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The loss of LTRR for Jnr Driving School is the biggest stain on our parks imo. Yes I know it would have been costly to refresh and update the animatronics, but it was quintessential MW and that ride truly would have had its place FOREVER if they kept it well maintained.

It's really exciting to see Scooby get some proper love outside of thematic enhancements which easily keep it going for another decade or two. I'll be interested to see how much of the existing 'Next Generation' technology gets replaced because Village have definitely proven that they can pull off properly world class AV integrations with the Leviathan load. Operations wise I feel the park is really going to feel Scooby's absence next school holidays. Movie World has lost a lot of capacity over the last few years and losing another major attraction for a year will hurt.

Aussie World wooden mouse. Real shame it was removed.

Looks like Scooby is about to get a massive overhaul. Glad to see the park investing so much money. New trains, new track sections, new control system and entrance. Magnetic braking added as well. Ride is closed until 2024 now. https://themeparks.com.au/blog/whats-new-with-scooby-doo?fbclid=IwAR3Q_hQ0e3UK3I8KYrAaI2a9LCZbVln3QkZOSd--SZdo8b9F5awet3ravb8

Glad to hear the ride should be a smoother, those small dips really bruise your internal organs if you're not prepared! Also: Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster Next Generation 2.0?

I do think that it can be hard to be understanding when a ride is operated with far more stringent policies than normal for identical and/or similar types of rides elsewhere in the world. When riding Superman a few years ago I remember being told that a mucus-encrusted tissue inside a zipped rear pocket had to be placed in a locker or thrown away before I could ride. That was (and remains) ridiculous and I will happily call it out as such. If club members were critical, then I sincerely hope that they made their points respectfully. It's been predominantly on Facebook, and it's probably best not to screenshot there. However, I'll quote a fun exchange below – names removed to protect the innocent: At busy events Olympia Looping pushes well over 4000 guests per hour, dispatching a 28-passenger train roughly once every 20 seconds. It's amazing how efficient you can be when every extra passenger is more money

9 News report: https://twitter.com/9NewsGoldCoast/status/1617791075439214594?t=cgb7EMsVmtE_d2MeAll4vQ&s=08

Glad this rumour was true, I think it's a very smart move from the park. The park knows Next Gen was a bust, note the social posts and blog post do not refer to it as such. My understanding is it will be going back to closer to the original theming.

I just miss the Tower of Terror's (I & II) roar across the park, just seeing it fly up as you past the park on the M1. The ride had a dominating presence over the park, and Dreamworld feels emptier without it. The same goes with Wipeout, the noise it made is so ingrained in my mind, and it always felt like there was just as big of a crowd watching the ride as there was queueing for the ride.

It's all subjective because it's all nostalgia berries. I've often thought that if Lasseter's was at Wonderland people would be singing it's praises as the best themed ride Australia ever had. Seeing it was at SW, and only for a fairly short time, I think it gets forgotten about far more than it deserves. I mean don't get me wrong, Bermuda was much better and definitely an upgrade, but Lasseter's really was a great ride. My memory of it is very hazy though, so if there was one ride I could go on again, that would be my pick, just so I can join the dots on it. Bermuda was better, but I well and truly got my fill there. Also vrry honourable mention to Lil Puff at DW. Fucking loved that shit as a kid, would be nice to be able to remember it properly. I think for me the stuff I miss is the stuff I have the best memories on, not what was the best. I think DW should have replaced Wipeout with something equivalent, and it was the most beautifully executed flat ride in the country by a fair margin, but I don't miss it as such. What I miss about it was my first ride on it when I was 9. I miss the playground. I miss that feeling of going on an epic adventure on pretty much all of DW's old rides (Log ride, rapids, Captain Sturt, Eureka, The Train and even the vintage cars to an extent back in the day. It's not that they were great rides, but in all cases you didn't know what you were going to see when you went on them. It was like you were going on a journey. I know that's weird to explain to kids today; these days if you started getting excited about not knowing where the ride went, you'd pull out your phone and get a satellite image of the layout. Back then you could have been going anywhere. Also objectively the best ride to have closed at MW is Gremlins. Maybe its because Scooby is amazing but I feel pretty much nothing about its demise. The park would be better if they had it AS WELL, but one or the other it's Scooby all the way.

