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I think we can all agree using the old show stage for storage is a total waste. I’d sooner there is less of a seasonal parade offering if that means that space isn’t available for storage (or whatever is stored in there). There is a cool opportunity for a combined indoor/outdoor attraction here using both spaces. For me that HAS to tick the ‘whole family’ box. It could be a coaster, maybe even a powered mine train style which I’ve been voting for for years. But could be something cool. Make it mad max if you want, or western, or completely isolated IP. I wonder if there is opportunity for some small flat rides outside and finally build that damn Vekoma Madhouse inside? I think the key is find a ride system that doesn’t destroy the budget, and then plus the hell out of it with theming. THAT will give DW a run for it’s money and fill a hole in the lineup.

It wouldn’t be the first time a park said a ride is permanently closing only for a re-invented version of that same ride to reopen a year later. Until a bulldozer rolls in or the word demolished is used I will keep an open mind.

Total rumor so definitely not speaking of fact but I think that was the ‘burning man’ guy who made a million promises and gave us such gems as that glass box around the turntable and a few cheap DJ City lasers in the disco room. The projection was a reputable mob, just one that clearly lacked the experience and knowledge of how you need to make such things work in a ride environment where the show timing can be so dynamic. This needs to be thought through right from the content creation stage through to the final show programming in order to get right. No guest should ever be seeing a blank screen or a shitty video reset no matter what happens.

As a movie park (meant to be) I think having a Hero Maze based on IP kind of works. But there is soooo much more you can do with having other mazes non IP and funneling all that licensing spend into the creative. You only have to look at how great Knotts do at this, and to be fair a lot of previous non IP mazes at Movie World. But that Netflix deal is going to take ages to finalize. Even HBO is currently still separate.

It’s great to see the place full and thriving. Real competition between the parks only drives further improvements and developments which is a win for all. They have heaps of space they can expand, only need to look to European parks to see how much can be done within small footprints. Sounds like good times ahead on the Gold Coast.

An awful lot of arms length knowledge on how atmospheric effects work in this thread. 1) Dry Ice machines can never produce atmospheric haze type effects for use with lasers. They are inherently expensive and hazardous to operate (you are putting pellets of solid CO2 into boiling water) and all your get is low hanging vapour that sits on the ground and then vanishes - totally impractical for something like Scooby. 2) Most all water based ‘hazers’ are neither of those two things. They use glycol and water mixture, so when they say ‘water based’ they mean not oil basically. They then use a traditional smoke machine style pressure pump and heating block to produce smoke and then combine it with a fan to make the ‘haze’. The cons are more cloud like haze that will set off any sort of detection system based on particles, and they tend to use a lot of fluid which is expensive (think $400+ for one 25L bottle). 3) People have a a misinformed idea that Oil Based Hazers = mess and CO2 powered hazers = expensive to operate. They are both inaccurate. The indisputable best haze system on the market is from a Canadian company and uses both Mineral Oil based fluid, and CO2. It uses their proprietary tech to break down the mineral oil under heat and pressure into tiny micro controls particles which result in an extremely fine, dry haze that leaves no residue, lasts for hours and uses very very little fluid. Rather than a pump it uses pressurized CO2 to push the fluid through the system, and tiny amounts of that to. Its both cheap to operate, works great, is reliable and in many cases won’t even set off particle detectors it’s so fine. So you then probably ask, “why doesn’t everyone use it?” Most simply because of scare opinion that Oil = Bad so they don’t even try. But in fact Village themselves use the same system at the Outback Spectacular show, uses so little consumables it uses maybe 2.5L of fluid a fortnight and runs off the waste CO2 gas from their low fog system. So it’s not about amazing detectors, or being too cheap or any of that. It’s about perception by the powers that allow these things or not. And if the risk analysis won’t allow something then no amount of ‘passion’ or ‘attitude’ is going to change anything. It’s perception at that level that requires altering and that’s much harder than buying a fancy purple haze machine

All of the audio should be a bit louder as of today.

Sounds are the same as the original no?

Let’s be real though, are we talking reactions from guests walking off the ride, or reactions from enthusiasts on the internet who have a general default towards negativity for MW in general anyway? I’m saying “wow that’s a good looking flat ride” but it’s still a flat ride with some props. Is anyone really thinking and saying “the queue and low level dark ride portion of Scooby is an utter disappointment and they should do better?” Or are the upset at the lack of something different in the coaster portion and then throwing that brush over the project as a whole? Because I’d really be shocked to hear a valid argument that the dark ride is not ‘restored to it’s former glory’. Any negative ‘public’ reaction I’ve read either related to the non disco room or stems from I guess what I say is a lack of expectation that the ride would be the same as before. I’ve not even read one person on here say what had been done is shit, I’ve only read complaints at what hasn’t been done.

