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It all makes sense now! The opening date was only for staff. It probably wont open to the GP until February or something.

Umm I think you are forgetting about the massive unused Big Brother Amphitheatre.

Earth works are starting to indicate the lazy river's layout.

I had the opportunity to visit Efteling earlier this year. https://www.parkz.com.au/parks/NL/Kaatsheuvel/Efteling/ (If the gallery is giving you grief, you can just work through sequentially from here https://www.parkz.com.au/photo/17882-Efteling/gallery/sort/newest/location/park-147-Efteling/offset/0 using the left and right arrows ) It's located about 80km south of Amsterdam, though I stayed at a B&B in Tilburg, 10km south, and got a bus there from Tilburg station (Which run quite frequently) I also elected to get a ‘Ticket Extra’, for 10 EUR extra, which gets you in 30 min earlier, plus a meal in the park, which seemed like good value, and quick way to sneak in a couple of attractions. The park is impressive, immaculately landscaped, and very spread out, with a lot of pathways to cover. I’ll let the pictures do the talking. The first ride I did was Spookslot, which is essentially an animatronic show, where you stand looking at an old castle, and various peppers ghost/ lighting / animatronic effects are triggered as the dead come to life. My favourite part was when the ground starts rumbling and moving under the tombstones. The other early opening ride worth doing is Vogel Rok, which is probably the most family friendly coaster in the park (Actually, the lack of a “kiddy coaster” at Efteling is quite suprising, but in general shies away from mini kiddy flats) The coaster was mostly in the dark, and “fun”, if not that memorable (since it spent a lot of time just doing endless helixes one way then the other, but there were a few cool laser effects and onboard music. At the start of the ride you see a giant egg, then as the ride progresses you see large mythical birds suspended around the track, culminating in passing through the mouth of one. With the walking time, that was the 30 min headstart consumed, so I just beat the masses to Baron 1898 , the parks dive machine coaster. This was great, with an amazing level of theming, and entertaining pre-shows (thankfully captioned). The whole ride has this perfect Victorian era vibe about it, and doesn’t try to go down the typical grimy/rusty mine theme. When you leave the station you stop in a sort of pre lift room, where some female ghosts sing a beautiful song telling you that you are all doomed, then it’s up the lift, pause for a second, then down the vertical drop. From there is a couple of inversions, a helix, hump and brakes. It’s not the strongest coaster out there, fun and re-rideable, but really it’s the theming that holds this experience up. No queue meant I was able to get a front and a back row ride in, via single rider. Check out the parks 360 pov, really captures the feel of the ride well I spent the next half hour getting a lap on each side of Joris en de Draak. Best coaster in the park! This one is mostly a racing coaster, with tracks running in the same direction most of the time, save for a couple of turns where they go for a “head on” near miss. GCIs racers are their strong suit, and this is no exception, it just belts along, has heaps of little moments of airtime, and really good interaction between the tracks. In particular, there is a section where the tracks intertwine (like the Kraken Racer at Funfields) so you are constantly going over and under each other, culminating in passing a big dragon animatronic. When you reach the end, there is a banner hanging from a pole that spins to point at the winning train, and then when you arrive at the station, banners drop from the roof to “congratulate” the winners. I got a front row one on one side, and a back row go on the other before moving on. Also worth mentioning is the super catchy soundtrack: Next up I headed to the nearby Vliegende Hollander , a water coaster from the same guys that brought us the Sea Viper and Arkham trains. Like Baron, this one has amazing queue and dark ride theming, but a bit of a meh coaster experience. This one works well, you go into a building, and inside slip through a rip in a painting on the wall to find a hidden passage, this leads to a dock, where you board your boat. As you leave the dock you pass through the harbour gates, into foggy darkness, with howling winds, squawking sea birds, with only a lantern on your boat lighting the way. It’s atmospheric AF, and one of the best examples of setting the scene that ive seen on a ride. Suddnely, hell breaks loose, and explosions go off around the boat, rain pours around you, and then the ghost of the flying Dutchman is coming towards you. Then There’s a small drop into the broken hull of the ship, and you start heading up the lift hill. As you reach the top, a booming voice shouts something, then the doors open and you go down the main curving drop. From there is a couple of turns and hills, and finally the splashdown. The boat slowly drifts back towards the building and you disembark. Going by the time stamps of my photos, I think the next thing I did was Bob, which still took a little while, despite using single rider. It’s an Intamin bobsled, so compared to the Mack ones, they feel a bit more out of control, but they do bash around a bit more, so I’m ambivalent towards them. This one is due to close next year, to be replaced by a racing family coaster. No need to ride Pirana, you could see the whole layout and nothing really took me… Moving across the park, I took the scenic route through the Sprookjesbros which is a huge fairly tale village full of dioramas, and the original part of the park, but with a bit of modern magic, so none of this going on. I would have liked to have had a proper look through this bit, but given time constraints, I moved through fairly quickly. Kicking myself that I missed the Indian Water Lilies display. At this point, I grabbed a fastpass thingy for a seat at Raveleijn, before joining the 30 minute, but constantly moving queue for Droomvlutch. This is a suspended dark ride, with cars that can rotates, so I guess similar to ET, sans bikes. This one was a series of fantasy themed scenes (hence the name dream flight), like ET, there was a scene where you fly over a diorama, there were lots of scenes with trolls