Guest 239

Proportionally to local and regional competition, it does make sense for VRTP to price their parks and events this way. It's hard going overseas and seeing season passes to far greater parks for much lower prices, but a lot of those parks need to be priced that way to stand a chance in the market. I think people have good reason to be concerned about the value of the event and you've hit the nail on the head as to why. UTT progressively getting worse isn't a one-off thing, but is part of a wider phenomenon in the Aussie market where somebody creates a good thing and its absolutely bleed dry for as much money as humanly possible before the value just isn't there anymore and it gets thrown in the trash ready for the next thing.

Oh god, I forgot about the old log flume theming! I have a POV lying around somewhere of that ride back in 2014. Don't forget the random dinosaurs in the river rapids!

Makes me miss the old days of turbines at Dreamworld Great overview! I never knew nothing about this park but I absolutely LOVE parks that look like they're within forest similar to Kings Dominion and Busch Williamsburg. Thanks for sharing!

I love that view of Leviathan. Kind of makes me wish that Sea World had a gyro tower, but I'll settle for what we're getting.

I agree. Justice League is fine as an attraction but it just needs some love. If they wanted to drum up some hype, they could take the attraction down for a few months to upgrade all the tech and hit up Sally Corp to add the Joker animatronic from 'Battle of Metropolis'. Considering that Batman has lost his flagship attraction, it wouldn't be too bad of an idea to lean into Batman more for this ride.

This isn't 'Joe Blogs' the first-day intern making a whoopsie. It's somebody who has financial incentives attached to the success of the products that they're spruiking. Any executive, regardless of what industry they're in, lying about their saleable products is sketchy at the least.

Great report Gazza! Thanks for sharing and I hope you enjoyed your trip. It's interesting comparing this park to Legoland Florida. I had the opportunity to go there a few weeks ago and Billund definitely looks like the the flagship. That's not to say that Florida was bad, it's just nowhere near as expansive in scope. I'll see if I can gather together some photos and plop them in for comparison sake

The closest thing we'd ever get would something close to the proposed Disney Wharf for White Bay which was essentially a themed shopping center with hotels. But I agree, a Chapek era Disneyland Australia would be woeful. In saying that, I think Australia has capacity for something similar to Universal Singapore. We don't need anything huge, but if you could capture the same appeal of other overseas resorts without the hassle of international travel then it would do fairly well.

I really hope they go down this route. Unfortunately they can't beat their competition when it comes to thrill coasters because they've got almost a decade head start, but the family market is essentially free for the taking at the moment. I still believe that Sky Voyager is the best family attraction on the Gold Coast thanks to the fact that everybody from grandchild to grandparent can experience and enjoy the attraction, and more additions along these lines would really help to sell Dreamworld as its own offering instead of an alternative to the competition.

It will be very eye catching when it starts operating and is topped out with the trident. The park will feel so much more alive when everything is up, especially from the entrance. Both of these will add some well needed visual kinetics.

Here's an article that expands on the situation a little bit more: Link here.

Now, about that shed...

Good to see it’s all coming along! Can’t wait to ride it once it’s up.

That went up quick! I wont be surprised if we see Trident open before Leviathan considering that they can just section off that area of New Atlantis.

I think Dreamworld would make for a great Legoland conversion. They did it pretty well with Cypress Gardens in Florida. The problem would be that Legoland parks are heavily marketed to younger families, so Dreamworld's thrill rides might generate a problem in terms of imaging, but to solve this they could call this location 'Legoworld' to differentiate it from their other properties. It ties back to the parks history and plays into the fact that there are technically two parks with WWW next door. It'd be the fresh start that the park needs.

Is that short-term? I agree with @joz that their only real option is to ride the wave. It's fine, but I feel its taking advantage of a warped narrative (which, to be fair, is kind of Koala's thing.) Not a great comparison, but this gives me 'Johnny Depp VS Amber Heard' vibes where many people were happy to see Depp lose career opportunities and support at the start of the accusations of their abuse because obviously he has to be in the wrong because he's a man and woman can't be abusers. Yet once more information came out regarding their situation we discovered that it was far more nuanced and complex than first believed, and perhaps the immediate reactions towards Depp weren't justified. Similar seems to be happening here in which Dreamworld obviously has to be in the wrong because of their history, yet the more information that comes out shows that this situation is more nuanced and complex than first believed. I have no horses in this race so the overall outcome ultimately doesn't affect me. Thankfully this controversy has been a net-positive for Koala conservation and awareness so I there's that!

