Guest 239

Oooh, a challenge! It's a little harder, but I found some!

Big ugly fences are just as much of an Australian staple as big ugly sheds. Bonus points for if they have the 'you will die a painful death jumping over this fence' sign posted on them. And my favourite; the entrance to our theme parks premier resort!

It's not like they had a more efficient system that was taken out due to a lack of popularity so did they construct this ride with an inefficient setup knowing that it'd be unpopular? That seems like a huge waste of money and land for a park that notoriously needs more attractions. I'm just kind of baffled. Shouldn't you design the ride for the optimal throughput and then tone it back if it's unpopular? That you've got the option to accomodate for a higher capacity even if it is rare. Otherwise if the park suddenly becomes a smash hit and is drawing tons of people thanks to New Atlantis, you've essentially got a lemon that can only do 798 guests on a regular operational day that is the first attraction you see on a major thoroughfare towards your premier coaster. I just can't imagine a scenario where from the top down everybody working on the attraction would agree that 114 riders per hour is a reasonable investment.

I enjoyed the ride experience but I agree that the cycle isn't very good. It's very intense being flung and spun, but it's not particularly fun if that makes sense? Random tangent but something that blew my mind is that Vortex doesn't have any guest staging with numbers to stand on that allocates you to a numbered seat and instead the operators need a headset to communicate how many guests they need and where people need to go. It seemed wildly inefficient and increases staff overhead by a lot. Is this standard for this ride model?

You're telling me there is no little red plastic shipping container store? God, no wonder this place is doing so poorly!

Not your fault, but you still have to communicate these things with your clients and manage expectations. If I was your client and you told me when you found that out that there was a shipping delay and kept me in the loop then I wouldn't have an issue because it empowers me as a customer and shows that you care about my business. Though if you gave me a deadline after deadline and once they got near you just said "Yeah there has been a delay and it's beyond our control" then I'd be rightfully upset because it's withdrawn information that could help me make a decision to take my business elsewhere or whatever. Nobody is upset that the project is delayed. People are upset that the business has made consistent deadlines and then backtracked off them whilst acting like we should have never had an expectation to begin with. Underpromise and overdeliver. Its a lot easier to lose consumer trust then it is to earn it.

A babushka of red shipping containers. Inside the smallest one is a little store where you can buy small plastic red shipping containers.

I hope it's another smaller red shipping container!

The problem I have is that despite the constant delays, they continue to name dates. At this stage they should just say 'Coming Soon' and call it a day, because otherwise it just seems like they're leading us on. Also fun fact: if you bought an annual pass after the announcement in 2019 and renewed it for each opening of the attractions opening dates in the hopes of riding everything once it opened then you'd be on your fourth season pass. May 2019 > May 2020 - Purchased to ride Vortex for the proposed late 2019 opening. May 2020 > May 2021 - Renewed fin hopes for the change to the late 2020 opening of Vortex with Leviathan also still proposed to open late 2020. May 2021 > May 2022 - Renewed in hopes for the new proposed June 2021 opening of Leviathan. Luckily each new delay including Summer 2021 and Easter 2022 still fall under your pass. May 2022 > May 2023 - Renewed in hopes for the new proposed date of September 2022. You would have paid either $756 or $1000 by May 2022 and have only gotten one new flat ride to show for it.

