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The problem with wb kids as others have pointed out is that 1) the land as a whole has barely been touched up in 25 years and 2) apart from road runner there’s not much to do for guests who find the kiddie rides boring and the likes of superman and rivals too scary 1. Remove the taxis and JDS 2. Move the maintenance area on the other half of the JDS building to another facility within the park (or build a new shed like at sea world) to free up space for a JDS replacement 3. Replace JDS with a family dark ride. Make it like a looney tunes take on the great movie ride. 4. Re evaluate all the existing rides except Marvin the Martian and road runner, remove the ones at the end of their service lives and replace with similar models. 5. Install a nebulaz as an extra ride to occupy the middle ground between the kiddy rides and everything else. Provides good kinetics at every park that has one. 6. Repaint and touch up all existing buildings, signage, and fixtures. This way you have 3 rides in the land that both kids and parents can enjoy as opposed to just one, with all 3 having a low height requirement. This should be the bare minimum because some families aren’t going to go to Oz or west or scooby. People with young kids spend a lot of time in that land on its own.

Never really been a fan of that driving school, they should at least rebrand it to something Looney Tunes related

Cartoon Network Cartoon Beach, Sesame Street Beach, Beach Break Bay and now Nickelodeon Land. It’s crazy it’s gone through that many in the same time that Kids WB has existed and hasn’t really changed. They did add the carousel and pounce n bounce (which didn’t last long). But I 100% agree that this land needs some love. The lineup of attraction isn’t bad (a part from having double driving attractions), but the whole area just feels tired and could certainly benefit from a full refurb and addition of new rides. Just take a look at Warner Bros. World in Abu Dhabi and their Cartoon Junction land. You could certainly take inspiration from this and transform the entire show building to be to this level. Also look at their ride lineup and the way they are themed for inspiration. https://www.wbworldabudhabi.com/en/explore-the-lands/cartoon-junction

Honestly for a children's area, there's nothing wrong with that, as long as there is some thought put into the models and how they would be themed. There's a real opportunity to spruce up WB Kids. The land itself has remained virtually untouched for around 20 years. Sure Marvin got plonked on an old seating area, and JDS rejigged the traffic a little from how it was with LTRR, but overall the bones of the land haven't been messed with in a long time - in that time Sea World has been through at least two generations of their kids land, and Dreamworld has been through FOUR.

This is what happens when you install a consumer grade solution in a commercial grade environment. Well gee, it must cost them so much money to pay for all those safety managers they've got nothing left to develop a creative solution that preserves the illusion and theme. Let's just wrap every ride in westfield grade blank white hoarding. It seems to me like they realised when demolishing the hut that they needed to run power elsewhere, installed something temporary across Speedy because it was the closest structure to the tree, but then once the arcade was finished, nobody bothered to put it back in what was obviously a less noticeable spot.

Fair enough, I never noticed it back then. It’s definitely much more of an eyesore where it is now.

They used to run from that old delapidated hut that was recently demolished for the arcade construction, evidently there's more running to it now though

You mean Pico Play?

Don’t get me wrong, I still think it’s pretty awful overall and definitely gets in the way. I would much prefer that it wasn’t there. I’m just saying it seems slightly better compared to how it looked in earlier images. Yeah, the cable running to Speedy Taxis has been there for a while now. The tree has had a bunch of electrical equipment in it for years, but has never had any noticeable wires running to it. I’m thinking something’s gone wrong with the underground cabling and the park has done this as a quick/cheap solution.

Some rides had their class rating changed/updated with the new industry guidelines that came through, so things like ride exclusion areas changed. Takes a bit of time to filter through with updates to ride registration as everyone given a hard deadline well (see, years) in advance to make sure they comply with new regulations. Virtually nothing is preventative, only reactionary. So either a forced change like above, a change to the Australian standard or it was picked up during an Audit (either Government or 3rd party) and required change of design. Lots of things may seem like a pointless proposition, but it's entirely based on either a recommendation following an Audit or when requiring replacement (this fencing was terrible for kids standing on the bottom rail, hanging on to the poles and snapping the welds) the safety team found out what the current standards are and the replacement complied. In terms of fencing and railing, they literally control not only height, but spacing between rails, gaps between infill, if anyone can get a foot hold, building types, what it's connected to, obstructions/inclusions in different zones, which side of the fence these exclusion zones are. There are far more regulations around specific distances and openings than you might think. You can literally be audited and given a notice because the spacing between railings is 12cm and the new standard is now 10cm because the old maximum opening distance was deemed not restrictive enough to prevent a person (mainly a child) climbing through and you have to go around and change everything to comply because your existing stuff isn't good enough anymore. It's a lot of work for parks to keep on top of, even with teams of safety managers. It's the primary reason for yearly auditing so you can stay on top of relevant standards and be given a chance to respond with modifications before the government starts handing out fines or (hopefully) before someone is injured or killed and your shortcomings are made public. Sometimes the answer to the question of why? is literally because nobody noticed it before.

The reality is it would likely be an open a Zamperla, Preston and Barbieri or possibly Fabbri catalogue and pick 3 or 4 replacements kind of deal.

Could try contract the same people that did Bluey's World a little while back 🤔

Mermaid Lagoon idea is awesome such an immersive experience for the kids to enjoy, I think all points mentioned are very valid

I went on Saturday and everything looked the same to me, obviously the latest addition was the blue crystal in the que line. But no difference in the turn table/dark ride area

The bonus to the public not really noticing the finer details is that they also don't really understand how long it takes to do this. The entire ride is in a box and progress from the outside is invisible. Unlike a ride SBNO out in full view for 3 years - they don't know what is happening inside. GP perception will see the ride open and their nostalgia will either: lead them to acclaim the upgrade as a massive success, or; lead them to decry that 'they should have left it how it was' - You could reopen the exact same ride and still get those two polar opposite responses. I'm sure most will just be happy it is open again and hopefully they have brushed up the interior theming enough that it looks sparkly* and new and everyone will quickly forget just how long it has been closed. *And by sparkly, if they don't get that skull-head-mirror-ball back i'm going to riot.

