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I had occasion to visit Sea World yesterday for an extended family outing. Here are my thoughts... For reference: 4 adults, 4 kids, (all over 90cm). First up (and I know we've discussed this elsewhere) but whatever happened to Kirby's promise to have 'everything open' ? We were meeting family in park, so we decided not to detour to McD's on the way, and pick up something for breakfast \ brunch when we got there. On arrival, we climb the steep hill to the top, only to have a disinterested, corporate (VRTP) branded staff member casually observe our membership cards in hand, before lazily raising an arm in the direction of the alternate entrance saying 'oh, you've already got your tickets - this way'. There's something about childhood memories... of walking up that hill, with the blue dolphin looming overhead, quick stop for mum to frame a photo of the kids under the dolphin before a quick stroll through the ticket booths before opening up onto the lake proper... These days, this 'alternative entrance' which is dark, dingy, clearly not set up as an entrance, and appears to be primarily set up in this way so as to allow the greenscreen upsellers to make a buck, isn't really the best way to welcome people into the park - even if they hold annual passes, and have 'been there, done that'... especially as you then channel them out the doors towards some 'temporary' ticket booth scanners. It fucks with the flow. All guests inbound to the park should flow in one direction - unfortunately these two entry points cause contra flow - so a dingy, shitty look, and poor pedestrian flow = bad. Ok - we're in. Now for food - Lakeside happens to be right next to the 'alternative entrance'. Its shiny, clean and fresh looking, with some big TVs advertising a really nice bacon and egg burger, for under $10 - sounds delicious... except - theres a small A4 sign saying they're closed... and that you can be served at another outlet 30 metres away... which is fine - except there's nobody staffing that outlet either (they're all clustered around the espresso machine madly trying to serve all the coffee orders). We ask if the lakeside menu is available through the other outlets - No. We ask when will it open? They think 10... or maybe 10:30... but then one girl remembers that they'll be a bit later to open today because so-and-so was late. Oh, but did I mention, if you'd like to order Ice Cream at 9:50am on a frigid wintry morning - you can certainly do that... We decide to head to the plaza. They have a village bean, and a few other outlets... Maybe we'll have better luck there? Fat chance. even the Village Bean isn't open. Its 10:10. Bathroom break, ride the carousel, decide to head back to Lakeside for food. Staff were busily setting up sippers\drink bottles. the sign was still up. heat lights were on in the kitchen which was at least a positive. No communication except that damn A4 sign. Eventually, one of the staff told me they'd open in 5 minutes. 20 seconds later, the other staff member removed the A4 sign. 30 seconds later the first staff member took my order... and about 5 minutes later my burger shot down the chute of the food warmer. ...2 minutes later the original staff member put down the box of sippers they were packing and handed me the burger.... The burger was good. For theme park pricing, it was about what i expected, but it was hot, and the egg was runny (which was a surprise, but luckily no mess and thoroughly enjoyed it). It was tasty, and I probably would have gotten the same thing down the road for only $2 less, so value wise it was pretty good, and everything was fresh. So then we're finally off into the park. The park has a popup 'experience' desk just past the front building, offering 'dolphin pat and a seal hug, with photo for $xx'. It was a good combo deal, but it just repulsed me that the experience would be reduced just down to the 'pose, smile, click, get out' structure - SW's many animal experiences have for years been about much more than just the photo - and it seems like they'd boiled it down to 'how can we get as many paying people through as possible' - more focus on the revenue than the animals and the preservation messages, which to me just made it seem cheap \ pet porpoise pool style - not really suited to sea world at all. The helicopters were kept busy all day with asian tourists - this doesn't really impact anyone else and if someone wants to pay a fortune to enter a park to pay another fortune to fly over it, then thats just less people in my next queue... The seal show had an early 10:15 showtime, which was a great start to the day, except there was no signage or anything directing people up to the stadium. it was quite empty - we passed on this on our earlier walk-through. I have wanted to see it since it was re-done, but what little I caught as I walked past struck me that I probably didn't need to see anymore. Storm was closed, and with Vikings gone, it leaves a real hole in the park's 'central energy'. With the kids we spent a lot of time around Nick Land, and the kids got through a few rides. By now it was nearing 12pm, and it was time to checkout the Paw Patrol show, which Master Two usually goes crazy for. In terms of this, I'm just going to say that they've got two pup suits, and a banner, and the show consists of about 15 minutes of dancing with some audience involvement. It has about as much to do with Paw Patrol as it does to do with Sea World, and you could literally pick ANY intellectual property, get two suits, with two 'human' hosts alongside, and the show would be the same, provided the 'pup'-language was changed to suit whatever the IP was. It was generic, and even Master Two was bored. We checked out the polar bears - Mishka wasn't on exhibit, and then headed to Ray Reef. For me, I thought it was lacking, which is to say that there seemed to be a lot less Rays than there used to be. The fact that 'feeding' is not currently available is probably more an indicator of this as the rays aren't encouraged to interact with guests, rather than there being any change to population. There was also a maintenance worker in the tank scrubbing the sides - who was pleasant enough to interact with, but it struck me as odd for this sort of task to be done during park opening hours. We moved onto Shark bay whilst the older kids headed to Jet Rescue. Shark Bay also seems to be lacking some of the life it used to - I feel like there used to be more variety of shark and fish in the 'reef' side - I did however note the 'big shark' side had a turtle in it - something i'd never seen before. By this stage, we were getting closer to the time for the Jet Ski show. Deciding it was time for a (late) lunch, and not really having much interest in the Jet Skis, we decided to leave, and pick up a cheaper lunch elsewhere. Yes, this trip wasn't really about rides (for me) but it is really a stark contrast just how little there is to 'do'. There's plenty to 'see', but there is so much about our day thatcould have been better with very little effort. I can't imagine we'd have ridden storm had it been open, nor would we have done vikings, battle boats, or the splash play area, as it was just too damn cold. Little wonder there was nobody in the water for animal experiences either. The park has lots of summer things to do, but it's missing the land-based stuff that keeps a winter guest happy.... like hot fresh food first thing in the morning. We've discussed VRTP standards in detail, but I do feel that much of that discussion has centred around Movie World, with very little about SW or WnW - but it is just as apparent to me that SW is worse off than MW is - because at least one could stay busy all day at MW. We could easily have left SW by midday had it not been for certain showtimes, and there was little to occupy us in between. Forget the standards at MW right now - Sea World needs urgent help... NOW.

