Slick

I remember people also continued to wildly speculate about what Dreamworld was building when Parkz literally matched Tailspin's footprint to other Gerstlauer Skyfly footprints. This happened again with Doomsday. And again with Rivals.

All theme parks are an experience and realising high customer satisfaction with that experience starts and ends with customer service. That said, I find it hard to believe that an entire company of front-lining service staff seem to have an issue with being satisfied in their roles whilst the folks next door don't. Most people want to do their job well and take pride/satisfaction in what they do regardless of pay or age. So then, what's the matter? Whenever this happens (whether that's in a theme park, or a restaurant or a hotel) you've gotta ask: are they not being supported by their managers? Are there practices and rules in place that suck the life out of employee's motivation and passion? Is there not sufficient training? Do executive level staff fail to understand the essence of the business or are they unable to rectify these issues in a timely manner and if so, why?

Nah salsa.

Yep.

Interested to hear what other theme park buffs think about this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpVo2D4uCwc Essentially he started his day by swindling a random hotel's staff into letting him have a shower and a coffee before essentially waiting for an opportune moment (read: waiting for staff to be distracted) before sneaking into the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. From there, he conned staff into giving him a Fastpass onto a ride (he had no ticket so he had to sweet talk his way into jumping the queue) and finally wrapped his day by scoring a free bed from a chick on Tinder. What's your thoughts on doing stuff like this? I think this guy is a proper wanker and gives YouTube creators a bad name.

Nahhh - crap chips and good chips still cook at the same pace. Same goes for going to the effort of cooking someone a fresh batch if it's quiet, especially when there's staff standing around having a giggle - if you've got a good product at the right price and you look after your staff it sells itself, and in my experience Gotham Cafe in particular has neither of those three.

I reckon there's two issues at play here. Firstly, it's not the price. Parks would go broke if they tried to make low cost meals for low-yield customers (a.k.a. stereotypical enthusiasts) who are totally fine eating Maccas in the carpark to save a few dollars. Those folks just aren't the target market. What I reckon's actually going on is that the quality you get for the premium price you pay is way off at places like Gotham Cafe. My last few visits tend to reflect this, there was no one around and four staff doing a whole lot of nothing except chatting to one another, and yet my meal was still, at best, lukewarm and underwhelming, and no amount of beer changed that, believe me. It's just not rocket science. These parks want the high-yielding customers to make repeat visits, it's where the money's at for them, but those customers aren't going to spend money again at those places or be inclined to take their families back to the park regularly if they feel like they're being gouged when they come to pay and taken for a ride by how average the food is. I'm happy to pay a premium if it's convenient, hot and fresh, and I reckon most people are, too. From there, if you do what Disney do and create an experience for the premium price you pay (in their case, it's everything from Turkey Legs to Mickey Mouse shaped doughnuts) then for the little bit extra it costs the park to make they have repeat customers lining up around the block. That, however, requires vision from someone like Clark Kirby to instigate, not middle-management who have been told to find new ways to shave a few cents here and there to meet a budget line. Sidenote - I should also point out that I think Movie World do get it right at places like the Dirty Harry Grill - it's unique, it's tasty, it's fresh, it's even a cool thing to see being made as you walk past and I look forward to grabbing a bite there. Thing is, I feel like in terms of Village's other food & bev joints, it's an exception to the rule.

They could've gutted Kevil Hill & used the current pass centre as an entrance to the space that connects directly to the existing Dreamworks experience and made it something that has the potential to last beyond the twelve months Craig mentioned.

This guy gets it.

The general public (see: the vast majority) who reads it thinks “fuck 60+ people for TWO hours” not “well hang on, there’s two trains of 32, and because this ride doesn’t have an MCBR the other train would’ve been in the brake run and because of the evac system design & procedures B&M have they can only unload one row of four at a time meaning realistically only four people out of the 64 waited for two hours.”

- The title says "passengers hanging for two hours" - the implication there is that ALL passengers were hanging there for that period. - there's no MCBR on this ride. Given how broad & contextual the japanese language is (added to the fact that I searched everywhere and couldn't find a press release from the park) i'd suggest "midway" is anything that's not the start or end of the station itself. We (being enthusiasts) know that lift hills are generally at the start of rides, not midway through though. Ultimately, arguing context and implication online is a fool's errand.

Not really though: It says it happened midway through the ride, but it was just on the lift hill at the start of the ride It says 64 riders, but it's only one train, thus 32 passengers were stuck on the lift hill It implies that all 32 passengers were stuck for two hours, but realistically it was only the last couple of folks who had to wait anywhere close to that period.

