CR4ZE

"Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster - Coming Just in Time for the Olympics!" I just hope they drop the cringe rebrand and go back to the original name.

People have a right to be upset. A day out at a park for a family of five runs you up several hundreds of dollars, and if your whole day amounted to ~8 hours of sitting in queues, you'd feel duped. Park-wide closures due to the weather, slow loads/unloads, 3-4 empty seats on ride cycles, single-train ops and so on all compounded together are giving paying guests a less-than-satisfactory experience, so of course they're going to speak up. Neither Dreamworld nor Movie World have enough attractions operating to keep up with demand. They're taking proactive steps to address these issues for the future, but in the interim it's reasonable to say these school holidays are not the right time to be visiting. I'm not going to rant about it in a Google review, but it's all stuff I've observed this past week, and you can feel the frustration amid the wearied atmosphere. Lots of families are giving up and leaving by lunch time. That's not a good thing for the parks or their staff, because though they've got the gate fare, they've got unhappy staff copping abuse, families not spending as much on food/merchandise, and a generally negative perception which diminishes return visitation. Was at DW today and because I somewhat know the daily crowd cycles, I was able to get my party a pretty good day out of it. We were there for ~5 hrs (yes, we got there very late) and got six different rides in, with a re-ride on ST at the end. I count us lucky.

Flew up here on Thursday and am feeling relieved I got to SW/MW while I could. Now got to get to DW for Taipan by Sunday, which should (touch wood) be plenty of time for this to clear. Based on current conditions, I think tomorrow will be a similar story. Feel terrible for all the interstate/overseas travellers whose plans have been disrupted but there's nothing that can be done, unfortunately. On a side note, ride ops were pretty poor on DCR yesterday. Slow dispatches and often 1-3 vacant seats each cycle despite two trains and long queues in the afternoon. Left seat row 9 on one of the trains was out of action; this is the second time I've seen that exact issue. The seatbelt policy is a shame because it slows things down further. Leviathan ops not great on Saturday either. One train during peak period. Was my first time riding; man that holding area/load-unload cycle sucks. Really wish SW thought that through better and hope they can make changes in the future.

If it's not Shannon Noll turning up and covering "What About Me" on repeat for two hours flat, I'll be disappointed.

Absolutely makes sense; that's why I said "bulk of" not "all" maintenance. Playing devil's advocate here; they would have a skeleton crew of full-timers to run basic ops in the off-season and have the younger crew on casual shifts as needed. Inevitably, they'd be cutting labour costs down but staff retention could indeed be an issue. It was just an idea I thought I'd float, as there would be some benefits, but I was curious to hear whether the experts thought the negatives outweighed them. I said a few months ago that I really didn't like the whole idea on paper, but I can't deny the potential for ride interactions as an asset. No progress on ground works?

I'm not opposed to the idea in theory, but that subscription cost is ludicrous for what you get. A smarter strategy would be to bundle this in as a "premium" tier of the Village Key, and price it at 20 bucks or so for 12 months' access. At most, that's its real worth. With what they're going with, they might as well chuck a couple of NFTs in just to send it to the grave faster.

Never thought I'd live to see the day when people defend a theme park charging full price on admission with less than a third of its attraction lineup in operation, let alone having not a single thrill coaster available to ride. Seeing as you like rounding numbers up, the simple maths is that the likelihood of having all but one coaster down decreases as your sample size increases. That's not a solution but it certainly puts the park in a better position to drive gate in the off-season, and manage capacity issues as attendance burgeons during the peak. As for the "cascading issues", is there some new managerial strategy I'm not aware of where you spend north of $50 million in new investments but don't hire staff to run them? They must already be stretched thin, human resources-wise, hiring contractors to clear the shit out of Chinatown alley. 😏 Serious question: what's the benefit to these parks in operating year-round? Why not run your season from September to May and get the bulk of your maintenance done over the winter? So many larger, more popular parks around the world adopt this model and it works. Are the operational and staffing costs over the quiet months really worth it when the few guests (locals) who do visit are given such a subpar experience?

