RossL

Village again just displayed their lack of respect for public health that they have had through the entire crisis. They have failed to sell the public that they take it seriously at any point. Might be why their attendance ain't all that great.

Yes but the length of time is what 30 seconds, barely a single breath? Close contacts in Australia are getting defined by more than 15 minutes within 1.5 metres. Not impossible but realistically very low.

I'm inclined to agree somewhat, especially shut for a day for cleaning and contact tracing. But I think the risk of an outdoor ride operator catching it off a guest is really very low. Same for other food outlets where the case has not visited. So forcing them to close for 14 days would also be pretty harsh on the back of a single case.

Based on the way they are working through these things the people in a restaurant are likely to be deemed close contacts and everyone else in the park deemed a casual contact which is actually pretty different. And I'm sure the park would prefer to only lose a few staff rather than have the entire park's operations knocked out based on a single case. That's a pretty good incentive to have contact details well organised by key locations.

There's the federal entitlements guarantee that also pays out workers everything except for superannuation if the company they are employed by gets liquidated. And I'd also assume that the government would take on all staff liabilities as part of taking on the business. Workers are unlikely to get burnt in any significant way. I'd assume that it is basically secured against all assets.

Of course no-one is expecting them to repay the loan in three years, it is just the point at which it will get refinanced at a different interest rate. If that fails, it is secured so the state government would essentially take possession of the business while every other creditor would likely lose their money owed to them. So really what has happened is the state government has secured the long term future of Dreamworld as if it goes badly they'll be in control of the major decision making, ie who it gets sold to or potentially directly operated. The government is unlikely to lose money on these deals and even then they could justify it with keeping these businesses operating in the intervening period which the private sector cannot justify in the same way.

I'm really not sure why people are unhappy that certain things may be shut-that's just the reality we are in which is a lot better than the rest of the world. I fully support our parks opening earlier with fewer attractions. The fact that Sea World has put on extra shows I think is a really solid commitment. Water parks are being forced to close up in Arizona now. Disneyland in California is shut for the foreseeable future and there's still a good chance that WDW won't open in July as anticipated. Tokyo Disneyland reopens tomorrow but I wouldn't even be too confident about how long that may last given trends in Tokyo. Sweden which is famous for its no shut down is not allowing parks to even open. https://www.thelocal.se/20200622/swedens-theme-parks-denied-exception-to-coronavirus-rules

Eh, their messaging has been poor and their attempted strong arming a failure. At least they're getting back open so and taking the reasonable expected steps which they could have announced in early May and should have done to build public confidence. Dreamworld opening later is a worse overall performance from them. If you can't get enough people through the gate to pay for the extra electricity and water used due to opening (labour costs being primarily covered by JobKeeper and they still have to feed their animals anyway) then yeah that's a total disaster. Could be at some risk of not even reopening the gates it seems.

Nothing really surprising in any of what they have announced. Street Parade cancelled and character interactions altered-predictable. None of this is that hard to comply with despite their earlier protests and are all measures they should have announced in early May. As opposed to their demand for a capacity they were never going to fill on first reopening.

Toshimaen in Tokyo, Japan is to close for good on August 31. To be replaced with a Harry Potter Theme Park apparently. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/06/13/business/toshimaen-close-harry-potter-theme-park-2023/#.XuRpzxiuaDY

This isn't really what that person said but is the media's way of simplifying complex statements. And it has been corrected now with up to 40% cases depending on the model being transmitted from asymptomatic people. Another fantastic mess in WHO communication.

I would also expect restrictions to continue to rapidly ease while Queensland reports zero community cases. SEQ is up to 33 days without community transmission-26 days statewide. NZ have just gone 56. Queensland could be in a position to drop all restrictions in 23-30 days if it maintains a border depending on Victoria numbers (which are also looking much better than 14 and 7 days ago). At the moment where the government in QLD is allowing 20 I would expect that to go to 50 by sometime next week for example if current trends continue. And further easing two weeks after that.

I'm not a buyer of the parks can't open without thousands. VRTP average ~6-7K per day across 4 parks over a whole year. Also they're getting Job Keeper so the marginal cost of opening is really electricity and food and maintenance etc. They may still be net unprofitable but they're more unprofitable not having their doors open at all. In the first instance they should be trying to reduce their losses which means getting some revenue in. If Australia Zoo can open so can Paradise Country unless they really believe demand is totally lacking in which case they don't need approval to have a crowd of thousands. Ps. I'm sure stadiums will also be 'unprofitable' for sports with small crowds but it will reduce their losses hence why they will take a small crowd over none at all.

Australia Zoo is to open on June 12. If GC parks have any form of reasonable Covid Safe plan I'd expect they'll be cleared to open in the next few days as well. Health Minister Miles yesterday was also pretty clear in that stadiums will get to open with low numbers at first and then those numbers can increase. Pretty clear that parks should get the similar treatment with fewer attendees allowed at first and then a ramp up in allowance if the situation remains stable.

More like if you're building this ride make sure you get paid upfront as you don't want to be a creditor in case they enter Voluntary Administration.

