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Now that I can finally go that extra few kilometers outside the 5km bubble fromy my house to Luna Park Sydney, I popped in today to see the progress on all of the upcoming additions. Big Dipper has both trains on track and was finishing up the part of the queue that will take you over the first launch and into what can only be described as a scare maze looking lead up to the station. The front of the Big Dipper station was getting some thematic touches added too it, though it's a shame these appear to be incredibly flat compared to the building it's trying to continue the style of next door. Elsewhere it seemed to be a big day for testing, with Boomerang, Loopy Lighthouse and Cloud Nine all cycling in the time I was there. Sledgehammer was having the finishing touches placed on its locker system. The Big Dipper was also creating quite a buzz amongst the local wildlife, with a rather large beehive deciding to call the brake run home. The park's set to open next week and I'll be there over that weekend to finally ride at least 8 of the brand new attractions!

One observation - the article talks about Sea World narrowly avoiding the worst of the timber shortage, but in the next breath: Timber was onsite in April 2020. We had vertical construction in August 2020. I've zero knowledge of the delays they've experienced or the reasons for them, but on face value (and with the advantage of "Forum Hindsight") it seems a bit rich to blame shipping delays and material shortages when materials were already on site, and global shipping had about the same impact on Taipan as it did on Leviathan. It's fair to say that as at April 2020 (a mere two months into the pandemic) the park was still slating a December (2020) opening, and so all of the needed components would have undoubtedly been in transit or ordered to arrive prior to Christmas. There is no ship out there now that's taken a 14 month voyage still struggling to make it to the Gold Coast. As for quarantine requirements by technical personnel - that's a fair point, but that isn't really any different for Vortex or Taipan is it? (Not to mention they've had more than 18 months of awareness about the need for quarantine and could easily have planned for it). I think the rest of the article potentially has it though - is this a calculated 'non-compete' move by Village to avoid direct competition? Probably. Was it beyond their control due to global shipping delays and shortages? From what I can see, probably not. Just my opinion based on zero insider knowledge.

Just replace one of the hammers with a sickle, paint it red and boom, instant iconic theming!

That train is sexy as hell. I really like the Dreamworld logo on the front. Thinking about how I feel about the landscaping and execution of the theme, it really comes down to what is it being compared to? What's the benchmark? If it's being compared to Thunderbolt, it's a massive step up in presentation of a major coaster. We went from a station that was themed to a furniture store to something that really carries an identity the whole way through. Compared to the park's previous coasters? It looks to be a far more pleasant space to stand in for a while (both Tower of Terror and Cyclone were scorchingly hot in the summer-time) but it doesn't build hype and excitement in the queue, which might be a real missed opportunity. Compared to Rivals? It's much of muchness, and I think that's probably a good thing. It's the same fundamental building blocks that you can really compare ad neaseum and still not come out with a clear winner. Do you prefer pleasant fauna or cool DC comic-book style billboards? Snake-themed trains or Batman trains? Station walls painted snake-ish or Gotham-ish? etc. etc. etc. Compared to what was on the site before? The gamble is that Dreamworld is trading an entire themed land (that over its history had two coasters, two rides and seven attractions) for one major coaster. That's ballsy, but not without merit. I'll be glad for Dreamworld to finally have a really solid, really good coaster. But it definitely sucks how deep we are in replacing facades and lands for walls and further land sales. But that's history, baby. Compared to what else was possible, thematically? Realistically, that's subject to opinion. It's presented nicely - it's exactly what I expected Buchan, a group that specialises in urban design, to create. And maybe that's the point - maybe the park accepted that trying to tell a huge, far flung story is hopeless? Thunderbolt didn't have a huge, far flung story and it kicked arse. Could it have been more for the same budget? The fact that there's no sense of anticipation being built in the queue is the biggest missing for me, and it's something that perhaps another company with expertise in theme parks might've picked up on. Maybe. Who knows? In any case, i'll be looking forward to having a ride come late 2021 whenever and making some content about it. It definitely photographs well from what i've seen.

The rides out the back are as well presented as anything else that’s been in the space over the last 17 years since the 2004 reopening. Ultimately the park refers to itself as an amusement park not a theme park like the GC parks, and with the lack of space available I think most of us would agree for their unique situation managing to squeeze so many rides into the space is still an amazing achievement even if it unfortunately limited the theming opportunities. If LPS had the same space available as the GC parks, and called itself a theme park then yeah I’d be slamming it too

