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Dreamworld as an entity is certainly capable of bouncing back. The real question should be, is Ardent Leisure in a position to facilitate this recovery? How do they justify the tremendous capital injection this will require over say the next 3-5 years, when they're neck-deep in an aggressive Main Event roll out across the USA. Why would they divert funds away from a business that is capable of delivering ~30% ROI? The two year recovery that Ardent Leisure touts is a pipe dream. A year (or even two) from now I don't think even VRTP will be back to where they were before the accident decimated the industry. I don't see anyone expecting Dreamworld to be back to normal. No one is calling for investment in new attractions right now nor expecting business to be going gangbusters. But there is plenty to suggest that Dreamworld are floundering and throwing inadequate resources at too many inconsequential projects. Physically the park is in worse shape now than it was after it reopened and went through numerous audits... there's no logical reason for that. The strategic benefits to Rivals will be seen over the next decade or two. It was always a long-term play and the ride was locked in well before the accident. At the same time however, I think there's plenty to suggest that it has been a jolt of energy that changed the narrative for Movie World and will perhaps help them bounce back sooner rather than later.

My initial thoughts are that it's going downhill and likely won't recover while owned by Ardent. There has also been some very questionable management decisions: - why they persisted to repair wipeout. It's now been closed over 12 months... has there been any indication of opening it again? If it does reopen, will the public trust it after such a long time being repaired and the fact it's still near 30 years old. - reopen the mine ride? A ride that basically reached its use by date 10 years ago, and was very average to start with.... - no water ride for the summer? assuming it doesn't reopen by then. Granted there is a water park next door though.. There has been so much bad publicity etc that the Dreamworld brand is probably damaged beyond repair. I also think a lot of people hold Ardent responsible (irrespective of legal proceedings) and therefore aren't willing to support them. If it was sold off and opened under new management and ownership I think the public will respond differently. EDIT: just checked their website, it says 30 November for Wipeout reopening... we'll see...

I am not even going to try to read that.

Sad to see the waterfall removed from Calypso, although hoepefully it is coming back. The theming on Calypso is excellent, and one of the reasons it is so popular. Harks back to a happier time where Village thought it was worth providing plenty of atmosphere and theming at WnW.

@Tim Dasco You'll be disappointed then, because they've installed some large screens on the other side. I think really, a part from advising TP, having this large banner up means you wont just be looking at a blue wall as you drive past. The pipes which were stored in the MW carpark are all on the corner of the site And here is a closer look at parts of the building

A large banner displaying ‘Top Golf: Gold Coast’ is being installed on the blue screen

@Levithian Everybody has their own view but there's no need to start by being rude about it. Please show some respect. 90% of Australian Heritage listings are Privately owned. I never suggested GCCC step in and buy DW, just acknowledge it's relevance to the future of the GC. Giving the area iconic/historic/heritage status would protect the land from being re-zoned and forever keep the bulldozers away. -Something that should have happened decades ago with Nobby's Castle and arguably Cloudland in Brisbane. Maintenance within the Park seems to be impeeded by the many revitalization projects going on. These projects should not be taking hours from daily Operations and have entirely separate contracting budgets. I'd say this has not been the case, given how things are playing out right now. Insurance and Negligence are not mutually exclusive. For whatever reason, DW altered the original design of the Conveyer system at TRRR, making the gaps wide enough that allegedly lead to the tragic accident. If this retro-fitting was done entirely in-house (it was) and without notification to it's Insurers to advise of the change, then it's entirely possible that DW be found negligent. While Liability Insurance will all but certainly cover the family's of those affected, I can't say the same for the Park and it's Owners.

I hadn't been to WnW since April and thought it was time to head into the park and see if anything major had changed. And in summary, no. But here is a quick update of some things I noticed around the park. Surferrider has finally reopened after being closed for the majority of the year The bar that what next to the wave pool has been removed The spas are closed for maintenance. I personally think this is a wasted area for the park, where a good slide, or something a bit more exciting could go Apparently the Kamikaze is still new. Despite never operating, the ZipLine is still in place and used as a shelter for the staff working in the food carts The bridge/waterfall in Calypso Beach has been completely removed, with only the framework remaining.

It's wouldn't be worth your while @themeparkaddict because all arguments are based on assumptions. DW are in a bucket load of horse poo if they think I'm willing to renew my pass this year when is staring to look like a scene straight out of Boyz In The Hood.

