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If Disneyland closed down pirates of the Caribbean and re-opened it as a ride through a warehouse it wouldn't be 'Great of the park to get the ride open for peak season'. Having the ride look like that can only be called an utter disgrace.

Technically they rebuild the same waterslides.

Please, let this not be Movie World's "jumping the shark" moment. So let's be clear, Dreamworld is combing through every millimetre of every ride, being very open and transparent and yet are getting their arses handed to them for a sharp edge on a Flowrider mat, meanwhile Scooby Doo is almost completely gutted, there's no park communication why they've completely changed the ride experience in any way (which would come as a rude shock if you've waited an hour to jump on) and now they're just pretending people will be sweet and won't notice the difference? I'm so completely confused on this one. This is some weird "she'll be right, mate" mentality coming from a park that prides itself on trying to match its global brethren in terms of quality. This is a tough thing to write, because I want to be positive, but it's really tough not to be critical when you appear to be holding a lot of contempt for your customers. If they said "we're redeveloping our ride experience, please excuse our mess" on a sign, or told the greeter to say it, I think it'd almost be okay. But to bury your head in a sand is a recipe for disaster.

Managed to get a ride on it earlier in the day. I'll share a few thoughts. First thing to say is the queue is untouched, so guess the foam can't be that dangerous right? The station is still the same, except that instead of seeing Scooby in armour from the queue, there is nothing. There's not much to say for the ride. It's as bad as you'd think it is. Nothing to see at all in the dark ride section. In fact there are 2 themeing elements left; the swinging blades (they aren't lit but we're randomyl swinging) and the random Spider in the disco room. Of all things to leave, the spider? Really? Ring of Fire room is just an empty room with a random blue light pointing at nothing. All the themeing has been removed all the way to the unload station, but the themeing at the station has been left untouched. Overall, pretty awful. The closet to nice things I can say is; it's darker than it looks in photos, the reality isn't quite as bad as the photos suggest, but it's not exactly much better. It's also a refreshing change for Village to have a preference for a ride being open, but it looks bloody sad. It's sad seeing the ride as is, if it were me I'd fog the shit out of the dark ride and add some strobes in ala the freezer/film vault mazes that get around as a desperate measure to get through the school holidays then close it to get new themeing in. Ring of Fire room could also do with having anything put in it, and plywood walls with lanterns installed between that room and the unload station. That is the stuff they can do NOW to lessen the shitness, before fixing it properly. A Scooby Doo figure wouldn't go astray either. I like to think the plan isn't to leave it like that, but I'm not optimistic.

Yep that's about the worst thing I've ever seen. I'm surprised they're allowed to keep their Warner Brothers licensing with a ride looking like that

do Wet n Wild even build waterslides anymore?

I just messaged MW via Facebook: I'm shocked and horrified with what's been done with the Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster. This was a ride that sat at the top of Theme Park goers favourite Aussie Theme Park attraction ever, today after months of closure it reopened as nothing short of a total embarrassment. Rather than deal with an ongoing fallout of deserved complaints I strongly suggest that MW close the doors of this great ride immediately and reopen it only with dignity once it is back to scratch again.

Late to the party on this news as haven't been online today, so most of my thoughts have already been shared. All i'd say is at what point does brand damage outweigh the need to have an open attraction? Sure, DD is down and that was unplanned & likely unavoidable, so family options are limited, but hey, 4 months ago it didn't exist and people would have got by fine if Scooby had an unexpected outage.. operating the ride like that is abhorrent. A world class theme park, hell take theme park & world class out of it, any organisation with a ounce of pride in their image wouldn't open that or let cash paying members of the public inside. I'll also add that I'm not sure if the investment required to completely re-make all the theming that area is worth it given it brings zero return. Unless they are completely modernising the Scooby theme and elements, then they may as well start with a blank canvas which they basically now have and re-theme it.

I don't think I can buy that as an excuse. It's not like Movie World presents itself as some carnival. The niche it's carved for itself is Australia's best themed park with the best intellectual property and quality execution. That's what they want to be. You can't take your best executed ride and butcher it because all of a sudden you've decided something that you've known about for years is a problem. I think a lot of people knew that they'd decided to remove the themeing, but I'm shocked that they decided to not even try to make it look good. Even when Wild West Falls caught fire they put SOME effort into getting it back to scratch. Someone go get some plywood walls from storage and put something in there even if it takes a couple of weeks.

Possibly I might not be the only person in Australia that likes dark rides after all! I won't make detailed comment because it's all been said already and I agree with most of what's been written in this thread so far. I just hope they have something absolutely awesome planned, but even if they have I agree that they should: 1. Not have started a major re-theme of the best ride in the park during the peak Christmas holiday season, and 2. Have closed the ride during the re-theme, and ensured there was clear communication to advise what was happening (apart from that being a courtesy to loyal guests, it could also be a great marketing opportunity that they appear to be disregarding. Whether it's an intentional and (very poorly) planned re-theme, or whether it's an unplanned but necessary safety fix, either way it's being executed extremely poorly.

