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I actually think this looks pretty sweet

Not in the area. Zoom lens while over the fence on top of my van. wanted to get a good look at the coaster too

Or maybe they're just trying to make it look presentable. That is a completely unnecessary spot to put any sort of memorial. Wherever they put it - it should not be in front of an Ice-Cream parlour on the busiest street in the park.

It is official, it is happening https://www.sanadcapital.com.au/post/development-of-major-sunshine-coast-tourist-attraction-and-resort-complex-receives-green-light-from

Jet rescue delayed again until November 16th. Hope no one wanted to ride it for spooky nights.

The Fence in front of the water seems bit over the top but I assume thats out of their control unfortunately

This is really great news! The Sunshine Coast is screaming for this type of facility and I predict that it will do very well indeed once it is fully built and realised. Having holidayed on the Sunshine Coast earlier this year, having this type of attraction would complement the other 2 big attractions of the area - Aussie World and Australia Zoo. This would certainly give Australians a huge boost in wanting to visit the area and having a viable alternative to the hustle and bustle of the Gold Coast for a different , more relaxed experience. Looking at the plans, it seems a decent waterpark with a Lazy river complex that surrounds the park ( what a great idea- I am looking at you Wet 'N"Wild Sydney!!) other attractions such as an Octo Racer, Flatline Loop, Tube slides, possibly a hydrocoaster and a Tornado installation. There is also a Double Fowrider, the obligatory kids slide complex , hot tubs and spa and a swim up bar. This is the most exciting part of the whole complex and plan, for mine. This is to be a Australian first and the website states: It must be noted that this is incorporated into Stage 2 , so there is a bit of work to get through before this becomes a reality - but wow- it certainly looks like fun and something that will definitely drive high interest in the place as a massive point of difference from your run of the mill water park. More power to them and after years of stagnation and promises, lets all hope that this moves along quite quickly- they have stated that work could begin as early as late 2020. This is the shot in the arm that the region needs and its hopefully a very bright spot in anotherwise terrible year for announcements.

It doesn't change much in the impact of things here, but the above article claims the 28,000 cast were laid off from the theme parks. this isn't entirely accurate. For clarity, the staff laid off are from the Disney's Parks, Experiences and Products unit - which does include the US parks (they're pointing to California predominantly as it hasn't reopened due to state restrictions), but the full makeup of the PEP division includes:

Slightly off topic here but I did visit Futuroscope many years ago and it is worth a visit if you're in the area.

Accidents happen in theme parks. But they're usually accidents. If you put aside the 'rider was an idiot' incidents like standing up in a log flume, or jumping a fence into a ride envelope to retrieve a hat, the vast majority of incidents, and especially deaths has come from inadequate maintenance and safety protocols. Disney has killed people - the big thunder incident was attributed to disney downsizing its inhouse maintenance team and outsourcing the work to external contractors who didn't do as good of a job. Dreamworld's incident is by and large due to their arrogance. They had a head of engineering who wasn't a qualified australian engineer, and they relied on him to guide what was necessary. When incidents occurred (such as the constant failures of the conveyor) they took his advice to remove slats from the conveyor to lighten it. Never mind that every rapids ride in the world that used a slat based conveyor had closely spaced slats. Dreamworld treated the symptom. Conveyor failed? lighten it's weight - without risk-assessing what the possible impacts of that were - the gaps in the conveyor were now wide enough to accommodate a raft tube. The proper fix would have been to replace the conveyor motor with something more powerful to overcome the weight issue. Just like the station rails, that were introduced to prevent rafts dipping while loading, without considering what impact that might have to a stacked station. But they had many opportunities to fix the issues. Several flips occurred in the ride's lifetime. But each was put down to an operator not following the manual, and when they identified issues, they simply instructed the ride operators to do more themselves to prevent it, rather than introducing controls. Right before the accident they were in the process of upgrading systems, but they chose to install anti-rollbacks on the conveyor instead of a sensor system to stop the conveyor when the station was occupied. I really struggle to understand how they saw a conveyor rollback as a bigger issue TBH - even if there was a raft at the bottom of the conveyor, and a raft on the conveyor slid back down and bumped it - would that have been more than a bumper-boat scenario? they installed rails at the bottom of the conveyor to prevent rafts bottoming out - so at worse, you've got a shunt situation? The only thing I can think of is that they felt the bottom of the conveyor was more of a risk because it was outside of the operator's line of sight, whereas issues in the station could be seen by the operator - again, placing another burden on an already overworked and stressed operator. So many single things could have been done which would have prevented this. Just one of these things would have changed the outcome - installing a proper, power disconnect e-stop. not installing rails in the station, instead using rams to pinch the raft against the station (similar to Snowy River). leaving the slats on the conveyor, and instead beefing up the motor that drove it. installing sensors to detect the presence of rafts on the conveyor and in the station to control-stop the conveyor when the station was occupied. Replacing the pumps that kept failing, and not operating the ride until it was fixed. Everyone, park management included, saw this ride as tame, gentle, and unable to hurt anyone. It was arrogance, especially on behalf of one particular department head, that caused this.

