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The first supports for Jungle Rush have arrived at Dreamworld. (from auscoasters on Instagram)

The Emporium has been repainted to remove the bright red, replaced with a better looking brown which gives it a better vibe. Apparently the whole of main street is being repainted to make it look more timeless. I think it looks great, and am happy to see the rest get painted the same. (thanks to Gold Coast Theme Parks on FB)

I don't think anyone is disputing closing once and doing all the necessary work. The thing that people are pointing out is that they're doing that on SE AND Batwing AND DD (which has other issues) AND Scooby all at the same time, with a lot of unplanned stoppages/late openings/closed seats on GL, Rivals, RR, and WWF. There have been several days where MW were charging $110 single day entry for people to watch HWSD2, and see Batman showcase because every single adult ride has been closed, as well as Road Runner - meaning there was not a single roller coaster or thrill ride operational. That is an unacceptable situation to be in and is 100% due to the park's management failing to invest adequately in the maintenance of their rides, plan maintenance schedules properly, and replace defunct rides in a timely manner when it is clear that they've reached the end of their lifespan (SD, AA, DD). But also due to the types of rides and attractions they operate. A simulator ride like Batman could operate even if one or two simulators failed - just at reduced capacity. The Movie Magic show could still operate if one of the show elements failed, other areas of the show could be padded out and the host could still explain how things work with other demonstrations. It also means that annual maintenance can occur on part of the attraction while it is still operational, reducing the amount of time it would need to be closed. It is also apparent that there are management issues from staff attitudes toward visitors. Staff are not friendly, none of them want to be there, and replies to customer complaints on social media have shown absolute contempt for visitors that just wanted a fun day out with their family. Compare that with DW, where they acknowledge they are in a state of transition, they know most of the park is a construction zone, but the staff are engaging, friendly, courteous, and genuinely want to see people enjoying themselves. I visited DW for the first time since 2015 the other week and the staff were the single most memorable part of my day. The staff issue at MW is what really indicates this is a top-down problem because the front line workers are unsupported and have no power to fix the situation for unhappy visitors. A theme park is a retail business, a service industry business, an art/design and performance business and a heavy machinery business. Movie World was once the stand out performer in Australia for all of these, but it's fallen behind in all of them and completely bungled the last one. People are rightfully pointing out that 2 month closures should be unnecessary, and planned overlapping closures are just bad management. But 2 month closures when you've got so many other closures - planned or temporary - happening in the park to the point that people are paying full price entry and cannot go on a single ride, is what most people in this thread are complaining about. Yes, DW have some extended closures for various reasons, but the difference is in the broader context of the park's offerings and operations.

Photos from today: Framework has begun going up for the building that’ll enclose roughly half of Jungle Rush’s layout. Look into the (gutted) inside of Billabong: And, the supports: I don’t know what the status of the turntable at Vekoma’s workshop is, but there are visible tags on the shipment that read ‘Platform Supports’, and that tied with the catwalks, and shape of some support columns, has me guessing these are for it.

Seems as good a place as any to post this… nice little subtle dig at the park down the road….

AA closed in 2019, was demolished in 2022 and Groundwork for the coasters started over a year ago. abc kids world closed 5 months ago and groundwork for the coasters is nearly done, with all of the theming being assembled off site. i dont think its really comparable.

In all honesty, I don't know why parks target openings to occur bang on peak periods. There are inevitably teething issues and the ride's reputation is made or broken in that first peak rush. Open it in the off season, give your operators time to bed down the processes without a 3 hour queue of angry families behind them, and iron out the kinks. Advertise the hell out of it and get soundbytes and reviews from real actual guests, rather than stupid rhetoric from the C Suite for your marketing - anyone planning a last minute trip for the next holidays might see that and decide to go as a result.

Absolutely. Ever since BGH Capital’s takeover of Village, the guest experience has taken such a dramatic nosedive and their poor management and cost-cutting is destroying the park’s reputation at a pretty alarming rate. It’s clear they only care about profits and don’t have a clue what made the park so special in the first place. So sad to see a place I loved so much fall so low.

