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Greg Yong must have ignored his friend request on Insta..

When adventure world was being built,my father was employed as caretaker/animal trainer and we lived on the grounds of adventure world. I was 9yrs old at the time. So 41 yrs ago. I watch it all being built like skull rock, the castle, everything basically. One of the first on the water slides, go-karts bumper boats etc. Was even in the very first tv ad with the koala and platypus mascots. Awesome days..

Really happy they are doing this. Great to have some diversity in sky voyager. It really is incredible. In a perfect world sky voyager would look something like this on the outside though. 🙏 🙏 🙏 c’mon DW please?

I've continued tracking uptime data from Sea World since the 19th of January. Here are some stats - Down Time Percentage My system tracks three states - CLOSED, DOWN & OPEN. Generally CLOSED is reserved for when the park is shut, but can also be used for down time though it is rare. For simplicity sake on this output I just used my DOWN & OPEN data considering that these states generally need to be assigned manually by the park. Still, a rough estimate of 30% uptime for a brand new attraction is pathetic. The rest of New Atlantis isn't much better at 38% uptime for Vortex and 47% uptime for Leviathan. I get that there are teething issues, but when your coaster from 2008 is operating more reliably than your coaster from last December than you've got some problems. Sea World Likelihood Of Down Time Using this combined data I wanted to see what times of the day rides were most likely to go down. Keep in my mind my data is recorded in Sydney time so 11 AM is 10 AM, etc. With that mind, there are some interesting things to note. Leviathan is more unreliable in the first half of the day and gets more reliable as the day goes on. Storm Coaster is insanely reliable during most of the day. Trident is the opposite of Leviathan and appears to go down more in the afternoon. The other rides seem to be pretty standard. Wait Time Averages This is the average wait of each ride over the day when the ride is open. Nothing too much to note except for Leviathan seeing a huge spike at the start of every day. My assumption is that a lot of people are visiting the park but it's generally down at the start of the day. Therefore people hang out for longer than usual and a larger-than-average crowd forms because of it waiting for the ride to open. Also people really don't like Vortex. If there is any data you want feel free to let me know. Again there are problems with this considering that it's only sampling every 15 minutes and we're relying off output from the park but it's still interesting none-the-less.

If I owned a park in 2019, I totally would have built a tourbillon, not because it's a good ride, but because visually from off ride it's absolutelystunning. I'd also have a lemon of a ride in my park that I wouldn't know what to do with at this point. As for the wave swinger at DW, TBH I think it's alright. The queue will presumably be around the back of it, there's lots of seating and outlets nearby, I think it'll be a winner. The thing is, and I'll keep saying this, it needs to be really properly charming af. Crowd flow won't matter, but you have to walk into the park and go 'Wow this place looks amazing'.

I personally would be all for a Sledgehammer clone if only to actually have a snowball’s chance of riding one. Dreamworld needs something weird.

I started out ready to refute all this, and then thought about the Disney comparison (which everyone says isn't a fair comparison but still, they're the leaders so...) and the Weenie concept to draw people further in. The castle, the mountains... etc etc. and I have to admit that it's true... Then i thought about Movie World sticking batwing, Justice League, Green Lantern and DC Rivals all on the same 3m wide pathway. Soon we'll have Superman and Surfrider at the end of the same TWO metre wide pathway, with a potential shortcut connection to WOO land as well. (Oh, and theres not a single F&B outlet, and only one merch outlet within that entire footprint as it stands right now.) After considering this, I realised that adding a wave swinger to the fountain isn't the end of the world. ...And unlike Sky Voyager, Justice League and Rivals, you don't have to practically join the queue to recognise if the line is long and decide you should just go elsewhere for now. (Also, the show-stage and the critical photo point are one and the same thing so you can't really count both at the same time)

Agreed - we got a ride during the Carnivale fireworks and it was sensational - they need to find every excuse to run that thing at night.

