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Looks like the Dreamworld Express will be under maintenance from 15-19th September. I’m going to assume this will be to complete necessary testing etc before opening the full circuit for the Sep school holidays? Does anyone know is this enough time to test and open the new track section? Also very curious to see if the 3rd station returns (Rivertown) I am hopeful it will. The other two stations had works completed to raise the platform height, however these works have not occurred on the 3rd station as yet, hard to think there’s enough time left to do that before hols which makes me think perhaps the 3rd station won’t return just yet.

Supports and slide pieces are currently being installed for the new slide tower, crane has been on site all week.

I’m a big fan of big brother coming to dreamworld but removing the events space which has held the Happy Halloween event bothers me

Posted to the Big brother Facebook page:

So it is going to be the BB House…?

I'm leaning towards it being BB related. I know you could easily hear Gold Coaster in the exhibition centre - very loud and made the building even shake.

I'm glad they don't. Can you imagine if the corperate overlords made them say the full name everytime they said the name? "Justice League: Alien Invasion 3D presented by Village Roadshow Themeparks" would have gotten older than Benjamin Button alot quicker.

Thanks for the (important!) correction! And agree - great fit.

Small point, but it's the Australian Geographic Society - publishing Australian Geographic magazine. NatGeo is National Geograpic, magazine and Cable TV channel - now (partially) owned by Disney. Similar organisations, easily confused. But it's a good fit for Dreamworld and will probably make it a lot easier for them to build out educational experiences, since Aus Geo has the magazine/Awards and is associated with Northern Pictures so they effectively have a production arm to lean on.

If that is the reason, then it's stupid, and i'm siding with Dean Barnett. Seatbelts have been mandatory in Australia since 1972 so people shouldn't be having too many difficulties with them. Operators check seatbelts prior to dispatch, so an unsecured seatbelt would be identified, and the train quickly reset, and restraints re-checked. The amount of time this takes, on the rare occasion that someone is incapable of operating a seatbelt would be far less than the additional time it adds to every dispatch for an operator to do it up for each and every rider. Then again airlines still have to show people how to operate seatbelts, so maybe there are too many lowest common denominators at our parks these days.

The main reason why this is the case, is actually due to the seatbelts locking pin. If a guest puts the clasp in incorrectly, doesn't fully latch and then removes it, the locking pin was potentially triggered and pushed up into place. That means that the clasp can't get past it, and lock into place. Only way to resolve that, is to reset, and start the process again.

I think the logic is that if a fault could befall one method of locking - if both methods are the same, the fault could theoretically befall both at the same time, whereas different methods can't fail in the same way so the likelihood that one cause could trigger both to fail is far less likely, even though the likelihood of either occurring is infinitesimally small. ie: if both hydraulic locking cylinders have a manufacturing defect, theoretically both cylinders could fail at the same time. Further - it's not technically possible to detect that one cylinder has failed during normal operation - so an operator wouldn't know one had failed until the other failed too. This is the main reason why we have coasters where they tell you not to do up your seatbelt, so the operator can perform a push-pull test on the cylinder before attaching the SRS seatbelt.

SafeWork SA have had bans overturned in the past. I'm starting to think not only do they have to be independent but they have to be different types of locking mechanism.

From what I have heard it's because the KMG rides do not have a seatbelt / secondary locking mechanism. Which the ride actually does as each of the 2 hydraulic systems for the harnesses are 100% independent of each other. SA is the only state where this rule applies. It's a real shame as SA misses out on some great rides that are 100% safe.

I agree you can't replace the in-person handlers - especially when they get mauled by a wild animal. I think the handler interactions, and especially the presentations, with leaps off high structures, climbing a pole, launching into water, drinking from a milk carton - all were spectacular to watch. And while the guff in the script talks about mimicking natural behaviours, in the wild, their natural behaviours would see those handlers killed. I am disappointed that they have ended the handler interactions, but in our risk elimination focussed world, there really isn't another option.

The island was more than the show. The handlers on the island all day, interacting with the tigers and guest, can never be replaced by looking at tigers through a window.

I agree @DaptoFunlandGuy, DW is starting to get some good foot traffic through the park now, it would be a shame if DW were purposefully closing an experience.

I don't know if every sign has been replaced yet because the image I posted was from the school across the road who were invited for the opening. When DW first opened, every ride had a sponsorship.

I mean series one housemates could see and hear the tower of terror. I get that it's not ideal but deliberately shutting down a very visible coaster for the sake of filming the show is very poor form. The ride is old however - it's entirely plausible that they've got a major maintenance issue to deal with and all that is just a coincidence... at least I hope so. They've been making a lot of good decisions recently so I'd hate for them to be taking such a backwards step.

Gold Coaster was supposed to reopen next week, so either something has gone majorly wrong or the rumours that Big Brother will be on the expansion area behind WWW are true. BB is returning in November and will air for 4-6 weeks, having a loud coaster operating next to the show wouldn’t be ideal, so it’s reopening aligns with that. They have also fenced off the entire back corner of the park after Tailspin, which is allowing them to do some work inside the Entertainment Centre.

I assume NatGeo is in sponsorship for the exhibits. its a good partnership and makes sense. Might even contribute a little more to the park's bottom line and opex. TBH i'm surprised more attractions don't carry sponsorship - many overseas parks do. "Presented by Pepsi" and so on.

Pretty sure that is all it is for now. There hasn’t been significant downtime of any of the enclosures etc to enable any large scale changes, nor is it really needed.

What is that even supposed to mean? The enclosures have become much better for the tigers, and visually pleasing for guests in the static way they’ll be seen 95% of the time. They just don’t do the same interactive shows there, which was always going to happen.

Let’s hope they finally fixed the waterfall above the crocs and in the cassowary enclosure to coincide with this launch… although I’m not expecting it. I also saw pictures of new glass/perspex viewing windows being installed between the cassowary and Roos enclosure, are these works complete and do we know what animal this was for? Very keen to see if this is just a reopening of the theatre, and a few signs rebranded or if a little more effort has been put in…