Honestly, I think that's fair. I know that I've got the reputation on here as a Dreamworld shill, so I need to expect that my posts will probably rile up some feathers before certain people even enter. I'm not above the discourse, but I'm constantly trying to improve and take on others opinions. I'm happy to acknowledge my biases and what guides me. As somebody who works in marketing, I absolutely despise being told how to feel. Present me with a product and tell me the features, sure! I don't have a problem with that at all. But if you tell me what to think about something then I'll immediately become extremely skeptical of it. This is why I have problems with VRTPs marketing practices. From DC Rivals inception they called it 'the greatest coaster ever built.', Leviathan is touted as 'the world's greatest family rollercoaster', Movie World's homepage has 'Australia's #1 Theme Park' and Sea World has 'Australia's #1 Marine Park.' Couple that with their constant need to call everything world class, they consistently overpromise and underdeliver. This is fine and is widely known as 'puffery', but it drives me up the wall because it implies that I'm an idiot who can't think for their themself. That is my own bias. So you are right, I'm happy to admit that I did go in with biases on my mind thanks to their marketing, but when I'm constantly being told that something is the greatest and it turns out to just be okay then I get upset. I have similar problems to Disney at the moment where they're running around tooting their own horn that barely honks whilst saying its the best thing since sliced bread. I think that's why I enjoy Dreamworld. The park isn't telling me how to think and therefore I'm free to make up my own mind. Equally, it's why I get so frustrated when people tell me how to think on here. The classic 'I know that this thing is good because I have information you don't' equally is as frustrating to me because it's telling me to form an opinion without the necessary information to do so. Similarly to yourself, I don't love any of our parks, but I do like visiting them with friends. I used to love Sea World and it's where I got engaged, but that ship has sailed. I can argue and fight until the cows come home to try and improve the state of Australia's parks but I know nothing I say will or do will change anything. The best I can try to do is tell things I see them and relay with as little bias as I can. There's probably also the suspicion that I get kickbacks or some sort of privileges from Dreamworld because of how I talk about them, but rest assured that I get nothing from any parks. I've been ghosted by a majority of them from the largest to smallest. I pay the same ticket as everybody else and I get no special privileges. Anyway, Scenic World is the only place that has ever wanted to work with us so they're officially Australia's #1 Theme Park. Long live Orphan Rocker.

I went over to peep through some of the construction fencing near Arkham and whilst I was there I noticed a lot of people walking over to be disappointed by the closed attraction with no real indication as to what was happening. Whilst it's hidden from the entrance, the coaster is still super obvious when heading towards Superman. Considering how important it was to the parks history, a lot of people would have had experiences on that coaster and be disappointed to see it just hanging out with absolutely no word on what's happening.

I appreciate the honesty, but that genuinely sounds exhausting. People are going to have personal opinions and there is no right or wrong when things are subjective. If people enjoy something then that's fine, and if they don't that is also fine. It's something I've been thinking about a lot recently in regards to the Gold Coast theme parks metanarrative that takes place on here, especially after I posted my trip report the other week. That narrative seems to be that Movie World is good, Sea World is okay and Dreamworld is bad. I felt like I did something wrong for enjoying the parks I did and disliking the ones that I didn't. I was even told by somebody that the only reason I liked Dreamworld was because of the company I surrounded myself with which was abhorrently invalidating. The reality of that conversation was that everybody was right in their own since, including myself, and that's great! Opinions are good and should be shared! The more diverse this community, the better. But when people try to undermine opinions within a niche where it is impossible to objectively quantify the 'best', then there is just going to be hurt feelings, and nobody everybody has the thick skin to put up with it. Above is the Leviathan of Parsonstown, one of the largest telescopes ever created during its time. Before this was created, the astronomy community could identify three objects in their telescopes which were basically stars, planets and 'smudges'. Now they had no idea what these smudges were, but there were theories, and the community fought constantly over this. One side argued that the 'smudges' were vast collections of stars which tightly compacted together, and the others argued that they were collections of space dust that floated freely as remnants of the universe's creation. The infighting was incredible, and they fought all through the telescope's construction until they were able to peer through it and see who was right... but they discovered that they were both right. The smudges were both collections of stars (galaxies) and free floating space dust (nebulas). It was a lesson to the community that often within a discussion there is more then one right answer, and just because you believe yourself to be right doesn't immediately invalidate every other person offering differing ideas or opinions. Movie World can be great, but it can also be bad. Equally Dreamworld can be bad, but it can also be great. All are right, and nobody is wrong.

