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I think that's a short-sighted and narrow-minded view. The ride has always been lambasted as unsuitable. Ride experience, ridiculous dispatch times and uncomfortable and restrictive harnesses, themeing and location, none of it worked and it was a poor decision from management whom we now know should never have operated a theme park. Current leadership have shown that they are willing to go the extra mile to deliver an immersive and cohesive experience, albeit within budgetary constraints. MDMC stuck out like a sore thumb against the backdrop of their flagship Rivertown, and management made it very clear that while they couldn't fix it during the construction of Rivertown, they would move to change that as soon as they were able. The retheme will fix the issues of theme and location, the new trains will fix the harnessing issues, while simultaneously improving the ride experience - which - based on what the park has said - will also be enhanced by additional themeing elements too. While we don't yet have information on whether this will speed up operations, I feel confident that anything has to be better than those trains, so thats a plus also. Everything they've announced goes directly to fixing the inherent issues with the ride since day 1 while focussing on improving the park as a whole, bit by bit. There's very little in terms of direction and capex at Dreamworld in recent times that I could complain about. I was never really a fan of MDMC - but i'm keen to see what they can do with it - rather than shit on it before it's even started.

Funfields have been teasing this on their socials for a few months, but they have officially announced that their Kraken Racer is being upgraded to become Kraken Unleashed, with the slide becoming 75m longer. Making it the longest slide racer in the country. Based on the images, it appears that the only part being kept is the final hill and splashdown, with the rest of the slide being brand new and aligning with the elements most modern racers get. The slide will be 235m long, 22m tall and is opening this Summer.

If I'm being honest, I'd still rather DW lower budget and "cringer" style of marketing over VRTP's more sterile and corporate style of marketing because I believe it better appeals to the general audience being marketed to when compared to VR's marketing that's very safe and overproduced and has obviously gone through too many branches of PR and management.

The key to not being disappointed with VRTP at the moment is not having any expectations

I can’t believe how insensitive people can be posting it online.

To be fair, we really have no Idea what the actual finished product will be. Perhaps Dreamworld will improve the launch so the ride doesn’t loose momentum so quickly, perhaps it will be story-driven with lots of big props and additional theming elements built around the track (like rock work and major set pieces) to add excitement and make it feel faster? I highly doubt the park’s current management would ever settle for a mediocre ride experience and I have faith they can make this work. It’s also worth remembering that Motocoaster was always very popular with the GP. So while enthusiasts may not like it, there’s definitely still an audience for it and completely scrapping it wouldn’t help the “Dreamworld have closed all their classic rides” narrative that the park is trying to get away from.

The ride is just not very good though. Comfort is just the worst of the issues. Replace the shit motorbike trains with quad bikes and its a boring coaster that loses all its speed after the first turn and just meanders around. Really there isn't much to work with. I don't have any idea what the layout changes are going to be and I'm sure whatever theming they do will be at a very good standard like the rest of rivertown. But I feel it'll have to take a lot to make the ride decent let alone better than its cousin at sea world (something that was designed well from the outset) Totally agree, motocoaster stuck out like a sore thumb in rivertown and that needed to be addressed (I think we can all agree on that), but i reckon something ground-up would have barely cost more than a reskin of a ride that doesn't have a lot going for it

Who doesn't love a waterpark making moves?

I wish DW did this to it. MC2 is unlikely to be much better than MC1, as the track layout will still be terrible.

Calling this ride not very good is an understatement. It’s awful. You get a launch, a brief moment of excitement, and then it dies. I’ve got no doubt DW will theme the absolute shit out of it and do a fantastic job. But you can put all the theming, theming effects and fancy scenery in the world around it, and it won’t change the fact that the ride layout sucks. $20m to put lipstick on a pig. It might end up being a very pretty pig, but it’s still a pig. 🐷

I'm sure some people will like it, but for me, spending $20m on a mediocre ride when a ride 100 times better already exists in the same area is a waste of money.

I actually think the ride will be a good improvement, MDMC was so much more fun in the side cars then the actual bikes.

i've no idea what part it played in this tragedy - but i'm always comforted by Australian standards requiring a seatbelt. Sure it takes longer to load and dispatch, but that little extra safeguard gives a lot of peace of mind.

A person falling out of a roller coaster in this day and age is unthinkable There are lots of variables at play (photo evidence of the man being a bigger fella, the train returning to the station with its lap bar fully open, Six Flags maintenance budgets getting cut, and by all accounts safety culture amongst that park's staff being not great) so really hope the investigators can get to the bottom of it as soon as possible Thoughts go to the victim, their family, workers, bystanders and those on the ride at the time

Yeah, Dreamworld's marketing staff have produced some really cringe promo videos in the past, but being in house, and not needing multiple layers of approval for every step does pay off at a grass roots level for those very reasons.

The reality is dw is handling their pr much much better and more dynamically than their competitor Instead of long winded plans focus group and lengthly approval processes they seem to see something negative happening down the road and jump on facebook and use it to their advantage They are 100% winning at PR

it's not just the hours either. I've seen two separate unrelated instances of their absolute contempt for the guest experience in recent months: An annual pass, sold with a '12 month' photo pass. T&Cs said if the annual pass wasn't activated within 3 months it would start at the end of the 3 month period. The photo pass which was included with the annual pass stated it had to be activated within 3 months or it was void. An error on the passholder's part, but it's not an unreasonable assumption that inclusions sold with an annual pass would have similar validity rules. Guest services in park and over the phone had zero interest or empathy for the situation and were not empowered by the organisation to do anything to try to salvage the guest experience when they visited for the first time after the 3 month cut off. Both In-park guest services and the call centre provided an email address (but not the SAME email address) and one email address responded pretty much 'rules are rules' and closed the ticket. The other, after over a month, eventually came to the party and provided the guest with a photo pass that would last the remainder of the annual pass validity. A family holidaying on the GC purchased 3-day tickets to Village (which requires the 3 days to be consecutive visits) and after visiting on day 1, two of the kids tested positive for Influenza-A. The mum tried reaching out to guest services to see if there was anything they could do with the tickets so that they could use them once the kids were feeling better \ not contagious and just got a flat out no. Again this came across as guest services were just not given any flexibility to try to plus the guest experience, and 'rules are rules' was the general vibe. This has only just happened so i'm not sure of the outcome of any email escalation the family may have done, but I did see this morning that Dreamworld has actually commented on the mum's social media post offering them two-day tickets to Dreamworld when the kids are feeling better. Like i'm all for the park reducing hours if it isn't profitable to operate - especially in the off season. Dreamworld as been doing this for a while and almost nobody has had a problem with it. But you have to care about the guest experience, and that's the main difference here. At this stage they're just making it so easy for Dreamworld to ride in like the white knight and save the day. Cutting back on events, removing entertainment, reducing hours and reducing the ability for guest services to... provide services to guests... - it's clear VR are slashing everything they can to save a buck. The tables have absolutely turned on the GC, and Dreamworld is fast becoming the new top dog.

Only compliment I’ll give is that the new projection mapping for the arch on event nights doesn’t look too bad.