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The buggies would have probably been an attraction better suited to Paradise Country rather than WnW.

Also Geelong to Lakes Entrance is the best part of 5.5 hours drive.. fair hike and really ambitious to squeeze 2 events in on that day with a 3 hour trip back to Gumbuya World the next day.. Think you will sleep well on the plane after that whirlwind trip. You could knock nearly an hour off the trip by going to Fun Fields instead of Adventure Park but still a pretty crazy day

Thanks AlexB. I have never had to hire the lockers, so was just curious what the procedure was to retrieve your items.

So how does the payment work if you have been stuck in queue for over an hour? Do you have to pay before you can open the locker? If so, how do you pay when your wallet and loose items are in the locker? If you can open the locker without paying after the 1 hour limit, whats to prevent patrons from taking their items and leaving without paying? Silly question probably, just wondered how you would get your stuff out of the locker in that situation. Or do you pay an initial locker deposit which is refunded if locker hire is closed within the first hour?

Pretty sure Mark's tenure with Gumbuya World was very brief and he is now heavily involved in the Bounce Inc franchise i believe it is.

Zorb balls on the river

We went to whitewater world the tuesday of the week after QLD school holidays finished. The park was empty. Hydrocoaster was the only ride to wait and that was only 2 groups in front. We went on every slide at least twice (except wedgie) and were completely buggered climbing stairs all morning with no rest, that we went to dreamworld for lunch and stayed there for the afternoon. Every ride at dreamworld that day was one cycle maximum wait. I had to take one of the kids to the toilet before going on motocoaster and spent 10 mins chatting to the ride operator of hop and hoot who was completely bored cause there were no kids around to ride it haha.

@Luke thats sounds plausible, even slightly varying sizes of tyres could cause enough vibration to give the effect

During the dark section at the start of the SE coaster, the train feels like its shaking and rumbling a little bit, almost simulating the earthquake you are riding through. Is this a deliberate element of the ride, or is this due to wear and tear? If it is designed that way to give you the feeling of being in an earthquake, how does the ride do it? I wouldn't expect the track itself to be "rough" as this I assume would cause unecessary wear to the wheels and wheel housings, shortening their life and becoming a potential risk to safety. Maybe the train carriages themselves have a vibration mechanism that creates that slight feeling of shaking and rumbling? Just wondered if anyone else had noticed it and was interested in the mechanics of it.

Will be looking forward to our summer trip to Fun Fields with the new additions. FF is fast becoming Victoria's premier park. They have a good mix of wet and dry rides and attractions. Hopefully in the future they can afford and get approval for a decent mid sized coaster.

You just have to catch the train and ride past the studios to see how badly the area has been neglected. It's an eye sore for sure.

Two shade sails were installed in the queue line today with supports ready to have a third one installed which was not yet in place. The shades are kind of in a leaf design. They look good and suit the area very nicely.

Just an edit to above post, I have since been told by someone that was at the ride this morning as well and spoke to an attendant while the ride was down, that apparantly a bolt had either come loose or broken and fallen from one of the trains. Not sure how accurate or truthful that is however.

Does the cost of works include the cost of the rides themselves? I'd imagine not. $9.2 million is already nearly a 20% chunk of that $50 million for works alone.

Went to Dreamworld yesterday and was disappointed with the amount of ride closures. Having said that, we still did not manage to get around the entire park. Last year in April when we made the journey up, with all rides operating including TRRR before the tragedy, we were able to do the entire park in a day. Not sure why it was so slow yesterday. We didn't get to cyclone, claw, buzzsaw, giant drop, vintage cars or the coroboree and animals area. I find Dreamworld is a better park for the kids as there are much more rides they can go on. They are aged 11 and 8 and love motocoaster, kung fu panda soft style, shockwave, madagascar coaster and all the rides around dreamworks area. It definitely lacks for the older thrill crowd, especially with a lot of the rides currently out of action. Shockwave takes way too long due to the new harnesses all having to be individually fitted by a ride attendant. At movie world, I was able to convince the kids to go on batwing and scooby doo, they enjoy justice league and road runner coaster but not really any other rides for their age group and most of the other kids rides don't interest them. They don't meet height requirements for the major coasters.

Was at the park today. Queue around 10.30am this morning was over an hour.. however, there was an issue with the ride causing about a 25 minute delay, with multiple empty train cycles, before continuing as normal. Not sure what the fault was with the coaster.. I took a backwards seat ride around 3.00pm which was a walk on. Had another standard ride at 4pm which was less than a 15 minute wait. Think the heat of the day drew most of the crowd out of the park. As a cool side note, I was given this lanyard when i entered the queue for the 4pm ride, to give to staff at the loading station, so they have an accurate queue time:

Would trims be installed on a ride, not to be used under normal conditions, but to be used as a safety mechanism to slow a train down under a ride failure scenario?

Did 9 rides in a row of Corkscrew at Sea World without getting off at the station on a quiet day about 20 years ago. Ride operators allowed us to stay seated as there were no other riders getting on. This was with my cousin, who rode with me while not knowing she was actually pregnant at the time!!

Nice to see the inclusion of a raft escalator for these slides on the drafting plans. Makes re-riding alot more appealing if you don't have to drag rafts up dozens of stairs. The slides themselves look great too. Something slightly different to whats available to experience at other parks.

Looking forward to a future visit to Gumbuya World. From what I read in the leader article, the upcoming attractions will make the park a must visit with the kids!! Congrats on the BounceInc appointment Mark. We have several pairs of bounce socks floating around the house from our visits to the blackburn north facility which is only about 20mins from home!!

I remember going to Leisureland Fair as a kid, but pretty much only remember spending time on the train and in the pool. I remember being in awe of the rollercoaster at the time, but wasn't allowed to ride it. As a matter of interest, this little article was posted on the Herald-Sun website recently. Highlights a few brief points on some of the former theme/fun parks that were around back in the day of Victoria. Sadly I missed the hey day of most them: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/outer-east/melbournes-forgotten-theme-parks-what-happened-to-them/news-story/f522f6bf1558323a0e438b6f5391f7d2#itm=newscomau|home|nca-homepage-news-plus-story|2|heading|homepage|homepage&itmt=1497492329594

Thanks @skeeta, had an interesting read and insight into the history of the ride after going back and reading the other thread.. definitely makes sense why had seemed to have a different experience 2nd time around.

I wonder if dreamworld took the opportunity to have a thorough going over of the mine ride during the safety audit process that occurred after the TRRR tragedy. The findings from that audit would show whether it would be viable to get the ride back to operational status again or not I would assume. Speaking of the mine ride, did the ride ever undergo any track layout changes during its time? I recall riding it as a young teen and then again a few years later and the ride seemed to be shorter than what I had recalled.. and the pitch black section seemed to be different. Maybe my memories were just hazy!!

So is the delay on the demolition of the TRRR because of the ongoing coronial investigation? Just thinking they may not be allowed to demolish it until the investigation is completed? At least the section of the ride where the incident occurred. Good to see the rebuild phase still forging forward and restoring the public's faith in the park, although that may still take some time, but at least there is solidarity in the future vision of the management team. Would be a shame if the log ride was closed permanently, so good to see they are getting closer to reopening the ride. Having said that, if it did close, it would open the opportunity for something new and fresh to be brought in.

untitled.bmp Sorry, but not sure how to paste a screen shot.. but that is the text I am referring to. As I visit the page even now, it still says 'world's first' But anyway, it's not that important. It doesn't take away from how good it looks on the video. Will be planning a trip up north once it has opened.