Levithian

They look like they have holes in them for wire rope or tube to allow creeping plants to grow over.

You don't have to stop EVERY single stupid thing a person does. You do however have to take all reasonable steps to limit the possibilities, especially after an incident has occurred. Just posting a sign is not enough. By modifying them it might only be a partially effective physical safety solution, but it is VERY noticeable. So much so in fact that any reasonable person would have no doubt that the covering is there to protect you from injury and stop you standing up. The park is seen to have done something about it, the solution does limit movement. If you climb out of a boat with a cage around it, it's a whole different situation than just standing up out of a boat with no harness or restrictions. Safety amendments aren't always about how well it functions, sometimes it's also about how visual it is too. There is a LOT of deterrence in making something visually striking. More importantly, in situations where it really comes down to the stupidity of guests, (especially when combined with the deaths that occurred on similar aged ride which was lacking safety features), it's automatically clear they made changes. I dare say that you can run boats around with dummies or put your staff on the ride during testing as much as you want, but there is nothing like feedback from members of the public. So if improvements could be made, based on the reports, then I can imagine you would see subtle changes being made in the future.

Arkham is an updated SLC. The vekoma restraints still push down on your thighs too, they just have the added bonus of strap like upper body harness pressing down on your chest too. Both shifted away from upper body restraints by changing the seating position (tilting it way back and lowering the weight center), so the focus of the lap bar is now on your thighs.

Do you seriously think, given what has happened, and given the current outlook by a significant number of people that our parks are still death traps, dreamworld could survive another serious incident? Even if it wasn't to kill someone, it would only highlight that they knew about the issue given someone had previously injured themselves and throw a MASSIVE PETROL TANKER full of fuel on to the fire that safety is lacking in our parks and (insert which ever catch cry you choose; torn down, government should step in, etc,). What would happen is the press would be all over it. They would start by referencing the deaths that occurred at the park, then they would blow up the previous story about the person that nearly drowned due to stupidity and turn it into a safety issue, questioning why another one of their old rides has been left to injure or kill someone, had they learned nothing from the past? Throw in some comments about ride break downs and safety, then round off the story by questioning the government safety inspectors, did they do their jobs properly? how can this happen? which would force the governments hand to step in with whatever ill advised, spur of the moment method they choose so they can show the members of the public they take this sort of thing seriously. Basically, the majority of the public would listen to the media reports like last time, only now, some of the people who felt the media were continuing to attack the parks needlessly after the deaths would be swayed, wondering maybe there is something to the reports after all. Not only that, but you'd force the governments hand to make a grand spectacle out of anything they did, while the park sits there and suffers, possibly going through another round of closures while inspectors go through the park again. Short of a massive fire, I really couldn't think of anything worse that could occur at the moment.

What do you expect for track designed 30 years ago? Not only that, but something that runs that fast and has that many transitions and inversions? The turn of the decade? or are we talking another 8-10 years? Is it on its last legs because you had a bad ride? after they spent a few million rolling out VR? Some of you guys have some really unrealistic impressions of just how large our parks are vs overseas. You don't even look at getting rid of fully functioning capital until your forced, it's just not in the budget to write off attractions like that. While guests keep riding it, it'll stay open. Edit: Pro tip. You need a little gap between the lap bar and your thighs. If everything is pushed down so tight its pushing into your legs in the station, it's only going to get tighter.

You can't get rid of the shaking, bouncing or vibrations from an SLC. They are running around with extended wheel gaps where they will bump from side to side of the rails. It only gets worse as the wheels wear. You can lessen it if your track is almost flawless and your restraints are good, but it's never going to be "a smooth ride" when you compare it with designs from this century. Choice between legs and head taking a beating, yeah, im ok with newer restraints from either kumbak or vekoma pressing down on your thighs vs the old over the shoulder type that left people bleeding and really restricted your vision. Biggest feature out of the updated seat / restraint designs wasn't so much the comfort, for me it was how you could see pretty much everything. Before you had two big "padded" cushions next to your head, you couldn't see much other than what was directly in front of you, or just above you. Now you can look in pretty much any direction.

