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The problem is quite a large proportion of DWs “signature” rides are at or close to retirement age. WO should be gone, TOT2 is on it’s absolute last legs (12 months tops) and you’d hope you could milk maybe 2 years out of HWSW given the extended downtime it’s had. Then you have the decision to if you keep the tower & therefore GD in place. The problem is how can a business with a strategy of non-investment afford to retire a high proportion of its fleet? Well it can’t.. so it either flogs the dead horse until the rides literally cannot run, with the associated high costs of continual maintenance & unreliability, or its just closes them, drops pricing and becomes a half day park. Either way, it’s not an attractive or long term sustainable strategy

Agree on all accounts. Dreamworld as it stands, more or less is much the same size as Movie World - although Movie World does make far better use of the land available. As for an apples vs. apples comparison - i think Dreamworld vs. Movie World, the DW marketing campaign should be 'biggest', because they are (more quality is needed), however if you were to compare PC, WNW and MW with DW\WWW, i think your marketing strategy has to change up at that point - you aren't arguing biggest when there's three different parks - you're arguing an all in one message - maybe something like "so many worlds in one" would work? My main point however still stands - Both parks 'as they stand' are comparable - but for MW to expand, there is little room to the south, due to the studios and other facilities. There is little to the west, because of their neighbours and boundaries. Not much option going north either - so east is their only direction, and that involves a complete realignment of the park entry and carpark. Dreamworld on the other hand has about 4 key areas they can expand without impacting external entry or facilities. Approximately 30,000 sqm of land is occupied by Blue Lagoon and the former Goldrush* Approximately 34,000 sqm of land is occupied by the Island and River Approximately 14,000 sqm of land is occupied by the lazy river construction zone. *I view these as two separate areas, each about half the total, for expansion. The 'blue lagoon' space does include the train sheds and tracks - however this doesn't preclude development of a kick ass coaster in and around the area designed to fit around the sheds and facilities. It also includes BB Studios, which is "inside the berm" so to speak. If Dreamworld master planned these areas, with an 8 year, $100M budget, they could be installing a "maximum impact" attraction every two years. When you consider the park value decline - the money they've lost on that value could have been spent on this master plan, which would absolutely see them back on the map. It's just that they don't have the balls to pull that trigger...

WEEKLY VOLARE UPDATE: It was a wet and miserable evening tonight but I braved it so I could check more of the ride's progress, as I'd already noticed on Wednesday that construction had significantly advanced (I was able to see the ride from Circular Quay station, your right @Jobe the former Flying Saucer site is a great location!). Anyway the ride looks close to completion.

That's quite short sighted of you. There are many coasters (and plenty of other rides) that require a certain weight to operate. There are more that can't operate in certain wind conditions. Plenty of flat and tower rides that won't run in the wind, or without certain weight management either (Drop towers where cables get blown around, and things like ferris wheels that need to be balanced evenly) If you think only Chinese knock offs can valley when empty trains are impacted by high winds, you probably shouldn't look at the moments leading up to the smiler incident, where an empty test car valleyed, stopping on the track. Maybe, if you're gonna jump on the dreamworld bashing bandwagon, you do actually come up with something legitimate to call them out on, or at least make your illegitimate issue funny.

Umm.. who is joking about people dying? The ride isn’t open as it has defects and can’t be registered. A defect in a ride can result in deaths. That is a fact. A shop doesn’t require registration by a regulatory body to be set up.. that is fact. Pretty simple concept to understand. if you stopped trying to be offended and playing the victim all the time Push, you could actually be a half decent contributor here...

Still no real bump in the crowd, tonight. The weather was a little warmer. There was less fog surrounding the maze area. The maze apparently opens at 8pm. There were lots of roaming characters running around the park. Bumped into Ross as well. He said they’re still tweaking things.

Well, they've appointed an obviously poor candidate as CEO, and by the looksof it also given him no real incentive to actually spendthe money that's obviously needed. Quite the opposite, in fact. Of all Australian theme parks, the one thing Dreamworld really has an advantage over the others is its size. So now they want to reduce that, rather than being bold and brave and utilising it to really make people go "Wow! Dreamworld is way bigger and better than the other parks!" Sad, and disappointing to say the least. Oh, and "capital light" events are definitely NOT a solution!

Remember the last time a theme park in Australia tried their hand at investing in 'capital light' events rather than actual rides? How well did that work out for them? Well GG's DW. You're playing this by Wonderland's book now. It's only a matter of time before this park bites the dust. At this point you can't even tell the difference between Ardent and Sunway. DW is quite literally not long for this world. I'll give it two years before Dreamworld as a whole is announced to be ripped down and turned into housing or Westfield expansion.

Dreamworld's results also benefited from better weather. Just sayin.

At least we know they didn't lose the hot wheel's license.

A $5m reduction in expenses means they either have a lot of fat in the operations or they are going to make the kind of cuts that lead to a further deterioration in the experience delivery. I suspect the latter. Ouch.

There's no new major rides or attractions coming to Dreamworld after Sky Voyager At the release of today's disappointing half-year results, Dreamworld's owners have pulled the plug on future expansion plans that were meant to total more than $50 million. Click here to continue reading

Not long to go now. I'll stop by the park tomorrow and get some daytime shots.

The island at Dreamworld could be guest accessible and the river could be used too (as it used to be). They're both space that could be very much part of the guest experience, if only the owners had the required guts and determination!

Pet peeve. People who post restricted YouTube videos that make you log in.

