Guest 239

I noticed this on second read as well. It mentions that Sea World avoided the timber problem, then says it's one of the primary reasons why it got delayed. A lot of the excuses seem very convenient, especially as you mentioned the ride was meant to be opened pre-pandemic. It's easy to point the finger at external influences but I think the real reason is exactly what you said - a calculated 'non-compete' move. It allows them to halt construction around the holiday season, recoup some dosh from the parks over this same period, and then start fresh come the new year. I don't think people would blame the company for doing this. Ever since Wonderland swung their arms around like a helicopter trying to point the blame at anybody but themselves, the whole situation just comes off as disingenuous. I feel like Richard probably didn't write this article alone and had some insider information, but I wouldn't exactly trust the source to be providing the right information, just the best information that reflects positively on the business.

I did actually love this brief diversion in the article because it was so out of nowhere. "So look, coaster ain't on it's way... BUT MEERKATS ARE" My wallet leapt out of my pants and straight into a One Pass.

Interesting article and its great to get insight but it seems to be preaching to the choir. It points out problems with supplies and professionals being core reasons as to why the rides wont be opening this summer, but for many people that wont matter. The general public will see the large, mostly constructed roller coaster at Sea World and wonder why they heard about that project first yet Dreamworld has managed to finished theirs before it. It's an unfortunately bad look for the theme park and beyond educating the masses, there is very little they can do. For most people they will lose in the court of public opinions. Another shortcoming for a theme park that desperately needs attention and sadly people aren't going to settle for 'We're sorry for your less than stellar day, but be sure to come back in a few months when it's better!' I still think the Easter opening is incredibly risky. Yes, things are dicey now - But we are on track to have 90%+ of the population vaccinated by the end of 2021. Easter will be most families opportunity to travel after the Dec/Jan school holidays and if international travel is open then I can imagine that a lot of families will be using that opportunity to visit overseas relatives, catch up with friends or visit their favourite international destinations and considering that the government has already insinuated that they will let Australian's out before letting tourists in then I imagine that there are going to be some quiet theme parks in Australia.

Have you ever been to a county fair? Tacky as showbag stalls are basically the bread and butter for those shows. A good execution of a bad theme (in this case country fair) does not make it good, but it certainly fits what they're aimed for even though that still doesn't make it good. At no point in the link that you provided did they promise a custom built show bag stall that fits your expectations. They promised showbags, we got showbags. You're exactly right, neither have any place in a theme park but here we are. However I'm interested to know your mental gymnastics as to how a Boost Juice food truck in the middle of Movie World's turn-of-the-century US Main Street is any better than Dreamworld's beyond the fact that almost every single one of your posts seems to be a Dreamworld bash.

There are some interesting things happening in our parks at the moment. I don't hate the showbag truck at Dreamworld because it's on brand for their county fair event, but slapping a boost truck on Main Street in Movie World for no reason is incredibly poor show.

I think one of the big problems that has been identified on here before is that VRTP are very reactive. Whilst it seems like there is some planning, generally it seems that most major decisions are made on the fly without any real master plan for the future. Beyond that, their other problem is that they've got so many parks to manage and only so much money to go around so you end up with some parks receiving a lot of attention and then they stagnate for a long time. Movie World hasn't received any new additions since 2017 when Rivals was opened and whilst Sea World is getting some much needed additions, we really have no idea what comes next for the theme parks. There are rumours regarding a replacement for Arkham Asylum but even if they started that today I doubt it'd open before Late 2022/ Early 2023 leaving almost five years between Movie World getting new attractions. You can partially attribute this slump to COVID, but if they had a master plan it would be much easier to push through or adjust the plan instead of alternative which seems to be to wait for greener pastures.

Oof to a lot of those. It seems that some of the general public can't get past what happened several years and whilst I think it's perfectly reasonable to have some healthy scepticism towards the park, I don't think it's fair to still hold it over them after they've done so much to improve. I guess first impressions are the most lasting.

Agreed. I never come off a ride and go "Wow! That 3.8 Gs was absolutely incredible! It pales in comparison to the 3.4 Gs I experienced the other day, but I sure do wish they hit 4.0 Gs like they promised!"

It's a little sad with everybody saying it's boring, especially on RU OK day.

I am yet to figure out what the Australian parks want in terms of media relations. You can be the best of the best in terms of content, size or growth but I feel at the end of the day it doesn't really matter; It's mostly about who you know. With everything happening I'd love to get involved to really put Aussie parks in the international spotlight but you've got a better chance of finding the pope in the woods than securing a time to sit down and talk to some of our theme parks. Hopefully things change for the better moving forward! Honestly I don't think that this was meant for general consumption. It seems like something that they slapped a GoPro on to record their first ever cycle and it's more for historic purposes. Considering that they've been making an effort with their Steel Taipan series on YouTube I highly doubt that this is their one and only POV. I think as enthusiasts we can sometimes jump the gun in wanting things like this because ever since the first launch everybody was like "NEED POV NOW PL0X", so we end up getting them from third-parties with little polish because they aren't necessarily meant for us. If Dreamworld wanted this to be pushed I'm sure they'd send it out to every man and their dog, but they haven't mentioned it at all and so far we've gotten it from everywhere but Dreamworld.

Depends on what the cost involved. Steel Taipan is on top of what used to be a developed part of the theme park, so I'd imagine that there was considerable cost in landscaping the area to be suitable for the attraction. Also factor the launch systems, minor themed elements and comparable amount of steel used for the track and it starts to make since why Steel Taipan is a little bit more expensive. Whilst some enthusiasts may look at this and think it's not great compared to DC Rivals which is perfectly reasonable, I actually think it has potential to out-perform that coaster with the general public. Being a family thrill makes means that it's potential audience is greater, launched coasters have a wow factor that really draws people in and considering Dreamworld's shortcomings in recent years it should hopefully put the theme park back in people's minds. Facebook comments are generally awful on the best of days. I think they're just fishing for attention.

no.