They have not stated it’s going to do wonders… it’s just the nature of the attraction they give a lot of kinetic energy.. I don’t know why people enjoy putting down DW so much. Just be happy somethings happening there

1. They never stated the Flyer or any other flat coming was it’s a “world beating attraction.” 2. I didn’t know a $35m themed roller coaster situated in a themed area is what you find in carnival’s now. This topic isn’t about Dreamworld and doesn’t even actually have any of their attractions listed in here. Based on most of your posts and the other threads you commented in over night I'm going to assume you’re only here hate on the park even if the thread you’re doing so in has no relevance to what you’re saying. There’s a difference between spreading hate and arguing a point or having an opinion, you’re clearly on one side of that more then the other.

If Sky Voyager at least fit within the building, there'd be a higher chance it would have remained closer to this look. They'd need to demo half the building now in order to rebuild that type of facade

Yeah the key isn't that it's cruel because if it was it simply wouldn't be there. If the dolphins reacted negatively to it it would be gone. The point is it's not a good look.

Looks amazing, but onboard it feels like Doomsday if it were on a turntable. The main gondola of seats just loops and loops in one direction, and then so does every other ring. So you expect the ride to be full of really random movements like one of these. But in reality it feels a bit repetitive and you're just looping and looping, and oh look we are still looping but now I'm on my side. I've heard SFOT is taking theirs out already

It burnt down. https://www.ausleisure.com.au/news/adventure-world-to-sue-fireworks-company-over-fire-that-destroyed-landmark/

Whats more iconic than over-sized plant pots (sans plants of course), a facade of fake beach change rooms, artificial grass with a carport, and a giant chair?

Is it the WORST idea? Of course not. Will it DESTROY the park? Not by a mile. But is it the best investment in that area of the park, probs not. I think one of the best thing the park used to have going for it was that from out front (ie carpark) you could see all these rides running in the park and you wanted to go and get to them (Claw, Wipeout, Enterprise, etc). They've lost that. Could the Wave Swinger have been fitted into the old Wipeout area? Would that have actually been a better move along with getting rid of that bloody awful globe and bringing the fountain back to being a showpiece? It's going to make a nice new visual for sure, but let's be real, it's another park's visual they have 'borrowed'. I kinda wish they were more going with trying to restore Dreamworld's own iconic identity, and undoing all that rubbish from long before this management team. It is great they are investing, and it will look nice for sure. But given how bloody awful Movie World is with all that crap shoved at the front of the park I kinda wish they had not gone for the same.

only when it rains.

At a high level the idea makes sense - build the kind of ride that can be opened as an up-charge for night markets that doesn't give away the gate and de-value the park's day ticket proposition. The problem is when you scratch deeper, there's a litany of reasons that should tell you why it shouldn't be a thing. For example, every park planner or designer will tell you why it's bad to concentrate so much stuff into the first few metres of a park. The obvious one is that it hinders crowd flow management in a significant way - on a busy day, Dreamworld will have two rides, a show-stage and a critical photo point within centimetres of each other. Think about this then - people typically move to the first thing they see when they're in a park - as a result, will a guest's first experience of the day be stuck in a line that's overflowing because due care wasn't given to filtering people out first? The second reason is that there's a well-established tipping point between time in park and per capita spend. By extension, if you're concentrating your experience into a few square metres, people don't journey as far through different lands, they don't stop to buy F&B, they're not being immersed in different themed environments (marginal affinity relationship) and so on and they're less inclined to spend more time in retail etc. etc. Thirdly - there's a reason why Disney (yes, Disney) don't have a kiddie ride right when you walk in, they have a train that gets people out of that space - it's out of place thematically. Those that say "well Sky Voyager this" or "it's a different park" are negating the fundamental reality that the park doesn't look the way it did precisely because of a continued culture (or rather, ignorance of culture and heritage) to preserve and plus what they have. Instead, we've got make revenue-first strategic choices that place all else second. Finally, it removes a strategic point to place shows and events. If you're worried about kinetic energy, put in a better fountain display. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Agreed, on here they put them down if they don’t add anything then put them down even more when they’re essentially redoing half of the park. Make it make sense.

From when I've been reading online, that section of Iron Dragon has been temporarily removed to do the groundworks for the spike

Maybe they could clone this at Dreamworld

A quality "Splash Mountain" type attraction is a sitter for DW.....but I doubt management have the talent to see the obvious and go for it! Instead, they'll go out, find some other carnival type ride, issue hyperbole media statements and claim, it's a new world beating attraction coming soon to the Ekka...I mean DW! Before the nervy kids kick in, Splash Mountain is undergoing [or soon to] major reworks and is DECADES old technology now and DW's shown it can spend some real ca$h, when it wants....to get suckered into the "coaster spiral"....when what it REALLY needs, is a world class water flume attraction...that's an all-ages calling card!