Spot on read there. Thanks Parkz Crew for delivering the hard facts of our beloved DW as it continues to struggle. It's difficult to watch as the progress of development inside is running so slow that the ageing line up of attractions appears to be falling further and further behind. It is becoming sadly obvious that Ardent are deliberately dragging their feet until the Coronial inquest is finalised. I believe this is somewhat of a guise to Shareholders etc that Ardent remain committed to a future DW. Carrying out work on revitalizing Mine ride , Log ride, WipeOut etc but doing it all at such a Glacial pace that the rest of the Park is falling apart around them - all with little to know contingency. Hmm.. My fearful prediction is this is all intentional stalling. A muti-gazillion dollar court ruling would lead to inevitable closing the gates once more by mid 2018 - Only this time for good (at least as we know it today anyway). I hope I am wrong. The only good thing I can see coming out of all this is Ardent is found negligent and charged. They sell off the DW asset and bow out of Theme Parks all together. GC City Council steps in to preserve DW as a sort of Heritage listing, preventing it from ever being anything other than a Theme Park. New Owners buy it for a song, commit sizeable Capital into new Attractions and remove all the old dated crap. The Park closes for an extended time (say a year) reopens all shiny and new.. Guess we will have to wait and see? I sincerely feel for the Staff that have been part of the DW family for a longtime. No matter what the future holds, I hope their loyalty can somehow be salvaged.

Last weekend when I peaked through fencing to the Wipeout, and excuse my lack of technical knowledge here, the big left cog looked all rusty and old, and the big right cog looked shiny silver, brand new (with cling film like plastic over it eg when something is new).

TLDR

Omg I hate auto correct lol

Makeup enthusiasts would love that one! *Sorry I had to, no harsh feelings*

Having a look today, not much has changed, except more of the roof taken off, bit more of the track exposed, you can definitely see the slight track gradient now that keeps the carts at speed, also spotted pieces of the track on the grass between the wire fence and TOT. Not sure what they are gonna do with em. (Excuse potato phone camera)

Me not sure mazes will there be. Good hope they are Better this year than. 👍🏼

It is does look like dreamworld is slowly dying I lived in sydney and I was there for the end of wonderland sydney and sega world. Now I live north of Brisbane’s but am a regular to our Gold Coast parks. Movie world is smashing out world class rides but dreamworld has built average rides for too long and now after these deaths dreamworld has done nothing still Memorial (I was there’s two weeks ago and asked what’s happening was told they haven’t asked the family if it is ok to build it yet). A lot of rides are down for maintenance but I hope I’m wrong but I do A very hard year 2018 hopefully dreamworld is still open or with a new company runnning it. It’s a great opportunity for another theme park group to take over and bring the public back

Remember when you used to go to DW and you wanted to take photos of rides or scenery etc and used to get frustrated because people kept walking in front of you just as you were about to take the ‘moneyshot’... ... these days you purposely wait for someone to walk into frame and then take the shot to prove you ain’t the only person in the park....

That's an interesting, but depressing read. I really do hope they have some plan going forward. It does seem embarrassing if they put the old mine ride back into operation. You wouldn't think any kind of sprucing would get it back up to scratch. Surely, it's time to bite the bullet and purchase some family friendly e-ticket attractions.

At the park now and absolutely LOVE the new upcharge attraction $20 for 15 minute tinny hire on the river, including high-vis shirt hire! Half price discount if you take a net and remove some algae while you are out there And the kangaroos and emu’s have recently been replaced with.. bobcats..

Today’s update

Pretty common I find for jobs not to specify salary these days. I find it very annoying and silly.

I picture something either this size or smaller if it cost a few million. This is Kahuna falls from AW costs 3 million AUD.