Just so this doesn't go by unchallenged, there would be no requirement for it to be black. black is just the cheapest available option. Now do a photo standing at the fenceline like you would if you were mum waiting for the family to come down the drop... I was going to say this was pointed out ages ago, but that was just the cable running to speedy taxis, not all the way to the tree stage. That does look horrible, but for an area of the park that hasn't been greatly touched since opening (only edits around the periphery) there hasn't been an opportunity to run power to the centre for things not previously planned. What WB Kids needs is to be gutted and refreshed. New discussion thread here.

Continuing conversation from this reply i've put down my current thoughts on a WB Kids refresh. What WB Kids needs is to be gutted and refreshed. My ideal first plan would reclaim the other half of the old LTRR soundstage from maintenance - maintenance might need to relocate entirely if they've outgrown their own space. Put in a new kids area into the soundstage building with multiple attractions similar to Mermaid lagoon at disneysea, or USJ's Sesame Street Fun World. It doesn't need to be immersive, just an indoor area out of the sun with some rides and activities for the little kids to blow off some energy. The reason this is the first plan is it provides the opportunity to refresh the rest of the land without dropping the kids offering in the park. Once this is open, move to refreshing the rest of the land: Remove speedy taxis. It serves no purpose with the introduction of JDS Find a new home for the parents room that doesn't occupy prime attraction space and demolish Taz' Rest Stop along with the original Marvin facade to make space for new attractions. You could potentially provide parent's room facilities as part of the new indoor stage space if you planned for it. Consider the longevity of both Sam Train and Tweety Cages and perhaps remove them in place of new attractions If this whole corner of the kids area can be cleared, then also consider (controversial I know) removing the giant tree. It's a gorgeous old tree and it's been there for a long time, but it occupies prime park real estate and is a major blocker to expansion If the tree comes out, tweety, sam train, taz and the old marvin area are removed, you're left with a huge plot of land you can close all at once, which allows greenfield planning for a new install, with the added benefit you can actually run power to the character stage and bury the cables rather than flying them through the trees suspended on wooden poles. Update JDS to bring it current to today's park lineup (remove arkham, add WOZ, for example - and does it have DCR?) Turn the JDS arcade (is that still there with the new kids arcade?) into a JDS themed gift shop to bring more opportunity for merchandising into the land instead of the laneway entrance most people walk straight past. Reopen the restaurant with a new offering and re-establish a covered (umbrellas) seating area for parents to chill while the kids run their energy out. Probably a bit much especially for BGH's current attitude toward the park, but that's what i'd love to see. WB Kids currently offers a disjointed experience. There are 'rides for babies' plus road runner. So the slightly older kids that have outgrown the 'baby rides' but haven't graduated to hypercoasters don't have a lot of middle ground, so there's an opportunity with this level of expansion to provide some 'middle of the road' attractions - a lot like what Sea World offers in their nickelodeon area.

I’m not sure if this is actually new, or I just haven’t noticed it before. But during my visit the other day it seemed like they’d added a few more figures and bits of theming around the (previously blank) interior sections where the coaster enters/exits the building.

That fencing lasted until the early 2010’s, when it was replaced by the first generation of the pool fence. I remember being there in 2009 and staff were constantly yelling at people to stop climbing and sitting on top of it. I believe this is the case. When the original pool fence was installed, the park’s presentation standards were a lot higher and they still showed care for maintaining immersive theming. I doubt the management back then would’ve installed a generic black fence if they weren’t forced to. I’d say WHS required the fence to be in that style and to make it as noticeable as possible to create a “strong visual barrier” around the ride or something like that in order to meet their particular requirements. After seeing the fence in person, while it’s definitely not great, I have to agree that it doesn’t block the facade as much as it seemed like it would in earlier photos. Another less than desirable visual change I noticed during my visit though were these ugly electrical cables that are now being flown through the Loony Tunes area. They extend all the way from a tree next to Marvin the Martian to the big tree near the entrance to the land.

i think quite literally all they need to do for this to be a success is get rid of the screens / projection mapping, replace it with physical theming and refresh all the existing theming, that combined with the smoother ride experience should be a hit. the public love this ride and i think the day scooby reopens will be the busiest day the park has been for a long time, it will be a very busy summer.

I don't think this is going to be received too well by the general public if after almost three years of downtime the net benefit (from a perception point of view) is a couple of extra doors and light theming changes. Most aren't going to notice or care about a new ride system/cars. Hell some think Wipeout moved to Seaworld. I'm looking forward to it reopening regardless; I'm waiting for it before we visit again.

But surely they could have still built a themed fence the same height as this new one or at least paint it brown. I fully understand why village had to make the fence taller, but they could have done it so much better than they have. My only speculation is for some dumb reason the fence has to be that pool style and has to be black to comply with WHS otherwise they just did the cheap crap option.

Think that nail has been very well hit by dapto there

Okok im going to calm down a bit Yes i hate that fencing but that is more a reflection on our stupid country/state than directly movieworld but seeing the new shot of it finished it blocks the sightlines a whole lot less than it looked in that first part way through photo someone posted

All great suggestions. And while i'd love to bash village here and say they just went with the cheapest option to solve the problem, my bet here is that their risk analyst\consultant has probably told them the more thematic options Gazza posted above weren't acceptable because it only reduces the risk but could still be climbed and only 6+foot pool fencing would eliminate the risk, and anything less than total risk elimination simply wasn't an option for them in this current risky averse world.