Sea World Jellyfish attraction update - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVjHtpZ5BSc Construction going on everywhere, jet rescue main viewing path/out the front of vikings ride and entrance to splashdown of flume and entrance of storm blocked off. Jet rescue operating with long line. Creatures of the deep ending fenced off. Lots of maintance is all you need to know.

Thanks for the summary @Roachie - these two points have me a little intrigued. I'm first wondering whether the 'confusing' label is that applied to it by investigators, or by qualified and experienced operators. Ie: were the people trained to operate it saying the panel was confusing? Or just a layperson? I'm sure many rides around the world would appear confusing to someone not trained on it... and I can't really imagine an experienced operator finding a panel confusing so i'm just trying to figure it out in my head. WRT the 'two' e-stops, my understanding is the main e-stop was an 'all stop' - so cut power to pumps etc, and for that reason, seven seconds sounds like the time it takes the water levels to drop within the station area. The 'second' (although apparently not marked in this way) was only a stop button for the conveyor - water continued to flow if this was pressed. If my understanding is correct, then the instructions 'not to use' and 'nobody uses that' kind of make sense. In an emergency, you would want an 'all stop' not just a 'stop the conveyor' so it does kind of make sense in most scenarios. At the end of the day its starting to sound much worse than we had thought out at Dreamworld, and I think the best outcome here for all is for the inquest to end with an outcome, for that outcome to absolutely crucify Ardent and it's operations, and for the park to be on-sold to an operator with an exemplary record to re-start everything from scratch.

Actually, no. The screen is just a 3D object for projection mapping. By definition a screen is a specially prepared, light-reflecting surface something may be projected.

Memberships still stand. It's just that the old Membership cards are not compatible with their new ticketing system. If you go to a booth they give you a new card that actually works with their scanners. It is still a Membership pass though. Mine still says Premier Membership.

