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So time to share my impressions Munchkinland/Forecourt the entrance photo op statues look great. Little close to the brake run for SE imo, but I get they working with limited space so will ignore it. The walkway down to the forecourt is great, the rainbow effect is great and the transitional music change is really good. The theming in the forecourt is great, and in the 50mins we were there there was photo op with Wicked Witch, a Dorothy performance, and a photo op with Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion. All great, however I’d like to see how regular this becomes or even if it still exists in off peak Emerald City Lighting and design is decent. They’ll want to keep those wall projections functional (unlike other projections in the park) or it will be bland and boring. The wizard projection is quite good, though would have been fantastic to have it have more random or lengthy dialogue sets as it does get a little tedious being so short and just on repeat. Flight of the Wicked Witch The internal queue is fantastic with the room of Poppies and then the enchanted forest. You feel immersed in the story, and even my son said “wow this is like a Japan-level queue” and then boom - you walk downstairs and you are in an outdoor cattle run with no shade, and ridiculous slow ops and burning to a crisp in the sun. I can’t overstate how much the experience is wrecked by this. The immersion is gone and you just want to get it over with. You enter the castle for the final part of the queue which does look good, but it’s not air conned so there is no respite from the baking you’ve just had. They only let 1-2 groups into the castle at the time. The ops just seem entirely haphazard. The 2 cycles where I could visually see what was happening has 4-5min waits between guest disembarking and next guests being let onto the platform simply because the sorter is also the harness checker and they didn’t start sorting until the previous ride disembarked. The entrance to the ride gates is in such a close proximity to the entrance, they have to fill gates 4/5 which are directly in front of the entrance last as you wouldn’t get people past them otherwise. the ride itself is punchy and smooth, and a much better experience than similar coasters I have been on, so gets a big tick on that. There is a short jolty break mid final turn prior to the full break run which is a little strange in terms of forces, and the ride photo for mine is far too late in the ride, but aside from that no complaints. Kansas Twisters I could probably copy the same as the previous tbh.. the starting internal queue is great, immersive and fun. Then you are outside. In the sun. The grouper, who is deciding whether you get in the yellow or the orange train queue, had absolutely no concept of counting. We were told to join the orange train queue, which is on the opposite side of the station so you have to head up and over the track inside the barn. After a couple of cycle, it was blatantly apparent he couldn’t count as we were probably 3-4 cycles from getting on the orange train, and there was only 6 people waiting for the yellow. Cue us excusing ourselves back past another 10 plus people and jumping the rail to join the yellow train queue. Did I mention it was hot? And the barn had no air con or fans? Who designed this place? the ride itself is fun on the forwards cycle, but to be honest I found the return journey just too slow to really consider re-riding again. You walk off to look at chain link fencing and the 30 year old back of house offices. We’re not in Kansas anymore Toto… i also didn’t mention that there was no announcements over the speakers on either ride, no “enjoy the ride” or “you’re about to take flight on blah blah”. The only thing said by staff was yelling “don’t touch the seatbelt, we will do it up. Don’t touch the seat belt” on FOTWW. overall if they spent $100m they need their better people making the financial decisions for the park. Whilst it’s clear nothing is going to change short term, they need to drop some money into this thing before next summer to at a minimum have some shade sails over the queue line, and put some air con or fans into the internal queues. Then they need to sort out their ops. promises so much, but just misses the high mark it set for itself unfortunately. It’s not a fail by any stretch, but if it’s a 2 horse race between Oz and Rivertown - DW has is won by the length of the straight

Got to experience JR today for 3 rides. the queue is fantastic and evoked memories from Indy at DisneySea. The atmosphere is great, the use of sound, the rumble/vibrations are felt when the train passes through etc. my only complaint would be I’d like to have seen the large snake have an animatronic involved to bring some movement to that area, but the water features and detail are fantastic and set a standard well above anything DW has ever delivered on. loading is simple and efficient. There are signs to direct you to one of 2 queues for either forward departures or backwards departures. Grouper lets through 2-3 cycles worth into the station so it’s quick and easy. great attitude and energy by staff, “get ready for jungle rush” etc by the main ops in the booth. the ride itself is a heap of fun. Won’t describe it in detail but the dark ride sections are fun, I think I personally prefer the backwards departure but understand there could be some level of variation depending upon the day/time etc. really punchy on the corners make for some rib tickling on the side of the train if you are an arms up rider. Did I mention a fully inside queue, air-con and fans? Because I should have, as it made all the difference to the guest experience ride photos were a bit problematic with the screens not refreshing which meant keeping track of time and heading to the photo place at the exit, but it’s still in tech rehearsals so I won’t complain about that. the clear winner by daylight in terms of the new GC park additions

Dreamworld have definitely put much more love and care into the whole land than MW with Wizard of Oz - every part just looks spectacular. The details placed within each part look fantastic, even a non E-ticket like this looks amazing, and will only get better thanks to weathering and the growing greenery. Good job to Greg Yong and his team for making Rivertown so great, I can't wait to see what is next. Hopefully some enhancements are made eventually, such as retheming Motocoaster into the land and redoing the store's facade to match.