and faries in the forest, many of which you pass over at high level. I thought the coolest one was this long spiralling helix towards the end of the ride, where you face inwards and circulated around a giant tree and waterfall, picking up speed, with various creatures at different levels. There was also a cool fibre optic tunnel with lots of stars too. Next up was Villa Volta. I love these so much It’s a mad house in a somewhat unassuming building. No translation available for this one, the preshow was an animatronic of leathery old man rabbiting on. Eventually you proceed to the main ride, a room that revolves around you, with various other props on the wall (vases, mirrors etc) that tilt with the room to really make the effect convincing. Add the rousing sound track, and it’s a close tie between this and Hex at Alton for the best mad house ride. I had a bit of time to spare before Raveleijn, so I checked out the Efteling Museum and the Diorama, and enjoyed the ambience of Anton Pieck Plein. Raveleijn is a large arena show. The story is that some kids are out hiking, and discover a hidden city, when they enter, they are magically transformed into horseback heroes, and are called upon to fight an evil guy who has taken over the city. There were some pretty cool effects, such as characters appearing/disappearing underwater from a pond in the middle of the arena. There were trained ravens (?), plenty of horse stunt riding, and a final battle with this mechanised fire breathing 5 headed dragon. Fortunately, headsets are available with English dubbing, or else I would have been quite lost. Perhaps my only criticisim is that the set is set up weirdly, with a narrow bit of space at the front, and big bulky pieces right in the middle, so it felt cramped. I CBF typing all the characters names, so have a look here if you want to know more https://www.efteling.com/en/kids/profiles/raveleijn After the show, I went on Pagode, the observation tower, or rather the flying island. This is a platform on a huge arm that gets lifted up, for a view over the park. It’s open air too, so no filthy glass blocking your shots. The park is quite spread out though with a lot of trees, and it was still April, so a bit of moisture in the atmosphere, so net result is the aerial pics seem like they don’t show much. Right, time to finally get on the newest ride, Symbolica, which conveniently has a single rider queue, reducing the impetus to get here early. The only downside to this is that the ride has three story options to choose from, and as a single rider, you don’t get to pick. Not to worry, on my two rides, I got 2 different ones, which was good enough for me. The preshow is fun, with the kings assistant reading a long list of rules, and then the jester magically revealing the passage to the ride. Im not sure what to make of this one, like Droomvlutch, its an exercise in just looking at pretty stuff basically. You pass through various rooms in the palace, with whimsical things coming to life. The coolest scene IMO was the garden greenhouse, when all of a sudden a whale is swimming around outside, and the glass cracks and water pours in. The final scene of the ride puts the trackless system to good use, with three cars dancing around each other in the banquet hall. So overall, it’s superbly themed, but perhaps was anti climatic compared to your Disney dark rides. Next was the last remaining coaster, Python. This one operates with a time booking system, which I had missed earlier in the day, so I had to wait till later in the afternoon till they open it for general riders. It has a single rider line too. It was a fun coaster, it has recently had its track replaced, and has the new gen Vekoma trains, so nothing to complain about. It’s still pretty basic in terms of layout…two loops, two corkscrews and a helix. There were still a couple of dark rides to go, so I did Fata Morgana, this one is like Pirates of the Carribean, if it were Arabian, so lots of wax animatronics and basic movement, through different stereotypical scenes. The other dark ride was Carnaval (sic) Festival, which a knock off of it’s a small world, but with haunted mansion style 3 seater buggies that move continuously and can rotate. Aimed at kids! It contained hillarous stereotypes, but despite going around the world, they missed Australia. I’d wanted to go another re-ride on Joris en de Draak, but the ride had closed early compared to the rest due to a private party, which annoyed me a bit to be honest, especially since the ride only opened with one train first thing. So with my last bit of time in the park, I did a re-ride on Symbolica and Baron 1898, then intentionally took the scenic route back to the entrance through Volk von Laaf and Sprookjesbros. Everything was off, but there was ample opportunity to take photos. So that’s Efteling! I think it’s one of the best parks I have visited, combining great theming, great rides, and a really pleasant setting . The food was nice, the ambience and music were nice too, and it was great to see how they have preserved classic attractions. Originally I was going to give myself 2 days, and if you did things at a slightly slower pace, you could definitely fill out two days. As it was, I didn’t see any indoor shows at the theatre, or have a sit down meal, and I could have spent longer seeing sprookjesbros. The World of Color style fountain show was closed for maintenance too. But, as circumstances ended up, I’d done everything I wanted to, and there is no discounted two day pass, and I wasn’t sure about paying another days ticket for essentially re-rides, so I elected leave it at that, and go to the Hague the next day instead, and schedule extra time to explore there / see a couple of smaller parks down that way. ************* After Efteling, I noticed that it wasn’t going to be too far (25km0 to jump on a train and bus that evening to check out Baarle Hertog. https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4413687,4.9335558,13.58z https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baarle-Hertog This is basically a holdover from medieval times, where there is a complex patchwork of Dutch and Belgian territory within the town, including a part where there is an island of Belgian territory, and then a pocket of dutch territory within that. Houses and shops have international borders running through them. Does this truly count as visiting another country?