Why? What do buggys have to do with Movies? Also Outback Spectacular is a dinner show, not a park, so would be a waste to put it there. PC would kinda fit, but they just don't get the crowds that would enjoy such an attraction. WNW is probably where it fits best, sure it's not a waterslide but parks are allowed to have more than one type of thing.

I have been told from someone that it will be replaced with Scooby theming to get it up to fire code and that the theming is being made now.

I just feel gutted (no pun intended) I had no idea this was happening! Does anyone have the story on what went down? Can it be shared now it's out in the public? I'm quite shocked that it is running to the public appearing like this, they could of at least shoved some tacky disco lights and smoke all over the place to hide the mess instead of worker lights (as a temporary measure obviously). I get it that they need this open for boxing day crowds but without signage or forewarning it would be quite a spooky coaster finding everything gone! But of course the enthusiast in me wants to head on down to see it in person out of morbid curiosity!

> Certain theming did not meet certain standards. > Park has 2 options Close ride and rebuild theming - park already has rides out of action - people will complain Removing theming and open ride for peak season - people will complain The option they have chosen seems to be the lesser of 2 evils. There's no way they were going to be able to pull this off without some kind of complaints. They know that and they'd be expecting that. What disappoints me is the lack of communication. We all know MW love their A-Frames, so why not a sign out the front that advises guests the ride is currently undergoing refurbishment, however it is still open for guests enjoyment. It can be fairly safe to say that they don't want to operate the ride in its current condition however, given this has come at the start of peak season when they need to have as many of their rides open as possible, they had to do something. I seem to be the only person I've spoken to so far (yes I talk to myself, what of it ) that doesn't have an issue with the ride in its current state, given we know it's a temporary band-aid fix.. We know it's going to close after peak season for a theming rebuild. Can't we just be happy that they have the ride open to soak up some of the crowd in the meantime?

Disclaimer: These photos were sent to me. I am not at the park today and do not endorse people taking loose items on rides. Please adhere to VRTP's policies.

Yeah, I went to the park a couple of months ago. Sega also have Joypolis in Tokyo as well. Apparently both are doing quite well as opposed to the theme parks Sega tried to run in London and Sydney. Probably because Sega in Dubai is actually a Sonic theme park and Joypolis is actually an arcade fed steroids, unlike the other two which were arcades pretending to be theme parks...

Now, I must admit that game looks promising, but: Sega tried their hand at theme parks in the mid 90's, and both of their big parks in London and Sydney flopped so hard that both of them died by 2000, losing millions of dollars for Sega in the process. While it would be awesome if there was a remote possibility it would happen, Sega's theme park experiment was a failure and I seriously doubt they would try it again.

The Waikiki Wave Super Flip is not a rip off of a Top Spin. It's a major advancement on the design. The articulating arm greatly increases the range of movements possible over a Top Spin and is a huge feat in engineering.

I was a bit of a fan too. I won't go into details but I'll just say there's lots of stuff in the show, and in many ways that's all it is, stuff! It's like 'here's a kind of stuff, you enjoying this this stuff? BAM! new kind of stuff!' As it happens it's entertaining stuff and I'll probably check it out again a few more times before the run ends, where as last years show I was pretty much done after seeing it once. Everyone should go watch and make sure you buy plenty of food and drink. The only bad thing I would say is that noise that's in the show needs to not be in the show.

Rode Buzzsaw tonight. No new restraints, still the same seatbelt/waist harness as before. I believe the harness issue that was addressed during auditing was related to a harness used by staff to perform maintenance on the ride. On an unrelated note, was in attendance tonight for the Fire Machine pyrotechnics/laser/fireworks show. Was very cool, and very loud! Photos and videos do it no justice. Definitely has to be witnessed in person. My family loved it (especially our 7 year old son) and we will be going back another night to see it again ☺️?