In case you fall over from shock of how amazing the theming in the tunnel is?

I can confirm that Greg and most of the upper management in the park were very good leaders and some of them actually personally trained me when I worked for Movie World. Basically when Greg left, he took the good ones with him and left some of the others behind haha. I do remember one day when I was working, getting a bit of a shock when I looked up at the Superman control room to see Greg in the operators seat haha. And I know people that currently work for Dreamworld, and that same culture from what I have heard is very much alive in the park. Honestly from an employee standpoint, 2006 - 2014 really was some of the peak years for staff in regards to how they were treated.

The Cost to re build the Sky Voyager facade back to suit the area, while I believe is important to do at some stage, the capital can be better spent in the short term on more impactful projects that have better ROI. Such as a new ride. While impactful these works on Main street is more or less just repainting. The cost to rebuild the facades on Sky Voyager will be significantly higher.

It's big!

=

Recent pic of the site. More concrete!

Funny you should say that... I worked at the park for several years, and Wild West Falls was one of the rides that I operated the most (along with Scooby) and not once did I ever have to stop the ride or witness a ride stop due to someone jumping the fence. It really doesn't happen often at all, people standing up on West was much more frequent but with the new harnesses it would be pretty much impossible to do that now.

That’s good they’ve gone to the effort to adding speakers and bringing back music to the area (because it definitely needed it). Maybe im being too harsh, but that feels like such a half assed effort of hanging speakers from a tree. Why not actually mounted them to a wall or somewhere more inconspicuous so you can’t see them. That tree is already cluttered with stuff, it didn’t need more adding to it. The area needed music, but if this is the best they can do, maybe they shouldn’t have bothered. I don’t know! (someone feel free to call me out if that too harsh). It’s just disappointing to see this is how the park is managed now and they seem to respond to feedback in a panic and just see what sticks.

What the hell is wrong with people in this group All i read is people complaining everything they do is shit and then they do something good and its post about what its shit or not worth bothering for a few nights a year Get a life

They should be. We know its a relocation and it isn't all that, but they're doing something (albeit it seems to have run into it's fair share of road blocks along the way) and the focus on BTS content and construction updates and the like isn't something we've seen a lot of from our parks before. I don't want to pour shit on the effort because honestly I want it to continue...

3rd article about TRRR in the last 24 hours. if I’m one of the families I’m sick of it continuing to be brought up by the media every few months to get some clicks. move on.

@Gobbledok that's it running with counterweights. I don't think the ride can operate without them.

Guys, they've hung two PA speakers in a tree. That's not a step in the right direction, that literally the least amount of effort possible. Movie World has always been my happy place, but the place now is honestly a glorified shopping centre with 2 decent coasters, a long void of anything interesting and then a water ride.

Sea World also is lit up for Autism Day! Well done to both parks! 👏

I think that's the point though now isn't it. I just saw these photos on Facebook and thought to myself "oh well guess the lighting package for Flash is revealed...I'll go see what Parkz thinks" and sure enough exactly what I expected. Instead of a happy response to the fact it has lights, it's some post saying how 'oh it's Movie World clearly this is an awful idea and they are going to make it look terrible.' But no actually, it's for a special occasion and that's cool. You want to see terrible, go look at that bloody awful lighting on the Wave Swinger up the street, truely vomit inducing and that's the permanent scheme they've chosen! The last attraction Village Built was Leviathan and I might be biassed, however worldwide knowledgable people have said it's world class level (not just Village marketing dept). So why would their next thing suddenly assumed to be awful? Because everything is automatically bad because you don't like the CEO right? If Leviathan was lit up Rainbow for a special awareness thing I would think that was awesome. From what I understand the Park are doing all the lighting for Flash themselves in house and if this is the result (along with the sign) then how great! This whole Movie World is Evil and Dreamworld is the land of the gods just has to stop, each has good and bad points when you look at them objectively. Funnily enough the first lights for Wizard of Oz arrived in the country today, I look forward to coming back in a few months and finding out why they are awful too 😛

Scaffolding has gone up around the detour walkway A new office has appeared by the Billabong Restaurant New generic work fence design - looks good!