Ardent to blame for everything, or the maintenance department of dreamworld doing their jobs and the operations manager of the park relying on the experience of their staff and outside contractors to come up with a workable solution that fits the brief?

Some people like to talk like there hasn't been a host of engineers, safety inspectors and advisors that have gone over what was probably numerous designs to finally come up with something that ticks the boxes of; safety cost doesn't expose them to further risk by the modification and finally, have an engineering firm prepared to sign off on the modifications as "safe" and "fit for purpose". Anyone thinks the design is exclusively of the park alone, that they plucked an idea out of thin air, applied it to the boats, with this as the result is being silly. That's before you even factor in the weight of the accident hanging over your head.

It is what it is. Do you want to ride or do you want it to be closed and bulldozed? because those are your only options.

Is that for an event though? Not for day trade As it says 2 weeks notice. Does it even apply to movieworld and wet n wild as dont they have to close the outside rides at movieworld by 8:30 or something on fright nights, etc because of the noise restrictions to housing behind and next to the park?

Even if they did have demand for it, the question is will council allow it. They probably have strict conditions to run a limited number of events as it is, with regards to noise and neighbours. They might not be able to run the rides at night, even if its only for a period of a month or so.

Tourists paying $199 aside, is $79 really that much better value than $139? given the choice of parks you have from village. Even at nearly $200; people were paying $110 for yearly passes and having to shell out of tickets to white christmas, etc, now the price has gone up nobody seems to be looking at the inclusions? what about dropping the "until june" pass and just giving you a proper 12 months from the date its active? It wasn't very long ago that dreamworld was about $150 a year for a pass that included dreamworld and www. Plenty of people were still choosing dreamworld/www over village even when the village option was cheaper.

Because of liability. Thats the single biggest reason. Regardless of overseas, if your safety people and your insurance companies assessors deem something a risk, then something has to be done about it regardless of what hasn't happened overseas. You could be the first to have the accident, and if it's deemed that you knew there was potential for something catastrophic happening like rolling over one of the logs or allowing someone to stand up and ride it down the drop again, without addressing any of the potential hazards, you'll be crucified by everyone. The public, the media, the courts, everyone. Do you think the theme park industry on the gold coast could survive another accident so soon? Trying to retrofit anything new to something old is always a bastard. Can you imagine how many designs failed before it actually got to a physical one, let alone one they are going to open the ride with?

If their expansion plans pay off, it could be a good way to free up capital now without having to borrow money for the next stage of development. Share price goes up, business expands, turnover increases along with their borrowing potential, maybe look at buying the land back in the future?

Sounds like the vocal/delivery Hamil uses for the current joker stuff. If you've played any of the arkham games, in particular the recent VR one, or watched any of the justice league action episodes; it's a dead ringer.

Me too, but I dont know anyone that has been given a "new" (see what I did there? "new") car by their parents and it was actually new. So new is a kinda loose word thrown about by them; new to you? newer than whatever they were frightened with you driving? So excited.... then kinda let down its not actually new like the cars you were dreaming about owning. Hence the disney on a village budget. 1996 Hyundai excel when you're dreaming of a new mercedes (or whatever floats your boat). Going to be left a little disappointed with the end product.

im not talking about then. Im talking about now. If you compare disney budgets and hold it up as an example of what should be achieved here with the refit of scooby doo, then its going to be like being given a "new" 1996 hyundai excel in 2018. Its a car, it steers, you don't have to walk, but its not what you were expecting at all.

heh. If comparing to disney budgets, end results are usually like your parents saying we bought you a new car, then finding out its a 1996 hyundai excel.

it couldn't be an outdoor attraction as 1) the cars would need to be indoors or at least covered over from direct elements, 2) there isn't any existing space in the kids area large enough to put it's footprint. It's in a kids area. It was never going to be anything other than a kids ride in the kids area. Given they had justice league and scooby doo which would cover bases of older kids and tweeners, it was always going to be aimed at younger kids.

