Noll_57

The steam locomotive in WWF is definitely the old Sea World train. As for where in the park other remnants of the railway can be found, the old tunnel still remains under the seal stadium and some railway track can be seen along the back of house service road behind the battle boats (where the waterslides used to be).

The path next to the ride area has been reopened for White Christmas.

So did the ride open to guests today? Great news is so.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up at Sea World where the old Vikings Revenge station used to be.

The ride closures are back in the media again. This was on page 2 of the Courier Mail today:

Despite all the negativity, one positive thing that could come out of all this is that it should prevent Village (and all other theme park operators for that matter) from fumbling their new attraction openings in the future. While the issues with the ride are clearly out of their control, it really hammers home the importance of soft openings/technical rehearsals and communicating effectively with the general public. So much of the backlash Sea World is currently receiving could easily have been avoided if they simply hadn’t jumped the gun on marketing, claiming that it was fully open right out of the gate. They should have expected there would be teething problems and factored that in. Such a shame as a ride with such incredible theming like this deserved a smoother opening.

I’m so sorry to hear that. You don’t deserve to be treated like that, no matter what the circumstances. When I visited on Tuesday, the staff were simply excellent, very professional and trying their absolute best to calm some very disgruntled guests. You guys definitely deserve all the praise you can get.

7 News GC did another report on the Sea World ride closures tonight. They even had a live cross to a reporter outside the park. According to the report, SW can’t guarantee when Leavithan will reopen, while the park was aiming to have Vortex open “by the end of the week”.

I decided to visit Sea World today, just to check out what was going on. Indeed, the entire New Atlantis percent was completely closed off: Interestingly, it seemed that Vortex was having some fairly major work done, with a tent and tarps placed over the ride and even a crane was moved into the area: Leviathan was testing throughout the day without riders, while Trident began testing with water dummies around midday and staff were let on to the ride just as the park closed at 5pm: I really felt sorry for the staff at the park today as there were a lot of very unhappy guests. The most recent Google reviews are pretty scathing too.

They were a couple of days ago. A little while ago they cleaned some of the track and installed new lights/cameras on the support beams near Leviathan. So I’d say there’s still some hope it might return.

I’m wondering if Luna Park has brought on this new CEO as a reaction to all the investments from other VIC parks, realising there’s now serious competition in the area? Perhaps this is their first step in rejuvenating the park after years of stagnation. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.

According to 7 News, an announcement will be made on Thursday.

Oh right. It looks so similar to the original Intencity facade that I honestly didn’t even notice a difference. I just assumed the “Fun House” was part of Intencity’s branding. Image from Google Street view, taken in 2018.

Considering most of the building is still advertising the Fun House which hasn’t operated since 2019, I’d say it could stick around for a while.

Drove past the site earlier today. Apart from a few mounds of dirt, no progress has been made unfortunately.

TBH, it doesn’t look that bad in person. A lot of the park looks pretty unflattering from above.

Night works are being performed on the tower tonight.

Having two significant coaster additions open up at the same time in a single park is pretty hard to beat (especially in a place like Melbourne which hasn’t really had any major coasters until now). But this is still an impressive addition to Funfields and will help them compete with Gumbuya this season. Right now Funfields absolutely blow Gumbuya out of the water (no pun intended) when it comes to water rides as GW’s current water park offering is pretty lacklustre IMHO. I think it’s smart for FF to continue to invest in and push the “Water Park” aspect of their park as it could give them a decent competitive advantage over GW going forward. Meanwhile, Adventure Park is the park I fear will struggle the most. Now that the bar has been raised by GW (and to some extent FF) I don’t know if it has the same kind of budget the other VIC parks do to be able to complete with them. Hopefully they’ve got something up their sleeve.

Update from yesterday, letters have now been painted orange:

Looks good! Seems like it might have internal LED lighting if the promo images are anything to go by, which will be pretty cool. Between this and Gumbya‘a new coasters, Melbourne’s theme park industry is really booming.

Visiting the park today, it seemed pretty clear that the Dreamworks license is about to expire. The most obvious thing being that the gift shop has now been completely gutted. The area is in pretty desperate need of some TLC right now and considering Dreamworld are usually pretty good with their presentation and upkeep, the fact it hasn’t received it seems like another clear sign it’s days are numbered. At this point, I’d say it’s almost certain that this is where the new area will go.

That video seems to have been removed.

I have to admit, that’s very sad. Seems like most new centres are installing these systems now.

It’s nice that they’re including those bonus offers with third party groups, really helps to increase the value of the pass and sweeten the deal. What’s wrong with the Timezone refurb? Apart from losing some classic games (especially those from Sega World Sydney) I don’t see what’s so bad about it?

Looks amazing, can’t be too far from opening now!