Timing it well with the Part Two release. There'll be a delay. It's Village. When there's a will, there's a way. I agree but don't think it matters all that much in the long-term. It's smart on their behalf to tie attractions to IPs that can endure over time. Was Green Lantern a colossal failure? Yes. Is the coaster still popular? When it's open and not actively trying to kill its riders, yes. Scooby is still one of the most popular and beloved attractions at the park, yet the people to whom the target audience was aged at in 2002 are now having their own kids who want to ride it 20 years later.

I mean, if nothing else, you gotta give him credit for his level of commitment.

Loving the Six Flags-inspired theming too. 😏

Hardly a loss. There's another smokers' area at the back of the wild west area, and the walk is maybe four minutes on a busy day. The cardio might do them some good.

I vaguely remember there being no fans installed on the ceiling when I visited, but I could be wrong. They certainly were not in use the day of my visit.

Quick question re Superman queue. Last time I visited the park was January 2020. My biggest grievance of the day was the lack of air conditioning in the queue building. The queue was a furnace the day I visited. And, of course, the shitty locker policy, so no water bottle on my person. Has this been fixed? Do they run A/C in the building properly now?

And the winner for the worst "hot take" on the Parkz forum, 2023, goes to...

Is there a reason for such a large interim between different phases of the job? Repainting started in January. I would think (not an expert) that a repaint could be done in as little as weeks, not months...

Too soon?

Of course there will be some revision, by virtue of it being concept art in the first place. An artist's impression needs to make approximations to increase the visual impact and communicate the vision in a concise fashion. Actual scale of the rides, path layouts, scenery pieces and so on are all subject to change. I actually prefer the element of mystery anyway as it creates more intrigue. If anything, the Atlantis concepts did Leviathan little justice as the renderings (though pushing beyond the realm of plausibility with the rockwork and waterfalls) told nothing of the theme, station and queue experience. I hope so. I probably sound like a broken record, but the precinct really wouldn't feel "complete" to me without one or two small flats. In my dream scenario, these would be added in time for opening day, and I think the cost increase would be negligible. A couple extra million on a cyclone-themed Nebulaz and I'd be happy. Call me an idealist. A man can dream.

Welcome to the internet, young Padawan.

Do they have some insight that we don't? I'm not saying they're wrong. In fact, I'd expect nothing less, frankly. All bets are off as to what the final product will look like, but Leviathan is a good indicator that we can have measured hope for something great.

Fair. Do you have links to any of the IAAPA research? I'd be interested to read into it.

Because Atlantis and Oz are significantly more substantive additions that were planned out over years and required nearly a hundred million dollars in investment between them. This is the relocation of a more than 15-year old attraction that Village hitherto had no idea what to do with, that was literally rusting into obsolescence until they decided to take a reactionary measure. There is no parallel. Nobody, by the way, is unhappy in theory, as the relocation makes a good deal of sense, but you'd be foolish to anticipate that this would approach anywhere near the considered (and costly) planning and development of the larger additions.

False. @DaptoFunlandGuy took the words out of my mouth. You grow attendance by catering to the families, as they bring the numbers and spend the money on passes, merch, food and so on. Meet that market as your base, and you've got the overhead to invest in bigger, more thrilling rides.

@Canobie Coaster Taylor and Sarah seemed to like Leviathan more than DC Rivals, based on its superior pacing and theming. Thoughts?

You're putting a lot faith in Village, friend, but time will tell how well it was placed. I generally agree with the sentiment that this may well be a band-aid after the flak copped for recent ride outages, and a quick fix to help soak up crowds until the Scooby refurb and Oz opening. It is needed though, and I'm generally happy with the ride getting a new lease on life. They may spend the money on another refurb later (i.e. 2025), but if it's still in operable condition, wouldn't they want it open sooner rather than later? As for the retheme, it would make the most sense to tie-in with the DCEU Justice League, and with a Flash film hitting cinemas in a couple months, I'd say he's the safest choice. Red track with yellow supports would clash less than the current colours, and I'll give Village the latitude to at least smack on a fresh coat of paint with the relaunch. With groundwork now full steam ahead, an official announcement is surely imminent any day now?

Impressive work, but why the rush to get it down so quickly when it likely can't be installed until Superman's next maintenance period? That can't be a response to the ride outages. While I've made my feelings known about the location, I would hope that there are some plans for some light theming, at the very least through the queue line. September seems a likely fit for the relaunch, although there'd be no real urgency until the summer.