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The market on the whole has experienced huge losses in recent weeks so that's what we're seeing with Ardent to some extent. Few examples however have been as dramatic as Ardent. They've slashed about two-thirds of their market cap in the past month and they're one of the 'biggest losers' on the ASX in 2020. Inquest findings and growing coronavirus fears obviously play into it but inquest findings are not unforeseen and Ardent's share price losses outpace the rest of the market amid coronavirus uncertainty. Remember too that investors at the time of the accident completely wrote off Dreamworld in share price losses. Ardent also wrote down its book value of Dreamworld to the point where the land is presumably worth more than the entity. Dreamworld's value to investors is strictly in terms of potential, not performance. The half year results were not great. Main Event is floundering in a supposedly flourishing US economy. That business hit a wall several years ago and seems lifeless as ever of late. Dreamworld saw a 2.9% attendance growth off the back of Sky Voyager and a concerted effort at special events. That kind of negligible growth from historic lows following major investment and a more focused marketing strategy than we've seen in years is a big red flag and I wouldn't be so quick to say that the park is back on track because they've painted a few things and held some nice events. It looks like there are wider confidence issues surrounding Ardent Leisure. Three years ago a property developer and a corporate raider joined forces, bought up about 10% of Ardent and waged a public war to gain control of the Ardent board. Their pitch was that they knew how to fix Ardent with a three year plan to deliver $1 billion to investors. They got their board seats and now three years on about $700 million in market cap has disappeared. Their own investment in the company has lost them somewhere up near $70 million. On the plus side they've learnt a valuable lesson that just about anyone could have told them: you can't flip a theme park. Anyway that's the short version of the article I would have written in recent weeks if I had the time/inclination. Just throw in a bit more sarcasm and some big words.