What this is, is DW trying to again con everyone, that a hyped up carvial/sideshow attraction, plonked in a really dumb place, is going to do wonders!

Yeah I was there from midday until 9pm and Leviathan didn't stop cycling that whole time. Trident did briefly stop, I'm assuming wind reasons, but more or less ran all day. While I'm at it, the light package for Leviathan is amazing. The flashing when it goes down the drop is really eye catching.

Spent the weekend staying at the resort for Carnivale. Visited Friday afternoon and got 5 rides in with no wait. Only got one at night (around 8.00) due to heavy rain but it was hauling! I’d go at park opening, don’t line up, but as soon as you hear it operating get a virtual queue. The return time should only be about 5-10mins. Once the operator has cleared it, get another one straight away. if you’re going mid week, wait times will be considerably less regardless.

Storm Coaster has always reminded me of an inferior Atlantis over at Sea World Orlando. More so now than ever, as the ride over in Orlando is essentially unrecognisable compared to its original iterations. It’s suffered a similar fate to Wild West Falls, in which a lot of its effects have either fallen into disrepair or were turned off for one reason or another. A damn shame, as the original version of Atlantis was gorgeous themed water coaster. I’ll also never forgive Seaworld here in Australia for gutting The Bermuda Triangle ride and replacing it with Storm Coaster. I only got to ride it twice as a child, as it closed when I was 9, but I have very fond memories of it. Hope to get to Germany one day to ride the Bermuda clone.

WWF obvious answer here. In its day it’s the best themed ride in the country, it’s rather unfortunate most of the theming doesn’t work these days and the whole ride is ripe for a refresh beyond some boat replacements. Storm’s flume section is disappointingly short for what it is, and it is more coaster than themed experience imo given the ‘story’ makes little sense. Aussie World I have never visited so can’t really comment.

I just don't think Australia has a whole lot of meaningful comparisons. We often only have one of everything so it end up being shoehorned.

didn’t know where else to post this but the Tunnel for TNT is now filled with smoke, is this new or can i just not remember this being the case? source: Gumbuya World Instagram Story

Was once Australia's largest theme park - now look at it!! It looks like a regional park in Victoria, only with less theming