This has been going around for years. Disregard. Also that town in Queensland isn't banning Christmas, and if you forward this email to 20 friends you won't have good luck.

Ardent, DW and this topic remind me of this Fawlty Towers scene, which I've reworded below:

Was going through some old video tapes i found in at my parents place. came across some footage from a family trip to Dreamworld in 1993. Includes some footage of the village green, enchanted forest railway, Dreamworld Railway, Captain Stuart river boat and the sky way. I put timestamps in to description to jump to each section. The capture wasn't great so jumps around a little but its fascinating to see how different the park was back then. https://www.youtube.com/embed/WAe53mIl3Wc I have some footage from Wet n wild, movie world and sea world as well but not alot. Let us know if anyone is interested.

I still thought this tooic was a funny read and I found movie worlds responses interesting. @Jdude95 as random this topic is. I'd rather people post something if THEY think it might be interesting for others than not posting anything.

^But isn’t that what the Dreamworld Stage for the old Big Brother shows are for? But what makes me question all about this is why build a new one if they got one it’s sitting there at the moment which I’m pretty sure is still in good condition? And out of all of the locations, why there? with TOT going off very so often (when it actually operates) it’s going to be pain having a show on when the ride is going off if the building isn’t enclosed that is

Photos indicating parts of the ride experience being added to the external wall near Green Bean Coffee. Sorry, photos might not be very clear in attachment! Maybe a better shot here. or here!