Indeed I have - i mentioned this on the forums last week when we were discussing how recently the Log Ride signage had been removed, and I mentioned i'd been in the park on the 23rd of Feb - the day before I went with @Jdude95 to the Brisbane Magistrates Court to live report the inquest findings. Keep up @MickeyD! Ok - Magician points out a lot of good things that have happened in the parks, but given he bumped an 18 month old thread to do so, I figured he was directly referencing the things that @Slick had mentioned. Many of the eyesores remain. Before: After (taken February 2020) Unfortunately, I'm not really one for photo trip reports. I also don't see the point in taking photos of things that haven't changed. So I can't really refute each and everyone of @Slick's photos that were taken more than 18 months ago. But I DO visit regularly since getting a pass again at Christmas. Probably 5-6 times since December? SO rather than quote each pic, here's a breakdown of Slick's post 18 months on in dot-point form: Main entrance facade - looks like fucking garbage. Its a great first impression. White facadeland is gone, mainly because the ride is open. no great surprises there. Now that the sky voyager facade is complete, and the goldrush signage removed, we instead have a tight pinch point where a ride exit feeds onto a narrow street that is also intended as a thoroughfare to another ride, which is barely open, so why bother, right? The next 4 pics were of cinema\skyvoyager construction, rather than a particular fault or issue. Charging station, featuring now closed attractions that don't belong. There are STILL a literal fuck-tonne of references and promo and marketing pictures around the park (the kodak shop wall, the height measure up sticks around the park, various walls - including the jingeri\welcome gate beside the main entrance as shown in the pics above Next up, Hollywood House. I guess, since they bulldozed it last week, we can technically say this has been 'resolved' - but only just, and it took 18 months to 'resolve' it Then we have the 'half removed walkways' over rocky hollow. they remain 'half removed' on my last visit. Giant Drop still has 'rustic theming' disintegrating in the elements. Posts from abandoned walkways (see half removed walkways above) remain. Crappy, poorly maintained kopper log retaining walls littered with conduits, and covered in dead leaves that haven't been cleaned up in milennia - yep, still there. Fencing with 'green leafy facade' vinyl hung on it to hide the back of house BB studios area - still there. Unkempt and hazardous tree matter surrounding the train shed - still there. Ooooh! there's something that has changed - the fencing surrounding the TRRR site. Previously, it had a nice, well constructed, completely un-see-through red metal fence! Now it has temporary, see-through, covered slightly with printed marketing wrap but still totally see-through-able material, so now you can see the weeds, dirt, random piles of junk and garbage left to sit where they fell. I never thought i'd say bring back the red fence! Then we're onto super duper silver lining stuff like Claw reopened looking good, trolls area open and looking good I'm sorry, but practically every single issue raised by Slick in his original post is still as yet unresolved, and looks exactly the same. Have they taken mad steps to fix other stuff? Of course. Is it great that MovieWorld's most passionate leader is now employed by Dreamworld and is kicking goals left right and fucking centre? Fucking Hell yes! But to bump THIS PARTICULAR thread, and say SO MUCH of what was pointed out 18 months ago has been resolved, when almost NONE of it has - is bullshit. Kudos to Dreamworld for: WWW park wide refurb (inside and out) "for the most part" Facade repaints on Main Street "which they started recently" Giant Drop exterior refurb and additional path to cut out the stairs and ramp "even though there was already a path there that they could use" Refresh of the path between Tiger Island and ABC Kids "because the prior plain brick tunnel gives you such 'getting mugged' vibes that this is something they probably should have done way back when the tunnel was first constructed, and let's be honest, they painted a fucking tiger on the wall - they didn't exactly refresh the entire path' Refurb of path between Rocky Hollow and Corroboree 'i'm not sure exactly when the rainbow serpent was installed, but i'm not sure it was before or after this thread started. I'll give you this one though, on the off chance the rainbow serpent actually went in in the last 18 months. ' I am excited for what is to come for Dreamworld, and its clear that they're taking on some large refresh projects to spruce the park up, but unfortunately the bright coat of paint only serves to be a HARSHER contrast with the derelict and rotting remains in other areas. As a first impression, the main entrance building needs a total refurbishment. strip the crappy years of conduit out, hide the air con units better. get rid of the moving head light-and-dome combos that you never use. bring that building back to A1 condition. This park was built to be Australia's Disneyland - so let's just walk through the park and think about sight lines. back of house areas. things that ruin the magic. How can we fix some of these? The failed ampitheatre, and the failed adventure river are both eyesores. do something to improve the visual. the trip around behind blue lagoon on the train is pointless except for the grade the train requires to climb the hill. even a nice forest planting in this area, tidied up, with a spiel of the native trees, or animals, or hell - built a diorama. i don't care. do something with it so it doesn't constantly take you for a trip of 'what used to be, the ride'. i've had enough ranting. maybe i'll come back later for some more.

It's interesting to see how they are painting it in such a random sequence

Latest update, probably hasn't changed since these photos because of the rain.

When the park floods again, atleast there will be the ability for them to do Dive in Movies!

Two new screens have been added to Main Street as of today Looks like they are doing a rejuvenation of Daily Planet and the area where shows occur

You wouldn’t have the likes of Italy or China locking itself down or NSW closing certain schools or Japan closing major parks because of “the media”. We don’t yet have a means of vaccinating against it, nor treating it, and in older age groups it has a much higher death rates. Rightly or wrongly, people are going to defer visits to places this year, and that will slow recovery, and it means this years additions won’t have the same impact.

