Jamberoo Fan

FINALLY SOMEONE OUTSIDE OF 'PARKZ' CALLS THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA OUT...

From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:

The below article is very interesting & inspiring for all in the theme park community. Jamberoo is a 'quiet achiever' in the Australian theme park industry as the above comments show, particularly in the water park market. Whilst telling some interesting & sad stories about Jamberoo's history (some I didn't know about until the article's publication), the article clearly reveals why Jamberoo is a 'quiet achiever'. I won't give the whole story away but the article below should be essential reading for all theme park industry professionals particularly after the relatively recent Thunder River Rapids tragedy at Dreamworld. The article gives hope for the future of the Australian theme park industry and whilst I know Dreamworld has made significant & impressive announcements recently about their future, Dreamworld & Coast Entertainment Holdings management should use the below story as inspiration to motivate themselves even more to return as one of Australia's great & trusted theme parks (though I'm already very confident in Greg Yong's theme park managerial skills compared to the skills of pre-tragedy Dreamworld management under the recently renamed Macquarie/Ardent Leisure). Whilst this interesting article focuses on Jim Eddy, Jamberoo's owner, it is somewhat overshadowed by what I described earlier as... Whilst it's not the most ridiculous idea in the world as it has been done in many countries on a larger scale, it is bizarre for 2 reasons - as far as I am aware, no other theme park in the world has contemplated such a proposal & secondly, it is controversial. Apart from time & technical reasons, the latter reason (controversial) is another reason for the deliberate delay in publication of the full article into this topic since I mentioned it on Thursday. It was to make a clear gap in the forum discussion as moderators may have to justify the proposal having its own separate topic if it generates lots of discussion due to its controversial nature. Surprisingly though, the proposal hasn't made any more news since July 28, 2023, particularly since Kiama, Jamberoo's local government area, is a very environmentally conscious locality & because the whole Illawarra (mainly between Wombarra & Kiama) is currently in the middle of a controversial debate on whether to have a wind farm off the coast. Heck, I'm even surprised not a single person on Parkz found out about the "bizarre" proposal at the time of its July 2023 publication as well. Anyway, enjoy!... (The "most bizarre theme park proposal I've ever seen" is in bold text (if you can't be bothered reading the whole article. However, the article builds to it though through its theme of 'risk')) From The Illawarra Mercury:

Because I was busy and didn't have the time to post the article. As it is behind a paywall, it isn't as simple as copy and paste (and no, it does not involve hacking). At least, I mentioned about the 3 wave machines. I got time now so standby.

Yes, I just realised shortly before you posted. Completely forgot about that new artist impression, having seen it before so didn't pick up on it. I don't think it's a surfable wave though - there is not enough room for such a powerful wave. Having been away from Parkz for a while, the article that started this topic is actually a very interesting one. I'll post the article in full soon when the current burst of activity dies down as I'm sure it will generate more discussion but to confirm, the article says Platypus River will have 3 wave machines. The most interesting thing in the article hasn't even made a mention in this topic and it is the most bizarre theme park proposal I've ever seen (so bizarre that I remember it more than the mention of 2 more wave machines to Platypus River)

Don't forget the wave machine/chamber in Platypus River! It will be the park's 4th wave machine (after Rapid River's, Outback Bay's & the newly announced mini wave pool) & 2nd wave chamber (Rapid River's being the 1st). This has been the plan since Kangaroo Island was first unveiled back in 2006 and is still referenced on their website as a "wave chamber". You can see the future location of the wave machine/chamber in satellite images of the park (It acts in a similar way to Rapid River's wave chamber): For comparison, here is the 2012 master plan (You can see the wave machine/chamber hidden under a large block of rock theming):

From The Sydney Morning Herald (edited down to include new news only):

From The Illawarra Mercury:

Just to clarify, a DA was never submitted by Jamberoo for an alpine coaster. The alpine coaster's plans that I found just happened to be included in the original DA the park submitted for Velocity Falls & Koala Kove. It was randomly in a section about bushfires that I found it in. You probably also forgot the e-mail Jamberoo sent you confirming it was not in a DA. In the end, there seems to be a growing interest in Australia for alpine coasters. I think Australia will get one. It is not a matter of if but when and most importantly, who? (Odds are Big Banana first by the end of 2023)

The below article from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation includes an ABC News story of the opening of the Sea World Monorail System in August 1986. It is brilliant historical footage featuring clear imagery of Wild Waves Rollercoaster/Thrillseeker, Adventure Island, the construction of Lassiter's Lost Mine/Bermuda Triangle show building as well as general aerial imagery of Sea World: This photo also appeared on the ABC News Just In webpage (but not in the article above) but I have no clue if it is a new photo or not. If someone can confirm how old the photo is, that would be great:

From The Illawarra Mercury:

And the run of bad news for the Sydney Royal Easter Show 2022 continues:

Premiering tonight at 9:30pm AEDT on SBS & SBS On Demand is New Gold Mountain, partially filmed at Victorian goldrush-theme park Sovereign Hill (You know your theming is good when it doubles as a backlot):

From The Illawarra Mercury (An alternate headline was 'NSW government splashes out $600,000 on Jamberoo Action Park's new water slide') :

Here's the article for those who can't access it... Looks like Koala Kove is now set for September 2022 while Velocity Falls is set for the 10th-21st of October 2021! From The Illawarra Mercury: By the way, can a moderator change the topic name to reflect the new name of the attraction, Velocity Falls?

