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So some “take it with a dose of skepticism” gossip.. i hired a guy at work recently, and was working with him last night and got chatting to him about his family etc as you do... after a bit of chat it came out that his son worked at SW. We had a bit of a general chat about SW, lack of new and replacement rides etc and he proceeded to tell me about info his son was telling him the other day. - Sea Jellies opened prematurely to what they wanted, and is still a work in progress. Fit out was ready to hit the original launch date but they have struggled to find jellyfish to put in the exhibit and this still continues, they are also not happy with the lighting and want to improve it. - a “carnival style swinging ride” is opening next year (well we knew that.. but I didn’t let on) - there is a major ride with a very large investment set for 2020 and it will be a coaster. The “manager” recently visited the US to see options and was apparently very excited and said if he got his way, it would be a woodie. Take that as you will, but hopefully as a glimmer of hope for SW’s future ride offerings...

Pretty much everyone can confirm that. It is public knowledge. Quote from VRTP CEO Clark Kirby: Whilst, apart from the "Star Flyer" & the Sea Jellies Illuminated opening delay, I'll treat what @Brad2912 said as 'unconfirmed', I think it's all very likely true though it's hard to tell if the wooden coaster direction was just the preference of the 'manager' rather than an actual strategic business opinion. I'm sure if a lot of people on here 'had their way' B&Ms would be built even if they might not be a viable choice right now for Australian theme parks. Given SW already has Storm Coaster, I could only imagine a wooden coaster being part of SW if it was themed as part of a new 'seaside resort boardwalk pier'-themed area (maybe the "Star Flyer" is the 1st stage in such an area?). The boardwalk would have to run from the former Sea World Train Station site to Dockside Tavern, around the "Star Flyer" (if built on Rescue Point) to the reclaimed land edging the ski show lake near Sea World Drive. That way everything between there & the former Sea Viper site can be included as part of the 'seaside resort boardwalk pier'. However, the other boundary of such an area (Ray Reef to Jet Rescue) would have to be appropriately themed to keep the 'seaside resort boardwalk pier' effect. Regardless if it is a steel or wooden coaster, the highest portions of the coaster would also likely be restricted to the former Sea Viper/Pirate Ship site and/or the reclaimed land as it will block all views of Storm Coaster otherwise. However, a coaster could wander though the former Viking's Revenge Flume Ride station, splash zone & castle if SW wanted that. If there is a new coaster coming in 2020 to Sea World, with no height restrictions for theme park rides at SW anymore, how high would this full-circuit rollercoaster go? Will it be in that 50-60 metre height range that all but 1 rollercoaster haven't ever achieved in Australian history? Would it be as high as (or higher than) DC Rivals HyperCoaster? The thought of 2 hypercoasters on the Gold Coast sounds seemingly possible. With DW's tallest full-circuit rollercoaster being an Arrow Dynamics coaster of 40 metres height from 1995, in 2020, the park would be really lagging behind and with the difficulties the park already faces, it would a massive hurdle to overcome. Lastly, if the lighting issue at Sea Jellies Illuminated that @Brad2912 referred to is true, the ironic thing about Sea Jellies Illuminated now is that currently it is neither 'Illuminated' nor full of many 'Sea Jellies', the two essential criteria to meet in naming an animal attraction Sea Jellies Illuminated.

It’s a Graveyard for where Dreams go to die....

It's not odd at all - there are many examples of a franchise where the rights to TV series, movies, comics, merchandising, public performance etc were all held by different folks at different times. Just because a film studio made a movie about it, doesn't mean they can suddenly start producing merchandise, or theme park rides, unless they themselves owned the IP in its entirety. We have discussed this at length before, but put simply - think about this: We know that SDSC is themed to the film from 2003ish. This doesn't give them the right to use the earlier Hanna Barbera cartoons as they are licensed separately, or indeed the later movies released afterwards. We know that when Village Roadshow bought out Warner's share in the GC theme parks, the WB licensing was part of the deal - however unlike previously where WB was a shareholder, VRL needs to have an agreement to extend or expand. There is some conjecture, broadly, over where the theme park rights to harry potter sit, and whether Universal owns them entirely or whether JKR could licence other parks independent of the universal model. We don't really need to go into that, because of the point above... Despite the fact that the park is called Warner Bros Movie World, and despite the fact that WB produced the movies, as the park is owned by Village Roadshow. ...and given the juggernaught that is Harry Potter, at this monetised point in the Hogwarts game, VRL would be much better placed utilising existing licensing at no additional cost, than to acquire an entirely new licence, requiring an entirely new theme, that must adhere to very strict guidelines set down by JKR herself, to put essentially an overlay onto an existing more-than-a-decade-old attraction, at what would be a massive cost better spent on smaller more worthwhile investments.