History has shown that once a new ride is open, what we see is what we get. Some examples where the Show/Theme has been scaled back / below expectations from original plans on our more themed rides. - WWF. Version 1 and then worse, Version 2. - Justice League. - Superman - Storm. I hope for some minor technical adjustments to the existing show such as lighting but doubt Projection screens/so called mapping animation would be changed from what is already there. Are the colourful Lasers as per the Ad now working in the main room? Also a good amount of fog juice in that area would do wonders. @djrappa pointed out pink fog in the marketing image. Adding fog/mefog or steam to some parts of the dark ride section could also be a simple way to diffuse the lameness of some of those effects, effectively blurring the sightlines and adding atmosphere.

Been told by a ride operator that the ride isn’t finished, and they were quite far behind on the schedule. They’ve reopened because of the Christmas period, but it will close again next year for maintenance to finish it off

Don't mention the war!

It's so vague and poorly written, it's clearly BS

All good @-nick.white.1543. No need to apologise. Ohh and Merry Christmas everyone.

Maybe they have just set it up as overflow for the summer crowds.

Yeah, I highly doubt this story

Any link to a guinine news story on this? Not then my 🐮 💩 meter is running high here.

New road paving through Main Street is looking good👍

Part of the train shed has been domolished. Also “Dreamworld Carpark 2” (behind big brother) has had orange flags with starpickets put in to create rows of parking. Probaly 10/12 rows. Bright orange flags go from the general carpark, through the side of the park around amphitheatre to the 2nd carpark. They have gone to great extent to re do the carpark for something?

Perhaps for performances?

You can see the lights in the queue, the stairs that lead up to the second level and the intergration of the ride's external facade to the coffee shop.

As long as when it does open it's safe, and finished so the first riders don't go away disappointed! (That would be a very foolish move!)

On the other side too. Regarding opening, I heard still a few weeks.

The nice clean lake at Dreamworld today!

Warner Bros. Classics & The Great Gremlins Adventure closed in mid-2001 & Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster opened on June 17 2002. So Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster's installation took no longer than about a year. This photo shows that theming and track installation were happening roughly around the same time however it's fair to say the track was installed before theming was added. This photo shows track installation took no longer than 4 months (February to June 2002) while this photo and this photo show the 'Spooky Castle' exterior theming alone took no more than a month and a half (Early April to late May 2002). All this should give an idea of how long it took to create/install the overall theming, though the duration depends on how many people were helping install the ride. General Comment Whilst I understand people's disappointment due to their exaggerated marketing, I'm amazed that so many theme park enthusiasts thought the ride would be completely new from start to finish when firstly, the exterior 'Spooky Castle' theming remained (that should imply the queue would be similar & the ghost train section would be fairly similar. After all, it is based on the movie - there were some parts of the ghost train they could add (such 'The Dinner Show') but most of the ghost train section from the movie was already there so there would be minimum change) and secondly, the trains were the same (they were in the new TV commercials too), which meant the ghost train section would be there, which I just detailed. Otherwise, why have 'Spooky Castle' and the same trains if they weren't going to travel through the ghost train section of the original ride? They were never going to stray from the movie's 'Spooky Castle' plot device (not to mention a fully-projection mapped ride would look unconvincing after a while) and I tried warning fellow forum members of this 2 years ago: It would be very difficult to do a Scooby Doo re-theme - it has to be based around Spooky Castle as that is the entrance to the ride and the carriages are the same as Spooky Castle's carriages. Unless MW changes the carriages (or re-themes them - I don't know how easy that is), it has to be themed to Spooky Castle. So naturally, it would be the mostly-the-same 'ghost train' section with a few technical changes - mostly the touted projection mapping, which so far it is not and if it is, not applied well. Those technical changes though I'm waiting until they finish 'technical rehearsals' before making a final opinion on them. But one change that can be deemed 'finished' (in a way) is a change in narrative. The original ride's narrative was just trying to escape monsters inside the 'Spooky Castle' ghost train. You then try to find a scared Scooby-Doo who has escaped up into a disco up on ground level in the 'Spooky Island' theme park. After you escaped the 'ghost train' though and found Scooby-Doo, you 'fall' back into the 'Spooky Castle' ghost train but quickly find a safe way out to go back into the 'Spooky Island' theme park. My theory (due to technical rehearsals still ongoing) on the narrative of the new edition is below:

But what is window dressing, and what is real make-a-difference infrastructure? You talk about the redevelopment of the ice cream shop a few years ago. A few weeks back I talked about looking at buildings that were falling apart and I wondered how much was held together by paint. The building I was specifically referring to was THE ICE CREAM SHOP. As the saying goes, you can't polish a turd, but you can add glitter - and it would seem that that is precisely the kind of redevelopment they did with the ice cream shop if a few short years later the building looks as it does (go and view it from the train station and you'll see what i mean). They removed thunder river - It killed people. They removed Eureka Mountain - it sat rotting for more than a decade They removed the rest of gold rush - without TRRR and EMMR, what exactly was left? - Oh wait - the disused Skylink chairlift station that also sat rotting for a decade. You suggest they might have plans to remove rides - but history suggests that they need to shutter the ride and let it sit for 8 or more years before they do. How many years did the gravitron ride sit in the boneyard? So they renovated a store to capitalise on a new hot craze (lego). They rebuilt their old food outlet into something modern - which was only about 15 years overdue. They redeveloped tiger island, yes - but they botched it with the giant green prison. Coroborree was only done because of generous government grants for indigenous cultural projects. This wasn't done with their own money or because they felt strongly about the subject matter. The expansion of White Water World? A lazy river that WNW has had for more than a decade is hardly an inspiring investment - and its still just one attraction. The plans for that park had staged developments including numerous attractions, none of which we've seen - instead we've seen the kneejerk reaction to Aqualoop that is the Wedgie, Triple Vortex, and finally the lazy river... 3 new attractions in TWELVE YEARS. Shall we talk about the cock up that was Trolls Village that was supposed to open last Christmas, and didn't open until more than 8 months later? Plonked smack down in the middle of an ocean themed area? Shall we talk about those big screens or the revolving globe? Dreamworld have had screens all over the park for years, showing music videos and crappy advertisements for related products. I'm not getting excited over a few outdoor LED screens when their marquee attractions can't even stay open, or carry a full load of passengers. And the globe. Yeah - what a photo opportunity. Its pretty, but its just window dressing. It is a take it or leave it thing that wasn't really necessary. Things they could have spent their money on instead: Upgrading the control system on their flagship 21 year old coaster to newer technology (and actually running it at its capability Properly rebuilding Wipeout so that it can run as designed Running rides at capacity - both sides of Giant Drop, for example Maintaining a working steam railway, instead of wasting money on a glorified yard tractor that tears up the rails and constantly breaks down Maintaining the park's people soaking paddlewheeler attraction The article points it out better than I ever could - but there are just so many things WRONG right now, its hard to be positive in the face of such blatant mismanagement. You choose to focus on the positive, and let the negative slide, and thats your choice - but don't decry others who speak the truth - you can't live in a dreamworld and pretend that the issues don't exist, just because it doesn't fit your mould of 'fun'. If you're going to ignore the negative, then you shouldn't be complaining about bored train conductors. You can't have it both ways.

It's possible to love theme parks and still hold them to account push. Entering peak period with so many rides out of action is ridiculous and Parkz is not being unsupportive of the GC tourism industry for calling them out in my opinion.

