Yyosh

This notice has been put on Luna Park's website. I hope this is temporary. BD's only closed for two hours after the rest of the park opens but I imagine some guests might be annoyed by the delayed opening.

I won't get too excited about that artist's impression because it isn't anything new sadly. It's actually not too far off what ended up being built for the 1995 reopening, and looks strikingly similar to a model which I believe was shown to Ted Hopkins before he passed away. The giant Big Dipper has an incredibly similar layout to the Arrow looper that was built, and the smaller coaster is just the Wild Mouse. There's footage of it here at 52:34. Notice Spider originally being the Troika, Rotor's (ugly) facade and the massive fake mountain. I'd love to see full photos of this model but I've been unable to find anything more than this small clip from Spirit of the Carnival.

Can confirm. I was at Luna Park today, it opened at around 1pm.

Went to Luna Park today and I got to get my first rides on Big Dipper! I don't have many things to say that others haven't said yet, but that was so much better than I expected! It's not the most intense coaster I've been on, but it was a really, really fun ride, especially at the Maloney's Corner section. I also found it to not be as rough as it looks offride thankfully, but it did have a rattle, especially in the back rows. Only the red train was operating today but the crew was very efficient and dispatches were extremely fast (some were around 40 seconds)! Wild Mouse was also operating, and it felt a lot faster than I remember it being back in January! For some reason though the park website still lists it as under maintenance.

How were the operations? I'm guessing the trains would've been stacking due to the ride's short length but were the dispatches fast?

I actually quite like it. I think it keeps the style of the entrance and the font reminds me of Luna Park Melbourne's Big Dipper logo. It's a lot better than the logos for, say, Bug.

The full POV has now been uploaded to youtube: I visited the park today and sadly from the ground the ride does look to be quite rough (there was a lot of shaking during the Sidewinder). Hopefully the layout can make up for this as it looks to be a great ride regardless. Wild Mouse was also testing so I'd expect to see it back open again soon.

Park artist Ashley posted some more photos of Big Dipper to his Instagram, including one of park staff on the ride: https://www.instagram.com/p/CXu5MD7BSoC/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CXu6Zathj4L/ The queue seems to include photos of the ride. It's hard to make them out exactly from this one shot but hopefully there are also photos of the past Big Dippers there. Super pumped for when this thing will open!

Do you have any more information or sources on this? I tried to do some searching but could only find this thread. I also thought Ranger was being used for parts on other rides...

Staff have been spotted riding Big Dipper! https://www.instagram.com/p/CXXFErahVPQ/ https://www.instagram.com/kevin.einsteinz/

That's a bit of an old image..

Has Sledgehammer gone back down?? The website doesn't say it's closed, that's disappointing. Though Wild Mouse looks like it's having some pretty extensive (and most likely necessary) maintenance and Rotor I believe is only closed because of COVID and the fact its outside of the temporary entrance. It hasn't operated since early 2020.

I just came back from LPS and I really have to say, it's not as bad as I imagined it would be. I had some annoyances, but I had a great time. The park was pretty empty with the longest line I waited in being the one to get inside and I only had to wait around 1-2 cycles to get on rides. Getting inside was strange. The Annual Pass entrance was through the gift shop where guests would get their annual passes printed and would receive an unlimited wristband and a badge which they would take back to the entrance and get allowed in. I recall waiting about 15 minutes as there were a few families in front of me. Turnstiles didn't seem to be in use but we still had to scan the wristbands when going on rides. The only new ride I rode was Boomerang, which was a pretty fun little family coaster. For the kids rides, Little Nipper was closed every time I walked past despite the website saying it was open and the ribbits made by Freaky Frog got annoying while you're waiting in Boomerang's station. Sadly I don't think there was any maintenance being done on Sledgehammer. From Hair Raiser I could see Wild Mouse was being retracked and its queue was gone so I don't expect we'll see it running anytime soon. Boomerang broke down early into the day but it was up again fairly quickly. My main annoyance with the new Maloney's Corner/Luna Land was how it was quite ugly. The back of Coney Island is still fading and hasn't been replaced, and you can see the temporary footers on Boomerang from a few areas. The whole area felt cramped and closed off by the large temporary looking fencing. There was still no music playing on the speakers which has always been an annoyance for me as it makes the area feel dead when its not busy compared to the rest of of the park. Fingers crossed they're going to be able to fix this though as the rides themselves are great and staff are still incredibly friendly. Most people didn't seem to be bothered by the closures and families loved the new rides.

Pretty sad to hear the park opened like this. It's great that they're is getting a lot of visitors, but two of the park's signature rides (one of them brand new) being closed on its first day is just a bad look. I hope they clean up the new area soon, they did so well with Volare and the new Wild Mouse facade and it's disappointing to see them completely forget that. I'll try to visit the park soon to form my own opinion. Anyways, I want to keep my hopes up. We've been anticipating this for eleven months.

Don't know anything about the design, but this photo on rcdb shows the underside of a car from the defunct Aussie World mouse which I'm certain is the same as the LPS mouse as they were built from the same designs. If I remember correctly, from the queue you can see the disc shaped 'bolts' (red arrows) spin which probably would mean they guide the car around turns, and the I shaped ones (green arrows) must just be upstops.