I'm not calling you out @joz, I just think that it's possible that more then one person can be right in this conversation. Regarding summer attendance, what are you basing that off? Again, not calling you out, just curious. I don't know how any park did apart from what you mentioned about how attendance across the board was generally low but has Ardent or Dreamworld released any indicators that said that their season was a failure? I agree that just because everybody is doing it doesn't mean you have to, that's what got the industry into this mess in the first place with it's race to the bottom, but it is compelling for them if the market demands such a thing. Retro seems to sell at the moment so I think it's worthwhile to try then to not try at all. Dreamworld continues to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. If they do nothing then they get called out, and if they try they get called out. There is no yellow brick road for them to follow guided by a fairy, they just need to throw things at a wall and see what sticks. As it's been reiterated many times by others, they can't look over their shoulder to see what the rest of the world is doing because we are a different market with different expectations, and unfortunately there is no 'Recovering from the TRRR Disaster: For Dummies' handbook. Honestly, I feel they're in a similar spot to the Disney fandom at the moment. There is a subgroup of fans that sit on the sideline lurking for problems and salivate when the company does anything that isn't immediately spectacular. These individuals usually appear to be long-term fans of the parks that in some way or another feel 'left behind' from the experience, and I think this exists within the Aussie community as well. Do I know what's best for the park? Nope. Genuinely, I don't think anybody does, and I don't envy those who have to wade through muddy waters to hopefully emerge at the other side of the rapids (pun intended). I think we can all agree that there are decisions that we have hated and we can fight about them until the cows come home, but the fact that the park even exists today is commendable in my eyes. Ardent could have gone 'haha. oops' and shut up shop, selling off the park/land to make a quick buck and yeeted out of the theme park business, but instead they continue to troop forward despite everything working against them. One can argue that they're brave, and another can argue that they're stupid. Ultimately, they're probably both right, but you can't argue that they haven't been resilient.

I honestly sit somewhere between the two of you. I think tapping into history is fine. All the major parks are doing it and it's just the in thing at the moment. Retro is chic and I don't blame people for welcoming a little nostalgia into their lives considering that things in recent years have been fairly universally dreadful. And frankly, what park on the GC isn't a shadow of it's former self? But again, the implication is that they're just tapping into it, not making it their entire identity, or at least I hope so because as it's not the direction that the park needs moving forward. I honestly think this is true for you, and please don't see this as me saying you're wrong, but I think this also has to do with the people you're surrounded by. In NSW the discussion of the Dreamworld incident was fairly minimal and most people see it as a tragic stain on the park's history considering that very few people care to delve into the specifics of the incident beyond headlines. This even came up in conversation on the weekend with some friends and family where they were only concerned whether the TRRR had been demolished. Once I told them that it was demolished they all seemed relieved and appeared to have no issue with visiting the park. The actor's they have hired for the bushrangers are good fun. Sure, they barely fit in, but that didn't stop them from bolstering the atmosphere. Thematic consistency is barely relevant on the Gold Coast so I don't really see this as a problem. If it doesn't detract from the experience then I have no issue with it. Thank goodness they have the Hotdog Stand to match their RCT philosophies.

I find it hard to quantify because if you're having a bad day then it can't always be 100% justified, but forgoing the emotional element, lets make a little matrix to determine the expectation of a park day that's somewhat just based in logic. First, let's map out the attractions. There's must do attractions that drag people into the park. They're the sort that you get really excited about and seek the park out just for them such as: Wild West Falls Super Man Escape DC Rivals Then there are the attractions that are good fun whilst you're there, but not exactly show stoppers: Green Lantern Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster Justice League Road Runner Batwing Depending on whether you've seen it or are interested in it, this may also fall under good fun: Hollywood Stunt Driver And then there's the rest. This would change person-to-person and group-to-group, but above is how I see it. Now we can do some 🌟M A T H S 🌟 Let's give the park an attraction score. To do this we map out the attractions and give them a number. Must do's are 3, Good Fun's are 2, and the rest are 1s. With my quick math's I got an overall attraction score of 32. I know that seems low against the Movie World website but I've excluded any upcharges, land mentions, and I've marked all assorted main street shows and meet & greets as 1 point each. From let's try figure out the 'expectation' for the days quality which we can do by dividing the park attraction score by 5. When rounded out this gives us a 6. Now, using today as an example, let's add up the attractions which are currently down using the same numbers we gave them above which we will call the 'outage score'. This is what is down today: Wild West Falls Superman Escape Batwing This gives us an 'outage score' of 8 against an 'expectation' of 6. Now it gets a bit subjective, but the distance from the 'expectation' should be a good determination of the day with the score itself being 'average', so today would be below average. The reason I've mapped it out like this is because (I hope) that it can easily be applied to all other parks and creates an equal footing for the expectations of parks and future planning. For example, after the April school holidays the park is going to have a scheduled 'outage score' of 9. If anything goes down, especially any other 'must do', then it's going to create some really lackluster days at the park. I'm open to criticism against this or suggestions on how it can be improved as I know it's not perfect, but I try to keep things as objective as possible when figuring these things out. We've got a lot of stuff like this that factors into our review scores as well because whilst emotions are important, they can't always be trusted to provide valid recommendations and insights.

