Gold Coaster is glass smooth compared to X2. It's an extremely rough ride. It honestly is ready for retirement. I'd love to see S&S rework the concept using RMC's ibox track. Effectively a 4D free-spin version of it.

The X-coaster concept was never meant to be this big. It was meant to be much smaller more mild rides.

But I'm also going to say that anyone comparing this to Stardust racers is just completely wrong. These incidents are nothing alike.

Stardust racers was a guy who was paralysed from the waist down. He needed assistance to even get into the coaster, could not hold his own body upright and knew with 100% certainty that he had a pre-existing condition.

X2 riders were otherwise healthy and there is zero indication that any of them had any pre-existing conditions. Blows to the head - especially to the back of the head - can cause concussions and bleeds. Given how rough this ride was when I rode it, it is absolutely reasonable to believe that someone hitting their head hard enough at the right angle could be fatally injured by the ride. Honestly, if you were hit in the eye with that much force, you would expect to have a very black eye and bleeding inside the eyeball itself. If some of these people had their heads forward and were thrown back into the headrest, it would not be that different to falling down and hitting your head on the ground.

Just because it doesn't happen with everyone, it doesn't mean that it isn't happening. For me, there have been enough incidents to justify closure. It's sad, but it will pave the way for a new ride.

S&S also do retrofits of old coasters (Powder Keg). So if Village wanted, they could replace the hydraulic launch with a pneumatic launch. Given their history with S&S it's unlikely, and would be expensive, but it's possible.

28 minutes ago, TBoy said:

Only problem is you can't really replace the launch

You can. Intamin sell a 'Vertical launch coaster'. So LSMs would just be added to the existing launch and the top hat.
Intamin will literally build anything you want... for a price.

Intamin Amusement Rides

Vertical Launch Coaster - Intamin Amusement Rides

Strongest LSM Launch Coaster on the market with single-, multi- or swing-launch sequences and the most comfortable state-of-the-art trains.

31 minutes ago, themagician said:

Yes they do! It creates much better immersion, as proven by Superman and Scooby.

Superman has doors between the queue and the load station. They could unload there before opening the doors and it wouldn't change the immersion at all.

57 minutes ago, TV15 said:

Greg has said it will be fully taken apart ("we're gonna take the entire track down, remediate it completely repaint it, put it back up again")

I know. But that is not necessary for the track maintenance or painting. The only reason to do that would be because they need access to build things in the space.

10 hours ago, Tricoart said:

Speaking of the train, maybe a little upgrade/‘beautification’ of the 3rd station near Jane’s is finally in order, to get a proper ‘Rivertown’ stop operational… Not that it would really be needed for guest flow, but it’d be nice to have. Anyway, as someone that admittedly knows very little about construction logistics: With the largest items seeming to be the new trains, would they not be able to drive most things straight through from near King Claw (which might be what you mean by ‘U-cycle’, I’m unsure), and just do on-site work during the day? Then, assuming the trains’ll be one of the last things to come, if a crane’s needed to put ‘em on the track, set it up in that lawn adjacent to the train line & lift ‘em over outside of park hours?

I wouldn't assume the largest items will be the trains. If they're bringing in major theming and set pieces to create a story around the track, there is going to be major construction going on. They don't need to dismantle the track to repaint it, so my guess is that the track is coming down so that the theming construction can happen. It will be a lot of cranes, cherry pickers, etc. as well as the actual theming itself.

I'll leave the discussion about the future ride to that thread, but I'd be interested to know if the old trains have been sold, salvaged for parts or just entirely scrapped.

Hopefully the redevelopment doesn't close the train for an extended period. There will be a lot of construction access required to the MC track area. I know they can just do a U-cycle around the park like they did during JR construction, but it would be great if they can just drive over the rail tracks instead of ripping them up to keep the full loop during most of the construction.

My hot take (which I've said before) is that Gold Coaster needs to go and the entire end of Ocean Parade needs redeveloping from Wipeout to Kevil Hill. That is an enormous amount of land which includes Trolls Village area and Thunderbolt plot, as well as the exhibition centre. It could accommodate waterpark expansion, but given the WWW is closed for half the year, that seems like a poor use of land.

The exhibition centre could be replaced with a much better auditorium space built in the redevelopment at the other end of the park which would be more than just a shed - especially if a hotel is planned. This would free up that building for rides/show spaces within the park footprint.