There is fencing in the car park of Dreamworld now, perhaps we'll see the coaster arrive soon?

To be completely honest... the CONCEPT behind Doomsday was a good idea, a decently themed flat ride. If the ride actually worked properly, and wasn't a total potato it would have for the most part been alright. It was just a shame that the ride was so unreliable and was down so often because from what I gather that's the biggest complaint with the ride (apart from the B mode it's now running in). I really don't think they would have chosen the model if they knew it was going to be so unreliable. Honestly if it had been me though, I would have moved SurfRider to Movie World at that point in time and put it where doomsday was and chosen something different for Flash but that's a whole different story. Scooby is much the same, the idea was good (refurbishing and bringing it up to new standards) but the execution kinda failed. Although from what I heard, what Movie World got vs what they paid for was not quite right. I will give them props for bringing back the theming standard for the ghost train to the original for the most part (we do not talk about the screens though...) and getting the light show running properly. So IMO it wasn't a complete failure, just some things didn't go quite right.

@Gobbledok the photo TPSN posted and the one I shared on GCTP were older photos. The counterweights are definitely gone, as confirmed by @Ogre in their latest video

both sides of Kansas Twisters spikes have been put into place. the only thing left now is the lift hills. (the_themepark_social_network)

On the contrary, the least amount of effort possible is what they've been doing - nothing. This is literally 'A' step.

We are planning a trip this year and the one thing we have learned is that you need to plan and research a LOT. I'm hearing you about it not being a park trip, so while it'll be hard for most folk here to not fall back to 'do this park too!' i'll try and balance things out a bit... First, a couple of things to echo - if you do Disney, DisneySea should be the priority. You should still spend 2 days there minimum, but if you only have one, spend it at Sea. We have 3 weeks, and we've already put down 2 days in each park. But don't not go just because people have said you need more time there. A little time is enough to show you if those people were right, and whether you want to go back again later for a better experience. Be prepared to be flexible. A lot of things sell out early (including express passes) and in Disney's case - vacation package guests, and then hotel guests, get first dibs on pretty much everything. A lot can be sold out so have alternative options if something isn't available. Know the dates things are made available - As an example, Universal passes are dropped around 2 months out. Disney usually drops hotels & vacation packages 3 months out, but in our case they dropped the packages early due to the opening of fantasy springs. This sort of thing drops at a set time of day, and some of the websites drop from too much traffic \ place you in a queue. (We waited in the queue for 11 hours to secure a Fantasy Springs package, but that's not the average experience). Even experiences like Shibuya Sky, some of the Team Lab experiences drop tickets a certain time out, and there is a rush to get all the best spots early. You might still find tickets closer to the day, but they may not be at an ideal time and you'll find yourself compromising things if you haven't planned. ESPECIALLY because you're planning to go in Sakura season - you should get a good idea of your itinerary NOW and so that you're ready to book accommodations as soon as they're available for your dates (usually 12 months out). You'll also want to be researching all of the attractions you want to do, though with two years before you go there are going to be plenty of changes in that time, so again, be flexible) Transport. iPhones these days can add an IC card like Suica for general public transport. If you're doing a lot of back and forth between cities, consider whether the JR pass will work, but note that it had a huge price increase last year and you really have to do a lot of long distance shinkansen to make it worthwhile. We're hitting Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Nara, Nagoya, Hakone and then back to Tokyo, so for us it works - but if you're just hitting the golden triangle, (Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto) it generally isn't worth it. Many of our stops don't include parks, so may be closer to the itinerary you're looking for. Youtube is your best friend. The amount of things we've found, learned and researched by watching youtube is mind blowing. There is so much to learn, and we're still making tweaks to our itinerary based on updated info from the latest videos. We've watched a lot of different channels, but the ones that ended up in our subs were: For the bigger parks, TDR Explorer is really informative. For getting around (especially as a family), Kensho Quest has been really good For just seeing what a place \ attraction looks like without much waffle, channels like ITSUKA JAPAN provide walkthroughs Americans documenting their travels (which is great as you learn lessons from them as a result) check out Ordinary Adventures or Tales from our Pocket Hints and tips about everything japan from a local guy starting his own tour guide \ travel company - HARBLIFE Hints and tips about everything japan from a local - TOKYO KENCHAN Hints and tips about everything japan from an american guy who does travel videos everywhere - YELLOW PRODUCTIONS Good japanese advice from a westerner (UK) living and working in japan (but mixed in with silly video collaborations made with friends - Abroad in Japan (he's also written several books under the same name)