I still find it bizarre that their choice was white. Green, or even blue, would be much easier to hide behind even light foliage and wouldn't drag your attention as much.

Talking to my friends on the Gold Coast who have the opportunity to go more often, apparently these signs appeared around Steel Taipan's opening. I found it hilarious. I know the Sea World layout on the top of my head and even I have difficulty navigating that park. It's full of dead end's that just don't make any sense. You can't intuitively make a line towards many attractions which I'm sure confuses some guests.

Underpromise and overdeliver. The thing that baffles me is that I swear our parks have this backwards because constantly they overpromise and underdeliver. Honestly I would much prefer them to take their time and make it right by saying 'Coming 2022' and then they could easily drop it mid-year with no hassle but it also gives them the option to drop it later without annoying everybody. I do get the idea that if they keep on pushing it back in increments then there are people who will book a holiday for each season in hopes of experiencing the attraction but I'd imagine that's not a great way to keep your guests happy.

I hope we get some glimpses of this into the future because I'd love to know more and it would help to tide people over in the wait.

What are the restrictions for cycling? Do they need to clear the area of personnel and equipment or can they keep doing bits of work in the ride footprint whilst it happens?

Thank goodness. The 240 cycle feels like it stops just as it starts to get good so it's nice that they've updated it to last longer.

I think you're misinterpreting what I'm saying. Even though somehow we're getting back onto this topic again, I'm not disagreeing with you that the problem was Dreamworld's fault. The causation is still very much from Dreamworld's own actions which was proven in a court of law. What I'm saying is that it feels that after the dust settled regulators and insurers were left in a position where they needed to severely ramp up their attentiveness around ride safety because they equally have a responsibility to ensure that these things don't happen. The capitalist business model requires regulation otherwise you get executives who prioritise OPEX over safety which is why I feel that regulators and insurers were caught with their pants down because their watchful eye should have picked up on these problems before the event happened. This doesn't absolve ex-Dreamworld management of fault because the actions are still their own and they knew that what they were doing was wrong, but there should have been steps to prevent something like this from happening in the first place which leads us to where we are today.

It just echoes similar sentiments to what we've seen at Disney where rides now don't offer any compensation such as fast passes when an attraction goes down because it directly affects their bottom line. Obviously I have no idea either and you make an excellent point that correlation doesn't equal causation but if they're making a profit from decent wait times and guests aren't complaining then it's a win-win for them. Similarly I'd love to be a fly on the wall when they're reading the metrics. I have no idea how the public perception would swing at the moment but just using Google as a reference, if you scroll through the latest reviews for Movie World they are hugely mixed and fluctuate wildly whilst Sea World, Wet'n'Wild and Dream World appear to be mostly positive. I feel like his comment was more at the relaxed nature of the regulators and insurance companies during that time. The entire industry appeared to have a normalcy bias considering that incidents were rare and considering that nobody had been hurt in the past then they just believed it wouldn't happen in the future. They were wrong, and the industry as a whole including Dreamworld were caught with their pants down and now they're more overzealous then ever.

Can you please keep it on topic? I'm trying to discuss theme parks here.