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I'll be disappointed if those Calibri letters are still there by the end of that 5 month block

Thread is BS - but just to answer this a little - the most problematic part of a drop ride is actually the safety systems. Cables can be inspected and replaced per manufacturer, and GD's gondolas have just had a refurb so by the sounds, pretty straightforward stuff, as long as the running gear, cable and magnets are all maintained well. All pretty basic stuff (then again most ride mechanisms are fairly simple in their operation, it's making them safe that gets complex) As for the safety systems, the PLC systems on Space Probe were fickle - launching all enabled gondolas occurred simultaneously, and if all gondolas didn't arrive at the top within a space of each other, the ride would fault. One of the modules (I believe it was module 2) suffered a fault at some stage and was repaired (badly) by an in house electrician. It never worked the same again, and this is why one gondola would rise slower than the rest. But this would cause the ride to fault as the first gondola to arrive would start the timer in the PLC and the last one wouldn't arrive in time due to the slower running winch. The maintenance team fixed this issue by patching a couple one-shot timers into the two faster units to delay their 'arrival' signal to the PLC a few seconds to give the last gondola a chance to catch up. It still happened occasionally, especially with weight differences, but although they consulted Intamin, they couldn't undo the damage done without replacing the entire module - (something that would have shut the ride down and required the station buildings to be partially dismantled). So the ride continued to operate on life support, and module 2 was taken out of service whenever things acted up too badly. --- I've told this story many times over the years, but this is the first time i've told this with the hindsight of the Dreamworld Inquest - and for the first time i've found myself thinking - gee those maintenance guys were a bit blase about things, weren't they?

You really can deny this. It's quantifiable and provable,and it's not an old management v new management thing. It's been going down hill for years, and that didn't stop in 2021. ST might be their best ride ever, but the park really sucks right now. Now there's an argument about declines last year being inevitable and nessicary so you can give them a pass but to ignore it entirely and say how much it's improved seems like a combination between wishful thinking and data omission. The park didn't get better when they shortened the train route. The park didn't get better when they closed a bunch of smaller attractions during the year. The park didn't get better when they removed Buzzsaw. The park isn't better because of some temporary entertainment options. Closing White Water World 5 days a week didn't male the place better. I'll pay the whole thing of in order for a forest to grow anew you need a bush fire now and then, and I'll totally give you the idea that basically what's happened at DW recently can be compared to a deliberate purging bush fire - a clear out so the place can grow back (hopefully) better. But you don't look at a freshly blackened landscape and say 'You can't deny this is better'. FWIW, for those who think it's a company thing, I think SW declined, WnW got better (but still off it's peak) and MW stayed pretty much flat, and despite critism for presentation, Luna Park Sydney improved massively.

Hi Guys, Please understand that I'm new here and have 0 reputation as of yet, but my best mate works at Dreamworld and has been told that the Giant Drop will be retiring in February, Ardent/Dreamworld are apparently making an announcement in 1-2 weeks and will offer final rides similar to Buzz Saw, though I am pretty shocked as the tower is really iconic to the park and is definitely another nail in the current ride count especially in thrills that build your heart rate up. Yes the ride is getting on in years but a refurb similar to Falcons Fury would've been better in my opinion and also the proposed train track is now really close to that area so that could also explain it. I understand people will think this is my friend telling bullshit but he has always been honest/trustworthy to me in regards to what is happening in the park, I have only come across this forum recently so I thought I would give everyone the heads up. Cheers, Cameron

Contrary to popular belief, he never worked with Disney Imagineers. You can read about it when I interviewed him about it where he said point blank (and is referenced in my audio transcripts) that it never happened. Tim Fisher was the CEO for all of those rides that were both themed and lightly themed so i'm not sure what your point actually is. If it's that parks have used IPs for rides (and that's bad) i've got news for you - everyone does it because it works to drive gate. I have no doubt Fisher picked this up at Paramount Parks and instigated that same use of IP at Wonderland Sydney. Dreamworld does it, Disney does it, Universal does it, big parks little parks - everyone does it. Bermuda Triangle didn't close because the all knowing Disney wasn't brought in. They also didn't play a hand in anything structural or anything engineering adjacent. It was already a retrofit of an existing dark ride system (Lassiter's Lost Mine) and it was closed because much like the Looney Tunes River Ride the current management considered money was better spent on new than the huge cost outlays to maintain existing. Having said that, the cost to maintain those attractions were also so high not because Disney wasn't brought in, but like everything built in that era, virtually no one from the industry at large was brought in. Eureka Mountain Mine Ride, Thunder River Rapids, Viking's Revenge, Looney Tunes River Ride, Bermuda Triangle, Rocky Hollow Log Ride, Dreamworld's Main Street and it's trains/boats etc. etc. etc. were all either built largely in-house or were all out knock-offs of international variants. That "she'll be right/can-do" attitude of doing things a little bit cheaply to try and get something as good as the Americans for a tenth of the cost all but evaporated when Dreamworld's incident happened in 2016, culminating in rides like Scooby Doo literally having walls of theming ripped of, Sky Voyager being re-wired with thicker cabling or Wild West Falls having entire sections rebuilt. There's that old saying of "buy cheap buy twice" and that's definitely been a hard lesson all our parks had to learn. I think of it as a course correction. There's been pages of discussion here about how parks need to be a solid day's mix of stuff for everyone and it's another hard lesson our parks (specifically Village's parks) had to learn. Skewing each park to a specific demographic doesn't work because at the end of the day, roller-coasters and big new things drive gate (and you don't get that when your park is aimed at three year olds) but having two parks so close to each other with identical rides also isn't a recipe for success either. I think there's some nuance in the middle somewhere that I hope Atlantis (and whatever Movie World builds next) will eventually capitalise upon.