Termites

No it doesn't. It points out that pandemic related delays gets us to now, but the further delays to April seem to be driven by business decisions. Hence the article expressly stating that decisions were almost certainly made amid lockdowns and the shambles of a vaccine rollout months ago. Disagree with the decisions all you want, just acknowledge when they would likely have been made. It's literally in the first sentence that Village are relying on a slate of other new attractions without the coaster. The entire premise is that there's every possibility it'll be a decent summer for Village without Leviathan, and likely even a better summer for Dreamworld as a result. No one's blaming timber shortages. It was outright dismissed as a plausible reason for delays; we all saw how construction progressed at a steady pace once it started (albeit behind schedule). There's possibilities that the timber cost more than originally planned and that may have affected when and how it was supplied (depending on contracts, who's fitting the bill for market fluctuations etc.), but it has never been unobtainable. You're right that shipping delays probably ended up having about the same impact on Steel Taipan and Leviathan given physical construction on both wrapped up around the same time. Despite the non-committal "late" provided publicly, Steel Taipan was absolutely planned to be operational by September 2020. Leviathan was originally earmarked for December 2020. Make of that what you will; it's splitting hairs when both rides have suffered different avoidable and unavoidable delays. This article is entirely my words and opinions. I speak with industry sources all the time but no one person, company or viewpoint coloured this article. Most of it is simply educated speculation and I'm not exactly going out on a limb with any of it. The first 750 words are a play-by-play of avoidable and unavoidable delays over the past few years. The remainder is a fairly succinct synopsis of what summer will look like for VRTP, including the thin attraction count and the optics of numerous dormant rides at Sea World, while also spelling out how Dreamworld will benefit here. I called it a comedy of errors in the second last sentence... who's this apparent puff piece for exactly? Is there a particular piece of information you think is wrong, or that I chose to omit or spin? Is something more sinister at play with the delays?

The point is that’s the fence. I don’t want to see some vinyl wrap that will fade/tear, etc on an awkwardly placed crappy fence. A simple timber fence would be much for fitting. Same for the bridge, why is it in raw gal? Looks temporary. It all looks crap, cheap and temporary, they can do better, and for little expense. Now if they rip all this out before opening and give it nice traditional seaside pier dressing then I’ll be the first one to say “great, nice simple touches and glad that stuff before was temporary”. But THIS, right now, looks crap. And I’m a little tired of the line the gist of which is “this area/ride/station always looked crap so it’s fitting for it to be that now.” Come on, do better. I’m not asking for Disneyland, but why must Australia constantly have the half assed version of everything when the entire rest of the world constantly shows it can be done better.

I haven't seen the finished package for all rides obviously, but they appear to be pretty spot on to the concept art in regards to "theming" if you want to call it that. Bug for example has what looked to be the painted flats behind and some 3D flowers etc sticking out. Even with the handful of attractions running today the one big thing the area has going for it is Kinetics, I almost feel they put too much focus on each attraction individually rather than trying to give an overarching "theme" to the area to tie everything together. From what I could see is it great? No. Is it crap? Also no. See that was my initial thought with the Big Dipper trains being the generic ones until the owner came out and specifically said it was a budgetary thing. The fact that every smaller ride is straight up the base model and theme from Zamperla seems to point to something similar. I honestly wonder if it was a classic board room "Well we can have 6 rides spaced out more with better thematic consistency, some themed bridges etc or we can have 9 rides crammed together for the same $30million". Of course as enthusiasts and theme park history buffs I know what we'd ideally love this expansion to be. Hell I'd be happy with just a new old school river caves back there taking up the whole space but that wasn't an option. We can see what choice was made, and it will be interesting to see how it pays off.

"Never buy a smart car, the only way to make it go fast is to scare it"

Read the CV Wood book. You’ll see he was about as far from a designer as possible. No wonder Movie World’s layout is atrocious

Sea World's wooden coaster delays changes the theme park landscape this summer – potentially for the better With Sea World's Leviathan delayed until 2022, Village Roadshow prepare to lean on a lineup of new attractions at Movie World, Wet'n'Wild and Paradise Country for the forthcoming summer. Dreamworld are set to benefit by not sharing the limelight when they launch the Steel Taipan roller coaster later this year. Click here to continue reading

On my last trip to SeaWorld I noticed a couple of changes the Covid information at the entrance is now far less cluttered and the famous walrus statue has been painted gold for SeaWorld’s 50th anniversary

So a couple of things. LPS doesn’t really have any direct competition in a city of 5 million. They’ll do fine. In addition businesses were given high confidence that life would resume once targets were met, so many projects pushed through. Very different circumstances on the GC for tourism operators as the government is not providing any degree of certainty. This leaves the limited local market to support multiple major openings. Dreamworld is comfortable with this (perhaps out of necessity), VRTP is not. You’re not being treated like an idiot. Supply delays or whatever is an easier sell than we’ll make more money by delaying. I don’t understand how this is anything other than good business. You can’t really take a punt with this level of capital.

There's so much irony in being critical about everyone being critical. You're on a forum filled with fans about theme parks. Being passionate, engaged and critical is fundamentally why these forums exist and I personally don't besmirch anyone for having an opinion. My point about execution still stands. Some further thoughts i've had: Wait, Luna Park has different lands now? Sounds like a theme park to me. Again, they could've literally put any logo, any paint, any design, anything they wanted here, and we got muted grey and generic logo #3. Basically if you told me a company called Multiplex ran a theme park, this is exactly what i'd expect.

Isn’t Maloney’s corner now “Luna Land”? So if the theming doesn’t correlate to the Midway, is it truly such a bad thing? Outside of theming though, I still think it was all presented nicely. No longer can you see the tyres on attractions like you could with the Ranger, and the base under the Boomerang seems well implemented. I get wanting to have a more cohesive theme to the park, but I think they wanted to broaden their horizons. Besides, they’ve improved the midway over the years with facade touches, so I wouldn’t rule out upgrades in the future.