Just for the purposes of the poll: 'Railroads, Main Street Vehicles, Red Car Trolley & Disney Transport' also includes Disneysea Electric Railway,Venetian Gondolas, Disneysea Transit Steamer Line, Chairlift, Cross Country Creek & Castaway Creek. And, noted @DaptoFunlandGuy.

First The Imagineering Story, now Behind The Attraction... I'm surprised that there isn't an episode on Pirates Of The Caribbean!

'7News Spotlight - Ride Of Your Life' was watched by 571,000 viewers in the 5 major capital cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth & Adelaide) last night. That data is based on a population sample representative of 62% of Australia's population. Taking into account the 38% of regional viewers missing from that data, this should equate to 921,000 viewers of the program nationwide on Sunday night alone (Regional ratings are released on a weekly rather than daily basis so this is just a guess). In the 5 major capital cities, these were where most viewers were from: Brisbane - 114,000 (4.6% of Brisbane's population) Adelaide - 58,000 (4.3% of Adelaide's population) Melbourne - 201,000 (4.0% of Melbourne's population) Total 5 major capital cities - 571,000 (3.6% of combined population of the 5 major capital cities) Perth - 60,000 (2.9% of Perth's population) Sydney - 138,000 (2.8% of Sydney's population) Timeshifted ratings would be released over the next month which would give a better picture but at this stage, only a small percentage of the country would have seen the program so at this stage, the Australian theme park industry shouldn't be affected by the program.

There were more episodes on 9Now, which have since been removed but they were all filmed before the COVID-19 pandemic. The 3rd episode was focused on their Halloween celebrations while the 4th episode was about preparing for a new season. I watched all episodes on 9Now after watching the free-to-air broadcast and yes, they did edit down the double episode, which full length should have went 2 hours with ads (1 hour & 30 minutes without ads). But that wasn't the most surprising thing. What was more surprising was they edited out 2 segments about the park's Vikings' River Splash, a river rapids ride. The first segment was about a e-stop of the ride caused by a guest going into the ride's restricted area. The second segment was about the park replacing one of the ride's rafts' inflatable tyres. I wonder why they edited these 2 segments out for the free to air broadcast but not the 9Now stream? 🤔 The answer is featured in tonight's earlier aired program '7News Spotlight: Ride Of Your Life' on Channel 7 & 7Plus.

My review - Ride Of Your Life was promoted as a behind the scenes look into the theme park industry but turned out, unsurprisingly for theme park enthusiasts who know Channel 7's reputation towards theme park news, as Ride For Your Life. First 15 minutes were great with a brief summary of roller coaster & theme park history but then Action Park (the infamous US amusement park) got a mention & it was all downhill from there. Completely biased towards the negative aspects of the theme park industry. Based on the comments above, it seems Natalie Barr's statement "You sell fear" (with emphasis on each word) is probably the words the general public think summed up the narrative the show is portraying. Ironic - given Channel 7 sold advertising time for & during this show which they told a biased 'fear theme parks' narrative during.

Reminds me of this (Obviously not on this Wednesday at 8:30pm):

Clearly, the "Aussie coaster that's as old as the Titanic" refers to Luna Park Melbourne's Scenic Railway and "Australia's biggest ride disasters" refer to the 1979 Luna Park Sydney Ghost Train fire and the 2016 Dreamworld Thunder River Rapids Ride incident. Looks like a very interesting program which hopefully balances the positives & negatives of the theme park industry! '7News Spotlight - Ride Of Your Life' airs Sunday the 6th of June between 7pm & 8:30pm AEST on Channel 7.

7:30pm tonight on ABC TV.

From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: The Australian also reports:

Just found out that 9Now has all 4 episodes of the series. They all 45 minutes approximately in duration. Episodes 1 & 2 was the double episode screened last Tuesday night on television. I now expect again that Channel 9 will screen either two 2 hour episodes over 2 weeks or two 1-hour episodes plus the 2-hour 1st episode over 3 weeks. What week(s) these other episode(s) is/are to be screened during I don't know but I assume it will be before Lego Masters finish it's latest season. This is unless the 1st double episode on television rated poorly and Channel 9 decided to just let people watch it on 9Now if they wish instead.