There were some unusual closures in the past 12 months and i'm pretty sure we discussed whether the additional time for the wet rides meant a reliagnment to wintertime. good to see that's happening as I believe West also had the same\similar change?

I respectfully disagree because it's all about balance. Historically roller coasters are excellent when they're complimentary to a well-rounded theme park experience, but if you just focus on them then you risk isolating certain groups whilst attracting demographics that just aren't willing to pay what is required to operate a modern large-scale theme park. The numbers are heavily in the family-park model's favour considering out of the twenty-five most visited theme parks in the world in 2019, I'd consider three of them to be thrill parks and that's being generous with the label. Families just make bank for theme parks. Kids put a lot of pressure on parents, and then the extended family often tags along to enjoy the experience as well. Thrill rides are good for teenagers and young adults but generally they have less income to buy additional goods inside the park and are more tolerant to pushing through hunger so you just get very little out of them. In saying that, @Baconjack makes a great point that the balance is well achieved across the entire company with Sea World filling in the family role and Movie World being the more 'grown up' park but I still think that balance is necessary when treating the parks as individual entities otherwise you risk relying on a something that is completely separated from you to pick up the slack of your shortcomings. Walt Disney World has four theme parks and they could have easily seperated them all out into a kids park, thrill park, entertainment park, etc. but each park easily stands on it's own as a full package and has a great balance of family and thrill rides meaning that everybody can have a great time every day no matter where they go. You don't want the grandparents and young kids dreading a trip to Movie World whilst the young adults and teenagers dread a trip to Sea World.

I’ll be amazed if this eventuates into anything.

I'll say this much, as someone who hasn't been able to get back to the GC parks for a long while (not just because of Covid but other reasons) but who used to frequent them almost monthly when I lived up there, Dreamworld still has a lot of catching up to do with what it offers compared to what it had, and at its most basic that's a bad place to be. Even without the bad stigma from the TRRR losing SEVEN attractions in the space of as many years would be unthinkable except for the fact it happened. Adding a single coaster as a bandaid is all well and good, but they need to add another ride every year for the foreseeable future if they're wanting to recapture the 'magic' their park once had. As for Movieworld, poor operations and maintenance issues aside closing the Loony Tunes River Ride was their biggest ever mistake imo. Every cent that went into things like Doomsday Destroyer and the revamp of Scooby Doo should have went into restoring and maintaining the Loony Tunes River Ride and I say this as someone who loathes nostalgia baiting. While there seems to be a few decently themed options in the park, they're almost at the point of worth going the Six Flags route and just investing in high capacity, expensive roller coasters to compliment Superman Escape, Green Lantern and DC Rivals rather than catering to families and expansive themed rides since they clearly don't care that much about them anymore.

Hi all, due to a combination of storms and staff shortages. Luna Park Sydney will be CLOSED on January 5th and 6th! Anybody who was going to the park on that day will be issued Flexi Passes to book for another date within 180 days, which you can change at any time. I was lucky to be able to peek in there just before they closed, although having 0 ideas what was happening! There is also another COVID alert for those who visited the park on December 30th 2021. Anybody who was there on that day should monitor for symptoms, and get tested if unwell. I'll be doing a RAT test tonight, to make sure that I'm right. If you have any concerns about your ticket, please contact tickets@lunaparksydney.com More information is available at https://www.lunaparksydney.com/

A lot of the work could be done off site, and could be as simple as basically uploading a new video / sequence to the control system. I'm not sure how SV works exactly, but a company with as many rides built as Brogent would probably want to make it somewhat easy to do. I don't think it was down for very long at all when it was converted to Sky Voyager USA.

