DaptoFunlandGuy

See, that's just beautiful. The splashpad would cop sun all day, facing north, and the afternoon sun is brutal down near humpty \ serpent with zero shelter. It would have been lovely to have some trees but they do take a long time to grow in and roots play havoc with so many rides in close proximity so the shelters are a brilliant idea (shame they couldn't be blue to disappear into the background a little more but thats my only critique!) It's wonderful to see a park recognise a shade issue around a ride and implement a solution. on an unrelated note - how are the queues going for Oz? Yeah look - I hate this. They had a beautiful facade there, along main street, and they've destroyed it with modern glass sliding doors and now this. I understand the reason for it - the loss of the fountain to the flyer reduced their main street entertainment space and this is all-weather covered so it makes sense to put it here. I just wish they'd have resdesigned the entire facade to suit the new construction as it's jarring going from the double bay windows into flat blank hoarding. At least they got rid of that god awful colour scheme and returned it to something more classic I suppose...

The car has two 'seats' - a low one that is enclosed on the sides for kids to sit in, similar to a dodgem car. This seat is further forward so they can reach the wheel \ pedal. There is then a higher seat at the rear, set further back so adults can ride it \ reach the pedal \ wheel. While probably designed for parents to co-pilot children too small to drive by themselves, older kids \ adults frequently ride by themselves - sometimes while accompanying a self-driving child, and sometimes while not. (stolen from instagram - best image I could find) Some other examples of solo adults found on google:

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1EzBxe13UL/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Please take a breath and try paragraphs lifetime family passes are a huge prize and probably more than they'd ever likely wish to do. free day passes or annual passes would be about the limit of their generosity surveying guests on what they want is fine, you can be guided by that, but it isn't going to be a case of simply 'build whatever people say is the most popular... why? because: licensing costs money. Unlike parks that have an IP-owning media company in their shareholdings, (disney, universal, for example) MW has to pay a license fee for every IP they bring in. Some licences cost more than others, and it has to be financially viable. There's no sense building the most popular IP if it's exorbitantly more expensive than the next cheapest option - you'll profit more on a cheaper IP that is still popular longevity - just because the latest craze might happen to be Labubu or something that doesn't mean it has the timeless qualities that will immortalise itself in a theme park attraction that will stand for a decade or more. But you can bet those surveyed will be influenced by popular culture 'right now' only to lose interest in that product next week when the new thing comes along. Having the public design a ride... just... no. Ride design is a skill and not everyone can do it. I know a few people who are involved in this line of work and it isn't a cakewalk - those people are pretty amazing and special for what they can do. Sure - get the public to submit some ideas. maybe one or two of them won't actually suck (or at least will be practical, realistic and not defy the laws of physics) but it's no way to run a theme park. Chances are, the park already has the ride, the name, and the theme picked out beforehand - with their order in several years prior - because that's how long some of the waitlists are. The public campaigns where guests contribute to the ride design, theme or name is almost always pure marketing, nothing more.

Probably would have been easier to do that before they built the bloody coaster. I wonder what they're going to mount their floodlights and CCTV cameras on now.

I think because they were working on the assumption that most people would understand fence = don't enter... Unfortunately it doesn't matter how many fences or signs you put up - some people think they don't apply to them if they just need to retrieve their hat.

JDS and RRRC are both attractions kids and parents can enjoy. Honestly - I get why some enthusiasts would want to remove it but the attraction is one of the best children's attractions on the gold coast. It's a capacity monster for little kids. Adults (even those without children) can ride it, and it's a fun 'mini movie world' (albeit outdated) that is really cool to walk through. I hate that it replaced LTRR and wish LTRR still existed, but at this point i'm not going to advocate removing it. Meant to? Yes. Achieved? No. Honestly there's still plenty of teenagers that are fearful of 'big coasters' and WOZ does nothing to dispel that fear. There is still a gap in the lineup and coasters should never have been the solution to plug that gap. Once Speedy got the minimum height (which on behalf of all ride operators I 100% agree was required) it should have been taken out - it no longer serves any purpose that JDS cannot fulfill. The park cannot close it's kiddie land for 18 months. They'd have to bring in temporary flats which would look like garbage and crowd out the rest of the park. You don't need to shut the area - you need to take back the maintenance shed\LTRR showbuilding, fit it out internally as an all weather attraction space, THEN you can close off the other half of the land and develop it. So, basically everything I said at the beginning - looks like this plan has some support! Out of all the attractions in WB Kids - and you want to axe the most popular? makes no sense.

Honestly for a children's area, there's nothing wrong with that, as long as there is some thought put into the models and how they would be themed. There's a real opportunity to spruce up WB Kids. The land itself has remained virtually untouched for around 20 years. Sure Marvin got plonked on an old seating area, and JDS rejigged the traffic a little from how it was with LTRR, but overall the bones of the land haven't been messed with in a long time - in that time Sea World has been through at least two generations of their kids land, and Dreamworld has been through FOUR.

This is what happens when you install a consumer grade solution in a commercial grade environment. Well gee, it must cost them so much money to pay for all those safety managers they've got nothing left to develop a creative solution that preserves the illusion and theme. Let's just wrap every ride in westfield grade blank white hoarding. It seems to me like they realised when demolishing the hut that they needed to run power elsewhere, installed something temporary across Speedy because it was the closest structure to the tree, but then once the arcade was finished, nobody bothered to put it back in what was obviously a less noticeable spot.