@Brad2912 it’s for autism awareness month, so it doesn’t isn’t yuck. If they used this day to day, then maybe, but for raising awareness ‘yuck’ shouldn’t be the word used. But this shows the capability of the lighting package for the ride and I think they could do some really cool stuff if they just mixed red and yellow for this. And good on the park for investing in a lighting package for the ride, something they’ve only ever done for Rivals at the park

It’s been lit like this for Autism QLD Day… just drove past and it’s lit up Red and Yellow now. Looks cool with Green Lantern, Rivals all lit up at night! Well done to the AV team, wonder what it will do when the ride is operating?

Movie World have shown off the attraction signs lighting package at night. Kudos to the park because this is the best attraction sign they’ve done in a long time RPReplay_Final1713393894.mov

It's queensland. Wait a while.

Word is they want it open, but they’re ‘waiting on insurance’. If that is the case, and it continues to take longer than expected, I reckon they should make that clear & have it closed with no known reopen, instead of delaying dates like other parks do/have done.

Just came across this video from Mitty Theme Parks showing the land has already been demolished to make way for the lazy river and dodgems. I believe the park is now closed for the cooler season, so we probably want see anything until the area is complete when the park reopens.

not a dig at dw/vekoma for having claimed this for JR, cause it’s clearly very different than the one that’s gonna be featured on it, just something interesting that i came across

evac stairs are a pretty standard addition to a coaster. I don't get why there's such a big issue here... Sure painted might have been better - but since it's connected, which colour would you paint it? Jesus enthusiasts will literally complain about anything...

idk if news articles kept bringing up my traumatic experience from 8 years ago in order to get a couple dollars i wouldn’t be very happy.

from what i’ve heard they are recognised and treated very well, makes sense why all the staff seem like they actually want to be there.

*shows photo with the counterweights on both arms*

Reminds me of this

MW only having 2 big rides open. ShakeShack "It's fine" ShakeShack " Look at DW"

It's not, but the difference is DW schedule their maintence so it's spaced out throughout the year so there aren't multiple major rides closed for months at the same time. While currently MW have four major attractions closed (Scooby being one and Doomsday now not having a reopening date). It seems the 1-2 month closures are the normal now (due to the new requirements post the river rapids investigation), but what the parks need to do is manage their timing and try and reduce the mutli-ride downtime as much as possible.

I don’t think in any situation, putting the flash (a red coaster) within Superman (a red coaster) was a good idea. Superman towers over Flash making it look so insignificant and not exciting. At WnW it towered over anything that was nearby and it made it look impressive, but at MW it isn’t. And with it tangled within Superman’s track I’d say guests are going to get confused with what coaster is what. It doesn’t matter that Superman is nearly 20 years old and there’s entry signage, people still get confused with this sort of thing. The Flash at MW (in my opinion) was not the right decision, but having it within Superman was a terrible idea.

They should just take the ride off the maintenance page instead of extending it over and over when it isn't going to reopen.

Nice. Should have waited until around 8-9am however for it to sound a little more plausible. 6/10

I think DW being reminded how badly they failed, keeps the pressure on DW from going back there. Makes me feel safer going to DW. If it’s forgotten and never talked about, DW have less reasons to keep me safe.