Slick

Says it all really. On the topic of Dreamworld maintenance, these two need a fix.

Fair to say Ardent's in denial about how dire Dreamworld's future is because admitting this fundamental truth damages any realistic ability to sell Dreamworld at the price they're chasing (which is 100% the end-game now). "Capex-light" as John Osborne termed simply won't work. If Village build literally anything remotely exciting in the next 24 months, it'll re-affirm to customers that they should only hand their money over to the parks that are going to consistently turn that cash into new and exciting things. For Dreamworld to be resting on their laurels, developing "chill-zones" and not spending the money on what customers are demanding to have (here's a hint, it's a big thrill ride) is going to only hurt the business further. Let's not forget most lead-in times are around 18 months, so even if they dropped 20-million on a ride to save the park, it's already too late.

Dreamworld had the option in 2009 to opt-in to the same overhaul Six Flags received at the cost of roughly a million bucks. Dreamworld didn't go for it, which has resulted in massive headaches in the last 24 months. Go figure.

FYI he's been there for a few months now - i'd imagine he's just come off probation recently.

He's a chartered engineer yeah?

Do people want Giant Drop & Tower of Terror for only two more years, or decommission Tower of Terror and just have Giant Drop for ten more years?

From this Parkz article at the end of 2017, Craig Davidson said: I'm not going to take Craig's word as gospel - he thought Mine Ride was salvageable despite the Parkz mods team working really hard on founding a history and timeline that showed there was 40+ year old wood holding up the structure. Yikes. What I will note here though is that the perspective change is interesting - in 2017 Craig was about creating a long term vision, in 2019 John's all about ripping the copper out of the walls. As others have said - Dreamworld's long term future ultimately never included WipeOut, and if you want to be seen as a safe park it definitely needed to go. But with that being said, there's two things that bug me. No proper send-off? US/EU parks do it. They love engaging with their enthusiast base with stuff like that because it generates great brand loyalty & equity. I guess I find it strange that the "world leaders in safety who set the benchmark for all theme park safety" had to suddenly decommission an entire ride with no warning. It says two different things to consumers. No-one asked for a chill zone. Are you kidding me? There are shaded areas literally less than a ten second walk from the front of Wipeout's entrance. It's such a contemptuous for your customers if they think that's going stick. Meanwhile - Sky Voyager remains closed due to safety oversights (which puts it at 76 days since it's original opening date) and there's nothing new in the pipeline for 2019. Here's where my head's at - the park has no true, viable plan for Gold Rush or the Thunderbolt site (and no money for either) and clearly got caught out with no plan for Wipeout. If "actions speak louder than words" then we should all be worried of things to come.

Easiest solution is to click "ignore user" when you hover over their name. @Www worker 3.0 at this point it's considered harassment, so easy up on the sauce mate, yeah? Cheers. 🍻

They're a really nice touch when you drive into Movie World, good stuff. From the earnings report, it's doing fine, just not where they want it to be. I'd say it's a cultural difference - with wait-staff, the US has a tipping culture, thus, waiters have a personal incentive to make sure you have drinks, food and are enjoying yourself at all times. In Australia, simply aren't as motivated simply because we have pretty good minimum wages and barely any tipping culture and thus just not as motivated. That's gonna hurt the bottom line when so much of your business is F&B based - every visit i've had to Top Golf so far staff are pretty difficult to find compared to having staff like US Top Golfs who will pop by every 10 minutes to see how you're going. Not all doom and gloom though - in the earnings call they said they were aware of it and were looking into it, so I have high hopes they'll figure it out.

Am I tripping balls right now?

Yeah for the purposes of keeping it on topic i'll call it draw, as you can endlessly pick apart definitions, used areas etc. etc. - I think the two points stand - Dreamworld shouldn't be selling off any land and when you start comparing like for like products in each chain (adding in respective portfolios and animal areas like PC into the equation) then the gap becomes larger. Again, not that area used is an indicator of quality, rather just debunking this idea that Dreamworld has too much land which we've heard from the likes of Craig Davidson is simply not true for either short term or long term additions.

So just take out dreamworld’s admin buildings like you have for movie world and any other guest inaccessible areas like the island and you’ll get something more realistic.

Old train wasn’t allowed to be despatched empty and had low wind tolerances so this isn’t surprising.

We’ve come full circle with a video that’s just still images.

It's worth pointing out that as it stands today Dreamworld (without WhiteWater World) is a smaller park per m2 than Movie World. If you were to compare apples vs apples (so say PC, WNW & MW against DW & WWW) the gap is even greater.

If you're into that sort of thing I guess. 🤷‍♂️

I've been following it up with the journos who wrote the article. It's well worth reading the Twitter exchange that's transpiring currently. I'm not interesting in dragging Dreamworld through the whole TRR thing, having to go hear all of the inquest findings was mentally exhausting to say the least, but I will say that if I see news reported incorrectly in this particular case i'm going to pursue it. By all means folks, if you find information that says the other raft had folks in it send it this way.

Came here to say the same thing, glad you're on it too. It's pretty classic Daily Mail really - i'm not surprised they ripped off other journos' work as they're known for it in the industry - what's amusing is that what they ripped off is factually wrong. TLDR; Daily Mail sensationalist garbage article, please don't click the link and give them ad revenue.

Having spoken many times with Longhurst and asking him point blank why he sold it (and subsequently writing about it) I can tell you that's not it. But you are correct in that focussing on one thing shouldn't come at the expense at the other - in Dreamworld's case, without a large roller-coaster it's a little bit like re-arranging the deck chairs while the Titanic sinks.

I'd love to see executive-level management sweat the small details again like their predecessors did. Back in the day, both Longhurst & Menzies would roam their respective parks looking for the little inconveniences that inevitably added up if left unresolved - in Longhurst's case he'd sit in the IMAX Theatre and watched throughput when the film finished, he'd jump on the train and listen in on the narration whilst checking how clean the trains were and would be so fastidious about how well kept the gardens were that people would come to Dreamworld just to see the flower-beds. In Menzies' case, it's somewhat well known that he would go to the parks with his wife on Christmas just so he could see the parks without anyone hassling him. Basically it's all about fine-tuning every possible moment of the customer experience. Until you've sat in every seat at Green Bean, you won't know how many table-sets are in the glaring hot sun or which tables are too close to the speakers. Until you've lined up as a guest for Tower of Terror, you won't realise how hot, sweaty and smelly the queue line stairs are. Until you've walked up to the Aquaman Exhibit as a punter, you won't realise how the entrance is very un-inviting etc. etc. etc. etc. It's such a simple thing to do and yet no one does it often enough.

Nope, these are photos I took in 2004.

Me when Sky Voyager was announced: Me when Sky Voyager opens:

For clarity - I believe the article incorrectly reports that they were in the raft that bumped against the doomed raft - in the inquiry it was established that the raft just after the conveyor belt was indeed empty. As such i've reached out to the reporters for comment. What I believe is more likely is that they were on the raft that was in the station being unloaded and somewhere along the exit.

I too had this exact same thought.

But it'll already be open so those who have got time off or travel interstate will be going up regardless...