Surprisingly back in the day our parks actually did spend the money needed to keep up with the industry. When Longhurst constructed Dreamworld he worked with a lot of Disney designers to help on the park. Sea World consulted with Disney to construct Bermuda Triangle (but ended up building it in-house much cheaper than they recommended which is likely why the ride had such a short lifespan) and when designing Movie World they hired C. V. Wood who worked alongside Walt designing Disneyland. They knew that if you spend the premium money, you get a premium experience. Then came the good fun of the 'race to the bottom' after the turning millennia which gets us to where we are today. @joz I agree that Movie World is a family attraction or two away from being a solid family park but it could easily tip depending on what decisions they make in the future. I love the idea of Santa Monica Pier at Movie Park Germany (even though in execution its rather underwhelming) but something like that could be done on the Arkham plot. Build a small lake area and have a pier themed location with a Ferris Wheel, Chair Swing, and some sort of shuttle coaster. You could even double up on thrill + family with an Eccentric Ferris Wheel like at DCA and free up some land in the Wild West area by moving the games to this new pier area. I also agree that I have no idea what SW is and I'm not sure if it even knows. It has some great children's rides with the Nickelodeon area but they're catering a little too young to be well-rounded family attractions. I reckon that they need to find a suitable replacement for Viking's Revenge and then have something similar to Sea/Storm Rider at Tokyo DisneySea to fill out the line up.

With maybe one or two exceptions at each park, even the 'high thrill' rides at Disney are totally family friendly, but I think that's what their audience expect. I think there has been a shift in the rest of the industry for a long time away from stuff with appeal across the board, to stuff with a very specific demo in mind, and I think that is a shame. It's part of the reason I think a shoot the chutes for DW would be a significantly better option than a power splash. It's about balance and I'm not sure any of the parks are really hitting that balance as well as they could. MW is a strange one because are Wild West & Scooby genuine family attractions or are they too thrilling? What about Justice League, is it a family ride or not thrilling enough? Is Road Runner a family attraction? If you count all of them as family rides combined with some of the lesser rides like Batwing & GL, the kiddie rides and shows you've got a great park for families! If those rides don't count as family friendly for you, then you've got some poor kids rides, like 3 shows and not much else. I think another genuine family ride for MW is needed (It doesn't have to be a big sprawling dark ride either, it could also be a family friendly flat ride in the kid's section), as well as they're getting due for another big coaster. SW genuinely I can't work out it's mix until after new Atlantis opens. Leviathan is meant to be somewhat family friendly, but my suspicion is that it will probably satisfy more hardened thrill seekers too, and Trident isn't going to be super tall and intimidating, so I'll hold off on judgement and see how it fills out when those things open.

Took me way too long to understand what Tim was talking about. can we have a thread title change to reflect this isn’t the LPS Ranger?

Maybe on one of the trains, you can ride it

I love how the trains are going in opposite directions. Going to be interesting when they get back to the station.😂

I mean if you're going to count every closure in the last 7 years, you should probably count Sky Voyager alongside Taipan. It's not much of an improvement, but its factual. Agree with pretty much everything else you've said here - Dreamworld has a lot of fucking work to do. I'm hopeful they've got the right team and tools to try. Movieworld should have gone the SF route long ago. I also don't think they should be trying to compliment Green Lantern - from what I hear, that thing has been a dumpster fire of late.

After attending dreamworld 3 times this passed week (finally got some time off work 🤣), I can say it is a good park.. but still far from a great park. ST & SV are the standouts for me. Maybe it’s because they are the newest attractions, but they just offer so much more vs the older rides. Other than rides, I feel like there needs to be better themed music (and louder) in different areas. Ocean parade is just filled with house music & it just feels out of place. There’s nothing like a good score, accompanied by a themed land that makes you feel immersed in the area. E.G. Walking down Main Street at Movieworld with “Hooray for Hollywood” playing. As for Greg, I’ve seen him everyday I was there, he is putting in the effort and hats off to him. Even out the front in the morning greeting guests, helping with QR scanning. There really is only so much one man can do, and if he keeps dreamworld the way it’s heading, I have no doubt it will turn into a great park.

That may be true, but you can’t deny the park has improved greatly in recent years. It’s still far from being at its prime, it’s still merely a shadow of its once great former self. But my understanding is the current management for the park understand this, recognise what is iconic about the park and are trying to bring as much of that back as possible. Just look at all the school holiday offerings they had last year; they’ve never done that in the past and it was overall all successful. They’ve produce a great new attraction which has had some of the best marketing we’ve seen from a GC theme park in a long time. There is still plenty more to do, but based off 2021, they are on the right track.

Scooby Doo has now joined Doomsday, the crowds today are sure going to be happy