The sentence I wrote that comes before what you quoted says that - places like Melbourne have their GT projector alongside their new laser systems, and listings that use it clearly point out that it’s on film which is really nice. In fairness, the digital system there is still far superior than smaller Liemax cinemas found at places like Hoyts, which have complicated the IMAX difference in recent years.

There's a definite vibe the parks have had a solid little post-games bump this weekend, which is really nice to see. If this is indeed a sustained upturn in attendance, I really, really, really hope Dreamworld get the tools back out and keep chipping away at sorely needed minor touches - in my mind there's still way too much temporary red tin up that's become a long term part of the park's aesthetic, and with more eyeballs back in there means more opportunities to win folks over again (or lose them forever). I think prudent spending is just not the right game plan in my mind - I think I speak for a lot of the general public that people are waiting to see major signs of confident spending into Dreamworld and intelligent, long term investing is the key.

If I rock up an hour late to a meeting, the expectation is that i'll let the organiser know in advance - it's when communication is sparse about my tardiness, why i'm late or when i'll finally rock up is when people get annoyed, and that's exactly what's happening here with VRTP's communication. Luckily @Richard has a good rapport with the team there and was able to snag that interview with the CEO who gave us a timeline as to when they'd go to work on Scooby Doo, otherwise we'd know nothing at all.

To be fair, after searching through five pages and doing a few thread searches, the OP's post doesn't really fit anyway, so i've changed the title to better match the post. But that's kind of telling too - there's really scant discussion about Sea World in amongst enthusiasts given there's been so little movement that might interest thrill-seekers at the park of late. I'm sure that'll change in the near future - what I do hope is that the next major build is something worthwhile because I think the OP is right - you get this vibe these days that Sea World is just a really nice bundled extra for resort guests and pass-holders, a cool space for private events and not much else. On that thought - it's interesting that the model of "a thrill ride park" and then say an "animal park" or a "kid's park" has been shown not to work overseas in the long term & it doesn't bring in the same kind of revenue as having parks that are well rounded destinations. Let's not forget that when Keith Williams owned the joint that Sea World was the major competitor to Dreamworld - now though, when they close down Jet Rescue or Storm, there's literally half of their major rides gone, and let's be honest - that's a silly position to be in.

Bluey's the best bit of the show.

It's really just additional layers for the park's ops teams to use at their discretion as a response to the way customers respect the minimum safety requirements. Once upon a time folks would take it in stride if little Timmy wasn't tall enough to ride, nowadays it can lead to a full blown argument at the front of the line and a very public uproar on social media. And to add - it's not like they have any real way to know if someone is over or under the age of ten anyway, however if something were to happen and folks had knowingly defied signage and guidelines then it's another safety layer for the park to defend itself with, should anything occur. TLDR, it doesn't matter unless you're trying to be un-safe.

Fun fact: @Richard filmed that with a potato.

I called you out for being "salty" and not say @rac2703 because the only thing you had left to say was a snide, off-topic remark, whilst @rac2703 chose to clarify and continue the debate in a meaningful way that was, as you would say, like an adult, which I respect. Let's keep this on topic now.

Huh? I think you and @rac2703 need to stop being so salty, have some beerz and chill.

Yes, without question, that's literally the entire point I was making all along, that it's a missed opportunity, to which I showed in my examples. I never said they weren't!?! You quoted me saying "they should be more involved," more is the key word there.

It's pretty hard to follow considering the fact that out of the ten examples I wrote (not including @joz's) you're focussed on the one example that you've chosen out of context to make a point that serves no other purpose than to be right. Have a beer buddy - it's all good. The ten ideas I wrote were just that, ideas, and I wrote them down to illustrate a point that I think there's a million and one novel and original ways to get our parks out there while the world's sporting community is looking our way and to not be doing that for whatever reason is a poor move, because as I mentioned above, theme parks are a part of the Gold Coast way of life.

So because I only listed ten rough examples of neat promotional ideas in an attempt to highlight why some proactive and original PR would be a stellar idea instead of creating thirty highly detailed event outlines including parties involved, times, dates, news & press invitation lists etc. i'm somehow wrong. Oooookay then. I think you're missing the point, which is in my mind, the parks are a core part of the Gold Coast's DNA, in the same way Q1 or the beaches are, and they should be more involved.

Fun fact, two corporate mascots, a bunch of Australian fauna and the Minister for Tourism in a Commonwealth Games Zone is not "2 koalas' in a park" and goes to show who was on the money about these kind of activations and promotional events being so important. I don't even know what your point is anymore.