I think the divider is pretty much in line with the inner wall of the old entry into the river ride (so, about where the fence for road runner is). Think staff use it now?

short of a new boat, I can't see how you could replace the lap bar on wild west. You would end up having to pretty much destroy the boat to remove/change it as it's not like they just unbolt and come apart, so you would pretty much just start with replacing the boats wouldn't you? have they ever had new boats since the ride opened?

Arguably, Justice League was supposed to be the big family block buster that would replace something the size of the river ride. Aside from a few mentions about it being boring, few people seem to be outraged at the lack of use of it's building, given the size of the ride and the old library/hall of justice is pretty substancial. Why couldn't a better family ride have gone in there instead? much less hate directed here than at where the river ride used to be. Anyone who doesn't think driving school is an asset to the kids area has never been to the park with kids in the ~10 age bracket. Especially when 1) its busy; or 2) it's raining, or 3) during events like white christmas. Even with the number of cars on track, i've seen wait times of like 90 minutes before. That's just crazy busy. Id be very surprised if they didn't get through maybe 300 guests an hour when it's like that, thats a couple thousand people a day easily. What's more is kids still want to stand in line to drive them, which probably says something about how much of an attraction it is for kids. I think it's boring too, but there aren't too many kids rides at Movie world that I get asked can we ride again, so for that reason it's something that works for me. You can wish for the return of the river ride all you want, but it's gone. If you took out the cost of the demolition and fitout of the building before putting in the driving school, i can imagine a realistic budget might have been 2 or 3 million. No chance in hell they were ever going to replace or revamp the river ride with that sort of budget. It might even have been the biggest spend in the kids area in recent history, so they probably get a lot of use for it's small budget. There's a lot of space in the kids area in general. You could start looking at removing a couple of the rides that are the least popular, then condense the existing rides into the available space and still have room for another (maybe 2) family attractions. Problem is, what do you put there? they've got towers, they've got a coaster, they've got driving school and maybe keep the train? so what sort of ride does it leave you with kids in mind? maybe a mini swing of some type? retheme/redevelopment of road runner coaster area too and put something more immersive in like maybe a mine/train themed mini coaster? I can't see them doing much in the very near future, but a budget of maybe 10-15 million could completely change the kids area for sure.

It's how it is. People just assume women have kids, so they must be taking photos of their kids. Though I imagine anyone looking a little strange (ie, obviously by themselves, not just taking the usual family snaps) is likely to get questioned and maybe escorted from the area if they are taking photos of partially dressed kids in a water area. I can also imagine that it takes a bit of interaction on the part of park guests to maybe bring it to the attention of one of the ride attendants or something too.

They aren't going to get rid of something that is, 1) popular with kids as it actually gives them something to control, 2) is still only a recent development in the area. It's not about if you like it or not, or how you think it compares to the river ride that was there previously, it's about what works. Id be looking at a revamp of the area starting with the layout and some of the older rides before getting rid of driving school.