You wouldn't have one e-stop for multiple attractions because there's no logical justification in the first place. Same with Outback Spectacular - you don't need to wire the helicopter's e-stop in with AV because the speakers and the projectors doesn't pose a safety risk to paying punters, only the big mechanical thing moving about does. From what i've read today there's a lot of mis-use of the term e-stop so let's re-clarify with the world's most trusted source, Wikipedia: Now let's take it a step further, in Australia, Omron defines the difference between a normal button and an e-stop button: There's other sources like Safework which are worth a read - but here's the long story short, if it's not clearly an e-stop button and it doesn't do what an e-stop button is supposed to do, then it's not an e-stop button, and that's a huge issue. From everything i've read today, there's a lot of conflicting information about buttons and ride history from journos live-tweeting inside the hearing so i'll be continuing to keep my ear on the ground as this develops - remember this is day one and already it's been draining to say the least.

No that's the problem. You can't have an Emergency Stop button attached to a piece of equipment (ie the ride) that doesn't stop all parts of the ride and remove all energy (read that's not just electrical power). Otherwise it isn't an Emergency Stop. A 'conveyor stop' button say black in colour is perfectly legal though and doesn't have to remove power. The whole thing is ridiculous anyway. There should have been both an interlock between the pumps and the conveyor as well as safety logic that stops the conveyor on a station backup like what occurred. The ride had neither. It was a majorly deficient control system.

This is not disagreement, but what if the "system" the second button was installed on was 'just' the conveyor? Couldn't one have a 'conveyor belt emergency stop' that ONLY stopped the conveyor? It isn't reliant on any other part of the ride - if the conveyor stopped, no other operating part of the ride could cause danger to the conveyor part of the ride... could it? I'm not arguing this is, or isn't how it was actually set up, i'm just trying to get an understanding of the terms, and rules applying to those terms as you've explained it...

Would be good to know what the labels were. Anything labeled Emergency Stop MUST remove all energy from the system, so can't just stop one thing. Similarly if it's a red button on a yellow background regardless of the label (if any) it is implied that this is an Emergency Stop and should function as above.

So, right up your alley then?

Here's what we know so far - feel free to comment and i'll make edits where possible. a similar incident occurred in 2001 with no one on-board, was put down to operator error, no modifications were made and emergency response training was instead increased operating the ride was difficult, noting that operators "must perform numerous tasks simultaneously, many of which are cognitively draining." Ride's e-stop button was "totally un-marked" and the main control panel was "confusing" The main e-stop button would take seven seconds to stop the ride & the second e-stop button could have shut down the ride in two seconds Operators were told "not to worry about that button (the second e-stop) [because] no one uses it." A memo was sent to staff less than a week before the incident advising only to use the second e-stop button if the "main control panel cannot be reached" to prevent "false alarms." "Button" on the unload platform stops conveyor belt, but staff were told not to worry about it Nothing beyond a scum line was used to measure water levels (no electronic indicators or a depth ruler) - rafts getting stuck were another sign Dreamworld's safety compliance rate in 2016 was nearly half (41.7%) of the 75% that is considered to be compliant The same pump that failed had an "earth fault" twice that morning that caused the pump to stop and had tripped on October 19, 2016 and was scheduled to be checked on October 27. Police were never able to replicate the incident with or without dummies With thanks to journalists Lea Emery from GCB and Alexandria Utting from CM for the live coverage so far.

@alexutting from the Courier-Mail is tweeting updates from the inquest today.

First official public confirmation

Detective Sergeant Nicola Brown told the inquest the ride operator who was near the only emergency stop button did not know what it was for. The ride operator was not aware the button could stop the conveyor belt in two seconds. The control panel only had a “slow stop” of the conveyor belt. She said the ability of police to gather information from Dreamworld “could’ve perhaps been better”. Sgt Brown said Dreamworld provided all the information requested but the format it was in made it difficult to decipher and determine which documents were relevant. The court also heard the ride did not have an emergency stop button which disabled all of the components of the ride. Sgt Brown said a second stop button brought the conveyor belt to a stop, but took seven seconds to completely stop. She said safety audits had previously recommended a single emergency stop button be installed. Det Sgt Brown also told the court there had been a recommendation in 1999 that an emergency stop button that shut off rides immediately — rather than taking seven seconds to shut down — be installed. “The 1999 recommendation of positive energy stop didn’t happen then or even later,” Mr Fleming asked. “No,” Det Sgt Brown said. So reading that - there is NO positive energy stop on the ride?? WTF? A full shutdown required both buttons to be pushed?

You do know that projection mapping is 100% screenless right?