That's giving DW a pass right there. No, theme park industry safety was far above what DW provided. This isn't something the industry learnt from because it was already practicing it. You only have to look at the evidence VRTP gave in the inquest to see how far DW were behind the 8 ball.

Luna Park Sydney does indeed have a plaque for the Ghost train tragedy. It is in a part of the park not many people go to but many can easily walk past. The plaque is tasteful while being heartwarming but also confronting to some. I believe this would be the best way to go. Does not need to be something bigger than an A4 piece of paper. That being said consent from all families would definitely be required. A garden idea while being nice could be somewhat complicated.

Just throwing in that they tried literally everything they could think of. Water levels, pump pressure, conveyor faults, 1,2,3 and 4 rafts colliding together, different combinations of mechanical and e-stops, air pressure in the tubes even as far as actually trying to push the rafts to force them into the same position they were in 2016. It's pretty crazy to think that they couldn't get any rafts to flip or even go vertical with all of that testing. It also shows that the ride could operate perfectly fine under extreme circumstances but 1 single random factor can cause a complete disaster. That right there perfectly proves that it was literally just sheer dumb luck that no one had been injured or killed earlier.

You've gotta find a fine line of accepting that your park killed people while also not shoving it in the face of everyone that your park killed people.

Boots' Banana Boogie has returned Not much has changed on Jet Resue

The original queue area for JR has been removed entirely and this new area of queue that they built isn’t an extension, but simply the new queue area

It’s working today

Maybe if they are refurbishing/expanding ABC Kids world the store merchandise could be moved into there. It would be a much better fit rather than what seems like a randomly placed store at the front of the park. That would definitely be a start to cleaning up the look of Main Street. The other thing I think they could do is clean up the look of the Candy store. Everything else is quite minimal now, but the candy store still has the same look as it originally said (a part from a repaint). If they did these few things I think it would definitely make Main Street work visually better without demolishing buildings all together (which I don’t see as necessary)

I feel like the fairy store needs to go (unless it’s still popular. I’ve never been into that store and have never really noticed if it’s busy or not???). Removing that building will open up what has become a bit of a bottleneck pathway with sky voyager. And once the new coaster opens, that path will become a hell of a lot busier, especially during peak periods

Yeah I don’t think a Ferris wheel there would be good either, it would just make that area more chaotic. We’ve got the bright LEGO store, the white clean SV, simple, but bright stores and food outlets and a fairy store. I think bringing back the fountains would be nice and maybe make it a unique feature. Maybe there could be a small fountain show of some form in the middle. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy or a scheduled time, but adds to the atmosphere of Main Street. Continuing on about the details and our parks not caring as much anymore. It many ways the attention to detail has gone and they may see it as small things, but they add up and really can make a difference. While it’s not an amazing use of space, the shaded seating area creates the bright atmosphere that people loving sharing on social media. Disney and Universal thrive on these moments and are throughout all of their parks. Our parks need more of these moments. MW did have this on Main Street, but when they added the roof in, it took away from that. DW seem to currently be working on these ideas and it is improving.

Except with MDMC

And they ruined the front entrance to the park

I would assume that when the ride does open, they’ll have a sticker to put straight over the top of coming soon. But it’s definitely great to see them advertising the ride in this format

The billboard out the front of the park has been updated. I really do like this artwork for it (Photo TPSN)

And BuzzSaw