Richard

The Parkz Update: Dreamworld. September 2011 Click here to continue reading...

The Parkz Update: Dreamworld, August 2011 Click here to continue reading...

Figured we were due for a name change of this thread... As far as the track goes, as others have said it's definitely S&S. As for 2 vs. 4-across seating. I'd say this would be a likely explanation for the additional diagonal bracing that the Movie World track features but doesn't appear on any of the previous El Loco installations.

The Parkz Update: Movie World, September 7 2011 Click here to continue reading...

Dreamworld Reveals its new Bone Chilling Thrill Ride (Press Release)

Damn... I was hoping it would be turbine themed. Dreamworld needs more turbine themed rides.

The Parkz Update: Dreamworld, July 15 2011 Click here to continue reading...

Definitely... though I'd go one step further and allow people to reuse their existing photo and simply mail out the passes. The cost savings in labour alone should make this a no-brainer... with say a modest 50,000 renewals at 3-5 minutes processing time of each, imagine the costs in labour.

I didn't get a chance until now to say anything about this. In short server load issues caused the outages. We're still not 100% sure if it was normal traffic or some kind of attack on the server. Obviously we're for the most part back on track but there's still work to be done to improve things more and we are investigating options for the future. We can't guarantee perfect results... especially as we ramp up construction coverage which typically increases traffic by 30-50%.

One limitation of our database structure is that a ride type must be specified... and roller coaster is the default. I wouldn't necessarily read too much into that description.

The Parkz Update: Sea World, May 2011 Click here to continue reading...

The Gold Coast parks have all but given up on the international tourism market. Over the years the parks have cited just about anything and everything causing a downturn in international numbers (from 9/11 to SARS to bird flu to Australia's controversial sushi tax) but in actual fact I think we're just seeing parks being dropped from itineraries as Asian parks continue to outdo ours in size and quality. I don't think a standalone waterpark in Sydney would do what the Gold Coast parks collectively can't, and attract international visitors on significant numbers.

As you'll notice, Parkz has been relaunched with a completely redesigned site. It's essentially the same site but streamlined. Some features are gone, some have changed and some have been added (and more will be added). There's been some big changes behind the scenes, namely these new forums (which will eventually allow for Facebook/Twitter integration), and also some database changes. Importantly, most of the bugs have finally been ironed out of the ride stats system so it'll display better, and be easier to modify. There's still a lot to do; I wanted to get the site running in this form so that we could implement some better spam/membership control that wasn't available to us in the previous forum software. In the meantime, it'd be great if people could post any bugs they stumble upon. Screenshots help!

How does the weighing system work? I'd like to think that they'd be smart enough to make it simply display a green light if you're within the requirements, red if you're not, rather than displaying your weight for the world to see.

Parkz has no policy of what members can or can't post. Except in rare circumstances we won't edit/delete "leaked" information -- if someone wants to post it that's their prerogative. I'm personally not that concerned with getting on the parks' "good side" because it simply doesn't work. We've tried a lot of different approaches to this, but at the end of the day if we want to get news out first -- such as our accurate reports of TOT2 back in February, or AquaLoop back in December -- and actually be a source for original, interesting content rather than rehashed press releases, then we need to operate outside of the confines of the parks' own media strategies that are based around TV/print/radio spots around the time of new attractions. Members can post what they like, leak what they want. If other members choose to react to this negatively then that's their choice, but as it stands Parkz has no official policy on the matter.

I'd have thought trimming some weight from the chassis would give them the opportunity to add a row or two of seats to give the ride a much-needed capacity boost. Bizarre to see that they've gone in the exact opposite direction.

I thought the days of calling any two-bit tourist attraction a "theme park" were well behind us? My guess is that we'd be looking at a $20-30 ticket price, and I wouldn't be convinced that people would want to go all the way to Coomera from their accommodation for something like that when there's half a dozen or more similarly priced tourist attractions in Surfers Paradise. It's unlikely that people would tack it on after a day at Dreamworld so I'm really not seeing the merits of this. Come back with three times the budget and a product that outdoes the current parks in some aspect/s and we might be talking.

I'd imagine painting it would be exactly the same in terms of procedure and lifespan as with just about any steel ride (i.e. hundreds of roller coasters) that undergoes a new paint jobs every few years.

I'd be willing to bet that given it didn't do anything for the entire show I saw standing across the road from it that whatever it is on top of the building, it's not activated for the show. Seems a bit high up for fog or bubbles though; I mean the bubbles released from the awnings have no troubles drifting up towards the roof, and fog at that height would be pointless.

I don't think attendance/spending patterns will have a lot to do with it other than recognising that they lost out bigtime to WVTP over the past year or so. To me it's about remaining competitive, and also recognising that in milking tourists for everything they can, they've been increasingly pricing themselves out of the local market. The end date of July 17 does seem to be a logical tie-in with any promotional activities they have planned for TOT. The idea of ending the passes on December 24 is great, and not a repeat of the downright stupid decision WVTP made last year to repeal the blockout dates during the peak period. As themeparkgc suggested, the significance of the image was simply the "staying put" pun.

It would appear to me that John Lennon likes to dress up and moonlight as a Movie World executive in his spare time.

I found a bunch of old Haunted Mansion pics to quickly solve that problem... Awesome work though Gazza... don't think my two photos quite equal the 100 or so you've put up recently!

Don't they just stick them in the pools in the water park until their new or refurbished home is ready? Oh wait...

Making money has nothing to do with unhelpful or rude staff, or a vague chain of command that yields misinformation to the customer. That's a pure and simple management problem and whether or not they're maximising profits should be irrelevant to fixing that.

That may just be the single biggest sign to date that we're dealing with a company with absolutely no strategic vision for Dreamworld.