Liseberg https://www.parkz.com.au/attraction/liseberg This is the last remaining park I had to write up from my Scandinavian trip. Liseberg is a bucket list park for me, and it sure lives up to its reputation. It’s located in the nice city of Gothenburg. You can get there in about 3 hours from either Stockholm or Copenhagen. I was in the city early enough to take a stroll around the CBD and just walk a couple of km to the park (Though multiple tram lines go to the park too). (The spherical building is part of a museum next door) Even had time to do a lap around the outside of the park to gaze longingly at Balder, which was closed for my visit for track replacement. Was ready at the entrance for opening time, and had the app on my phone to take advantage of the virtual queueing system. Was quite a fairly day though. I was there from 10am till 11pm and did plenty of rides, waits often ranged from 20-60 mins. I’ll talk a bit about the park itself at the end of the report, but here are the rides. Helix Much Like other Macks such as DC Rivals, it’s an excellent, well rounded ride that combines lots of cool things. 7 inverisions, 3 really good airtime hills, a couple of launches, and it’s hillside location means you make some quite large drops and dives. And overall it’s well paced. In some ways though it represents the end of an era. If you’ve ridden a newer RMC, Intamin or Vekoma you’ll know how these days coasters are a bit more funky and dynamic, owing to advances in engineering. On the other hand Helix is very ‘traditional” (Like a good B&M), it’s all conventional elements done well, but I think now the coaster world has evolved, and something like Taiga is the way things are done now. Starts off with a drop out of the station, corkscrew and a bit of a drawn out turn. Theres a decent launch straight into a corkscrew, then it really picks up with a dive down the hill, airtime, another dive, a zero g roll, another airtime hill, and helix, all woven amongst other rides. That in itself would be a decent layout, but a 2nd launch sends you into an inverted top hat, another big dive, airtime hill. At this point the ride peters out a bit, with series of uphill S turns, and concludes with a heartline roll, but it’s nowhere near as agressive as the one on Steel Taipan. The queue is a sight to behold. The design brief was clearly “Make queuing an architectural experience”. EDM in the queue line pumps up the atmosphere a bit. Uppswinget S&S Screamin Swing. This is a ride that seems quite common overseas, but never quite made it to Australia. A shame because they are excellent. You get the huge swings of something like a Gyro Swing, but less nauseating, just great moments of airtime over and over. The position perched over the edge of a hill made it even better. AtmosFear A gyro drop without the gyro, and it was at a weird point in time where intamin was using their superman/surfrider type seats on drop rides. The queue line had a cool theme, sort of like a power station or nuclear reactor. What set this one apart was the addition of VR. This one didn’t seem to slow things down too much, I guess because it's only moving up and down, so less difficult to sync the ride movement. Once you are seated they just go around and offer a headset during the checking. Of course I gave it a go. Spoiler: it is like you are in an underground scientific research lab, and are being lifted up past this huge particle accelerator, as you reach the top, a wormhole forms and the machine begins to break apart, bits get sucked in, aliens come out and they try to attach to your face, but right as you are about to get eaten you drop. A bit of a freaky experience. As you are being lifted up you are so preoccupied with the footage that you forget how high you are, and it’s not until you start feeling the breeze at the top of the tower and the sun on your forehead that you realise “oh geez, im 100m in the air wearing effectively a blindfold” AeroSpin TailSpin crossed with Trident sums this one up. Seemed quite easy to get a continuous spin going, and again the hilltop location made for some great views. Lisebergbanan This one is excellent, so I did a few rides. It’s a terrain coaster by Schwarzkopf, and for such an old ride it runs very smooth. And operation are excellent too, with several trains pumping guests through. Loved the attention to detail in the queue and station, it was actually themed like a train station, right down to the daggy 50s terrazzo floors. The ride maintains a great pace from start to finish, with quite a spread out layout that you really cant get a full picture of from any one vantage point. The best part is where you complete 3 large circular drops in a row, like a enormous tilted helix, where you would keep lapping around uppswinget. Eventually the track peels away with more curves and helixes through the trees, concluding with a speedy finale parallel to the main park walkway. Onboard you got some glimpses of the custom family boomerang they are building too. Valkyria I love dive coasters and this is a particularly good one. One of the reasons they are great is they are so re-ridable, they aren’t’ too forceful, and the drop is fun. Couple this with a single rider line and I think this ended up being my most ridden attraction. The only drawback of the single rider queue is you virtually always end up seated on the right as you are the last in the row, so I did use standby once to get a left hand ride. The theming is fantastic, with the station even having a projection of a shadow of a valkyrie flying around, and a custom soundtrack that was dramatic viking music. From the station you head up a 50m lift hill, around a turn, and perch on the edge of a drop. Shortly thereafter you are released, drop into a tunnel, emerge into an immelman, then make a hard overbanked turn with a great near miss with the lift structure. From there you do a bit of a figure 8, with a zero g roll and a heartline roll on the way. This part is over a creek running through