Meanwhile I'm reading all manner of fun commentary on Movie World operations from people on the ECC trip It's a few years since I was there, but I remember getting really annoyed by how Green Lantern dispatches suddenly accelerated to German fair speeds after the queue was closed for the day.

Every car is going to have an upcharge for backward seating at a guess. /s

Stupid poll idea: What was more confusing, the ramps around Vikings Revenge or the ramps around Giant Drop?

I mean, I'm not complaining at all. I won't be up on the GC for a while. But I have to wonder, WHY??? I definitely think SSDC need a substantial upgrade but they literally refurbished the ride a couple of years ago when they did Next Gen. Surely they would've known then that the ride needed some heavy maintenance then so why just not do it then? And it seems like they're doing even more retheming now. So why didn't they fix the problems then?

This is certainly a well overdue upgrade. Next Generation was a poorer experience to the original ride, not fixing anything related to the coaster experience and instead a lacklustre effort at meeting fire safety requirements. Getting some of the theming fixed would be nice, especially at places like at the mirror scene or on the elevator. Retracking will make the ride more comfortable considering it runs in the dark and has so many pot holes.

Not always about Village. They have to work with the Mack schedule also.

I think wipeout was such a high bar to reach they decided with the funding they had at the time it would be better to replace it will a seating area that doesn’t mean in a few years a new ride could go there. Wipeout and TOT were so iconic that TOT is in the original Roller coaster tycoon and wipeout is in RCT3. The rides we got now for the most part are better then what was then but the clunky charm is gone and the somewhat home made atmosphere that DW had things are so slick now that some of the charm is gone the addition of IP’s ruined it too and the removal of so many iconic attractions in a row because the park didn’t have a solid plan for when they got too old. DW can become great again but it’s going to take along time and it’s going to be a new dreamworld they can’t recreate old DW but they can use what made old DW so good too improve the park. (And the steam train NEEDS to operate at least once a month) that’s my thoughts at least. Maybe also adding a throw back ride to thunderbolt and do a special event in SV where they play one of the old IMAX movies.

It’s a major attraction at the park! It’s that last little push to get someone to go. It’s not just your regular old boring transport system like a bus. Before the Sky Safari opened, I still have family who used to go when they were little complaining about walking back up the hill, it’s a literal hell going up there, and I know that with my legs that I surely wouldn’t be the last one to collapse going back up! They used to have trams from the City to the Zoo, then went down to the wharf. These have since become the 100 and 238 buses. They already have extra 238 buses going to the “Top Zoo”, they’ll probably just put in some extra services. Sure, it may cause a slight loss of patronage for people only coming for the Sky Safari, but more people are coming for, well, the Zoo! You know, the Giraffes, Elephants, Fishing Cats, and more! There’s a new Reptile area, and a new “Australia” area at the end of the year. That’ll definitely keep people coming until at least the Sky Safari reopens. And then there’ll be more people coming after that opens too! Zoos are having to change with the times, not just to boost Animal Welfare and focus more on education. But also new experiences like any other park to keep people rolling in the gates!

Sounds like the recent round of maintenance was just enough to get it through the school holidays. Here's hoping they remove the underwhelming screens and add more lighting effects in the wild mouse room.

@Flea c'mon you're better then that. The nostalgia bit of me says those skinny few months where Thunderbolt and Cyclone were both open was peak Dreamworld. Still had steam trains, chairlift, IMAX, Mine Ride, River Rapids, Australian Wildlife Experience, Tiger Island with the cougars and still plenty of remnants of old school Dreamworld. Adult Slick agrees with @joz - having seen a ton of old school pictures of the park over the years it's clear to see what we're missing out on today.

The 'best' DW is the one you grew up with. For me, around Tiger Island opening and pre tot was the best by some margin. As good a ride as it was, it totally ruined the feel of the place and what I liked about it as a kid. If you built ToT right over the top of frontier land at Disneyland, people would say it ruined the place. In 30 years there would be a generation of people who grew up with it who consider it peak Disney. Again, it's all subjective and personal to you. Having said that, there's a moderator who incorrectly thinks that Claw opening was peak DW. Gross.

Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster Next Generation: Next Generation? 😉

Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster: Deep Space 9

Smart move. The execution of Next Gen detracted from the overall experience if it even worked. I'm glad they tried something new, but the original physical theming was far better.

The Thunder River Rapids is up there not because it was a great rapids ride but because DW has ruined it for everyone, and I can't see Australia getting another one or at least not for a very long time.

Quoting myself from over 2 years ago because the last few posts seem to be echoing the sentiment. Dreamworld when Tower of Terror and WipeOut were in full operation made it feel like their was a World Class Theme Park right down the road (this was when I used to lived on the Gold Coast so it actually meant something not now living in Melbourne). I yearn for the days when anything in Australia feels truly world class and 'til we get a dumb coaster filled Six Flags parks of our own, or a record breaking Giga or a B&M (of any kind really) Australia is going to feel like a third world-coaster-country, which is a shame because we have the kind of money in this country to build something truly spectacular.

Bermuda Triangle kicked ass - it’s kind of crazy we were able to pull something like that off (and in-house!) that had that many animatronics and special effects (the pepper’s ghost UFO was stunning as a nine year old). Storm’s good, but it’s not better. Naturally Tower of Terror is an obvious nod - it’s the thing that put Dreamworld on the thrillseeker’s map globally, particularly at a time where we were all jumping online for the first time. It was the thing we were all proud of and it had some crazy cool technology to boot. Also the skull and the original pod design was badass. F*cking t-bar restraints 100m+ in the air? Yes please. I was lucky to do a few cycles where I was the only one in the pod and getting just that little bit closer to the top of the tower made it feel unsettlingly bonkers. Shoutout to Wipeout which is still one of the best themed flat rides ever. Never should’ve been replaced with nothing. I can appreciate a Dreamworld without Tower of Terror because it regularly ruined the ambience of the park and aged poorly, but Wipeout? It’s still not Dreamworld without Wipeout. It’s the ride that literally saved the park. It's iconic. When they said it was going to close and the Ardent price dipped lower to a market cap that was far lower than the cost of a replacement thrill ride, they should've course corrected instead of doubling down on shaded seating. Special mention to the IMAX theatre and the steam trains. The majesty of the IMAX theatre was how unassuming and how well integrated it was into the Central Plaza. It also was a stunning experience that folks couldn’t get anywhere else. It was so good it was the lynch pin in having the park achieve 10,000 pax days in its first years. Imagine that, a Dreamworld with less rides but with the same pax as Movie World on a busy day? Mental. Sky Voyager is good, and has the potential to be great, but that facade is tragic and did incredible damage to the success of the ride and the immersion of the greater area, as will the Zierer Swinger when they knock out the fountain. Real shame that. As for steam trains, the topic’s been done to death. They’re iconic, and leaving one out the front is a bit average, imo. EDIT: new adds Batman: The ride - like Tower of Terror, aged horribly. But again, as a nine-year-old, it was spectacular. As a young kid, I had just come back from Disneyland and it genuinely felt more iconic than Star Tours. From the massive cavernous library into the tiny little caves back open into Batman's lair and the animatronic that you could never quite tell was real or not. Suffice to say, whilst I am nostalgic for it, I do think Justice League just eeks out as being slightly better. Also, Police Academy. Everything from the gags (including pre-show) to the stunts was as captivating for kids as they were for adults. There's a special magic to getting something like that so spot on - I think it's why Bluey and Pixar films have had so much success. Funnily enough, I still haven't ever seen a single Police Academy movie and I dare say I never will. And that's the beauty of that show, you really didn't need to. I'll be bold and say that Movie World's single biggest mistake in its history was axing that show. EDIT: Interesting to see that I've already posted in this thread, and even after two years the under-currents of Police Academy, Bermuda Triangle and Wipeout still ring true.

What is your point here @New display name? It seems a nothingness argument because what? You don’t like arrows so everyone should hate them and demolish them all?? If you don’t like Gold coaster then that’s OK you don’t need to try to get everyone to hate it. Some people (like myself) enjoy it for what it is, doesn’t mean you have to like it too.

That the problems with X bankrupted them.