You should go check out Rivertown

Geez, for a ride that has always been a bit of an afterthought - even being shoved to the back of the park for the last few year - this looks incredible. It just shows what can be done with a little bit of creative vision. Once all that landscaping grows in, it's going to look even better than it does now - and it already looks amazing.

The execution on this has been world class. They deserve all the credit they get. It’s amazing how much Dreamworld has evolved.

No fans existed in both FOTWW nor KT iirc. A bit of an extreme oversight that seems to be common among VRTP parks.

Steak Sandwich is pretty good too ($24 before discount).

Checked it out yesterday for Lunch. Definitely would be my new top pick for GC park food. Photo is of the “Tropical Paradise ($28 before discount). QR Code ordering at the table or server with a tablet/eftpos machine.

This waiting in the sun feels like a liability. I’m sure we’ll see some tin roof or shade cloth up in no time that will further add to the generic theme of everything beyond the indoor queue. It’s clear whoever is planning and designing Movie World’s latest additions has no regard for the basic principles of theme park design that the park was originally built with. The beautiful entrance plaza and gate was such a considered photo op with superman centered over the archway and the Arkham Asylum tower and signage angled towards Main Street. Now with flash plonked inside Superman, the back of the emerald city and the back of the Kansas Twister lift hills visible from that front gate view, they’ve really killed what was a really nice sightline. Scooby doo they did such a good job hiding the ugly show building parts from the ride entrance, same with WWF. Feels like they just plonked some blueprint rides down in any sort of way with no consideration of how it looked, or worked from a guest experience standpoint. Like why not have the station for FOTWW right next to the main queue building. Why is it all the way in the back corner if they couldn’t afford to theme the pathway to get to it. Also the main entrance/ photo op with the character statues being next to the superman break run, with a white shed and the back of the emerald city building with visible support structure and a bunch of machinery for the KT lift hills… it’s quite ugly. And it feels like they know it’s ugly given the content they’re putting out showing only the couple of angles that the land looks good from. I think the coasters are great additions don’t get me wrong. It’s just a shame it feels like they’re investing so much with the right idea but just really average execution. Reminds me of Dreamworld in it era of Motocoaster and Buzzsaw.

Why? Because it is now officially open, you have a sold out event and having it opens makes for a much better experience for everyone - and last time I checked the guest experience is their key metric (or so we are told). Having hundreds of people being told at the entrance to the rides it’s closed after allowing them to all walk down the pathway and into the land etc is just disappointing people.

Makes sense to not give your new attractions away for free, especially when you just spent 100,000 billion, trillion dollars on it.

Certainly looks the more flushed out of the two theme park areas opening this summer from everything posted online

Lets be real realistically its more like the execs have never experienced a wait for anything

At least it isn't just rollercoasters with a few comic panels outside of them

yeah i think Rivertown definitely has been executed a lot better then WoO. i think when you hype up a product so much like they have for 4 years, you need to deliver more then you promised, especially when you’re saving money using cookie cutter layouts. the fact they haven’t even covered the concrete tunnel on FOTWW with atleast some fog speaks volumes. however, i haven’t seen it in person, so i’ll reserve my final judgements until i see it for myself.

I have to say personally I am disappointed. We didn’t spend long there so I won’t review the rides as we couldnt get on. From a ‘non rider’ perspective the land is incredibly small, boxed in and feels kinda flat/cheap. It almost feels like an old area of a park that use to be alive but lost its energy and pizazz over the years. It desperate for some kinetic energy and life in my opinion. We had a Quick Look in the ride queues, there’s a small element of impressive theming then lots of blank walls and concrete and backstage views with literally 0 effort or thought put in. The wait times for wicked witch are also going to be horrendous. I can’t imagine most families/kids being happy to wait 2hours+ for a short ride. Seems a bizarre choice for a park that is screaming out for capacity and people eaters and who seem to have no interest in efficiencies or operations, but I digress. I’ll admit this is a step up from a lot of recent village installations and there are some really beautiful scenes here and there, but overall disappointed. It’s not an Immersive land at all, it’s a painted courtyard with some theming and a queue for two small coasters. The claim of $100mill also baffles me. Between Woz and Rivertown, I’m hoping it pays off for dreamworld, they’ve put far more effort in this time round and you can see their passion in its endless details and uniqueness.