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Went on the ride multiple times today and am pleased to report that a lot of these issues have now been fixed. The audio in the switchback room was nice and loud and was playing in sync with no drop outs on every ride-through. Some of the other sound effects around the ride that hadn’t been working for a while (such as the bats in the tunnel and the eerie soundtrack in the gem room) were all playing again and sounded fantastic! The gems in the switchback room were rising and falling again and there was absolutely no jolt from the turntable. Unfortunately, the water feature in the switchback room still wasn’t working, but I’m confident that’ll be addressed at some point soon. At least it’s clear the park is making an effort to maintain show quality with the fixes they have carried out.

Popped into the park today and noticed that the train has now been taken off the track. No other noticeable changes though.

That’s because Dreamworld handle crowds much better than Movie World these days. DW’s faster operations and better ride availability would go a long way in terms of overall guest satisfaction.

I believe it originally went down as unplanned maintenance a couple of days before it was scheduled. Either way, I’m surprised (and somewhat concerned) that it needs so much extensive maintenance after it was already down for so long just recently. I certainly hope that’s the case.

It seems Movie World are having more problems with Flash as it’s down on maintenance yet again and the train has been removed from the track. Ropes have also been attached to both sides of the track. I do need to give MW some props though. Since my last visit, a lot of noticeable improvements have been made throughout the park. First of all, a lot more seating has been added in various areas including around Superman and the Wild West section which is great to see. Additional chairs and tables have also been added in the bank, which now features a screen that shows classic movie clips. A lot of the movie related cars that were in storage for a long time have been put back on display in the park, including the Batmobiles and the Loony Tunes vehicles. They’ve also (finally) sorted out a lot of the audio issues that have been plaguing the park for years at this point. New speakers have been installed around the Wild West Village area and the original area music loop has returned. It sounded terrific and added so much to the atmosphere. The majority of the other areas around the park also had their music back on and playing at a decent volume level which was fantastic to hear. The only quiet zone without music was the Looney Tunes area (around Tweety cages and Yosemite Sam Railroad), but hopefully that’ll be addressed in the future. Also, a few buildings around Main Street appear to have been repainted recently and are looking nice and fresh and the staff seemed a lot friendlier and happier than usual. Unfortunately, operations were still absolutely awful, but at least it’s starting to look like progress is being made. I’m wondering if something has changed in upper management that’s caused all these positive additions to occur all at once? Either way, I really hope this trend continues as it’s really what the park needs right now. Also, for those wondering what the old WB showcase/show stage looks like now… Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like a new show or attraction will be opening up here anytime soon.

Spotted this today. Dreamworld are advertising that they’re “Australia’s best rated theme park”. Not sure if this claim is entirely accurate though, as they appear to be neck and neck with Adventure World in Perth who have the exact same rating of 4.4 on Google and a slightly higher rating on TripAdvisor (though they don’t have as many reviews overall, so I guess that’s where DW might technically have an edge). It’s by far the highest rated park on the Gold Coast though. Ironically, I saw this at Movie World, which is currently the lowest rated park by quite a margin (with a rating of 4.0 on Google and only 3.5 on TripAdvisor).

Apparently Motocoaster was running without riders today.

I also went for one last lap on Motocoaster today. It’s definitely strange to think it’ll no longer be around, but I can’t wait to see what happens to the site. Also, the car park was completely full again which was great to see!

Maybe, but I’m not sure the park would make a statement like that if the ride was truly leaving, as parks tend to not mention when rides are sold and moved to other parks (I don’t think Dreamworld has ever publicly acknowledged that Buzzsaw was moved down to Gumbuya World for example). At least it seems the ride will live on in some form whatever happens. As much as I’d love to see a new water ride or dark ride built, I think the most likely outcome is that Motocoaster will be reworked in some way (likely with new trains and possible tweaks to the ride layout) to improve it and allow it to integrate better into Rivertown. We’ll see what happens though.

According to this video from Jaggs Journeys, he was sent an email directly from the park that said the ride was “closing to get ready for its next chapter”, suggesting a retheme rather than a removal (he talks about it at 4:04 and 4:52).

