Richard

If you want to discuss the specific maintenance of a particular attraction, feel free to start a new topic.

Just to clarify our policy on mega-threads: We want people to start new threads to discuss new things, even if it's relatively minor. It's easier for everyone to find and follow what they're interested in this way and there's no harm in a thread with only a few replies discussing something small like park map changes. Construction threads are really the only exception to this as it's useful to keep this lumped together and in easy chronological order for future reference. In this case a new thread to show map changes is perfectly fine and preferable to adding it to the construction thread because it's different enough. We changed the title of this thread from "Dreamworld minor updates" early on to prevent it from becoming another mega-thread.

I really should have said only for word of mouth. Is an attraction that's notoriously difficult for even the likes of Disney to sell to the public the best possible use of ~$17 million for Dreamworld right now? Does Dreamworld need a sleeper hit that will bump their TripAdvisor rating from 4.0 to 4.1 over the next year or two, or do they need to dramatically change the narrative now? They've been back offering $79 annual pass renewals despite it being peak season and the launch of their first major attraction in years. That's a good indication that something is missing the mark.

People vote with their wallets. The point of looking at numbers is that they tell us what the general public is thinking. Dreamworld hasn't been a core business for Ardent for a long time. It remains in their portfolio because it's a lot harder to sell than a chain of bowling alleys or gyms and up until recently has been a reliable source of income. Praising them simply for reinvestment is like praising your local supermarket for having stocked shelves. It's integral to the business model, so to me the interesting discussion is more about whether they're investing smartly. I'd agree with some of these points -- unique and large target market in particular. I'd disagree that it's easy to market; it's an almost impossible concept to sell to the public and you'll see even Disney struggle with making them look good. These rides when done well are great for word of mouth, and there's no shortage of arguments for why that's not what Dreamworld needs right now.

Haven't they been resoundingly crucified for both SDSC and Sky Flyer? The hypercoaster didn't come close to bankrupting anyone. The worst thing you can say about that investment is that it was unfortunately timed in the TRR fallout. Last year's $38 million EBITDA was VRTP's lowest on record. It was about on par with Dreamworld's best year ever. In absolute terms, VRTP's Gold Coast parks have outspent Dreamworld almost 5 to 1 since 2012. Adjust for attendance and they've still outspent them 2 to 1. There's plenty to criticise about VRTP, but the idea that both operators are deserving of equal praise or criticism seems to come from a fairly vocal minority that gets hung up on tiny things and ignores the numbers.

Nothing was removed aside from the posts by yourself and a few others that were filled with personal insults. The discussion about this has been relocated to our Site Issues forum for it to be discussed properly in the correct section: https://www.parkz.com.au/forums/topic/8448-community-standards/

Thanks for pointing this out. It was actually just a tagging error... it was meant to be Wet'n'Wild Sydney (park ID #134 in our database), not Adventure Island (ride ID #134). As for the "dark ride"... Ardent/Dreamworld seem to have created a bit of confusion/doubt for themselves by leaving it out of the presentation despite mentioning it earlier in the year. I've not heard anything to suggest that this plan isn't going ahead in the near future, albeit not this financial year. As far as I know this was always the case, and the "dark ride" will form part of a relaunched Gold Rush that also includes some of the things mentioned in this article, and a few other things.

Many years ago I asked the "oracle" of Dreamworld his thoughts on B&M coasters. Bob's reply was that they wouldn't build one because their capacity is too high for Dreamworld's needs. He pointed out that B&Ms have four across seating, but Dreamworld really only needs two across. I guess what you can take from that is that his basic arithmetic skills and industry insight seems to be about as good as his memory...

Hypothetically if you allocated that corner of the park (old amphitheatre + Blue Lagoon) to hotel development then the train might still have a viable course around it. The real issue with the train is what you do with it if Corroboree is gutted and the footprint of Dreamworld is significantly reduced. Do you make it a shorter loop via the island (or fill in part/all of the river) at great expense or do you decide that between the difficulty of operating steam trains, the unreliability of their diesel replica and general public liability headaches with crossings and stray riders, that the train has had its day?

These plates indicate a mirror image of the structure. We're looking at the back centre (left) and front centre (right) support beams here. @joel, that's definitely not the layout.

That's not even close to being an option, or in any way practical or beneficial. The effect needs a large screen.

Don't the brackets indicate there's going to be another "stack" next to this one which gets us our 60 seats?

Pedalling back from what exactly? From the moment this article went live it included among other things: the main image and caption, the mention of those three film titles and the inherently ridiculous segue from LA porn star to LA theme park. If you can't decipher the tone from those then I guess I can see how you think this is Very Serious Business® from the esteemed Parkz Newz Bureau.

Except no one added the word "porn" to any search? It's the bizarre spelling of sky ryder which landed us here and nothing else. But to your point... if you're going to purposely misspell a word to be unique and edgy (#parkz), maybe checking for page-one-of-Google porn connections isn't the worst idea in the world? To be clear, the whole thing is simply amusing to us, no more no less. There's no lambasting and no one is outraged or offended. If this article upsets anyone then they're taking theme parks a lot more seriously than we do.

I mean I could have faked this screen capture in the last couple of minutes too... 7CDE788B-75C1-4A19-AE0C-D7F461AD6226.MP4