That is an absolute amazing summary of the entire project. I feel like we sit here and discuss and focus on the shiny show side of the attraction, but as you say, it can’t be overstated enough just to share amount of work and effort that had to go into upgrading the mechanical and control side.Hell I won’t even say upgrading the control system because it’s completely new. It’s not even an upgrade. A lot of very passionate people in a hard and rough environment to pull all of that off just to get the same ride back. It’s not even like you get to go and reuse code and software because of how much has changed. It’s not even like you get to go and reuse code and software because of how much has changed. The original ride control system needed three PLC‘s just to keep track of the block zones and check each other. With the development of today’s modern safety rated PLC’s it can run on one. And then you can’t even use the same parameters for things like speed, etc., because with the new breaking system, the ride performs totally differently. Big big job

Actually no, because the cylinders heat up over time with such a high constant duty cycle.

That’s a real shame

And they won’t be, unfortunately no good for capacity. But I think the same separation of scenes and reveal is achieved with lighting anyway just fine. For what it’s worth I rode this morning and didn’t get the swinging axes. Only mentioning it as it was brought up earlier about affects not working. They were working for every other car though. The spinning guy was also working. So whilst it sucks, you may get the occasional ride where an effect or two doesn’t work for your particular car, but that is kind of the nature of these things that have so many moving parts, doesn’t necessarily mean none of the effects are working and it’s broken already.

This I’m pretty surprised to hear. We’ve read about the rotating(or non) guy in the skeleton room. But what other ‘most’ weren’t working? Genuinely curious as everything else has been running fine without a hitch until this point. My brain hurts from the last post but surely that was suggesting next gen was good it any way? I should add a disclaimer, when I said “fully immersive” I of course meant except the ‘discoless room’ because I don’t think that dark horse needs any more beating and I never considered it part of the dark ride. Obviously I too would like to see lights return to that part.

I think that’s a bit of a harsh comparison. Dreamworld have presented their new flat ride is the best possible way. It looks great. But it’s also a flat ride, outside with some static props. Scooby is a fully immersive dark ride that has had done to it exactly what everyone here asked for, returned to its original state and it looks great. I also expect a member of Jo public to wonder what takes 3 years. But if you’re calling yourself a theme park enthusiast it’s bit sad if you don’t understand how long it takes to completely gut and replace the entire mechanical and control system of a coaster as complex block wise as Scooby. We are all also well aware that it shut early for various reasons and a good portion of that time was spent waiting for the Mack order. Like props to Dreamworld but they build a flat ride. And still took a year.

Oh they let you film, that’s cool!

That didn’t take long! I’m guessing glasses given the over exposed lighting and distorted audio?

Absolutely! Park is looking great! Big Fan

I don’t think ever a truer word has been spoken. You are exactly right, it doesn’t matter how much effort, time, money, etc is spent on something, it’s only the result that will be judged, the customer does not know, or care (nor should they) what went into it. The product needs to stand up on time merits alone. I merely pointed out the thing about how it rides because it IS a big improvement, the problem is quite likely people don’t know how bad it was before (or have never ridden it). Quite a lot of people maybe have never even ridden a wild mouse so don’t know some of the ‘jerkiness’ is by design. And the final factor, many of us were kids when we first ride Scooby so naturally remember it being amazing so are going to be the harshest critics even if it wasn’t actually as good as we remember, that’s natural.

The track is not new, 80% certainly has not been replaced. Every brake and motor however The cars track much better, tighter tolerances and less ‘shuffling’ on corners. The Brakes are certainly not ‘marginally’ better. I think people maybe forget how the ride rode it’s been so long. The starts and stops are 1000% better, the ride is also much quieter with no slamming brakes and squelches in the dark ride as it transitions. The stop after he finally drop out of Ring of Fire is light and day compared to before. The lift is an improvement of its own, the speed, the smoothness and the quietness is a huge upgrade The dark high zone is a creative choice by the park, not saying a good or bad one, but a conscious choice rather than running out of budget. The dark ride previously had some disgraceful projections (and projectors!) and basically some glorified garden lights. Those have been replaced and more than a hundred theatrical lighting fixtures added. The audio is a mix of opening day originals and newly created pieces.

The chassis, seats and restrains are all new. The seats are actually very comfortable and I don’t think the handles are needed. The whole thing rides much smoother than it used to. But it is a wild mouse so it does still have some sudden laterals of course.

I saw one comment about Scooby having lights on in the Queue which is obviously indeed a problem that needs to be addressed. However the piece of complete garbage that was Next Gen at Scooby was the brainchild of the GM at the time - there is no blame shifter button to push on that one. The new additions to DW are damn awesome, absolutely but that one was a big fat fail. 100% biased here but I’d be reserving judgement on SDSC until actually riding it rather than past observations. If the effects stop working in 6 months I’d be very surprised and disappointed.

This thread is about SDSC so perhaps we could try and limit criticism of the rides theming to actually being about this ride. Yes some valid points have been made about past experiences a lot of people who really do actually give a damn have worked on this refurb and I’d expect everything to be running. If it’s not it’s had an issue today and not something that hasn’t been addressed over this extensive time.

Not long exposure

Pretty smart day to open it. More time to work out the kinks before the weekend and busy period. Plus weekday means more people on hand for breakdowns etc etc