Having now experienced the ride first hand, I can safely say that leaving the Disco Room pitch black was definitely a huge mistake and really lets the whole thing down. It’s a shame because the rest of the attraction is fantastic and a lot of work has clearly gone into upgrading and improving everything. I hope this is addressed at some point in the future. It was great to see this on the website though:

I’m very impressed with how the dark ride section looks. I think the park has done a great job restoring it back to its former glory and the new lighting package looks phenomenal! The screens are also integrated much better than they were in next gen. I especially love the extra little touches they’re added such as the cobweb projection on the 3rd corner and the new finale scene is very well done. However, I agree that leaving the wild mouse section completely dark was a huge mistake. Considering they upgraded all of the lighting in that area just a few years ago for next gen, I don’t understand why they didn’t just keep what they already had in there. Hopefully they still have all of the lighting fixtures and can add them back in later on. If they do, the ride would be pretty much perfect in my book.

That’s disappointing to hear. I really hope the park gets on top of all those issues as those theming elements add so much to the overall experience.

The exact same thing happened to me, except I actually came to a complete stop and had to push myself forward to get going again. I never tried the Loopers as the operations were ridiculously slow. It took me about 1 hour and 45 minutes to queue for the Twisters, even though there weren’t that many people ahead of me. They were dispatching the slides roughly every 5 minutes or so (they all dispatch simultaneously), but most of the time, only 1 rider and 1 slide was allowed to go per dispatch (the other slides either remained empty or the riders were told to keep waiting and ignore the green light). It wasn’t clear why they were doing this. I sure hope this was just due to teething problems with the slides and won’t become standard practice, as they were by far the worst ops I’ve ever seen on a water ride. What also didn’t help was the fact that at one point, a bunch of people with GoPros were escorted to the front of the line and were given priority rides while everyone else (who had already been waiting for a long time) was shooed away. They were able to ride the slides 6 times in a row before any of the GP were let through again. Apparently it was for a promo video. When I went past the slides again about an hour later, they were still cutting in line, trying to get more takes.

Yeah, I’ve been through it 4 times now. The first time it growled at me because of my belt. But strangely, all the other times it let me through without an issue. It seems to be very hit and miss in that regard from what I’ve observed. As for the ride itself, wow, what an upgrade from the original Claw! The new restraints are a huge improvement over the original ones, super comfortable and they allow for quite a bit of movement. You feel so free in them. Pretty much everything that was great about The Claw has been retained and improved upon dramatically. The ride is ultra smooth, while still being extremely forceful with fantastic airtime.

Yeah, there’s actually a lot of sound effects around the ride. The King Claw sculpture roars and you can hear waves crashing under the boardwalk as you travel over it. When you get inside the main queue area (The Ferry Terminal), these wave sounds combine with seagull and clanking pier noises. Then, when the ride starts, these sounds die down and the cinematic score takes over. Overall, the sound design is fantastic. There’s also themed safety announcements which is a pretty nice touch.

It’s open!

King Claw hasn’t opened to the public yet, but it’s running constant test cycles and a queue has begun forming at the entrance of the attraction. So it’s looking very likely that it will open at some point today. Even from just viewing it off ride, I’m already blown away. The spectacle of it swinging over Main Street is fantastic and the ride’s soundtrack (a dramatic orchestral score that syncs up with the ride and can be heard throughout the surrounding area) creates an incredible atmosphere. More theming has been added to the queue line and the surrounding area. It also looks like the ride will have a great lighting package at night with various stage lights (including a moving head) placed throughout the area.

I was recently down in Melbourne and went past the park while I was there. It hasn’t opened for the season yet, so these are the best photos I could get from outside the property. The new slides do look impressive and are a great investment for Adventure Park (who haven’t added any major new attractions for quite a few years now).

The park has just updated their website to reflect the rebrand: https://www.funfields.com.au

Yeah, I much prefer the old one. The new one seems a little too generic in my opinion.

Funfields have just revealed that the park is going through a major brand refresh this season to celebrate its 40th year. This will include a new logo and tagline “take a one day holiday” (sounds oddly familiar).

I imagine it’ll be similar to how Dreamworld have been gradually rolling out their retro logo over time. The only difference will be if WB themselves have mandated that the branding needs to be updated within a certain amount of time as part of their licensing agreement.