I'm fairly agnostic about ride types. But DW's line up is definitely short of a major high-thrill coaster, a small thrill coaster (eg. mad mouse, axis, 4D free-spin), a dark ride and a water ride (which could be combined into one great ride). Flats wise they have a lot of spinning rides, so I'd like to see some more gentle options, like Zamperla Big Wavez or Nebulaz (or both) which aren't very thrilling but are good rides to fill the gap between K&B dreamland and the big thrill rides. They're also visually impressive.

I would fix that end of the park first before expanding into Blue Lagoon. It is an eye-sore and a dead-end currently, and the connection between the wet and dry parks needs to be addressed.

My reading of the +Plus program is that it's not really designed to just increase park spend, but to entice pass holders back into the park for new experiences. Some of those will be discounts, but others will just be perks and benefits.

I personally have advocated for DW need to update their sipper cup program to include the themed drink bottles. People will collect the drink bottles on various visits if they can use them with the unlimited soft drink offer, and they're a better investment than a sipper cup because you can actually use it outside of the park.

MW has routinely missed a great opportunities to do things that could pull a crowd after-hours. Village are a film distributor and operate movie theatres, but they don't have a proper movie theatre in the park - including one that could be hosting film festivals or red carpet premieres. They operate a dinner-show with Outback, but don't have a proper theatre restaurant in the park to do dinner shows or cabaret style shows - or even comedy shows. WnW used to have dive-in movies and they seemed popular, but SW and MW never really had an equivalent.

The park could have had a number of adult-oriented (or even family oriented) after hours spaces to keep people around or bring in new people on minimal staff, but they've never really done it.

This is a pretty bad protest. They should have a QR code or a link or something so people can find out their specific concerns and what they would like done about it.

Is it ride safety in operations? Ride Maintenance? Food safety? Staff/performer safety? Cleanliness/hygiene? Digital safety through the app/photos?

If their concerns were serious enough they could report them to the relevant minister(s), or to the local media who are usually more than happy to jump on a fearmongering story. They could even come to this forum and explain their complaints and would likely be taken seriously enough that more than a few members would write to the park asking for explanations.

This idea was never going to happen.

Just the description alone was insane. 'It's a business and technology park, with a retail and dining precinct, and a theme park, and a permanent World Expo, it's a hotel and resort, with residential apartments and 10,000 parking spaces - but you'll be encouraged to take the train, but the station is 3km away.'

At best, this was going to be an industrial park with some sheds/distribution warehouses and attached offices. In reality, it was never going to be anything. This guy never had the experience or funding to pull even part of this off.

If he hadn't even secured $100K for the engineering report for the development application, then there is no chance he was going to secure $2.6Bn for anything else.

AI is a tool for a job. It cannot 'create' anything new, it can only synthesize based on its training data.

It also cannot understand anything. When it creates an image or a video and you give it notes to change the position of a hand, it doesn't know what a 'hand' is. It just has a numerical reference for the word hand and how that number relates to other numbers (and therefore how the word relates to other words'. It will never be better than its training data, and every AI model is already trained on the entire internet. As more AI creations are pushed onto the internet, then the models are just recursively training on their own output.

So, if creatives are being replaced by AI, then every output is ultimately going to be the same. Companies will never be able to stand out among their competitors because everything is coming from the same source that doesn't understand the differences between companies or products or people.

The companies that stand out will be the ones that can do something different in both concept and execution, which requires human input. AI might be a useful tool for that human to use to create what is in their mind, but it's not always necessary, and to execute it properly might require real people.

The 'Everyone is a Director' concept that some AI companies are using to push video services sounds great, but 99.9% of people don't have great ideas - and we've seen that with the wave of 'slop' content.

This DW marketing post is a good example. It contains out-dated and incorrect info, it isn't really relevant to the current narrative of DW's transformation, it doesn't have any useful information that would help them speed up operations or help guests prepare for a fun day. These are all the results of AI not understanding things.

I use AI daily for things like email drafts, summaries, and document formation, and sometimes for images or graphic design concepts to drop into documents. It's a tool for a job, but it's not replacing me. It's just helping me spend less time on stuff that doesn't really matter so I can spend more time on things that actually do.

