Slick

Huh. I did a quick Google - it was called Topiaries on Beaumont but it was sold off during at the start of the pandemic and not sure what's come of it. 😕

Did a quick morning Google on the Samford one (Samford's the area I grew up in so to hear that there was a bobsled in town is really neat). Jumping on QImagery, it looks like it didn't last all that long, maybe less than a decade (it's clear as day in the 1992 & 1987 images, not visible prior to 1983 in a completed form and then basically gone by the 1994 images). FYI, that site is now a cafe/wedding venue with a really lovely view of a part of Samford Valley that's now soccer grounds and parklands (was formerly a CSIRO research site). 1992 Images from Queensland Imagery: 1997-ish Images from Queensland Imagery: And some footage from a recent-ish 7news Flashback:

Why did they do this right when brick facades are becoming really popular again? If anything they should go back to covering that facade with bougainvilleas.

Could be down to the windy weather. Has anyone reached out to the park yet to ask why it's been turned back off?

I'll have a presumptive stab in the dark on this one - we know the trains were on their last legs for years, and simultaneously they’ve gone to great lengths/expenses to maintain the track and build a wooden coaster around it. Therefore, it's a safe bet to assume that what @Bikash Randhawahas said in the past is likely still true. Perhaps someone can reach out to the park and ask? Is Penguin Encounters or the Jelly exhibit thing wasted space because it's indoors?

FYI. 🍻

Yeah maybe decrease the diameter of the hole is the way to go and add in some thick brushes around the inner edge to deter anything entering? Yeah, and it’ll be sad if something like that does happen. I think we’ve genuinely reached the point of over bubble-wrapping every theme park ride in australia.

I couldn't resist.

Appreciate you reaching out to the park to find the clarification there. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

Has anyone tried asking the park directly about it or this conjecture?

Thanks for letting us know. The previous wrought iron fence had quite a few dozen layers of paint on it, so here's hoping they've taken that away to be properly looked after and like you said, it's not instead replaced by a standard pool fence (or worse yet, chain link).

@themagicianare the train station’s fences gone?

The current CEO is on the same LTI as the former CEO.

Maybe, but the load-bearing assumption you've made there is that Ardent is actually interested in a future. At this point, if a stock-broker suggested Ardent for its long-term viability, despite the chairman being a well-known corporate raider, the restructuring of the US arm from the AU arm, the sale of the marinas, bowling centres, gyms and now Main Event, and despite the fact that the park's CEO role has a sale incentive in the contract, well.... i'd suggest finding yourself a different stock-broker.

Probably depends on when you bought shares.

Yeah look it's important to consider opinions are like arseholes - everyone has one. Honestly though no stress though, the irony in being annoyed about that post is noted.

Just so we're all clear, if an opinion on either side involves a level of cognitive dissonance that leads someone down a self-justifying pathway of "someone or something did something bad there I/someone else can do something bad" then they're not having a conversation based on logic, they're just mad the other kid in the sandpit threw sand at them. It's why the Movie World Vs. Dreamworld "thing" often feels like it's less about passionate fan discussion and more about slinging mud. Consider opinions on "world class" - it's a throw-away marketing term, and yet enthusiasts take it to hold up Village up to an unimaginably high bar in order tear them to shreds when literally anything isn't "world class". Are those enthusiasts aware the Dreamworld site and Dreamworld's CEO uses that term too? Does that mean I'm allowed to cry foul whenever Dreamworld falls short of being world class too? Or would I be considered being resentful and petty? Food for thought, that one. Being reasonable and understanding is the key here. There's no joy in being the kind of enthusiast that's so hell-bent on preserving some identity-crisis bias that there's actually no winning outcome for our parks to operate in. E.g. "How dare Movie World close Justice League during the school holidays! That would've ticked off so many families" in equal tow with "how dare Movie World wait months before closing Justice League? The ride's state would've ticked off so many families". If you can disconnect from the rivalry, the more interesting thing to ponder is what everyone's metric for success is. Like properly ask yourself "what's my bar for what's good?" If it starts with "well Dreamworld/Movie World did this, therefore.." I'd say you're looking at it the wrong way. Consider the perspective of looking at what the rest of the industry is up to globally and start there. There's parks like Phantasialand that are smoking our parks at every level despite charging less for entry. That to me is far more interesting than a discussion of who sucks more based upon how long their waterslides were closed. If you were to apply my basic bar for what's good (that things should be replaced by better things) then any step backwards should be either called out and/or remedied. That applies to the aesthetic of themed areas just as much as it does the current state of existing attractions or with the considerations of building new attractions. Justice League definitely needs a look at. Wild West Falls could do with a pressure wash. Overall park appearance clearly needs some minor improvements etc. etc. All totally doable, and i'm sure the park will do in due course.

