joz

On the plus side I think should be pretty easy to do a Scooby Doo recreation.

This another one that goes onto the list of things I'd do if I wasn't so bloody busy all the time. I haven't played a cricket game for probably about 20 years, I'd be keen to see if they'd got good in the meantime.

I always thought it's was because it goes through some caves, or hollow rocks they're also known in 'upwards seating pit' community.

Yeah beat me to it by a few mins there man. We're already staring down the barrel of having a lot of these threads, lets not have them clogging up the whole board. Once the other one has been inactive for a day or two try again

Road Runner is about as flawless as a ride can get. Low height requirement, massive capacity (900+ if you're on your game) and quite thrilling even for older kids. Escape from Madagascar isn't bad by any stretch, it just doesn't do things quite as well as Road Runner does them. It's not really a close call, Road Runner is the better ride. Escape from Madagascar crushes Boating School and any other kiddie coaster you care to mention in Australia, but when it's up against one of the best executed coasters around it's always going to be a struggle.

It's all good man, I've yet to meet an interesting person who didn't get cranky sometimes! Anyway what were we supposed to be talking about? Lol

I agree with that, but you downvoted my post. I didn't down vote yours. You can't say 'people down vote stuff they disagree with rather than the quality and that's wrong!' and straight away downvote something you disagree with. I got no beef with you man, I often agree with stuff you say. This isn't one of those times to be sure but I don't dislike you for it. I've put the case forward why it's done a certain way. You make fine points in response, some I agree with, some I don't but it's a balancing act. No matter where the line is it'll always be an issue. Again, no disrespect, we just disagree. I promise when you open your forums I won't complain about to little control over edits

The forum has a feature which prevents people from editing and deleting posts, which stops people deleting or changing posts after other people have responded to it. It used to happen a lot where someone would get into a debate, and then delete all their comments rendering large parts of a thread unreadable. It also has the affect of making people think twice before they post. People who buy merch are allowed the feature because we figure if you're serious enough about this hobby to buy merch, you probably aren't here to cause trouble. I totally get that it's annoying feature not to have, but we've not hid it behind a paywall to be dicks - there is a method to it. Also double posting really isn't that big a deal if it's not done ALL the time and there's a decent time gap between the posts. Have a fantastic Parkz day! ??

Yeah I'm glad someone finally said it. After going to a couple of events one last week one this week I was starting to think I was going to a different event than other people. Sea World is a park full of massive potential and possibilities. Carnival manages to use none of it. Heres what they should do for Carnival next year; Take it back to Movie World during off peak periods, as it has no business being at Sea World in the peak season. What would work well at Sea World though would be to take the entire budget of Carnival, open the park till 8, and have a decent sized show on the main lake at closing time, and include it with admission, and a couple of bands around the place.

What were the queues like for regular guests?

I'm a big advocate for MDMC is awful, changing the whole train to sidecar style seats but themed to old low rider bikes would help the ride experience, improve the theme and massively improve capacity, as the capacity of MDMC is pretty piss poor. Leave the track as is, change the trains, would probably only cost a couple million and then relaunch it as an improved ride. That's been my opinion for a while and I've posted that before. I don't think now is the time for it though. In the current climate Dreamworld would be unlikely to get a return on it, and I think there are simply bigger fish to fry at the park right now.

Village Way sounds like one of those horrible HR induction videos you'd watch when you start working at a place.

No Sea World should not take inspiration from this. Let me preface what I'm about to say with the following; there is nothing cruel about a boat ride through an animal exhibat. The problem is perception, Zoo's (and particularly marine parks) have a real image problem with the uninformed masses. The way you change that perception is to have the animals in as realistic a setting as possible, and have them tell their own stories, and you want them to be displayed in a way which conveys the respect for the animals that all zoos in this country have. When you add a ride you make them a sideshow in the guests eyes. Rather than it being a chance to watch them and get an understanding of them, they are reduced to props on a ride. Again there is nothing cruel about this, as the exhibat looks good from the video and the only thing that has changed is the guests perception, but I think you mess with that perception at your peril. Besides any of this, the best way for an animal exhibit to be seen is over a period of time, not moving through it quickly.

I've been meaning to reply for a couple days but, you know, life * 1 I'd envision a gate where the current entrance to the amphitheater is, and one into Dreamworld itself behind the train shed. * 2 I think bowling and theme parks are different enough that they should compliment rather than compete. One is a sports bar with arcade games and family activities aimed squarely at locals and the other is a national destination theme park. I guess the comparison would be to something like Top Golf, no reason it can't work with the park. Also since the costs for the land are minimal - utilities are already run, acquisition is basically zero, so it's a cheaper bet than a new site in Sydney. * 3 That's a good point about the Westfield development, integration would obviously be ideal, but I don't think it'd make or break it. Having said that you also don't want to duplicate what they're doing and that's something that would need to be taken into account. Again i think it'd be a 2 year lead in, and a lot to think about, but I think it's well worth investigating

I'd be more inclined to think that the boats are the weak link in the chain as it were. Most of the ride has been updated/replaced in the past 40 years, the boats haven't. There's only so many times you can patch them up before it's a bad idea to do any more, as it is the boats are way heavier than they used to be, which actually is the biggest cause of downtime for the ride; heavy boats not making it over the top break. It also means the capacity of the boats has effectively been reduced from 4 adults to 2 or 3 adults as well as a kid or 2.