That is a fair point, however, another way of looking at things from a VRTP perspective would be that by removing the competition, your return on future investments would be more assured. It is hard to second guess on attractions investment 2 years out when you don't know what your competitor has up their sleeve". I'm a "build it and they will come glass half full" guy though and not everyone who controls the purse is.

Well @thunder001 it seems like it is for the previously rummered lazy river for WWW, but nothing has been officially announced as of yet.

Just for anyone that is interested, this is a short Halloween Horror film from the Director of the MW Fright Night commercials. Happy Halloween!

I’m sure we’ve discussed this before - Universal very clearly owns the theme parks rights to Harry Potter

What the heck, I’ll go down to Bunnings and buy them and install it for them

All they need is a series of small fountains placed throughout the river. this breaks the water surface, oxygenates it, and pushes any growth out to the edges. Seriously, the work experience kid could take $200 to bunnings and fix it permanently.

Doesn't this happen literally every spring? Along with the same discussion?

^And that's precisely why they aren't "doomed". In it's current iteration with it's current owner perhaps, but all signs - from Weiss to the new CEO suggest that Ardent is preparing for sale when the timing is right. With our dollar as it is right now, an international buyer would pick it up for a song... and hopefully that buyer is both theme park experienced, and has the cash to splash in our suppressed market.

I welcome this news and talk of both the star flyer and a coaster. Whilst it's a bit early to board the hype train, we must remember that we've seen Sea World advertise attractions a few years out, and that turned out to be WILDly inaccurate... so backstage rumors, that don't even have a billboard in park are to be taken with such salt. I would like to see them build something akin to Incredicoaster \ California Screamin - the seaside pier 'woodie' look, but in a modern steel construction. Much as i'd like a woodie, we know what the maintenance requirements are, and I feel like a steel coaster, built to reside close to the sea is probably easier to protect than a woodie with our tropical weather. That's just opinion, i'm not stating fact, and i'm sure a park could make a woodie work on the gold coast - I'd just rather they didn't.

That’s great to hear for Sea Jellies. While the jellies themselves are illuminated well, the rest of the buildings lower level isn’t lit well at all. You can only just make out what signs say, and is easy to bump into someone. Awesome to hear about a possible coaster coming in 2020 too. But it seems the family attraction replacing VR might be on hold. I do hope they at least remove the flume section next year (possibly during Storms maintenance).