How was foot traffic @aussienetman

Is it better or worse than Nightlife?

Good catch. Will be fun to watch how long it takes for them to ignore this thread but then magically fix the same problem. 😜

As mentioned nothing remains sans the one theatre. I'd recommend checking YouTube for references and drawing up a map from there.

I'm not sure I'm following, could someone fill me in? Are they bundling the parks into cruise packages and bussing everyone from Hamilton to Sea World Resort? What I think I'm getting here is that if you buy a cruise package you can get 15% off theme parks, which is a good idea and i'm all for that, i'm just not sure a coupon code is press release material. Disregard that, noticed the unlimited entry bit which is the interesting bit. So if you book a cruise I wonder when you can use the unlimited entry?

Terrible April fool's joke if not.

I wasn't, I was explicitly clear, and you've now shifted the goal posts and ignored the vast effort I went to in replying to your post. Again, your interpretation. It doesn't imply that and it's sure as hell not naive or innocent. For example, basic economic modelling isn't naive or innocent just because it assumes certain variables and discards others. Your argument only checks out if that you assume that I think that they must spend every appreciable dollar on being better in every way every single day, which isn't the case at all. In most cases (like say replacing Gremlins with Scooby Doo) you can indeed do better within a realistic budget. True brilliance (like in the case of Bermuda Triangle or the Gum Tree Gully animatronic show back in its day) was doing something that appeared to cost a lot but for very little.

Two points worth adding I think (both of which don't inherently disagree with what you mentioned): Firstly, I'd say the second guiding star I have (lol, can't believe I'm calling them this but here we are) is "did they spend the money they had wisely (regardless of how much or how little it was)". Take the pathway from the Main St station to Giant Drop - they've spent a fair chunk of money trucking in literal tons of rocks to theme, and hopefully, tie in a pathway that is, at the end of the day, outside of that theme's physical or visual boundaries. Those rocks are also a fun trip hazard (especially considering the park has two rides where guests look directly up) and make the pathway and surrounding space hot and inhospitable. That's not great given the fact that guests mill about there waiting for their friends or family to ride. I'd argue grass would be infinitely cheaper, and the money they saved they would've been better spent on shade, seating and landscaping that improves that would improve the space exponentially. If you look at that old photo I mentioned, what it has going for it is nice shade, nice seating, nice grass and nice landscaping. And i'd argue you'd get all of that for the price of several metric tons of rocks. The same can be said here. Are they spending their money well here? Is it additive or subtractive to the space? My second point is that theme parks are a hospitality and service business through and through. Likewise, if a large chain hotel starts losing money, they don't fix the demand issue by simply cutting their average total cost over time. They'd continue to experience a loss if instead of fixing the pool, they just close it. Or if a guest breaks through a large glass door, they replace it with a cheaper alternative that sticks out like a sore thumb. Nope, they do what the JW Marriott at Surfers did and re-invest on new fixtures that let them shift their business and functional strategies and ultimately get them back into profitability. TLDR; you don't fix quality issues by cutting corners.