Thing is what a the return on a big coaster this year? I would argue that the last thing Dreamworld needs right now is a Coaster. Movie World is adding an even bigger coaster, and Dreamworld adding a big 'scary' ride may still be an unpalatable option. I'd argue that a family ride (to replace the one they've lost, and to have something new to market) would be the way to go with the park, but if you're serious about the future, you bring your biggest brand to Australia. I doubt it'd be possible to have it up and running by the end of this year, but I think it's what they should be looking into.

I've been thinking about this for a few weeks now, about what Ardent should do with the Dreamworld, and how they go about bringing it back. Whatever they do at Dreamworld this year you can't imagine attendance returning to pre last year levels. So if you're Ardent, and you're wanting to show confidence in the Gold Coast property, and invest to bring people back, while creating a proven new revenue stream, what what do you do? As well as a modest family ride, Dreamworld should replace Blue Lagoon (and the amphitheater) with a Main Event complex. Thoughts?

Pity it isn't a flume ride. Those things are really popular.

It depends on how you do theme park visits. For me, I could easily fill up an entire day even with lower attendance, with less rides and extended hours, particularly if you include WWW. My advice would be to do exactly the thing you're thinking of doing; spend a few hours at WWW during the first half of the day. It's a really good little water park, easily fill a few hours there. The other thing I'd say is to take it really easy, when was the last time you went into the cinema? Have you ever sat up the back of the new grandstand at Tiger Island with a tasty beverage? What about watching the sheep shearing show? Dreamworld is a big park and there's lots to do besides rides, so take this as a good chance to do all that other stuff you normally miss. The rest of my advice would be sit down to dinner in the restaurant, do a couple rides at night (always fun!) and just enjoy yourself waiting for Fire Machine (which is worth waiting for). Even with the rides open the way to do a long day at a theme park isn't to madly try and do everything, but take a slower pace and enjoy the whole park. That's especially true now, so go in expecting a nice day out and you'll get one. If you go in expecting non-stop rides you'll probably disappointed.

All my ideas are pretty blue sky, because let's face it after MW's new coaster it'll be a long time before any big new areas get built anywhere at Village. Everything I've got is pretty vague too so don't demand details. At Movie World I'd love to see an area themed to Animal Logic, that's the Australian studio that made Happy Feet, Legend of the Gaurdians, and the Lego Movies. Think 'Pixar Place' at DHS and you've got the general idea. Placement wise I'd like to take a page out of Universal's book and change the layout of the studios to give the park more room. This would involve moving the admin/reception for the studios towards where the actual entrance of the studios are, instead of so close to the park, as well as replacements for sound stages 1 and 2 built further away from the park, allowing the show stages to be used as a big show building for a big new family ride (not thrill ride, not kiddie ride, family ride). I think Lego batman would provide a great transition between the DC area and the Animal Logic area, and having dedicated family areas on opposite ends of the park would make it feel much bigger. Animal Logic aren't a household name yet, but a couple of their movies are already classics, distrubuted by Village and WB. It makes so much sense, if they keep going the way they're going I think a themed land dedicated to their movies could be great. At Sea World obviously I've detailed in the past what I'd like to see. After that I'd like to see the area around Jet Rescue be themed to an 18th century port, the kind where tall ships are going off on adventures to discover the world and there are all these fanciful stories of sea monsters and the like. The coaster I've detailed previously would fit into that theme, and given you'd be looking 10/15 years in the future you'd be looking at Jet Rescue's land with the view to a ride that takes you on an adventure with one of the early explorers. At Dreamworld I've long advocated for a dark themed land, taking over Blue Lagoon, something akin to Alton Tower's forbiddian valley. After this year I don't think there's an appetite for that quite some time to come. What I would like to see is a back to basics Gold Rush country, a mine train and a chute the shoots. Rather than being themed to an abounded historical site like Gold Rush is now, I'd like to see it look like it's a mine that's still in use; like you've traveled back in time. One of the things Dreamworld copped flack over lately was that the area Thunder River was in looked run down. We know that was the theme, but I don't think Dreamworld should do that theme anymore. Modern mine, maybe give it a bit of a steampunk look and I think you could end up with something. Again, Blue Sky, very vague, but you can kind of see how I'd be shaping the parks.

Breakfast of champions right there!

Having read this thread I've decided that you should just have to transfer. Besides, if you run a tram up the spit you'll need to run it from north and south anyway, be done with the bother. Transfer, have it stop at the yacht club, Marina Mirage and Sea World/casino, and only have it cross the road once to get to the spit then stay on the Broadwater side of the road the whole way. Done!

If you're an international tourist you'd assume it was supposed to be a ride through a spooky warehouse. I mean it's not like there is a shortage of those in Scooby Doo cartoons. The worry for me is the kids in the queue next to me who had been on the ride and were telling their friend that it's really cool inside and monsters!

I was a bit of a fan too. I won't go into details but I'll just say there's lots of stuff in the show, and in many ways that's all it is, stuff! It's like 'here's a kind of stuff, you enjoying this this stuff? BAM! new kind of stuff!' As it happens it's entertaining stuff and I'll probably check it out again a few more times before the run ends, where as last years show I was pretty much done after seeing it once. Everyone should go watch and make sure you buy plenty of food and drink. The only bad thing I would say is that noise that's in the show needs to not be in the show.

Lol hey you got me there! But yeah Outback Spectacular the idea is to sell booze, an attraction you have to be sober for wouldn't work