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With the Formula 1 at Miami, Florida this week, I came across the fact that the track has its own Dopplemayr gondola system called SkyView - check it out here: https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/hard-rock-stadium-gondola-dolphins/ What was most surprising was the price - 3M USD is bugger all for 12 cabins and an expanse that's 100m longer than what Sea World would need if you were to retrofit 1:1 the previous chairlift attraction (SkyView is 550m, Sea World's SkyWay was 450m-ish). It's been long enough that it would probably be a drawcard for families again too - added to that, there'd be minimal site work needed and no real impact to the park to build. But here's where it gets interesting - if the park was to close the monorail, what if they did a loop system using gondolas instead? You could have two stations roughly where the old chairlift stations were, with a third station where the monorail station is at the resort - perfect for hotel guests, corporate events etc. At that point, you're only adding another 200m of infrastructure and a third station on top of the cost of the one in Miami. What's everyone's thoughts? @Bikash RandhawaI think I solved your monorail problem - I'd be totally on board with this being a monorail successor.

A bunch of markers can now be found around the Superman area. Surfider's queue?

Here's a newly opened launched Gerstlauer family shuttle at Bayern Park. It has a double switch track so you do the layout in both directions. Would fill the gap well between Dragon Express and Abyss IMO.

I wouldn't be so sure. First - if they needed to mark out services, it would be for digging. They'd certainly do that before they poured the ride slab. Second - the slab inside the ride envelope does show a pathway leading to the 'smokers area'. What's more likely - they wouldn't put a queue through the smokers area? or they move the smokers area? Looks like I got the exact orientation right too!

Was just at a function hosted by the CEO of Luna Park, for Friends of Luna Park where a plaque was unveiled in recognition of their efforts. They are rebuilding wild mouse from the ground up. Capital is fully allocated for the project now.

Smokers area can be moved out to Entertainment Rd…

Honestly @REGIE takes the cake for most personal growth on this forum. I used to ignore his(?) posts but now I actually read them. He listens to feedback and acts on it. Can't fault there, unlike some others on this forum...........

the biggest positive however is not every topic would turn into a Village vs DW fight. My life’s work is complete. . I definitely failed the “think before you speak” rule there.. not gonna post after no sleep for days, again.

Eh, what? Which capital investment do you think is most reactionary? WoO was in development and announced before DW revealed their plans and it's clearly not in response to ST but has to do with the balancing MW, the Hotel has been on the boil for a good decade now, Atlantis is from the time you say Village weren't investing. Scooby being pretty much completely rebuilt clearly isn't an answer to anything, and Surfrider and Marvin seems entirely to be in response to Scooby's closure and strain on the rest of the park in terms of line up and capacity. All of this is happening at a time when attendance is well above the long term average, and they clearly aren't suffering from competition. The only thing you COULD say is in response to DW is that with DW's low attendance, they're overwhelmed with how many guests they have, and that also they no longer feel WnW needs to compete with WWW so move Surfrider to the dry park that needs the capacity. Like I'm sorry but you're talking out of your bottom here.

RCDB is wrong on this. Hopkins & Pearce made 3 units - the one at LPS, and then two currently operating at parks in East Java in Indonesia. Aussie World's model was imported from the US, which is where Hopkins & Pearce first saw the Wild Mouse operating and bought the blueprints to build their own. So essentially, identical model, built by different manufacturers. All three of the Hopkins & Pearce clones still exist, although it's hard to know much about their current operating status with them being in Indonesia.

And the winner for the worst "hot take" on the Parkz forum, 2023, goes to...

No no no no. Very bad idea. The reason Village and Ardent are investing heavily into theming is due to competition. If Dreamworld was acquired by Village it would end up being a bad option, as Village would most likely slack off theming etc. due to there being no competition and not having to worry.

Yeah the heritage listing requires them to maintain it to a certain standard. They can't just bin the ride and built a replica. They'd have to assess each piece for whether it can continue to be used, requires refurbishment, or requires replacement, and if replacement is the solution (again, on a piece by piece basis), then they must replace it with as close to original as possible.