DaptoFunlandGuy

I'm back after a few weeks away, and checking in on the latest nearmaps. Just keeping them all to this thread for now as there's quite a bit to go through... Nearmap has a policy usually of doing flyovers only during certain hours, to minimise shadows and deliver the best imagery possible. Many images recently captured of the northern goldcoast (datestamp is 28 December) were done outside of regular flight times to capture as much of the damage as possible - so you will notice that there are many heavy shadows and it does make it difficult to see some things. I've only focussed on areas where damage was clearly visible, but happy to provide further shots later on request if there is something specific you want to see. Wizard of Oz land Note the large tree downed in the lower right edge of the land Front of TopGolf - trees by the road Paradise Country lost a lot of trees. It's no wonder they've been closed the longest. Movie World front entrance - before and after Tiger Island Vintage Cars Murrisippi

Yeah pretty much given the age of the ride and when it last operated, between your one shaky video and AndrewH's old photos, that's about as good as you're going to get. Video cameras back 20 years ago weren't up to what current devices can do without being extremely bulky and oversized, which is also unlikely to be allowed on by a guest. I can offer an alternative simulated experience though. Dark. Loud. Lift Hill. Noisy. Bright light. dark. bright light. dark. pitch black. sudden drop. scream. loud noises. sudden drop. sharp corners. hard laterals. brake run shoves your rib cage through your spine. the end.

From what I recall, SV was delivered without complying with Australian Electrical Standards - something that prior to TRRR wasn't closely policed but afterwards prevented them from opening. It was the park's fault no matter which way you slice it, but it was very clearly an unanticipated delay. All the ride parts arrived in early 2020 from memory, and I think we all know how that panned out. This one is fair play. While i'd argue the park encountered some unanticipated issues once they began the refurb, it was definitely closed longer than it should have been. When you talk 'past few' the park has delivered three new attractions this past year, all pretty much bang-on the timeline promised, along with a refurb of their entire kids area, all pretty much on time and as promised. When you consider "few" is literally defined as a small number, but most people accept it as being "three", I don't think the original reply was considering SV, ST and GD in the mix.

pretty sure the claw is coming up on it's 20th birthday (just checked, and it is scheduled to reopen a week before it turns 20) so there is merit to the timing if it is an unusual length...

That colour scheme is very suggestive... I think you're absolutely right. The space is quite bare and i'd say thats because the furniture they've ordered for that space probably suits the WOO theme and they don't want to deploy it yet (sidenote - I hope they fix that gold shit on the wall, it's all bubbly). Given the position of this store, I really REALLY HOPE this means they're running the yellow brick road out through chinatown alley - this is the only thing that makes sense with this being a WOO store...