Yeah I think @webslave has the right of it. I'd also suggest that a lot of this crap is a downgrade. I think everything about the execution of this upgrade from the sign out the from (The fuck even is that?) to the final scare is worse than what was there when the ride opened. When I talk about the evils of installing technology for technology's sake, this is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about. The only thing I'll give it credit for is what it tries to do; it tries to tie the ride back to the movie more, so credit for that. But the laziness of the animation, how badly blended the screens are to their surroundings, the junk that's been added in there all take away from what they're going for. The animation is significantly worse than the move, which normally I wouldn't complain about but the movie is from 2002 and the effects weren't all that great back then. Finally, the marketing for the ride just made promises not based in any kind of reality; we were promised projection mapping, we got screens. Of course that'll be disappointing for anyone who follows this sort of thing. Maybe the public won't notice as much but if you're following the stuff they were saying like fans were, then you'll know how much it doesn't deliver. Also you can't put an A-frame out the front that says 'Technical rehearsal' after the fact and think that makes everything OK. Where on the Facebook posts or on the website does it say 'Tech Rehearsal'? Oh that's right it doesn't, it just says in multiple places it's open. I hope it gets better, I hope the animation is improved, I hope that the levels get sorted, I hope the queue gets fixed and I hope marketing have learnt something. Ultimately, it's a downgrade, but the only reason I felt compelled to write anything about it at all is because of the apologists who come on here saying how wrong anyone is for feeling let down and how great MW are for putting the themeing back in. I'm sorry but this is objectively worse that what was there originally. Tech doesn't automatically make things better, particularly when it's as badly done as it is here. It's not unsalvageable but any means, and there's some decent creativity gone into it, but as it is it looks either lazy or very amateur.

On the contrary, I wouldn't say it was unnecessary at all. I'm the crotchety old man that sits in the corner waggling his walking stick at the kids playing their records too loud, occasionally spouting pearls of wisdom that wise kids occasionally benefit from if they listen. The forums are a place for discussion - something each of us has equal right to do. ...And you don't contribute photos either - you contribute slideshows of photos and 5 second vine videos that are impossibly difficult to watch. You also create threads that are against the forum rules - such as this one - generically named 'dreamworld WWW update'. Honestly i'm surprised it's lasted this long as it is. I've tried to dialogue with you. Privately i've tried to explain to you what it is that you're doing that's annoying people. Several others have politely pointed it out, and you don't seem to get the message - so at that point you lose all restraint from me, and i'm gonna let you know about it. Honestly, this world is creating too many fucking snowflakes that think the world should adjust to suit them, instead of the other way around.

You are so unnecessarily rude to most people on this forum. You contribute no photos, just stupid comments and argumentive paragraphs.

It’s actually the new soft drink refill dispenser. This week is Blue Powerade.

This post have been doing rounds on Facebook: WARNING TO ANYONE GOING TO THEME PARKS over Christmas!!!!! This is a pretty sensitive post and I still am a bit shaky typing it, but it was an eye opener and brought home a reality today at Movie World to trust NO-ONE. We witnessed an attempted child abduction, in bright sunlight, with many adults by and no protocol in place. Mum and Scarlett were in the line for a kids car ride in a shed. I was sitting by the glass door watching. Scarlett was next on the ride and I saw a man jump the glass fence when the ride finished. Without realising, I didn't see him exit but you see some strange things and thought nothing of it as was getting ready to film Scarlett. Two little kids came out and then a Mother started screaming and running looking frantically for her son, who had not come off the ride by the exit. I overheard the young daughter say to the Mum that "the indian man we have been speaking to helped him out". I saw that Mother's whole life crash before and the look of pure fear washed over her. I ran over and we called security to help. This is the scariest part, Movie World had no systems in place for this! The staff were slow and unsure what to do, apart from call security. The poor Mum was in absolute shock, so I told her to show them a picture, get descriptions over the radio fast and close the park and call the police. One of the workers said, " What are you a copper?" And I yelled back "He's 3! This is too suss!" The Mum dropped to the floor and started praying to God. By the time the security arrived, other parents started searching too and then we got the call 10 mins of frantic searching he was found. The worst part, 50 metres from the exit, metres from us with the same man that jumped the fence. The same man who had preened them all day. The boy was returned to the Mother. It appears he jumped the glass door, took him through a back exit and was headed out the park. I believe reports are being followed up etc. Such a warning to anyone in care of kids. I haven't ever experienced something so close to home that has scared me to the core!

What a waste of good rollercoaster/dark ride space 😢