GoGoBoy

The Tiger Island shop is brilliant. Truly evokes a jungle atmosphere and is reminiscent of the immersive style of theming of some the big overseas parks. Let it become the standard for DW.

The Flintstones river ride is really well done too. Great to see an indoor park get it so right.

For god’s sake Dreamworld, make it a dark ride! Make it a dark ride! They were talking recently about making a dark ride (but in the Gold Rush area)?. When I walked through it the other week I was horrified that the Brock cars could be considered a theme park attraction, but I do remember thinking that building would make a perfect dark ride. Make it a dark ride!

A capital raising is a financial market term which means that a public company goes back to shareholders and institutional investors to raise more funds. They do this by issuing more shares in the company. This tends to affect the share price as it dilutes the value of the shares for existing shareholders, hence the trading halt.

Just found Parques Reunidos’ presentation on the acquisition and some key points of interest, which suggest this could be quite positive for WNW Sydney and the Aussie industry more broadly. From the document - 1st step in Australia and in the South Hemisphere Unique opportunity to build platform in Australia through M&A and development of new indoor centers Expansion opportunities through 2nd gate parks or themed areas https://www.parquesreunidos.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/WetnWild-Acquisition-Announcement-.pdf

My understanding is that the park cost around the $120 mil mark but the Parkz article suggests $80?

I don't think that's correct. The park was beating expectations and making a profit in its first year at least. Unfortunately visitor numbers dropped significantly in following years.

Journalism is something you won’t find in any of the Murdoch newspapers or on the commercial networks. Stick to the ABC and Fairfax to get closest to the truth.

Meanwhile The Courier Fail splashed all over the front page that the ride attendant is a hero, before she has even taken to the stand. Jumping the gun, much?

And in the quote referred to earlier the Constable was talking about placing a water level sensor at the end of the ride, not a block sensor that would have stopped the conveyor when the raft ahead hadn’t cleared the block. A feature of most flume rides. It seems those giving evidence so far have little ride or mechanical knowledge; perhaps this question will be asked further into the inquest?

My question is why has no one referred to sensors that detect where a raft is, similar to a block system, as a way of preventing the accident? A water level sensor has been mentioned but nothing about block sensors to stop rafts getting too close together on or off the conveyor. It seems the ride doesn’t have them which is surprising as most water rides do. Also, I noticed the Ardent Leisure share price hasn’t dropped at all, which is odd.

Sounds mostly like a beat up to me.

Apparently the face was projection mapped, but there are issues because of having to project on to existing features. The really impressive stuff is inside the park though, which is clearly where they’ve decided to spend the money. The projection onto Coney Island is one of the best I’ve ever seen on a building, and I love that they’ve used historic Luna Park imagery, rather than just something random.

The Ferris wheel light show looks absolutely incredible, and I love that they replaced the crumbling lighthouse with a new fantasy structure.

VRTP have always excelled at making an audience plant convincingly seem like an actual audience member. I recall back to Police Academy Stunt Show days and the amount of people who believed, pretty much right to the end, that Rodney was just a normal guest.

$139 for 3 great parks for a year? Incredible value. It’s just been too low for too long and it’ll probably take people a while to adjust.

In that video above the misters in the geyser area aren’t working and it doesn’t show the final explosion effect at the top of the hill unfortunately.

Those are train wheels (or mine cart/trolley or whatever you like).

I’d like to know how you’re reading into it, Richard!

It’s a shame to hear that the new chairman doesn’t seem too keen on investing decent sums of capital, despite his earlier comments. However, a new flying theatre, waterpark expansion and dark ride are certainly not nothing. They might not be the world class coaster that DW needs, but taken together they will be a really positive step forward... if they all happen. Perhaps not enough credit is being given to these ideas. One issue that concerns me is the way they are speaking about a refresh as if it’s almost a one off thing. The nature of theme parks is that you must continually invest, every few years or so. DW needs to take a number of actions simply to get back to a decent base line, then continue to add strong attractions every few years after that.

Couldn’t agree more! Beautifully put.

I think the website’s great and I like the detail given for the rides, especially the model names. This website was incredibly overdue! But Movie World, that map, that map!! In the smaller version you can’t even make out the hypercoaster (and only the lift hill features anyway). And all those shadows. And the ugly yellow banners everywhere. They desperately need to go back to some type of illustrated map that gives the artist the flexibility to change sizes and perspectives and make it all work. And make the hypercoaster fit!

I think Parkz prides itself (rightly) on producing articles that are in another league compared to the very downmarket and general Gold Coast Bulletin, with a level of technical information that most people with a genuine interest in the industry appreciate.

I'm not gonna lie, you make a very convincing argument. It certainly wouldn't have been ideal if another incident had occurred anytime soon. But if it happened years later, I think it would be forgiven if the key factor turned out to be rider behaviour. I guess because of the magnitude of the DW tragedy, something had to be done. But I certainly agree with Parkz, that this wasn't it! I'm a big believer in looking to world's best practice, and not re-inventing the wheel (poorly), as Parkz was also arguing. But having said that, what we don't know is where the decision to install this specific design came from, and what the advice and processes informing it were. So we are making generalised judgements without knowing the inner goings-on, I'll admit to that. I also agree with everyone else that it is still a big positive that the ride is open, so long as these canopies do not lead to bigger problems down the track that may again lead to its closure. I am very happy for all of those families visiting DW that can now enjoy the log ride again. It would have been nice if they added a bit more theming and ambience to it in sections -- not hard to do -- but still, it's open.

If these canopies hadn't been fitted and another person became injured from standing up on the log ride in this period following the TRR tragedy, I am sure the public would be forgiving. People would understand that the fault lay with the rider, not the ride. The only expectation should really be sufficient warnings. There have been countless fatal incidents at parks overseas where people have fallen out of roller coasters, and indeed log flumes (a rider was killed on Splash Mountain Disney World after getting out of the log mid-course), but generally no modifications are made to these rides and they continue to operate. Why? Because they are isolated incidents relating to rider behaviour, not the safety of the ride itself.