Interesting-missed that it only applies to certain venues. Still can see the CHO approving a Covid Safe plan for 20 per area in a park easily. For example I doubt an entire cinema complex is capped at 20, more so max 20 per cinema screen in any reasonable world which we are now in. If Queensland keeps on getting no cases which seems pretty likely (>75% chance) for the next two weeks then I expect some of these limits will be upped significantly by June 15.

Finally it seems they are putting together a plan rather than just whingeing at the government. Also outdoor amusement parks are pretty clearly in stage 2 of the roadmap. Given the 20 people per area from Friday there is a good chance that parks could comply with that and they're a long way away from needing capacity to start with anyway.

Should happen pretty easily IMV if they have proposed reasonable modifications to their operations. If they expect to operate as normal though then yeah they'll get put in the bin but surely they're not going to be that silly and out of line with community expectations?

I think all parks need to look to do what they can that is within the rules and ways to build public confidence in their management of crowds. There's some pretty obvious solutions to a partial reopen of at least SeaWorld and that is just make it so people can view the various exhibits only in a structured walk through. Let 20 guests in every 15 minutes from 10am to 4pm and you can get about 480 people through in a day. Similar could be done with Paradise Country, Dreamworld, Currumbin and other similar places. Also a great time for behind the scenes tours to be conducted in groups like this. Maybe it would only be practical for a couple of days a week. Sure things like this aren't much compared to normal business but JobKeeper is subsidising a lot of staff wages to get the doors open in the first place. The extra cost of doing something like this would be super payments and some hand sanitiser. Crowds of 5,000 aren't going to be allowed anywhere, anytime soon and the only way venues will be allowed to have that many is through building public confidence in how venues manage that. That means starting at the smallest possible number which is 20 and building from there.

Once again another PR round that merely kicks the can down the road-no actual decision or announcement. At the rate it is going, Sky Voyager opening in December this year could be optimistic.

I agree that Korea can be a good trip if you're looking for a cultural experience but none of these parks really come close to USS, USJ TDL or TDS (don't know about HKDL but assume it is also better). I visited all three of those parks in 2015. Lotte World is probably the pick of the parks for having a massive indoor section but the rides outside were old. It really has a lot of very average rides/simulations. Everland is decent but it is a long way from Seoul, a good two hour trip with a bunch of transfers but I'd take Fuji-Q or Nagashima Spa-land over it although Everland is probably more kid-friendly than either of those parks. They make a decent effort of a night parade as well. Everland prices at $69 AUD vs Tokyo Disney at $92 AUD-it isn't really that much cheaper for something that is nowhere near the same experience. Seoul Land to me is below average but props they gave me the foreigner discount at the gate with me knowing nothing about it. But it is a run-down park in my experience. On par with Hirakata Park in Japan, or Hakkejima Sea Paradise or Tokyo Dome City or Toshimaen and more like that which would price out as not more than twice the price on admission as Seoul Land I would think. And you can generally get tax-free shopping for tourists in most countries at certain places-not really a unique selling point.

I'm of the view that this is little more than a good PR stunt for now. Building a big coaster in 5 years is not a lot of hope for how bad the park could be over the next 3 years. Honestly, it almost sounds more like preparing the ground to remove ToT or HWSW or some more rides. "Yeah, we're going to build something new but in order to that we have to remove something". Nice bit of spin and I do support removing rides but there's little commitment shown to building any more rides. I mean the suggestion of two in the Bulletin article seems more like a thought bubble than anything actually remotely planned. What is notable is that the GC Bulletin article is that Sky Voyager merely gets a passing mention at the end. Obviously no quote provided about SV being open anytime soon or in the context of anything else.

Certainly possible to get 3-star hotels near Tokyo Disney for under $200 AUD with forward planning. Look around the Shin-Urayasu area. Anywhere on the monorail circle of the parks is obviously expensive though. If you want to ride Toy Story Mania at DisneySea that'll be difficult generally or involve waiting a long time. But DisneySea is awesome as just a place before adding in the rides etc. If you're looking at June-August though crowds and humidity will both be bad generally. There's plenty of blogs/crowd calendars that can help with that aspect of planning. Another aspect is language-the default in Japan will be Japanese. Most shows/presentations etc will be in Japanese primarily although sing songs in English and will make important announcements in English. I believe USS and HKDL both default to English for shows/presentations(?). You'll be able to get around perfectly fine using English in Japan-probably not yet as breezy as Singapore or HK but that's part of the experience. It also depends how long you want to go for. If you want to spend more days in parks then Japan is probably better, if you want to only spend one day then HK or Singapore are probably better. I'm biased but Japan probably also has more that you can do outside of the parks including kid friendly activities-train museums, amusement centers, public parks/gardens etc I don't have a kid though.

Thirty minutes early for a 20 minute show? How is that skipping the queue? Guaranteed entry 2 minutes prior sounds better. There's a lot better upgrades they could offer around this, like a photo with Cosentino, or a Q&A session after the show etc. $30 for a soft drink and popcorn is way overpriced.

So build a giga. Just start building and tell the world that they're building something big. Nobody will then care if they close ToT. Build first, scrap later.