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Yeah agreed. Then you throw some record-breaking attendance and it's a recipe for disappointment for sure. Full disclosure - I get marketing/comms is not everyone's cup of tea so feel free to skip reading the next bit. Yeah, that's an interesting case for sure. I think their last big announcement was a little bit too much information - there was a fair few different art styles shown and it all felt a bit too hodge podge for my liking. Cool for enthusiasts to nerd over, but not clear and succinct enough for the mass market to ultimately adopt the message Dreamworld is wanting folks to adopt. I think I've been barking on about comms since at least 2015, maybe earlier, and how Disney and others have pivoted from a "smoke and mirrors" approach to a wholly transparent approach. @Naazon touched on this as I was writing this post - I look at all of this through a weird hybrid lens of hospitality and storytelling. Whatever's communicated should be engaging, clear and have a degree of certainty, all of which leaves readers/guests with a sense of excitement and anticipation for what they'll get to experience. Perhaps most importantly though is that when communicating anything, be it any kind of storytelling content, is that you treat the audience with respect. When you do that and something goes wrong, folks are generally far more accepting when you treat them as though they're the intelligent, reasonable people they are. If you look at everything the parks do through that lens, then date changes on a website with no more information (Leviathan) could be perceived as feeling a bit contemptuous. In regards to Scooby, the date change happened in the middle of the night so will be keen to see if anything more is said to soften the blow. "Ruh-roh! We've had to extend Scooby Doo's closure by a few more months. Here's why. It goes without saying that safety is our highest priority. Our intention is to offer the kind of iconic, world-class experiences guests know, love and come to expect from our park, and Scooby Doo: Spooky Coaster is no exception. We understand that people love this ride, and we do too! We also don't close rides unless we absolutely have to, and in the case of Scooby Doo, we made the hard decision to close this beloved ride earlier than expected to allow us more time for us and our international partners to do the work it needs to live on for decades to come. And whilst we do everything we can to get attractions out from maintenance and down-time as quick as possible, the reality is that supply chain shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic still impact the speed in which our guests expect us to re-open rides. The up-shot of this is that we will have the time needed to properly refurbish Scooby Doo back to a standard better than when it first opened - with newer special effects and storytelling that will leave you wanting to re-ride over, and over, and over again. It's all part of our masterplan to continue to make Warner Bros. Movie World the country's #1 theme park - in the coming months, we'll continue to show you some of the behind the scenes that will make Scooby Doo even more incredible, plus exciting information on new attractions that will give guests even more to do while we refurbish the rides you love." Yeah, something like that.

Imagine if "Wiz Kids" got leaked before WOO was announced. The speculation would have been glorious!

After weeks of you saying the parks operations are too slow, you want to give the ride ops another job?

As much as I dislike the route they're going with Pandamonium, at least they're attempting to put an (albeit miniscule) amount of effort into it by adding minor details to it's new paintjob. Wait til they keep the exact same Asia-themed facades throughout the area but just paint them the same shade of blue, then there'll be a real issue.

Now that it's on a blue pole, I totally get the Ocean connection. You know, because it's blue.

Repainting has begun

Now listed as reopening 2025

You've done it here since May 13, 2021 so thought I'd have a go.

Just to clarify, it was the grouper selling the tickets. They sold them as they went to load the next group. Steel taipan has the advantage of a 3 deep queue line after grouping so that made life easier.

During the peak season Dreamworld actually had a eftpos terminal so you could buy Tail Whip at the ride line up (in the tail whip line). It actually seemed to work well, so it is possible.

Just a webpage that accepts Apple Pay/Google pay would work too.

Can you not just use the QR to get the app? This one is actually legit simple. QR to a website that identifies if its Safari or a real web browser, and then based off that assume if its Apple or Android then redirect to the appstore, or Coles to buy alfoil. I'm happy with either.

They're still contemptuous. They're still dancing around the fact that they closed it with not even a week's notice. They've got *checks* ride maintenance plans published until September - so don't piss on my head and tell me it's raining because "planned maintenance". It's clear something unexpected happened, and you can't blame that on "pandemic supply chain", so just be bloody transparent about it. This doesn't pass the sniff test, and the additional extension makes it smell even worse. How about they start with: "During routine maintenance we check all aspects of our ride and with Scooby Doo being nearly 20 years old, our most recent routine checks identified *widgets out of tolerance*. While we had planned to announce our exciting upgrades later this year, these widgets mean we will need more time to do so and we unfortunately need to close scooby sooner than planned to ensure the best experience for all our guests". Granted, this doesn't acknowledge the overnight extension to 2025, but with the above posted 2 weeks ago, they're on the front foot about transparency right from the get go, so when the date blows out overnight, we're already on board with "she's getting older, and needs more work than originally thought". Also - while i realise supply chain issues are still a thing - COVID was a 2022 problem and most people are getting on with the job. There is going to come a time (and I feel its very soon if not already) where any organisation should be factoring any lags or delays into their initial plans (they've had 3 years notice so far) and so when your ride upgrades are announced a week ago, you don't go blaming a 3 year old pandemic for extending the opening date an entire year.

Credits are like NFTs. Made up and only the people who have them care about them. Count what makes you happy. Or don't and just enjoy life without putting a quantitative figure on everything.