Sorry. I didn't realise that the speed at which a virus goes away is directly proportionate to the amount of media attention it gets. You said Coronavirus will die out sooner rather than later, like other influenzas in the past. First of all, I'll assume you're actually referring to COVID-19 (the current coronavirus outbreak) which is a strain of the coronavirus family, rather than all coronaviruses in the coronaviridae family. Secondly, It isn't Influenza. MERS, SARS, COVID-19 are all strains of coronavirus. "Coronavirus" was first identified in the 1960s, so we've had it for more than 50 years in one form or another. Some strains are more lethal, and some more communicable than others.... just like the flu. So when you say Coronavirus will die out, like all the other flus, you've got a lot muddled up there. And when I say MERS is still around 8 years later, it's pretty relevant to your statement that COVID-19 will die off pretty quick, isn't it? And yes, your last statement is very telling. Nobody gives a shit about MERS, because human-to-human transmission wasn't believed to be possible, and because worldwide the total infections amounted to about 2500 cases, most of which were limited to the middle east (hence the name). Nobody gives a shit about a virus unless they could catch it. Like when AIDS was only thought to affect homosexual men, so heterosexuals didn't practice safe sex. You tell someone a virus is going to be at their front door, they give a shit... (a lot apparently, judging by the amount of toilet paper they're buying). The point is, your confidence that coronavirus will die quickly is flat out wrong, experts are predicting that the worst of it's effects will arrive in Australia in around August - and that doesn't mean its over in september. Its a long road ahead, a possible vaccine is still potentially 9-12 months away, and this thing is clearly spreading like wildfire. So, whilst i'm not trying to be alarmist, its foolish to be a dreamer and claim 'it'll be over quickly' or 'you won't die' or 'our theme parks are your theme parks'

I am lazy AF and have never once taken the stairs over the escalators.

Only thing I'd add is that its built on a fucking mountain, and you bloody well know it at the end of the day.

Really liking the white personally

God why in the hell was that? Are they saying that it was in some way unsafe to spin? If that’s the case why do you even have the ride? Knee jerk bullshit from TRR has really stuffed up the industry in Australia. We’ll pretty much have no water rides now because of that, which is just ridiculous.

Heh. I've long since given up on rope dropping anything. these days i plan more days for each stop so i don't have to rush. good luck with that in some parks. it may not be labelled, it may only stop the escalator slowly, or it may only stop some of the escalators, but not all of them.

Yep, however I thought throughout the ride course itself with the rocks was actually presented quite ok. Its just yeah the main part where people are being the queue and station is shit. Like how tough, or extra cost could it have been to build either an aged looking shed, or wooden beach shack with some old netting, boat motor hanging from the roof or anything left over SW Research & Rescue could have donated.

I do agree, that Dreamworld is looking the best it has in a long time, including those times pre TRR. Yes there is still heaps of work to do, and that corner of the park, but I think most people are forgiving due to the fact its about to become a major construction site. As construction finishes, expect that end of the park to be cleaned up in a big way (and rightfully so). The leaf litter on the train tracks is normal, and I wouldn't look too closely at it. People often look at Disneyland as being the shining example, but even they have leaf litter on the train tracks, you just aren't exposed to it as much because there's very few guest eyes able to see it. Now you could argue that the track here is in guest view, so something should be done about it, but I guess there is a priority list, and unless its causing a problem, then the guest really doesn't notice it.

There’s this small tourism and leisure killer called Coronavirus.

Look I don’t know if that’s something to brag about, but the point is valid 😛

Legit, my wedding vows included a line to the effect of 'i will never use the single rider line again'. So, not always an option.... 🤣

Hey, just going by whats there, and what is there matches the Styrofoam pieces from sculpt studios...

The first part of the counter weights have been installed (Photo TPSN)

The rides are great but the parks awful to deal with. Pay the money and get the stupid expensive flash pass, and add X2. Not sure if only get one ride on Colossus still but if you do, start your day lining up for that and use your flash pass for a re ride later. Easily the best coaster in the park if not one of the best ever.

Yes I agree. Any changes that are done, should be minor and done to complement/enhance the existing ride. The last thing I would want them to do is to remove all the existing props/scenes and put all projections in. It’s about improving the story telling and immersion of an existing ride, rather than changing it. There are many rides in the Disney Parks which are classics, though could be tweaked, incorporating modern enhancements in technology/special effects. I wish this was done more on older rides which feel dated, rather than removing them and putting in a completely new ride.