This was kind of my point, you have the rides that are announced as being closed, then there’s usually a couple more surprise closures once you get to the park. It’s a lottery of disappointment.

That's impressive, since your post was at 5pm - and we all know all the rides shut at 4... I think the only situation where VRL buys Dreamworld is to acquire the rides and slides that are worthy of salvage, to move to their parks to fill the gaps at a bargain basement price of $100M, hold a wonderland-style fire-sale for every tom, dick and harry who wants to buy used cash registers, pavers, and anything else not bolted down (and some things that are), and while thats happening, convince their buddies in GCCC to approve an MCU, and then flog the land to someone else for a tidy profit.

They won't ever let the new guy operate that one again 😂 Normally it has to have 6 people when operating, or 6 water dummies when testing.

I’m sure there would be a joke in there somewhere had HWSW retained its previous name...

*gets delayed now for an extra 8 months*

I don’t think I’ve seen more than 5 of the “big 9” open at once in the last two years. Some, like Tower of Terror, are often closed even outside of planned maintenance periods. Even outside of the rides it’s become mediocre, the animal enclosures are increasingly sparse or empty. Gumbuya World has a far more impressive collection of Aussie animals at a much smaller park.

I’ve had a Dreamworld annual pass for at least the last 5 years, usually make it up to the Gold Coast 3-4 times a year so generally works to be good value. 2019 is the first year I haven’t automatically rolled it over, too many major rides closed during last year’s visits and no sign of SkyVoyager opening soon. So for the first time in a long time, looks like we will just enjoy the Village parks on next month’s trip. I suspect a lot of GC visitors will be making a similar call.

Tim and I survived the maze, tonight, although we might still be a little bit infected. The car park was only half full, so the word hasn’t really gotten out yet. It was certainly different from past Fright Nights, with effects in different places. The theme is all about the infected, with team members donning hazmat suits. There was some weird carnival stuff in there too. There were lots of roaming scare actors out until 11pm. The event actually closed at 11.30. Really enjoyed the metal band that came on stage at about 10.30. I don’t think the maze really compares to the ones at MW, but it’s good to see AW branching out and trying something new. I think Tim was just happy to walk the moat. Three more Fright Nights left for this season.

Not sure what they used as a base, but it is designed on the New 52 comic line, and looks impressive in person

Total Revenue is up by $9M, which is up $4M over two years prior and expenses are up $5.5M on two years prior. So no, they're not terrifically more profitable than two years ago. They've increased revenue 6% which would be impressive if they could do it for years to come. (And pretty conveniently have a park up the road offering less competition than expected which is a short term win and a long term loss.) If ticket revenue is up 27%, the rest of the business has not done much differently. Ticket sales down 5%, admissions down 8%. Admissions down 16% on three year ago. Probably works out to be tickets have gone from $40 to $50M while the rest is flat. That does imply average in-park spend to be up though. Still count me as surprised they didn't get nervous earlier and discount things and on that front I was wrong.

Ardent would have to sell it at bargain basement cost for anyone to be interested in rebuilding the park, brand and image. Theyd make 10x more on land alone for developers - that’s what they’d be aiming for

I don’t see another operator being overly interested unless it was at a bargain place as the park would largely need a broom through it. Theyd maximise their land value by selling to developers if the council/govt indicated they would happily rezone (in exchange for copious land taxes). I personally think we’re stuck with Ardent until the decide they want out, and then we have nothing at all..

I cannot think of a single troubled theme park that has turned around on the back of spending no money. Next stop for Dreamworld is either a new owner or closing forever.

It was announced about a year ago that Movieworld had put in an application to build a multi story carpark and neighbours were complaining as it would be unsightly.

But do they even have any other business now. Didn't they used to own bowling alleys, but sold them off to "focus on" (destroying) their Theme Park business?

Ardent is well over due to get out of the theme park industry. I’m embarrassed to see the way they run dreamworld. Ardent, please piss off away from our theme parks.

What annoys me on this front is Village practically gift wrapped DW a place in the market. They basically said we're going to move on our prices, you can now have the advantage on price if you want. DW's response was to raise prices too. So stupid. Village raised their price, saw a tiny decrease in attendance but much higher profits. DW raised prices, much lower attendance and slightly less revenue. Good going there Ardent you sure understand the pressures facing your business. I don't think they like to highlight things which will reduce the guest experience

I'm impressed they bought the hypercoaster outright. I wish they announced their FY20 plans.

completely agree Alex... funnily a comment made by the DW CEO on the call this morning in response to a question on their price increases was: "We were surprised how "elastic" the market is with cost." When asked to elaborate, he said that them increasing their prices didn't seem to concern people and alluded to his thoughts being that people would pay regardless as they want to visit.... he also mentioned once SV opens and has had time settle, that they'll evaluate whether their value makes a further price increase relevant...

For all who lambasted VRL for upping the prices and ending the age of the discounted annual passes - this is proof that the higher priced tickets do reap rewards, and that the punters they lost wouldn't have spent much more than the $99 they paid for the pass.

Wow. This is disturbing news. Is this the beginning of the end??? Pray it isnt so....some one send out an SOS to a decent international theme park operator immediately!!

I have a new biggest cred spite -_- Was told by Land of Legends the ride would be open when I booked my 2-day stay. But of course it didn't go according to plan. Oh well.

To be joking about the death of innocent people is a sick, immature, and downright nasty thing to do. Shameful.

There's 7 of them open at the moment 🤔

Because it IS both, I don’t know what I’ve apparently been busted on. I worked on the park for years, right up until just weeks ago.