Did they get kids to paint the car?

Didn't have any issues with ticketing last time I was up there sans-app. What's wrong with a simple web application if you were so committed? Similar functionality without the data-grab, and without having to reside on the user's phone. The reason it's the default is because it advantages the merchant, not the buyer.

Get a receptionist familiar with ChatGPT and they'll have blog posts for days.

Wiz Kid is simply the internal project name, used well before the project was formally announced.

Not to mention the many of us that despise every two-bit business insisting you install their app as yet another data grab. No thanks, get stuffed.

I've maintained that throwing Surf Rider in there would cap off a perfect attraction mix for a nuclear family. The kid's stuff is covered, the family group stuff is covered and with Leviathan and Vortex, they've got some great teen thrill rides to complement Storm and Jet Rescue. But is it enough to get a teenager enthused about going for a full day with their family? My gut says maybe juuuuust, but the second one of those rides goes down for maintenance it's not enough. with Surf Rider, that mix is basically up there with the likes of Dreamworld and Movie World. In any case, the stark reality is that demand is at an all-time high at Movie World, and any way to give people more to do and eat up pax without going through the same supply chain delays everything else is suffering is a major win, so I totally get the move.

I see it more likely to be simple “we opening OZ in 24, nothing planned for 25 and we won’t be making big investments then, so let’s hold back Scooby for 25 so we have effectively 2 years of new offerings/excitement

No because if I rode Crazy Coaster at the Melbourne Show, and then the Ekka, its still the one ride. Nah, RCDB list relocations at the bottom of the page. On coastercount if you have already ridden a coaster in one location, it is blacked out in subsequent locations to avoid counting twice. General consensus seems to be that relocations don't count twice. ********************** So re the crowd control and clutter arguments. -Ive never felt that MW was that dense in terms of ride anyhow. There's definitely the ability to fit more in. At some parks a themed zone might have 3 or 4 rides, but at MW there are several zones anchored by a single ride. So if it works elsewhere to have 3 rides close together, why would it be problem here? For example areas like Ocean parade back in the day had a denser collection of rides. -The area used to have the entrance Arkham, its quieter than what it used to be. The Lethal courtyard was always a ghost town, so its nice that Wizard of Oz will make better use of that. -In terms of Aesthetics, right now the site is gravel and the back of the JL building, with a few AC units and so forth. Putting a ride in the middle would actually help hide those AC units etc, and would be a good excuse to do some landscaping and walkways around the ride to replace the gravel. -Surfrider is a pretty simple design. A couple of extra spikes sticking up wont look to cluttered imo.

World’s most iconIc Wiz Kids Precinct, rising soon at Movie World

Surely Turnstiles would improve safety though?

This would actually be the one time where the word 'precinct' would be preferred. I'd still not like it, but I'd like Wiz Kids less I reckon

I think the Wizard of Oz precinct is fine, albeit boring, for the final name. If they land on something better, great, but "Wiz Kids" is all kinds of awful. The GP aren't going to care either way, because it will always be the "Wizard of Oz land" in colloquial speak, same as the "Joker coaster" for DC Rivals.

I don't get everyone's big deal with it being considered a coaster. It's literally a multi-launch shuttle coaster with spinning seats. It's just as much of a coaster as an Intamin Impulse or a Vekoma Big Air. Anyway, without digging that stupid pointless semantic argument up again, I really disagree with your argument about aesthetics. SE's most significant aesthetic impact from the outside is the top hat from Main Street. This isn't going to disrupt that at all. The only thing I can possibly think you must mean is that the view of the train going around the helix will be disrupted from the path outside the entrance, but really, you're only going to get closer vantage points when the queue and ride area for SR opens, as well as added interaction beyond a flat patch of white gravel. I can't see how it would ruin the aesthetics from an on-ride perspective either. It's not like SE had a closed-off precinct and seeing other rides will ruin the immersion of the story. You've always had a clear view of Main Street, Batwing and big white sheds during the ride. If anything, this will only make the helix more interesting with potential interactions with ride structure and buildings. I doubt anything will get close enough to be considered a head-chopper, but surely you can't be arguing that the white gravel patch is better?

IDK what anyone else thinks, but I have wanted MW to put a ride in the middle of the helix literally since Superman was first built. I was even mildly bummed out that Batwing wasn't built in the helix back in the day.

Yeah because being bordered on 2 sides by white sheds is so aesthetic. The exposed white gravel adds so much to the aesthetic feel of the park. That's a really good idea! I think a shuttle coaster themed to the storm would be a good idea; kind of like being blown around by the storm. I think you could improve the idea by making it a family coaster. Maybe even dueling family boomerangs for a bit of extra capacity, particularly as the IP skews young. Yeah look it makes zero sense adding a ride with a small footprint into a small area that they've had their eye on to add a ride to for a very long time. They should do what you said and put this filler attraction out behind a building in the middle of nowhere, since as we learned from Doomsday, spread out filler is such a good idea. Boo! Hiss!

Removing the smoking area entirely would be a welcome improvement.

Seems odd that they wouldn't wait 'til their new family coasters were open to close their most popular family coaster for an entire year but whatever...