1) No reason why it couldnt be fully integrated into fare structure. The tech has nothing to do with the ability of the fares to be integrated. No reason the cable car couldnt be under the same zone system as the tram. See the forthcoming Toulouse 3S system that will interchange with Light Rail and Metro: http://gondolaproject.com/2016/12/22/3s-urban-gondola-approved-in-toulouse-telepherique-urbain-sud-south-urban-cable-car/ Plenty of other fully integrated fare systems involving cable around the world also (see Roosevelt Aerial Tram in New York). I.e. essentially cable solving last mile problem where topography makes it the most suitable tech. 2) Aleady explained to you why it is highly unlikely they would just build a branch line for any tram line built to the Spit due to massive loss of capacity entailed north of Main Beach. With all due respect did you even read my post before responding? They will have to run a shuttle on dedicated platforms at Main Beach = your mooted tram line will require an interchange with far longer wait period than a cable car given c8 minute headway on a 2.5km long spur. As to the public's mentaility against interchange that only really applies if there is an alternative that doesnt require interchange. Stage 2 of Light Rail is entirely predicated on interchange at Helensvale with heavy rail. Think people won't use it? Also in this case you have to account for the fact a substantial number of the riders will be tourists (many with kids). Judging by my kids' reactions to the cable cars they have been on I'm pretty sure they'll be happy to interchange. 3) Private operators will do whatever they are incentivised to do. Logically the G-Link consortium should build it and run it for a capacity payment under a Build Own Operate Transfer agreement and State Govt would keep farebox revenue (as they currently do on G-Link) as part of a fully integrated fare structure. I would have ASF, Sunland and Seaworld make a capital contribution, with Council, State Govt and the Feds also maybe chipping in. I am NOT proposing a standalone privately owned system outside of Qld Govt fare structure. I'm merely saying that in this particular case a cable car is easily the lowest cost solution to the Spit's current transit issues (which will only get worse with a casino and Sunland's development). This is because the presence of the broadwater (and cable technology's unique ability to cheaply go over it) make other technologies much more expensive as they have to travel 2x as far to interchange with the closest light rail station (2.5km to 1.2km). 4) The Koblenz system I linked to cost only $20m USD. I already increased the cost by a factor of 120% to get to A$66m. Again did you even read my post? Toulouse is building a 3km, 3 station, 3S system for USD$57m so the math for Koblenz (1km, 2 stations) seems about right: http://gondolaproject.com/2016/12/22/3s-urban-gondola-approved-in-toulouse-telepherique-urbain-sud-south-urban-cable-car/ In any case though even if my estimate is out by 100% a cable car will still be cheaper than a spur line on the tram, have higher capacity and importantly much lower interchange time (and similar transport time).

Presume you mean a dedicated spur line... In any case I have some issues with your post. Firstly you don't support your argument why a dedicated spur line is the way to go. Contrary to what you imply a spur line wouldnt be all that simple or cheap. 1) Simply joining the spur line to the existing tracks just north of Main Beach Station and running a portion of the trams to the Spit would impose unacceptable future capacity constraints on the existing line. Essentially you would be sharing the capacity north of Main Beach with the Spit when the Stage 2 expansion is just about to massively increase patronage of passengers on this segment of track. As a result even if trams eventually ran every 3 mins from the Broadbeach South Station they would only run every 6 mins from Helensvale and The Spit. E.g. Sydney's Eastern Suburbs Light Rail demonstrates this. Trams will depart every 4 mins from Circular Quay but only every 8 minutes from each of the Kingsford and Randwick spurs. At 304 passengers per tram on G-Link (80 seated + 224 stading at 4 per sqm) this would limit capacity to 3040pphpd on each of the Helensvale and Spit spurs. 2) Given simply splitting the capacity and using the existing station infrastructure is unattractive you would need to build dedicated station platforms adjacent to the current Main Beach Station (if you can find the space) and run a shuttle service between Main Beach and the new Spit station. The problem with this is cost. At 2.5km the alignment would be more than a third the length of Stage 2 light rail (7.3km) and would see essentially 2 new stations built (Main Beach duplication + The Spit.) vs 3 new stations for Stage 2. Additionally it would need at least one new tram set (which I estimate would be enough to provide 8 minute headways or 2,280pphpd of capacity - 50kmh average speed between stations + 60 seconds load unload time). Given Stage 2 is $420m of capex I think a conservative estimate of cost for a Spit spur line would be $150-200m (2/3rds the station infrastructure required + c35% the track length + construction in a much more congested corridor with existing utilities highly likely to be present.) Now compare the alternative of a high capacity cable car like Dopplemayr's 3S installation in Koblenz that crosses the Rhine. https://www.youtube.com/embed/khPeFLSDpMw http://gondolaproject.com/2010/09/13/the-koblenz-rheinseilbahn-part-1-introduction/ It is a fairly comparable alignment to what could be built to link Seaworld / the new casino to the Broadwater Parklands Station. I.e. Koblenz is 1km in length and two stations vs c1.2km needed on the GC and two stations. Koblenz cost $US20m in 2011. Converting at $0.72 = $27.8M. Say we add 20% for length (although added station and gondola numbers are the key cost drivers in cable systems not cable length). Then we add 100% for.the Australia tax. This would still see a similar system on the Gold Coast come in at $66m vs $150m + for a spur line. This for a system that moves 3700pphpd (could easily be 5000 if they just ran the line speed at the 3S system's capacity of 8m/s) + vehicles arriving every 34 seconds (important when you are interchanging). So explain how that's crazy again?

