Slick

Aaaaaaand we're back.

That's what she said.

Could it be a noise shield for the lower, closer paths of track?

What's your stance on governments re-allocating funds from public education and putting it into the Department of Defence for the purposes of a weapons manufacturing grants program?

TLDR; just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Silver lining: good to finally see Steel Taipan get national coverage.

Should Qantas fix their customer experience and perception problems if their business is generating revenue?

If your mate said he needed five grand to pay for his mum's surgery and then spent it on personalised license plates, then gets a sick work compo payout and doesn't give you any money back, is he still your mate? Without unpacking a marketing thesis here, I'd argue that the brand continues to suffer because negative consumer perceptions about the brand are being re-enforced at the pre-purchase stage of many potential customer's buying journeys. It's not about whether or not they care about about koalas, it's that they keep hearing bad things in mainstream media about the brand that's ultimately reinforcing previously held assumptions about the brand. Therefore, when many of these customers are at the moment of truth where they make a purchasing decision, they're simply going elsewhere, and that's evident of the massive differences in attendance between organisations at present.

I'm not sure that's the hill you want to die on given the reasons why they're not profitable to begin with. At the most critical point of Dreamworld's recent fiscal history, they had 30 million cash in hand after restructuring the organisation. I think it's important to note that the sum we're talking about specifically is not insignificant, but wasn't the saviour of the business either, not by a long shot. It's just bad optics, regardless of how above board it was. And facing facts here, continually bad optics are a huge reason why attendance hasn't returned and the business isn't profitable.

You're shifting the goal posts so i'll re-articulate. If an airline or a large financial institution becomes unprofitable during a crisis like the GFC, requires a government handout to continue to operate, and then returns a large dividend to share-holders, have the tax-payers been taken for a ride and is it moral despite being totally 100% legal? They're in the position they're in now because Ardent Leisure finally sold the bit of their organisation that actually makes money. Your argument almost seemingly infers that they're profitable and successful seemingly only because of the help they've received from government (neither of which is true). As I pointed out, that's not the timeline. You can't believe everything a presser or a comms person says.

Given that the company has north of 160m in cash and no debts, should Ardent pay that money back to tax-payers if they didn't need it in the end and it wasn't used for its intended purpose?

As you'll note in the announcement thread the project was shelved well before COVID. I'd imagine the departure of the head of life sciences largely contributed to the project not progressing. To wit, I have no idea how a project isn't anything but cancelled if key stakeholders are no longer involved and the revenue has been spent. Unfortunately very accurate. This summarises my stance pretty well, just because it's not illegal doesn't mean it doesn't pass the sniff test, especially when the business is in a financial position where they're now debt-free and are about to make a second killing from the sale of Dreamworld.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know if the old train carriages (specifically the last open carriage) catered to those with wheelchairs?

Do folks remember the first time they saw or went on a steam train? And if so, why was it memorable?

If anything i'd make Dirty Harry's even better. My focus would be primarily improving the dining/drinking areas whilst leaving the bar itself as is. At present, the indoor space has the atmosphere of a Sizzler's restaurant and the outside seating area isn't exactly the bees knees either. Finding a way to adjoin the two spaces with the focus of retaining what make's Dirty Harry an institution would be the goal. I think the biggest issue with the indoor seating is just how closed off it is. By making the rear dining section more open, I think you open up more potential for people to sit and consume more F&B instead of feeling like they're missing out and need to get in and get out. Attached are some moodboard style pictures of kind of how it looks in my mind.

Agreed on this point - chronologically it's backwards. Do you meet Oz and then go to Kansas? 🤷🏻‍♂️ You'll find that USJ's land (which closed in 2011) was based off the book "Land of Oz" and not the movie "The Wizard of Oz". Broadly speaking from this thread in general - this is simply marketing in 2022 and the phrasing you'll find is simply the park's way of cutting through the insane amount of noise we're exposed to everyday. Dreamworld calls its train carriages "world-class" and Funfields has declared the record for "the world's longest ProSlide Cannonbowl waterslide." Everyone does it. And I'll side with @rappa on this one, I don't think it's worth getting too wrapped up by the words in a press release, especially when that stuff isn't aimed at us to begin with.

@Tricoartif you could upload those images as JPG's that'd be brilliant.

To be fair, they certainly attempted to learn and adapt by being open and transparent about Atlantis before ground was even broken (which in turn has netted them the same result thanks to an entirely different set of unforeseen circumstances).

I took a photo of the sign, will have to find it - not sure if it was that specific about its return, but I do hope it makes a return. Ideally if the steam train made a return and ran during peak periods and weekends and they used the diesel to augment operations (and the costs) for off-peak that’d be a bloody brilliant outcome.

100% - I'd take the way that it is now over more shaded seating areas. And their effort shouldn't be discounted either - the stations are looking the best they've been in several decades. The new carriages are great and the fact that both carriages and stations are proactively disability friendly is the kind of thing that makes Dreamworld Dreamworld. The chagrin comes from the perspective that for most of Dreamworld's history, that level four detail (steam engines) was a noticeable part of the Dreamworld experience. That detail (the steam train) now sits out of the front of the main station, practically taunting guests about a unique feature that's no longer part of the ticket price.

The success of Disneyland (and by extension, Dreamworld's initial years of success) was because immersion was taken seriously when no one else cared (and to a deep extent was actually contemptuous of the guest experience e.g. "they're in a theme park, it's all fake, who cares."). Those who have watched The Imagineering Story on Disney+ will be super familiar with the four levels of details that unlock that difference - here's it paraphrased from this blog: With that in mind, folks care about the difference between steam and not steam because it removes a pretty critical component of the magic of that attraction that contributes to the greater atmosphere and immersion of the park. Sure, switching from steam to diesel in isolation is one small cut (and Disney did this in Hong Kong) but combined with dozens of other cuts in aggregate (Sky Voyager's facade, replacing Main St Emporium's doors with automatic sliding doors, flattening the Ice Cream Parlour's facade etc. etc. etc.) results in the "feel of the place" to change in a quantifiable way. With all that said, Dreamworld is a totally different place to what it was in the 80's, and as you pointed out, the train's going to fly past a bunch of gravel, a black tin shed, and some yellow track. Having a steam train back is one of many layers they'd need to consider in restoring Dreamworld to a previously high level of immersion and detail.

To be frank, if I was anymore transparent about it they’d start calling me Casper instead of Slick.

No stress mate. In future, if you feel like anyone's rubbishing your opinion (myself included) send me a DM. 🍻

Suggesting that I'm "rubbishing everyone else's opinion" when I've predominantly just quoted you a few times to engage in pretty typical, normal, robust discussion is a pretty good indicator of who's trying to rubbish who. Rubbishing opinions implies that I'm treating your opinion as worthless, the reality is that I've quoted sections and added to thoughtful discussion. Having said that, I'm sorry to hear you feel your opinion is rubbished. If it were on the west side of the tower, they'd have direct, physical access to the lighting fixtures via The Giant Drop's cable catch car platform. That would lower operational expenditure and improve customer experience, as they wouldn't have to isolate neighbouring rides because of the need to create a custom rig like they've done for the Tower of Terror track removal. Again, if the goal is to be visible from as far away as possible, then having letters down the side of the tower that you can only see in its entirety from a fairly immediate distance is probably not the most effective solution, and as you say, lighting it up to be more clearly visible via some architectural lighting fixtures is probably a better use of coin.

I haven't personally seen this, but it'd be a huge mistake if so. Having said that, i'd imagine it isn't an intentional deception either. Feel free to post the errors here so, like Dreamworld has done with the Giant Drop thread, they can fix it up. 🍻