Nothing will happen until after the school holidays if it is going to happen before EOFY.

9 minutes ago, gauge said:

BBC owns all licensing and merchandising to Bluey because the ABC didnt think to purchase the rights. Millions of dollars should be coming back to Australia instead it all goes to the BBC

It's not that the ABC didn't think about it, they traded the rights to BBC in exchange for production funding. The ABC typically only fund up to 30% of an externally produced show, they can't afford to fund every show at 100%.

There was no way to know that Bluey would be more successful than any other kids show they fund - especially when a full production run couldn't be made without additional funding from the BBC. That funding came with the condition that BBC Studios would over the global distribution and merchandising rights.

The ABC doesn't have the capability to manage global distribution or merchandising, so Ludo preferred this arrangement, and without it Bluey would likely never have been made at all.

The ABC can't spend tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money gambling on every kids show becoming a global hit.

I got this email after renewing a few weeks ago before Motocoaster closed.

There's nothing particularly wrong with promoting ride safety, but I'm not sure that people care that much about this particular information - especially if they've already bought a pass.

This email would probably be better if it focused on things that speed up operations - like using test seats, checking kids heights, using lockers, etc. Practical stuff people can do to help everyone get more fun out of a day.

They've blurred out everything on the wall behind Greg, and they've specifically chosen this one frame to put on the screen while filming.

3 hours ago, Brad2912 said:

For a lack a lack of a better place to post this..

VTP have changed their sippers - whilst the new designs look decent enough, they are about 30% smaller in size

I don't think this is a bad thing. They're kind of clunky to carry around and don't fit well in lockers on rides like Superman and Rivals. Smaller might help with this problem, and if refills are unlimited then it's not really a loss. It would be great if parks just let you buy a branded water bottle and use that instead, but they don't.

14 hours ago, New display name said:

After the 2016 accident, attendance collapsed.

You're also forgetting Covid.

DW wasn't 'swimming in cash' prior to 2016. They weren't investing in the park and were cutting corners on maintenance and staffing which led to the accident. Most of Ardent's profits were coming from their American businesses and their cash was from the sale of those businesses. The park wasn't investing in major new rides.

You're also forgetting that the park closed the Rapids, Log Ride, Thunderbolt, ToT and Wipeout, and the same management that created the conditions for the accident thought it was acceptable to replace those rides with 'shaded seating' and a grassy knoll. They also destroyed the Main St facade with Sky Voyager and thought the next 'big' attraction was going to be a lazy river.

The accident created the ideal conditions you're seeking - lower attendance, shorter queues, lower staffing, less ride maintenance because rides were removed, higher per-guest in-park spend.

$62 per person for a day out (+ park entry) is not 'cheap'. That's a lot of money for most people. For a family of 4 that's about $250. The park makes $62.11 from a guest attending the park, or $0 if they don't. And park prices are currently $149 for a pass - $50 higher than a year ago. But even if that is 'cheap' by your standards, who cares? The park still has world-class attractions and will be getting more of them, excellent staff, and good operations. Why does expensive = good? If people can have an affordable and enjoyable day out and the park is making money, why is that a bad thing?

The park has spent plenty of money investing in major rides with lower gate prices and in-park spend. They've built the Flyer, Steel Taipan, JR, MM, KC, Big Red Boat, Jane's, a splash pad, modified Tiger Island, and made plenty of aesthetic improvements to the park including Dodgems and Main Street. They've spent well over $100M on all of that and are still planning a Rivertown expansion. Everything they've done since 2021 has been moving in the right direction.

In my opinion, you've got a very warped view of how a business should be run. People don't have unlimited amounts of money for discretionary spending like at theme parks. You seem to want the park to be a luxury item - high ticket prices, fewer guests making fewer visits but spending more each visit, and yet somehow think that will translate into more money 'to invest in major rides'. That is a one-way ticket to bankruptcy in the current economic climate. If it's too expensive to spend a day in the park people won't bother buying passes at all and you lose all of that money.

If you lose 25% of your customers, you need your other customers to pay more than 25% just to stay in the same place - since you're losing gate sales + in-park sales (which have supply costs). So you either need to jack up prices (which bleeds more customers), or you have to lower in-park prices to entice existing guests into the park - which you seem to have a problem with.

If you're that unhappy with the new direction the business is taking, sell your shares. If you don't then save your complaints for the AGM.