Movie World should just throw some of their Halloween props in there

Lol hey you got me there! But yeah Outback Spectacular the idea is to sell booze, an attraction you have to be sober for wouldn't work

Park's not doing too badly, today. Good crowd at AW. There're no shows on, today, for Cirque Extreme, yet I saw some of their crew out the front of their tent chatting to patrons, telling them it's not on. How cool are they? I wished them a good break.

They've got their own standards. They decided a few years ago that they weren't going to use foam for any new attractions, but that everything already installed was fine. There's nothing illegal or even inherently dangerous about it, particularly with the fire suppression systems in place. For whatever reason though, Village have decided that it has to be removed immediately, even though they're not ready to replace it.

That is crazy, and never would have expected them do such a thing. But this is definitely just had timing. If it was a fire hazard, or some major issues, then of course they'd need to remove it all. At least this could hopefully lead to the rides major refurbishment next year. And they did need to open it for the Christmas period, with DD closed as well. But still sad to see the ride like this.

If you have ridden both ride types, then you'll know that the Vekoma Waikiki Wave is arguably a better ride than the Huss model. Vekoma didn't copy the Top Spin with its own version, but it enhanced the ride experience, with a third degree of movement in the form of an extra rotating arm that allows for more manoeuvres (such as twisting) than the regular Top Spin. While Vekoma didn't invent the Top Spin, it did invent a better version of a popular ride (with the famous loud roar), which is now a ride unique to Dreamworld and another park in Mexico. Have you seen a Huss Top Spin do this?

No thanks @Bush Beast Forever I don't like your idea of a theme park. For me what made Australian parks great was them being different. The off the shelf path that DW is currently on does nothing to improve DW. How many discos are in Australia now and you want to do the same thing to MW.

MW - I'm yet to ride DD because it's never operating, but the area is themed well. Good to see amenities have been refurbished. Update to WWF was a bit underwhelming. But all made up for by the Star Tour being a big highlight. SW - went backwards. Nice roof though. DW - annus horribilis.

I really enjoyed Mako. I was lucky enough to re-ride plenty. I think I rode it about 25 times on my last trip. My favourite type of coasters are ones filled with airtime, and Mako was pretty great in that department. A bit meh after the MCBR, and the trims hit pretty hard. The seats are amazing, and you can really keep your lap-bar loose to enjoy that great floater airtime! The fly into the MCBR was weird, as I was still in the air and would almost hit the lap-bar midair. I met up with a few friends who live in the States and have about 350 credits. Mako for them ranks in the top 10 for similar coasters (I believe), but not "amazing". I've done a lot of coasters on a TPR trip in 2010, including the two Intimidators. From memory Mako is far from the best, but a solid coaster for airtime and my favourite one from this year. I plan on doing a big coaster trip next year, so will be interesting to compare with Mako.

Careful Ash, it's SheiKra. Saying shakira may summon POP. 1 - Lightning Rod 2 - Twisted Collossus 3 - Outlaw Run 4 - Fury 325 5 - Iron Rattler 6 - Superman Krypton Coaster 7 - Goliath 8 - Afterburn 9 - Wild Eagle 10 - X Flight

@XxMrYoshixX It may surprise you to know that many people that visit theme parks are not coaster fanatics but simply individuals or families out for a fun day. They wouldn’t know a Mack or B&M coaster if they fell over them, all they want to do is to have a great day of fun without nit picking various makes & models of the various attractions…. Personally, I found the old Wild Mouse uncomfortable & at times painful to ride. Regardless of what you think & frankly I couldn’t care less , this will be a very popular & welcomed attraction for this park & I applaud them for their ongoing expansion.. If you’re not happy with their selection, I suggest you write them an email & voice your opinion.

Now I'm not sure if this is real or not but rumors have it that Sonic making a come back! They may be making a some sort of Sonic theme park as part of project Sonic 2017 in my opinion as a Sonic fan girl, Sega needs to premot him more so people get used to like Sonic boom and stuff, I hope that project Sonic 2017 isnt like Sonic 06.... Because we will be all doomed and also they might be making a Sonic theme park in Australia next year as part of project Sonic 2017 I saw rumors on face book my dad showed me, if it's true all Sonic fans will go nuts!

It is an advancement but I would hardly call an articulated joint a "major advancement" or a "huge feat" of engineering. Fact of the matter is there are 2 of these things left operating globally vs dozens and dozens of Top Spins. At the end of the day what makes a successful ride is if parks buy it in the first place and feel it is worth paying for the continued maintenance. Having ridden both I can hazard a guess why the Top Spin has been the more commercially successful. Namely the Waikiki Wave just isnt that much better a ride for the increased complexity (and no doubt R&M) the articulation entails. I found while the Waikiki Wave is more varied in its movement it also has less aggressive rotational forces than the Top Spin which takes away from the ride experience (for me anyway).