The bonus to the public not really noticing the finer details is that they also don't really understand how long it takes to do this. The entire ride is in a box and progress from the outside is invisible. Unlike a ride SBNO out in full view for 3 years - they don't know what is happening inside. GP perception will see the ride open and their nostalgia will either: lead them to acclaim the upgrade as a massive success, or; lead them to decry that 'they should have left it how it was' - You could reopen the exact same ride and still get those two polar opposite responses. I'm sure most will just be happy it is open again and hopefully they have brushed up the interior theming enough that it looks sparkly* and new and everyone will quickly forget just how long it has been closed. *And by sparkly, if they don't get that skull-head-mirror-ball back i'm going to riot.

Just so this doesn't go by unchallenged, there would be no requirement for it to be black. black is just the cheapest available option. Now do a photo standing at the fenceline like you would if you were mum waiting for the family to come down the drop... I was going to say this was pointed out ages ago, but that was just the cable running to speedy taxis, not all the way to the tree stage. That does look horrible, but for an area of the park that hasn't been greatly touched since opening (only edits around the periphery) there hasn't been an opportunity to run power to the centre for things not previously planned. What WB Kids needs is to be gutted and refreshed. New discussion thread here.

Continuing conversation from this reply i've put down my current thoughts on a WB Kids refresh. What WB Kids needs is to be gutted and refreshed. My ideal first plan would reclaim the other half of the old LTRR soundstage from maintenance - maintenance might need to relocate entirely if they've outgrown their own space. Put in a new kids area into the soundstage building with multiple attractions similar to Mermaid lagoon at disneysea, or USJ's Sesame Street Fun World. It doesn't need to be immersive, just an indoor area out of the sun with some rides and activities for the little kids to blow off some energy. The reason this is the first plan is it provides the opportunity to refresh the rest of the land without dropping the kids offering in the park. Once this is open, move to refreshing the rest of the land: Remove speedy taxis. It serves no purpose with the introduction of JDS Find a new home for the parents room that doesn't occupy prime attraction space and demolish Taz' Rest Stop along with the original Marvin facade to make space for new attractions. You could potentially provide parent's room facilities as part of the new indoor stage space if you planned for it. Consider the longevity of both Sam Train and Tweety Cages and perhaps remove them in place of new attractions If this whole corner of the kids area can be cleared, then also consider (controversial I know) removing the giant tree. It's a gorgeous old tree and it's been there for a long time, but it occupies prime park real estate and is a major blocker to expansion If the tree comes out, tweety, sam train, taz and the old marvin area are removed, you're left with a huge plot of land you can close all at once, which allows greenfield planning for a new install, with the added benefit you can actually run power to the character stage and bury the cables rather than flying them through the trees suspended on wooden poles. Update JDS to bring it current to today's park lineup (remove arkham, add WOZ, for example - and does it have DCR?) Turn the JDS arcade (is that still there with the new kids arcade?) into a JDS themed gift shop to bring more opportunity for merchandising into the land instead of the laneway entrance most people walk straight past. Reopen the restaurant with a new offering and re-establish a covered (umbrellas) seating area for parents to chill while the kids run their energy out. Probably a bit much especially for BGH's current attitude toward the park, but that's what i'd love to see. WB Kids currently offers a disjointed experience. There are 'rides for babies' plus road runner. So the slightly older kids that have outgrown the 'baby rides' but haven't graduated to hypercoasters don't have a lot of middle ground, so there's an opportunity with this level of expansion to provide some 'middle of the road' attractions - a lot like what Sea World offers in their nickelodeon area.

All great suggestions. And while i'd love to bash village here and say they just went with the cheapest option to solve the problem, my bet here is that their risk analyst\consultant has probably told them the more thematic options Gazza posted above weren't acceptable because it only reduces the risk but could still be climbed and only 6+foot pool fencing would eliminate the risk, and anything less than total risk elimination simply wasn't an option for them in this current risky averse world.

Its a hard pill to swallow when a rollercoaster can be built in a year, but it takes 3 years to rebuild. From what I understand, they had planned on upgrades with Mack and had booked their build slot - which I believe was supposed to be after WoZ opened - but the ride had to be closed earlier than planned - the build slot couldn't be moved up, so the 3 years has just been waiting on Mack to deliver in the timeframe previously locked in. I believe they've taken the time to improve other bits and pieces (and all the cars are getting replaced too, I think?), so there is a lot being done - but the time it has taken is much longer than actually required - which may set some false expectations.

Honestly - in the current environment, the reveal would not be worth the potential foot traffic to their retail offering. Having almost all their merch and F&B down main street - i'd avoid it entirely. If you consider what the park offered prior to 2004 - Main Entrance offered BA:TRide and the SFX soundstages \ studio tour. That's it. "rides" and experiences were all through \ beyond main street. Roxy, Scooby, PASS\HWSD, Lethal, WWF, Kids, showstage and all the other various attractions that have come and gone over the years. Everything was in or past main street. Now, almost nothing is and everything is front-loaded. I realise the park has issues with noise (not a problem for indoor dark rides of course) but the front loading is so bad now you could effectively never walk past any opportunity to drain your pockets, save for the JL store at the exit. It just seems like really poor design.