"Hello? The New Atlantis, open for business! Who are you to resist it, huh?"

At 2:10 you can see a machine set up that is doing mass temperature testing. I know people give China a lot of flack, but they definitely had a leg up on technology due to the SARs outbreak. When I lived in Hong Kong for a few months those machines were everywhere in 2015. They would record your temperature and if you were 'flagged' you wouldn't be able to enter certain areas like Disneyland, etc. They don't take chances when their population is so dense. COVID aside, park looks nice. China is getting some solid entries that I'm excited to visit in the future. With this, Shanghai Disneyland and other local parks it'll definitely be somewhere worth 'road tripping' in the future.

I really hope we start getting some solid dates for what 'this summer' actually is. As somebody travelling interstate I don't want to book at the last minute for a surprise launch of New Atlantis.

I'm getting really excited for Steel Taipan. I think it has the potential to really change the feel within Dreamworld. In previous trips to the Gold Coast I've usually gone to Movie world before Dreamworld and it becomes extremely obvious that the latter is lacking a stand-out attraction. MW has the leg up with Superman AND Rivals, but I think ST will help even the playing field. Whilst recently I wouldn't have said this in recent years, next year I reckon the park has the potential to be my recommendation for those looking to just get one annual pass. It'll have everything in a nice package.

A consequence from their race to the bottom. They wanted more guests for little so they just kept lowering their AP prices whilst adding generally okay additions. Eventually they reached a tipping point where people started to shift their perception on the parks and both were backed into a corner with cheap park tickets and cheap additions, and their only way was a really slow climb back out of the hole they dug for themselves.

Troubled history you say? In saying that, I've been to Melbourne basically every year since 2014 and have never once done this. I always felt it was in a silly location and whilst you can see it from the highways, it's impossible to orient yourself as to where it is from the city so you basically forgot about it once you got into the CBD. If it was closer to the MCEC it would have done a lot better in my opinion.

This is what confuses me. Why bother half-assing a hard concept when you can full-ass an easy concept? I've seen the idea floating around for a long time of a boardwalk themed area for Sea World. You could literally do these same three rides with a boardwalk theme and it would be easy to unify it under a single theme. I don't know how the business can kid itself that what they're doing is fully-immersive when just a flight away you've got these elsewhere in the industry: Etc.

I genuinely think they either don't care or hope that nobody is looking that closely. This trailer dropped super close to when Vortex was completed and shows two completely different versions of the attraction. The final shot shows the blue version we got, but the earlier version is the strange sandstone version we've seen a couple times. There is no consistency within any of the concepts and the only absolute is that we will get the rides. Everything else is just 🤷‍♂️ I agree with Gazza; why bother at this stage? If the general public doesn't care for theming then just show the attractions doing their thing and don't worry about showcasing themed elements. However I do think that there a lot of Australian theme park goers that do care for theming but don't really care for the Gold Coast parks so end up saving and going elsewhere. These marketing assets feel like they are trying to give off the vibe that their parks moving forward are going to be different to recapture that lost portion of the market, but I just don't think anybody is fooled at this stage. My parents aren't theme park enthusiasts, but they enjoy going every now and then. We used to go to the Gold Coast parks a lot but then after they took us to Disney they suddenly stopped taking us to the Gold Coast. I figured out why later on when I was planning a trip in 2014 to the GC and they asked "Why bother going to the Gold Coast? Just save up and go overseas instead. You're going to be disappointed otherwise." If the parks know they can't recapture these lost customers, why bother trying to pull the wool over their eyes with this sort of marketing?

Why do I feel like Paradise Country just exists to spite Dreamworld? 'You got baby tigers? We got baby tigers! You got a spring event? We got a spring event!' Jokes on them though because I've never been there!

This thread after like two posts: Anyway, welcome to Parkz! I've been during the school holidays and it's not the worst. The parks do a decent job is balancing the crowds by increasing their operations with more staff and trains on most rides. Honestly there have been times where the waits have been longer with less people because on attractions such as Superman they had like two people doing unload and dispatch. They'd walk between each block and no joke it took about 10 minutes to run each cycle. I do think your best bet are those final weeks during school holidays. I find that generally most people have concluded their travels and they're using their last little bit of holidays to make sure they're ready for the year so its your best chance in my opinion. In regards to your question about QLD and NSW, from what I can see they generally go back at the same time: https://www.nsw.gov.au/living-in-nsw/school-holidays https://education.qld.gov.au/about-us/calendar/term-dates Considering when you're going I think it's likely to make little difference. Also considering it'll be summer I reckon you're probably going to be fanging for a water park. My suggestion is try and bundle Dreamworld + White Water World together instead of doing Movie World + Wet'n'Wild. Movie World is generally harder to get done in one day and getting over to Wet'n'Wild is a pretty decent walk in the summer sun. White Water World and Dreamworld usually see lesser crowds so you can easily hop between the two. Feel free to ask any questions!

I can see the problems in both aspects. @Slick has outlined well why some things can't be divulged, but I've noticed that some people (not mentioning names) do like to dangle the carrot over others heads because it's a simple way to climb the ranks within enclosed, niche communities like this. However I don't think @TimmyG is necessarily in the wrong for asking for a follow up because it can cause a discussion to falter until it divulges into the community shaking the magic 8-ball to try and get the information they want.