the park, and you get a fair bit of hangtime, making for an interesting experience. FlumeRide Most flumes seem to follow a format of float along, lift, medium drop, float along, lift, big drop, the end. The one at Liseberg was somewhat unique, owing to the large hillside. A huge lift takes you right to the top of the hill. then there is a long floaty section that passes over and under a few other rides, including very closely to Lisebergbanan, so dont stand up! But the finale is great, because all the final drops come in quick succession. You do a drop, splash down and lose a bit of speed and then before you know it there's another big drop. Spokhotellet Gasten This can be low capacity, so i queued virtually for it. It was quite a long horror maze through an old hotel. The jump scares from the actors are what you’d expect, though this one has really well done and elaborate rooms, through various hotel scenes that totally are not inspired by TOT at Disneysea 😛 Mechanica Many years ago I did Bling at Blackpool and thought it was okay, and all these years on the ride experience is still just as meh. The arm moves in a big slow loop, and you are seated on flipping rows of seats that are arranged in a fan shape, much like a top scan. But because all the rotations are so steady you don't really flip much and it just ends up being a whole lot of being high in the air awkwardly sideways. Underlandet Underlandet was a fun kids dark ride where you go through the underground world of the Liseberg rabbits. Starts of with a faux lift ride into an “underground” loading station. Bright and colourful and quite well executed. There was a bit of narrative of the villain (Who resembled a magician crossed with Robbie Rotten crossed with Oddwald) sneaking around trying to steal carrots but getting hurt in the process. The ride actually goes up and downhill over a couple of levels too so its more substantial than you'd expect. Funniest part was a scene with various rabbit animatronics sitting on thunderbox toilets, with containers below labelled “compost:” Kaninslandbanan Overhead pedal car thing, that I mostly rode to get some decent overhead photos. Carried the theme of the kids zone of “Rabbits making crazy inventions to grow and process carrots”. I quite like how they had made the ride maintenance bay a feature and themed it like a wacky workshop. Lisebergshjulet One of those big air conditioned ferris wheels like the one at Southbank. Was ok but it was right on the edge of the park so it wasnt necessarily the best for park photos. Good views to the city center of Gothenburg though! Liseberg Gardens Didn’t know this existed till I visited. A whole corner of the park is just a nice botanic garden, much like at Alton or Tivoli, with pleasant trails winding down the hillside, and even an old windmill. Stampbanan Tiny kids coaster near identical to the baby shark one at Luna Park Sydney Rabalder A bigger family coaster the same as the Chicken themed one at Djurs Sommerland. The station had some crazy invention theming, including a dripping bucket on the way into the station. Kallerado One of the best rapids I have done. Really nice leafy setting, and plenty of Colorado theming too. The rapids were dynamic, with quite powerful rapids, plenty of fountains, and heaps of boats, to the point that on the open water sections sometimes boats would bump and overtake each other. Clearly popular with the locals too, it had a huge queue, but thankfully I had a virtual queue pass. Jukebox Octopus ride, but with a very creative theme, so just had to give it a go. (Plus octopii are fun for a spin and spew) Krilstallsalongen Quite a short mirror maze, with a few illusion rooms along the way. What i liked is that the front of the attraction was window, so you could stand outside and watch this happening: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/nQjlipMs4cc Skepp o Skoj I’ve done plenty of car rides, but never a boat ride. You pilot a little electric boat along a course, but it felt like the steering has huge lag, so you ended up just bumping off the walls on the way through. Tempus Finally got to ride one of these newfangled Zamperla Nebulaz. I reckon every park needs one, right level of intensity for a family ride, bit of speed, bit of tummy tickling airtime, but it’s so hypnotic to watch. The cycle seemed to be that they would load one half, run it for a bit, stop with you at the top and load the other half, run it a little more, then you’d get off and the cycle repeats. I quite liked the aesthetic of this whole area. Yes its just flat rides, but it was so classy. Come to think of it, it’s just like the grand exposition are at Sliver Dollar City. So there you have it, 20 different attractions in 13 hours. I wouldn’t have minded riding the Loke gyro swing, given how good its counterpart Tigeren was at Djurs Sommerland, and that was the only major thing I didn’t ride. The park is one of the best out there, everything is such high quality. Even generic rides had really quite ornate booths and signage. The dining options were great, The buildings were nice. Operations were good. The virtual queue system wasn’t oversubscribed so lines kept moving despite big crowds. They even had some themed areas, eg the Viking zone, the Port Zone, the 50s zone, Kaninlandet, Luna Park etc. I reckon this is something they could lean into a bit more.. Have a look at the attractions and give everything a themed zone. Right now it's half traditional amusment park, half theme park. In terms of what the park needs, well it has such a complete lineup already. Perhaps an immersive indoor coaster or a dark ride for older audiences would be good. There’s no shortage of flats or water rides.... Photos here https://www.parkz.com.au/search/photos/location/liseberg

I started writing out one for each park and realised all my answers were the same! I honestly think every park would benefit from a high-capacity, slow-moving dark ride. It's the biggest gap I feel our parks have at the moment.