32 minutes ago, New display name said:

Ten years later, and the park still needs to discount to sell tickets. Spare me the sob story about the recovery.

What is your point? You seemed to be suggesting that there was no recovery to be had, that DW should just be increasing prices and that it's been 'a decade'. But now you're saying that the park still needs to discount to sell tickets - which means that the recovery still hasn't taken place, while also claiming that the same 'need to discount' is a sob story.

You've complained that the park doesn't have enough attractions with MC closing, but still think they should increase pass prices (and based on your comparisons to previous pass prices to more than $300), and that their proposed investments will cost too much, but also that they haven't replaced all of the rides that were removed.

You've complained that per-guest spend in-park is down, but the discounts you are complaining about have generated an additional 257,000 guest visits in 1H26 compared to 1H25 - which accounts for almost $16M in additional revenue. If you compare the 2024 and 2025 numbers you've posted above, it's a 25 cent drop. If DW had sustained the same visitor numbers across that time it would have been a $198,000 drop in revenue. So those 'discounts' on in-park spend are actually worth somewhere around $15.8M.

Clearly, DW have figured out that if people can spend a little less on a single visit and feel like it's good value, they'll visit more often and end up spending more across the whole year - hence the incentives to get people to show up.

1 hour ago, New display name said:

If I wanted the company to fail @wikiverse I wouldn't have shares in it.

Coming up to 10 years and people are still using that as an excuse.

Using what as an excuse? Decades of bad management and a lack of investment? Because that didn't start to change until Greg was appointed CEO in 2021. It hasn't been a decade since then, it hasn't even been 5 years.

If your expectation is that Dreamworld is going to just double their pass prices and rake in profits with record crowds, you should consider selling your shares now. Dreamworld has at least another decade of investment, renewal and transition before anyone is going to consider paying that much. They're still in the process of removing old attractions, let alone building new ones.

27 minutes ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

But Dreamworld = bad according to Skeet.

It's not even that. It's that he seems to want Dreamworld to become expensive and unaffordable so that it does fail.

Between $99 passes and $149 passes with a $50 food voucher, I've personally convinced 8 people to get passes so we can all go to Dreamworld. Without those offers, I might have convinced 2. All of those people are buying food at Jane's, Drinks, Coffees, and tail whips multiple times a year.

In addition, food vouchers and in-park discounts require you to scan a pass. This data collection gives DW a lot of valuable insight into who their best customers are, who spends where, when and how much. They can send out targeted and personal offers to individual pass holders to encourage them into the park with something they know appeals to them - whether it's Food and drink, cabanas at WWW, game tokens, snacks, or live events.

That data helps DW build a better park with better experiences that people actually want. Something that is more important given they're still in a state of renewal and transition.

They're not discounting the tickets to get people in. They're enticing people who have already paid for a pass to come back and spend more money. Money they will not make if people stay home.

Do you think they're not making a profit on a $15 slice of pizza, and extra scoop of ice cream or some more hot water in your coffee?

2 hours ago, Park Addict 93 said:

An interesting development for sure, general park improvements, different pass discounts/offers and encouraging visitation with an extra event during the easter holidays.

Reckon they are gearing up to put the parks on the market?

It's owned by private equity. It's always on the market.

4 minutes ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

Does Jungle Rush qualify as a dark ride?

If JR is a dark ride, WWF is a dark ride. Having a themed section indoors doesn't make it a dark ride. It's a roller coaster with themed indoor section.

Scooby's first section and ending are dark ride, the wild-mouse section is just an indoor coaster, but it would count because of the ghost-train start of the ride. It's a hybrid.

SE is a roller coaster with a dark-ride section at the beginning. Like Scooby, it's effectively a hybrid coaster/dark ride.

Space mountain is an indoor roller coaster not a dark ride. The ride's primary experience is the coaster, not the scenery/theming/story. It doesn't rely on the theming for the experience - the ride would still be thrilling with the lights on, or no theming. It's a well done experience, but the theming is there to enhance the coaster experience.

Based on what you pasted above, a dark ride is when the scenery, theming and story are the primary experience, and are indoors in a controlled atmosphere and lighting environment. The ride itself is secondary to all the stuff you look at and it typically enhances the story/viewing experience rather than the other way around.