the attendant to operate the ride.
Many of the rides felt like vertigo inducing experience and were similar to each other. I felt the rides were scary than amusing. (and I have been to many amusement parks so I can relate to my earlier experience). this may cause at least some visitors to not return.
Some Wonderla employees (in uniforms) were picketing just outside the park entrance.
Overall, I think there is a demand for a water park as majority of the crowd was in the water rides. this was on a cloudy and not-so-hot Sunday afternoon. I think I paid something like 1150 per head so I am assuming others paid somewhere in that range too. to me it looked like people came for the water park only although there was no separate ticket just for the water park rides.
I have been to other water parks around Mumbai-Pune area and I think the pricing is around 800 to 1200 depending on the season and day of the week. That means wonderla is able to offer an entire amusement park at the price of a water park.
However, I also felt that at present demand exists for water parks which will need a third of the land and presumably will have smaller capital cost to set up. I think a water park close to city (Wonderla bangalore is about 30 km from city center and it takes an hour to 2 to get there) at the same price (800-1200 range) will be a better business model than a bigger amusement park far away from the city. Proximity to city will draw crowds.
Long term there will be a demand for a well managed amusement / theme park but as an investors I would prefer the water parks than amusement parks.