This has quickly become an 'everything is awful' situation for me. It's gone from nothing to something and Dreamworld's silence hasn't helped in the slightest, but Koala using this as an opportunity to market themselves just leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. I have no idea what Dreamworld could do in the short-term to curtail this controversy. At least the media gets their clicks and Koala gets their promotion. Good on 'em.

I feel like directly under the facade we will get a shop and a majority of the Arkham building will be used for the queues. You can see small queues weaving through the landscaping and they appear to be coming from around where the building is.

Bugger. I was hoping to get down this weekend and get some photographs of Big Dipper. Hopefully it comes back up soon. 🤞

This concept always confused me considering how different the actual scope of the project was, but I'm starting to believe that this was some kind of 'blue sky' concept that somebody whipped up internally and somehow it just ended up being released publicly.

I had a chance to ride the RMC Raptor 'Jersey Devil' at Six Flags Great Adventure last month and it was nice to be able to compare Big Dipper to this model. I think that Big Dipper is a lot of fun, and it's what Luna Park needed to get back on the map, but TL;DR the RMC Raptor is a much better overall package. Jersey Devil's chain lift hill and layout makes it feel more like a full coaster experience compared to Big Dipper which has a tendency to feel more like a coaster tease. I love the launch on Big Dipper, but by the time you realise what's going on the ride is already over. This is a problem I have with a lot of accelerated coasters where they have a tendency to feel more like a glorified flat ride than an actual roller coaster (I'm looking at you, Kingda Ka). The most underrated element is the Raptor's constantly moving load which allows it to absolutely eat guests, and increases the throughput dramatically compared to Big Dipper's traditional load platform. I'd imagine this would be a major selling point for smaller operators who want to make the most of their coaster. On the Raptor's you straddle the rail compared to Big Dipper where you sit on top. This straddling forces your legs apart just far enough to be uncomfortable. I spent a good amount of the lift hill squirming to make it feel 'right' and I found it harder to brace for the more aggressive elements in the layout. Though with that said, Jersey Devil is a much smoother overall experience. You tend to glide through the elements more naturally compared to Big Dipper which whips you around to an almost uncomfortable level. I haven't ridden Dipper since earlier in the year, but even close to opening it had a really bad rattle that seemed to be random based on the overall weight of the train. I by no means think Big Dipper is a bad coaster, but the Raptor's just seem to get a lot more right in my eyes.

I like the vertical garden. It looks nice. @Richarddo you know if there will be a sign for the attraction above the entrance within the garden? I'd be worried that if there isn't anything to suggest it's the entrance that people would go down the exit to the left.

This relies heavily off Dreamworld being the ones who asked for the money to be changed to a different project, but it's not clear that happened. This is the timeline as per the guardian article: The Queensland government provided $2.7m to build the Future Lab wildlife research centre at Dreamworld, on the Gold Coast, in 2019. “In early 2020, Dreamworld requested that the project be placed on hold while it focused its future investment activities on new rides and attractions,” Hinchliffe told the estimates hearing. In a bid to kickstart the tourist industry, the government launched the $25m Growing Tourism Infrastructure Fund to accelerate its recovery from Covid-19. “Under that fund, we saw Dreamworld seeking assistance for the support and construction of a new multi-launch rollercoaster ride,” Hinchliffe said. The park was given the green light to “repurpose” the funding. From what I can gather here, Dreamworld put the project on hold and therefore so were the funds. They then requested funds from the 'Growing Tourism Infrastructure Fund' and the government instead decided to repurpose their existing fund to become part of the GTIF. This is very different from them saying "Can we take our Koala money and build a roller coaster, please?"

It's splitting hairs, but it was a research facility, not research. Dreamworld would have still been required to fit the bill when it came to employment, research, and conservation - I believe they already do this via the DWF.

But they did. This was after they were bought out by a private investment firm.