What you said is nonsense though. Even if you care to believe it. It literally doesn't make sense. If I wanted to be insulting, I would have used something other than nonsense. If you were to simply forget about dreamworld as a business, saying it's practically worthless, what it sits on isn't. So if you float the notion of a buy out, ardent isn't going to go bankrupt and have someone swoop in during a fire sale. Additionally, what is left of dreamworld that makes it a historic landmark? yeah, the park itself has been there a long time, but it has gone through so many changes that there is very little left of the original development. Rides have gone, park layout has changed, buildings have been removed/and or re purposed and developed. It's quite a bit different now than it was in the 90's, let alone the 80's. Aside from the park as a whole being a tourist destination, I don't think it really has historic value that would make it onto a heritage register. Back to reality though, just focus on the land mass. If the park shut tomorrow and was turned into a housing estate, given its location basically next to railway hubs and a MAJOR shopping center in development, combined with the fact that Coomera on the northern end of the coast is going through MASSIVE growth; the land is worth a fortune by itself. Even if you use the ultra generous 1/3rd rule to develop the land into housing, that provides for over $100,000,000 just in land development value alone. In reality there is probably more potential than that, given the actual cost of housing in the area, along with how many lots you can actually build given the area; then combined with the fact there are 4 major developers all fighting for space along the corridor between foxwell and yawalpah roads. As it stands, there is probably more value in potential development contributing to the value of dreamworld than there is as a theme park. The local council may only be able to tie it up during development application process, but given the area has thousands of lots going in and/or in development nearby, along with the infrastructure to support a major suburb; if they were to object any application the matter would surely end up in court where it might be tough to build a case against this small parcel of land when the rest of the area is booming having already been approved. Aside from that, along with development comes more revenue for the council. All the money tied up in development applications aside, the rates alone could be into the millions. So im not so sure if they would rush to stop any development going on if a worst case scenario happened. Given the park isn't the one actually doing the works, they would have contracts in hand with companies to perform the job that would usually see them lose money if they back out on the agreement; so you could lose a few million dollars just by putting them off until a later date as the companies would suffer a loss of income. Anyway, when would you rather the works are completed? If you talk about capital works, one side of the park in particular is closed off providing an excellent opportunity to make use of the quiet period between holidays. You could argue that rocky hollow is closed due to addressing existing issues of safety, so what is the issue? Aside from that anyway, it's not like their own workers would be taken off existing development works going on, halting any other progress in the park. I don't think any of the parks have a work force big enough to take on large scale developments without help from outside works. It's the same across any park you visit, they try to limit the disruptions for building and repair works to periods where attendance is lowest. See, this is the nonsense I am pointing to. That is exactly what liability insurance is for. It even covers loss of business. You can be found completely at fault, your staff members were negligent and caused the death of patrons; yet your business is covered. All those millions being wiped away would have been underwritten by an insurance company. The only question is how much coverage did they actually have and how accurate their estimates would have been when factoring into loss of business. If you think loss of life isn't one of the factors calculated when acquiring insurance coverage, then you don't really understand risk analysis. Besides which, the changes you speak of, you know they were the cause of the deaths? under what circumstances any modifications might have been performed? who performed them? when they performed them? were they inspected and audited following their modifications and years following to maintain their accreditation with the state government? That's a whole lot of assumptions unless you have inside knowledge of what the investigation found. Then you come back to the simple notion of insurance. You run a theme park based on the assumption that at some point you may seriously injure or kill a guest or guests. It's basically the same for any business dealing with members of the public. You couldn't operate such a large scale entertainment complex without having a policy that protects your business from financial ruin following lawsuits if something terrible happened. No matter how good your intentions are, how good your training is, or how much faith you put in your employees, there are far too many variables to run the risk. Insurance companies have entire departments that operate to calculate these risks. It's very much part and parcel with doing business. The problem lies in what happens after everything settles down and if your business is strong enough to recover following an incident. Im very much in the camp that dreamworld is, and that some people are seriously out of touch for expecting everything to be back to normal, or even improving 12 months on. 12 months is still short term. 5 years, 10 years, thats the sort of projections you'd have to start talking. Especially with village reporting that their numbers are way down too, revenue having dropped, so it's not like the industry is in a great place even with exciting new rides being used to stem the tide and turn it around instantly. It will be interesting to see what impact rivals has had on it's attendance figures each quarter. See if it's a short term bump or a long term increase; and if figures continue to rise steadily, how do they compare to the same time prior to the dreamworld accident. It was pretty quiet around Christmas time at movie world last year, nowhere near the sustained busy period it normally endures. If you hedged everything on one attraction turning your fortunes around instantly and returning everything back to normal, we might be in for a rough couple of years for both parks.