Just touching on a few points: I think you're right, but that's a low bar to begin with too, and I personally would want our parks (which are fundamentally businesses centred around profound enjoyment and escapism) to exceed our expectations and not just meet a low expectation that's nearly two decades old. The park had some pretty beautiful facades way back when even despite the space-issue (I should also point out that during that period there was plenty of Victorian-era facades and motiffs interlaced with the oriental architecture at the time): I wanted more and I reckon the public deserved more. It's not a budget thing, I do believe it's just an effort thing. There's so much potential to play into the eccentric Coney Island "oriental meets art deco vibe", from the trim on rides: Colour-use (above and below) & sign design: even little things like typefaces all play a role in setting that theme: For me the issue is that despite so much rich design culture that was worth tapping into in order to make something iconic, we got "modern corporate". It's fine, it'll do the job and it'll make them a good bit of coin, but at the end of the day i'm just not really chuffed by the execution.

No where did I say stuff should be themed, but just be presented well. That's all I expect of Gold Coast parks too. But if you want to play the 'small amusement parks can't be well presented' card, then I would just say that Aussie World -a small amusement park with well presented rides- exists and kind of ruins your point. Just because it's not a theme park, doesn't mean you can't put effort into the rides. I also get budgets, I get realities of economics. I also understand that the headline '9 new rides' will be effective for them, and I'm sure it'll be a success. But even if you're looking forward to visiting (which you should be), you have to admit, it looks like crap and has zero charm.

I think it's fair to say that if any park on the Gold Coast presented their rides like that, we'd be tearing them a new arsehole. For a park that trades on its charm and history as much as it's rides, the new additions are pretty woeful in their presentation. Don't get me wrong, I think it'll be a great success, and I'm really happy to see them adding stuff, but that just all looks appalling.

Unlike a certain other park, there's no max limits on the new rides. Adults can ride any of the new attractions and the fact all of them are open during Halloscream an event reccomended for 15+ shows they are happy for them to do so.

I think its an absurd stretch to say VRTP lacked thinking by not predicting the country’s Covid response, travel restrictions and worldwide situation a hear in advance. Especially given our government didn’t even know. Come on. Given some people here insist in being pedantic about dates and times for some reason I should clarify my comments about ST delay were more meaning just they are both delayed. And given one is entirely more complex to construct than the other, its all pretty understandable.

We never had an official opening date released for Taipan, let alone during September pieces of theming and what not were still going to place so it couldn't have "meant to open" then anyway. From what I've seen, the majority moved on past the 1 year delay given a late, very late-2021 opening is looming by...

Steel Taipan was originally meant to open late 2020 and will open late 2021 so about a one year delay. Trident will open two years late and Leviathan one year and four months late... there's your facts only comparison. So they had them on-site last year in August when construction started and went vertical, then sent them back home stalling construction knowing that in a years time Covid would ramp up and they would delay the ride opening again? Very big brain of VRTP...

I think something has gotten lost in translation here. The first paragraph in the article is referring to them missing the shortage of timber supply that is now the case. Ie, availability and cost. Now once you’ve bought it, getting it here is a very different story. And the logistics of shipping from Europe say to America are also very different. Likewise is bringing people in from Europe and the US. You also have to remember that Leviathan needed experts the whole way through. The other rides need some commissioning right at the end. So the two projects can’t really be compared on the above points. But FWIW ST was meant to open last month so in the end both rides will open with the same delay. So maybe we can compare after all 😛

Thanks for the great article - an excellent summary of this multi year saga. I do think April will be a challenge for them. But perhaps an even bigger challenge will be convincing the Australian public that wooden coasters can be just as worthy as steel coasters

I do hope they include the bat nipple suit from Batman Forever.

Interesting article and its great to get insight but it seems to be preaching to the choir. It points out problems with supplies and professionals being core reasons as to why the rides wont be opening this summer, but for many people that wont matter. The general public will see the large, mostly constructed roller coaster at Sea World and wonder why they heard about that project first yet Dreamworld has managed to finished theirs before it. It's an unfortunately bad look for the theme park and beyond educating the masses, there is very little they can do. For most people they will lose in the court of public opinions. Another shortcoming for a theme park that desperately needs attention and sadly people aren't going to settle for 'We're sorry for your less than stellar day, but be sure to come back in a few months when it's better!' I still think the Easter opening is incredibly risky. Yes, things are dicey now - But we are on track to have 90%+ of the population vaccinated by the end of 2021. Easter will be most families opportunity to travel after the Dec/Jan school holidays and if international travel is open then I can imagine that a lot of families will be using that opportunity to visit overseas relatives, catch up with friends or visit their favourite international destinations and considering that the government has already insinuated that they will let Australian's out before letting tourists in then I imagine that there are going to be some quiet theme parks in Australia.

Raging Waters has also just announced it's reopening date and as expected it is much later than Luna Parks, opening up on December 18th just in time fo rthe Summer School Holidays. Will be interesting to see what happens with the price of a Season Pass as it will be a few months shorter of a season than usual.