Richard

I don’t know anything about contractors pulling out and I never said you have to trust anyone, least of all me...

For what it's worth, senior management at VRTP reached out to me many months ago when it became apparent that there'd be delays at Sea World and brought me in on the nature of these delays off the record. By the same token I've not had any communication from Dreamworld while public statements surrounding the past year's closures and delays are a shifting narrative riddled with inconsistencies and omissions. Speaking only for the editorial position of Parkz, we can either be on the outside looking in or the inside looking out.

Second prize is a 10 year pass.

That's a lot of words to defend a ride that'll be closed pretty soon. 🙂

Same goes for having a campaign that is all about having a campaign. VRTP are transparently emulating the Thredbo ads you see at Event cinemas but fall flat along the way — turns out you can’t fake heart. Dreamworld meanwhile realise they can’t focus on substantive in-park experiences because they’ve removed most of them, so they’re going all gimmicks and as a result not actually saying anything at all. It’s all a bit self-congratulatory and on the nose from both companies. Here’s one I prepared earlier. Mostly still applies for both brands. https://www.parkz.com.au/article/2017/04/27/487-VRTP_needs_to_fundamentally_rethink_their_message_and_marketing.html

As it stands they can't move a buggy carrying tensa barriers two metres down Main Street without half a dozen attendants passive aggressively shooing anyone in a 50 metre radius. Good luck with a permanent ride. By any observable metric, Doomsday and surrounds was wasted capital. It was a very well executed concept that was... doomed... from the start because it was all wrong. It was meant to draw guests away from the front of the park but the attraction they chose was simply not strong enough to be able to do that. Then throw in the interactive elements that are aimed at a totally different audience from the ride. What we have is a ~$10 million spend on something that looks nice but doesn't achieve what they wanted it to. You only need to look at how quiet this area is even at peak times to see that this is the case.

Could just be the pizza oven is kaput for a month so they're bringing Mexican items back from that failed attempt to breath life into Parkway just so they've got something to sell in that prime location. And good to see paper straws? Nope. Plastic straws are wasteful. Paper straws are wasteful AND useless. Would rather see businesses ween functioning adults off sippy cups by not offering straws, period. And for my money the pizza on offer at Dough Bros is pretty much the best simple food on offer at any of our theme parks. Lightyears ahead of the decorated cardboard they call pizza at Movie World and beats any of the parks' attempts at burgers.

A few things worth considering: Rivals had a (planned) delay of several months between foundations being laid and track showing up. Like Rivals which started preliminary groundwork in late August, that's already happening at Dreamworld. Reports out of Germany suggest track is already being fabricated. So don't necessarily expect a delay between foundations and vertical construction this time.

Is it a fun ride that will be popular for years to come? Yes. Does it have significant flaws in the ride system, film production and overall ride/pre-ride experience? Yes. Both of these are true statements whether or not you're familiar with similar rides around the world.

Village doesn't own the Wet'n'Wild name in the US so that's a different set of circumstances. The Sydney local market directly impacts the Gold Coast tourism market unlike regional US water parks that have no bearing whatsoever on each other. Maintaining complete ownership of the Wet'n'Wild name in Australia would have been very important to Village in this deal. Not sure why anyone would feel disappointed about losing the WNW name in Sydney. VRTP did their very best to destroy the brand and associated goodwill with that park. It's just a name, logically it was always going to happen and it's in everyone's best interests. Village can restore faith in the WNW brand by investing at the Gold Coast (we're waiting...), Parques Reunidos can draw a line in the sand and operate Raging Waters without the baggage of six failed seasons (they get to disappoint people on their own terms).

OK joke's been done. Can we try and stick to commenting on current affairs?

It's worth pointing out that the coaster layout shown in the artist's rendering is not the final product. There were three iterations of the coaster layout by Martin & Vleminckx / Gravity Group. The finalised layout is the one depicted in the scale model: https://www.parkz.com.au/photo/19332-Leviathan_model/gallery/sort/newest/location/ride-4166-Leviathan/offset/0

@CaptainLazerGuns, you've come into this discussion with vague assertions and straw man fallacies. Responses have been made to you in a rational, respectful manner. I write articles like this to get people to think and react so I'm more than happy for respectful discussion/critiquing but as it stands all you've really offered is ad hominems about the community at large. Even that would probably be fine were you not claiming to be taking the high road while simultaneously goading members and dishing out bizarre pejoratives about lists and gifs (it's 2019?) that don't actually exist in this thread and rarely at all in these forums. By all means share your opinions, but expect replies. This attitude of taking your ball and going home because others disagree really has no place here.

Everything I said above applies here. Let's steer this one back on topic.

What you're calling a negative bias and an echo chamber is backed up by investors, market analysts, and finance publications like AFR. It's backed up by social media comments in the wider public. It's backed up by attendance patterns and corresponding performance of the respective park operators. At this point I don't think the onus is on this "echo chamber" to prove you wrong, when you've seemingly misinterpreted the article and then ignored every respectful rebuttal to your arguments.