The park's operations are woeful. This is known, and it's been that way for a while. Absolutely, people have a right to be upset if this is the first time they've visited in several years - since that level of ops isn't a new thing. For the vast majority though, they've been more recently than 2020. And in THAT instance, they have no right to be upset about the state of the park following the storms and bad weather, as some of the worst shit the GC has seen in many years. Blind freddy could have told you that the first day back post-recovery was going to be a shit-show. Those who visited on that day did so knowing it would likely be hell for all concerned, but did so anyway. They had options - I've no doubt the park would have been willing to discuss refunds prior to use of the tickets or some other credit or compensation if they had been asked. While disappointing your family by not visiting the park during your holiday isn't desirable - you're likely disappointing them by visiting a disaster zone still in recovery anyway, so why not save your money and choose something else? No, the complainers, by and large, have no right to complain. Those who do are the exception, not the rule. I'm sure they'll just pull the staffing out of their arse? You're aware that the GCCC requires MW to notify residents of late operations in advance? And that they're only allowed to do that a certain number of times a year? They're trying to recover the park, and their other properties, and you think operating longer days is better for their team? get fucked. Many of their staff lived in impacted areas, and several I know of still didn't have power while they were attending their shifts. Some had no water (tanks) either so imagine not being able to shower, or eat food from home, but hey - this is ok, right? I'm agreeing. And I've read your posts. The park has dealt with pre-bought tickets during covid. They can offer alternatives to guests who couldn't attend on another day. All they had to do was ask. Nobody just turned up to Cairns post-cyclone and expects their reef tour to be going ahead when the boat is beached on a rockwall. Nobody is giving the reef tour operator negative reviews because the water was brackish following river outflow. Sorry, but our culture values safety over efficiency. It's been debated numerous times why our safety systems are more stringent than foreign parks. I agree in many cases it's overkill, but nobody wants to go against the risk assessment because it's their neck on the line when shit goes pear shaped, and nobody wants to leave the country and work for some dive amusement park in malaysia. We don't know the park's staffing situation. Perhaps their maintenance team were impacted and they couldn't staff enough people to perform checks on both trains. Perhaps they couldn't staff enough Ops to run two-train operations? I honestly am gobsmacked at the entitlement of people here, given what the parks have just been through. I am NO fan of Village's current culture, their operations processes or their management decisions, BUT every park gets a pass for the past 14 days - everyone visiting right now is just lucky they got reopened as fast as they did. Get off the fucking merry-go-round. Everyone has answered that for you. you just don't like the answer. Even if they did staff 4 people to check harnesses (which isn't affordable, I know overseas parks do it but they have the attendance to pay for it) our safety procedures don't permit one op to go on ahead of the other - it relies on ops cross checking each other at every row to ensure they're not missing anything. We know ops are not what they're used to. I think some of this is attributable to TRRR and the safety reforms imposed on park operators. it won't change, and we're stuck with it. The selling of fast track is not a motivator for ride operators who do not profit or benefit from those sales. I know several ride ops and they work their asses off and their hearts out within the confines of their ops manuals. Anything that isn't attributable to the TRRR reforms falls back to village procedures which they must follow or they lose their jobs. The park is to blame for these inefficiencies. Don't blame the operators. Updating the website and apps is a task for one\a small number of people, who were potentially also recovering from the impacts of the weather. I work in emergency management and in the initial stages of event recovery, information isn't always reliable. It is preferred, and desirable, but you can't always do everything. Agree though that this would have helped. paper maps would have been a good idea. Keeping them printed though would be wasteful with every update. They could easily have churned a bunch out on the office laser printer like sea world did a few years back though - though I don't think printing the current online monstrosity would have benefitted anyone really... Crowd management - yes, the season sucks, and compounded by the storms, but also, they would have had less staff available due to callouts anyway, so solving the issue with 'roster more staff to do this thing' really isn't an option. I know you love to compare apples with helicopters but you're still in a fantasyland. Universal can pull the hours it does because it gets the crowds to warrant it, and the parks are big enough that you can fill a day even when it's quiet. Universal Singapore is a closer comparison for size of park, and they only operate 10am-7pm - so barely two hours longer than the GCs regular trade (and they have the people to warrant it) Shut up about the damn seatbelts. it's a safety requirement. it is not going to change. nobody is going to stop that procedure because it's their neck on the block if shit goes pear shaped and nobody wants another TRRR. The green circle is not storage, its a facade surrounding the plant and equipment (I think it's air conditioning) for Superman Escape. It COULD be relocated (maybe the roof?) but for now, it's not just 'storage' and isn't a simple thing to remove to widen the alley. Sad if so. "they should've". I've seen no imagery of the item in question. I've heard it was on a rear bogey. Potentially not clearly visible until after dispatch. You've also no clue of what it takes to operate that ride, or when the item in question actually got caught. You're being pretty judgy over someone else's job without all the facts here. Formula Rossa is also located in Abu Dhabi, a predominantly Muslim region where religious headwear is far more common, and therefore more likely to be catered to. I've just come back from Singapore over the break and their food courts have places for halal food trays, and non halal food trays. It would be quite pointless in Australia to cater to every worldwide requirement when those requirements are pretty uncommon. I am aware that GC based ride operators will have a conversation with a guest if they are wearing anything for religious reasons (i've seen it occur in both parks). The conversation is discreet, and asks the guest to ensure it is secured adequately for the ride experience, and this should be sufficient... I'm sure someone like Spotty could elaborate further.

I recall a while back something was mentioned about the spit height limitation had changed.

Nearmap says this shot is from 13th of November, but I posted an update around November 20th that showed the 13th of November and it was a lot less than what you see below.

No update to nearmap as yet.

Nope, it's a pretty long standing Parkz in-joke. It was for SkyVoyager originally, wasn't it?

Wonderland had paid parking in it's early life. They abandoned it later on - but probably due to the labour cost than anything else. I can't see paid parking washing with our parks these days. Unless someone builds a covered multideck carpark and they want to recover the construction cost - in which case i'd be happy to pay for a spot that is covered, cooler out of the sun, and $20 a day or so is probably reasonable, IMO.