My opinion is that primarily through a lack of competition or incentive, our parks, by far and large haven't really needed to or warranted supporting their enthusiast/loyalist community. However, the US theme parks are a hugely different situation entirely. My belief is because there's more competition at every level for them, there's an incentive over there to be above the curve in their marketing tactics and as such find it super important to really reach out to their most loyal customers. And let me tell you, every marketer ever knows that book 1, chapter 1, page 1 is all about engaging your brand's most loyal customers (here's just two from a sea of thousands of articles explaining just that) and ultimately that's where i'd like to see our parks in the future as a collective. US theme parks do regular Extended Ride Time (ERT) Events, behind the scenes walkthroughs designed specifically for our sort of crowd, do Q&A's with their design teams & most important of all, work with the key influencers/sites to ensure the right message has been delivered and the best possible content is being made to build their followings. That is where we should be in Australia in 2017. Every other niche group in any other industry will get this sort of stuff (especially in Australia), whether it's cars, photography, trains, drones, architecture, civil engineering etc. etc. etc., and yet here I am with OurWorlds, pounding away at emails just trying to get point of view video on Rivals that I know will generate heaps of great, free publicity for Movie World, and I gotta say, i'm still hitting a brick wall. And it's not like i'm not known for point of video footage either, i'd like to think that despite whatever critical opinion I may have at any given time that may off-put some execs, by and large the hundreds, if not thousands of hours I personally pour into real, honest, quality content (content that in the particular case of the Rivals HyperCoaster, gets used in their shareholder reports, no less) is worth at least a g'day. And this makes it really hard for me, because to make good content, it's a two-way street, because i'm certainly not going to pull a Robb Alvey and start sneaking cameras onto rides either and put content out there that suggests breaking the park's rules is okay. Like seriously, I have literally been served a lobster lunch in return for my roller-coaster videos. And yeah, granted, there's more then a few numpties who call themselves enthusiasts, and I think that's also par for the course in any group. I certainly don't think same sex marriage is anything but a must in this country, and that's despite a very few super-leftie, hippie marxist types making it hard for there to be a rational, calm discussion about it with those who may have concerns. So in my mind, just because @Andrewh did the wrong thing a while back and jumped into a closed off part of Dreamworld, doesn't then mean that we're all a bunch of crazies who just want a scoop. Nah, I actually think by and large we're all pretty well rounded folk who enjoy a beer and a laugh at our favourite places, and if they followed in the steps of their global counterparts on proven methods to make these prime digital audiences work to their advantage, they would be saving literally hundreds of thousands of dollars every year in ad-buys alone. As for outside of the parks, the reception is always pretty interesting. For me, my DNA is pretty entrenched in theme parks so most people know that it comes with the package. When my father passed when I was a wee lad, theme parks were a literal escape into another world. When I would go to theme parks, I'd take hundreds of pictures on every trip and unbeknownst to me at the time, I was actually refining a skill i'd use later in my professional career. So I owe a lot to theme parks, but in saying that, I try to keep it pretty chill. Just like people don't want to know the psi of your fully sick turbo, people don't want know how the LSM's on Tower of Terror's launch work. Some people will ride kiddie coasters and chase credits so they can say "I did 6000 coasters!", and that's cool too, to each their own. These days theme parks for me are all about great experiences, and when it comes to travelling, they're a great waypoint to craft an adventure from, but they're not the only reason to travel abroad either. Just as an aside, I say all of this with no animosity - i'm a frank, honest guy these days and given my own personal passion for these places, really all of this comes from a place of wanting to see the parks succeed and really grow in the future.

At least at Dreamworld you can still do things you can't do in Main Street anymore...

It seems based on the options that SW's entry buildings will get a facelift as you suggested but it doesn't specifically say that it will be SW's main entry anymore. It seems the new buildings will mainly contain accommodation in the 1st set of options: "provides additional short-term accommodation linked to Sea World" whilst "low-rise mixed use development" will be the new buildings in the 2nd set of options, which would indicate just a refurbished entry building. Given a 3.7 kilometre boardwalk running the length of SW is proposed in the 1st set of options, I'd say SW would operate like Luna Park Sydney under that option set (as Luna Park Sydney also has a boardwalk running the length of the park) with other entries near Seal Detectives, between Polar Bear Shores and Shark Bay, at Castaway Bay & at the Resort as I'd doubt many people would walk down a boardwalk of that length with not much to do at the other end, which is also a dead end, or along it. The boardwalk's only useful purpose would be as a good jogging route. The view is mostly the same the whole length of the boardwalk after all. This would allow paid parking in the multi-level car park like you said as well as a 'pay per ride'-model to be implemented at SW, meaning their whole future ticketing model may already be under review. Also, the boardwalk between Seal Detectives & Polar Bear Shores may allow SW's Research & Rescue Foundation to have it's own building front onto the boardwalk, further emphasizing VRTP's plans to bring SW's marine research & rescue work to the public's attention. Under the 2nd set of options, I'd say SW would operate as it does now with 1 main entry in the south (but now with an upgraded entry building) and another (insignificant) entry in the north at the Resort unless the Monorail is still operating, which would make it a more significant entry way as it is now.

Or bring back the paddlesteamer