What you said is nonsense though. Even if you care to believe it. It literally doesn't make sense. If I wanted to be insulting, I would have used something other than nonsense. If you were to simply forget about dreamworld as a business, saying it's practically worthless, what it sits on isn't. So if you float the notion of a buy out, ardent isn't going to go bankrupt and have someone swoop in during a fire sale. Additionally, what is left of dreamworld that makes it a historic landmark? yeah, the park itself has been there a long time, but it has gone through so many changes that there is very little left of the original development. Rides have gone, park layout has changed, buildings have been removed/and or re purposed and developed. It's quite a bit different now than it was in the 90's, let alone the 80's. Aside from the park as a whole being a tourist destination, I don't think it really has historic value that would make it onto a heritage register. Back to reality though, just focus on the land mass. If the park shut tomorrow and was turned into a housing estate, given its location basically next to railway hubs and a MAJOR shopping center in development, combined with the fact that Coomera on the northern end of the coast is going through MASSIVE growth; the land is worth a fortune by itself. Even if you use the ultra generous 1/3rd rule to develop the land into housing, that provides for over $100,000,000 just in land development value alone. In reality there is probably more potential than that, given the actual cost of housing in the area, along with how many lots you can actually build given the area; then combined with the fact there are 4 major developers all fighting for space along the corridor between foxwell and yawalpah roads. As it stands, there is probably more value in potential development contributing to the value of dreamworld than there is as a theme park. The local council may only be able to tie it up during development application process, but given the area has thousands of lots going in and/or in development nearby, along with the infrastructure to support a major suburb; if they were to object any application the matter would surely end up in court where it might be tough to build a case against this small parcel of land when the rest of the area is booming having already been approved. Aside from that, along with development comes more revenue for the council. All the money tied up in development applications aside, the rates alone could be into the millions. So im not so sure if they would rush to stop any development going on if a worst case scenario happened. Given the park isn't the one actually doing the works, they would have contracts in hand with companies to perform the job that would usually see them lose money if they back out on the agreement; so you could lose a few million dollars just by putting them off until a later date as the companies would suffer a loss of income. Anyway, when would you rather the works are completed? If you talk about capital works, one side of the park in particular is closed off providing an excellent opportunity to make use of the quiet period between holidays. You could argue that rocky hollow is closed due to addressing existing issues of safety, so what is the issue? Aside from that anyway, it's not like their own workers would be taken off existing development works going on, halting any other progress in the park. I don't think any of the parks have a work force big enough to take on large scale developments without help from outside works. It's the same across any park you visit, they try to limit the disruptions for building and repair works to periods where attendance is lowest. See, this is the nonsense I am pointing to. That is exactly what liability insurance is for. It even covers loss of business. You can be found completely at fault, your staff members were negligent and caused the death of patrons; yet your business is covered. All those millions being wiped away would have been underwritten by an insurance company. The only question is how much coverage did they actually have and how accurate their estimates would have been when factoring into loss of business. If you think loss of life isn't one of the factors calculated when acquiring insurance coverage, then you don't really understand risk analysis. Besides which, the changes you speak of, you know they were the cause of the deaths? under what circumstances any modifications might have been performed? who performed them? when they performed them? were they inspected and audited following their modifications and years following to maintain their accreditation with the state government? That's a whole lot of assumptions unless you have inside knowledge of what the investigation found. Then you come back to the simple notion of insurance. You run a theme park based on the assumption that at some point you may seriously injure or kill a guest or guests. It's basically the same for any business dealing with members of the public. You couldn't operate such a large scale entertainment complex without having a policy that protects your business from financial ruin following lawsuits if something terrible happened. No matter how good your intentions are, how good your training is, or how much faith you put in your employees, there are far too many variables to run the risk. Insurance companies have entire departments that operate to calculate these risks. It's very much part and parcel with doing business. The problem lies in what happens after everything settles down and if your business is strong enough to recover following an incident. Im very much in the camp that dreamworld is, and that some people are seriously out of touch for expecting everything to be back to normal, or even improving 12 months on. 12 months is still short term. 5 years, 10 years, thats the sort of projections you'd have to start talking. Especially with village reporting that their numbers are way down too, revenue having dropped, so it's not like the industry is in a great place even with exciting new rides being used to stem the tide and turn it around instantly. It will be interesting to see what impact rivals has had on it's attendance figures each quarter. See if it's a short term bump or a long term increase; and if figures continue to rise steadily, how do they compare to the same time prior to the dreamworld accident. It was pretty quiet around Christmas time at movie world last year, nowhere near the sustained busy period it normally endures. If you hedged everything on one attraction turning your fortunes around instantly and returning everything back to normal, we might be in for a rough couple of years for both parks.

Its nothing like keeping your car roadworthy and your insurance company using a clause to get out of paying. With such a large work force, you insure your business against employee negligence too. Not just for injury. Thats the biggest part of public liability. You can be found at fault and you are covered. You just have to make sure you have coverage high enough to cover everything. Injury or death, but also loss of earnings/business as a result of the accident too.

Insurance and negligence are an odd couple. If I don’t maintain my car and am driving with bald tyres & my brake pads are worn to the metal, and I have a blowout at 110km on the highway and slam into a guardrail, you reckon my insurer will pay for the damage? Nope... they’ll inspect my car, claim it wasn’t maintained to a reasonable state and wipe their hands of any claim... IF Dreamworld is ultimately found negligent, then more than likely the insurers will push for a non-payout and breach of insurance contract... Ardent will then be liable for any payouts associated, and re-payment of any already paid out by insurers. If the park lost crew off their maintenance teams after the incident, they have had 12 months to re-hire & train. There is zero acceptability to that being an excuse a year later

Returning mazes: Halloween (same shed as this year) Jigsaw (In one of the Studios) New Mazes: IT (same area as contouring 2) Coult Of Chucky (same shed as from dusk till dawn)