There's a guy building a massive shed down the road from me. the frame went up in about a day. roof was on 3 days later and it was at lockup with rollerdoors and walls by the end of the week. Village Roadshow got the entirety of Soundstage 9 clad\panelled in 7 days (and that was soundproofed), so the building of JR's showbuilding isn't that complicated. I will be keen to see what they put inside the building - whether it be an extension of the jungle theme with props and animatronics or whether its just a dark shed.

It's definitely a nice view at night - had a few goes on the relaunch night and it was spectacular - although they didn't operate East that night, and I was keen to get that view... You can get the experience on night events like happy halloween though - so no need to pay extra as a passholder...

Man that certainly looks VERY different to how it looked back during Spring Break - queue spilled out to the external overflow switchbacks and this room was PACKED. Flash pass was the only saving grace - and perhaps the themeing works well when they're packed in like cattle!

You lazy bitch. Wristband system seems relatively easy. If they're going to sit with a pay to play model at night, I wonder if it would be easier to have a code scanner at the entrance - you could purchase online or via a ticket vending machine, and then just scan your code to enter? They had this sort of thing at Pacific Park on the Santa Monica Pier and it worked pretty well. I didn't expect that they'd open dodgems as well, but I guess its another step towards night operations, and offering more than just food trucks. keen to see how this pans out.

Now that it's open, probably worth starting a new thread on the flyer - since there's no more 'construction' to update...

Probably moreso just a long time since it operated at night...

I mean the WB department store is basically an LT store, as is the store outside WB Kids. Do we really need another LT store? (Unless the plan is to re-do one of the existing ones into something else once the photo centre is done?) Probably a good move for the photo centre though. Back in the day a wet lab would have needed more space, dark room etc. These days with digital its far less space and the last time i stepped inside the photo centre it was a giant empty space with photos on the walls.

For anyone planning a trip, just note that Gumbuya is an hours drive EAST of Melbourne. What did you think of the carpark?

I'm hearing that by around 12pm, the Ride Express queue was DRENCHED. Magician is correct - wind is a constant thing on the coast. It might not be the same direction or strength, but it is always a factor - something parks should be accounting for. It's not sufficient to design an attraction around absolute calm weather as that almost never happens. Discussion on Parkz is going to ebb and flow (much like the wind) and where there is relevant comparison, other parks are going to get drawn into the discussion for doing similar, comparable things. Trident is very relevant to a discussion about wind not being taken into account. Feel free to scroll on by if you don't want to discuss it. There's one small flaw in your math there. 3 years botched recovery from a bizarre and clueless recovery plan + 3 years covid + 3 years of actually competent and planned recovery = 9 years. It's only the last 3 years of that that makes a difference - and we're only at the end of the first year of that. Let's see where the park is at in 2026. *To be clear, the botched recovery is also their fault, and they should wear it. I'm not saying we should excuse the first three years where they tried to build ampitheatres and shaded seating, lazy rivers and reopening the mine ride, but if we're going to ask where the guests are, where the recovery is - it's happening now... just three years later than it should have (or six, since, if they'd been competent they'd have approached recovery prior to the start of covid).

That reads as $10 for unlimited rides all night - am I reading that right? I think $10 for all night rides is pretty reasonable, TBH.

it'd be fair for park operators to keep in mind that wind on the coast is fairly consistent, and should probably be factored in at the design stage *cough trident cough*

Not sure i'd want guests hovering over the dolphin pools. especially in a condition likely to make them chuck. Showcase was supposed to close a while back wasn't it? then got extended? I'd heard whisper that something different was coming to the showstage (ie not a prop show) but not sure whats happened with it.

Given they're opening tomorrow I can't see them doing too much to tweak the fountains. My quick-fix thought is a sheet of perspex over the gates should deflect most of it - but that does spoil the view. Hopefully they only need it half height?

Yeah I think $10 would get a bunch of once-offs but to operate it sustainably i think a slightly lower option (or a multi-pack of tickets for a bulk price) might be more palatable to locals who only visit the night markets. I think they'd do well to have an annual pass upgrade booth right beside the flyer ticket booth too - if you visit the market regularly, at $12 a week ($2 entry) it'd take less than 10 visits a year to make your $99 annual pass pay for itself (not to mention markets honour the passholder discount on drinks (and food bought from dreamworld outlets)... a great way to convert market visitors to passholders...