Slick

This is my thinking also - no way to get parts from the now defunct train shed to the maintenance shed except for the road that truck’s on. Keep in mind that everything there is trim or the tender and not the boiler itself. If there’s any doubt I encourage someone to ask the park about it?

That's simply not true. Here's an article from a reputable news source. Here's their data. Vaccines lower transmission rates and enormously lower your risk of death if you are infected. Here's another article from another reputable news source. Here's supporting data. You are correct - it's 100% a choice. Societies are full of choices - when you get on a road, you agree to the rules we as a society agree upon (don't drink and drive, don't speed etc.) - if you don't like those rules, you're welcome to challenge them and/or simply choose not to participate. The thing I loathe about the "democracy is over because they're forcing me to get vaccinated" argument is that while everyone is protesting about faux government over-reach, the government is actually over-reaching and no one is blinking an eye about it.

You were clearly being pedantic over semantics, so I made a joke post being equally as pedantic to illustrate a point. You then made a post presuming I didn't get it. The end result? Ironically the joke then actually went over your head, not mine.

In the english language, there's a common unspoken agreement between speaker and listener. Speakers often use implied context to save time on sharing redundant information or clarifications, and listeners, through a combination of understanding of the subject matter, previous information shared and through understanding of the speaker themselves, will inherently gather that information for themselves and form a basis of understanding in good faith. Now that you know about the agreement, you don't need to ask about things I was clearly not speaking about.

History suggests they would'e been up by now, and you're right, I'd say it's synonymous with the event at this point, so here's hoping it's still happening.

About time. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 As of 17th Dec, folks need to be fully vaccinated to enter Queensland anyway so it'll affect a whole lot of 0% of interstate travellers. As for Queenslanders, if you're part of the tiny fraction of folks who think vaccines are bad, speak to a trusted GP and get vaccinated. Vaccine hesitancy and vaccine mandates aren't a new thing. All in all, i'm very doubtful it'll impact business in a meaningful way, and these kinds of mandates have shown to increase vaccination rates, which is a really good thing.

That'd be the result of CMYK dot printing, hence the aforementioned yellow banding. You can learn about big dots and little dots here. A mix of different film stocks, sunlight and John changing his mind several times during construction made figuring out the final opening day colour a bit tricky. For example, when I took a photo of one of John's books and then added a film stock look to the photo, the muted colours make it look like this. But this aerial shot (scanned from that same book for John's biography) shows the colours more towards what I understand is true to life.

Fun fact, both Central Plaza and City Hall had sky blue roofs whilst John owned Dreamworld while the train station retained a forest green roof. It was only later on that City Hall was changed to the darker forest green we know today. Doing a quick effort Google, you can sort of make out the colour (although the low-quality print/scan make it hard to see with the yellow banding) but below you can clearly see both in the blue. The rationale was to match those roof colours to the surrounding skyline. So since you were mostly looking up at City Hall & Central Plaza's buildings, the roofs matched the blue sky, whilst the train station was matched to the neighbouring trees since you were looking through or down at the building. I believe they spent this much time thinking about Sky Voyager's facade too.

Can confirm there's a little train in there that used to go semi-regularly out onto that little bridge. I'm almost certain it's on a basic timer from memory. It's essentially just a little circular model train track that plugs into 240v. Was working up until Happy Halloween 2019, it was unplugged for lights and wasn't plugged back in. I think i've pointed it out once or twice before on here and usually Dreamworld are pretty good in taking feedback from here and using it to improve the park, so there's probably a good reason why it's not running again yet (probably the overgrowth). Fun fact - neither the train or the climbing fig were opening day touches. Not sure if they're a later John Longhurst addition or not, my guess would be yes given how nuts he is about trains. I've added some photos of the station in from one of the books John's loaned me. Would love to see it return to these more traditional colours too, along with the hanging baskets etc.

Are they putting up lights on the facades this year? 🤔

A man can dream though. 🤩

I like this. It’ll be a pleasant surprise if this extends into the ride envelope.

A total stab in the dark would be loading in the chain for the lift hill.

I dunno why I chose that extreme angle for my talking head but there you go. 🤷🏻‍♂️

A friend of mine sent this to me. 🍻

I'm not suggesting or implying they spend every penny they have in cash and available loans on theming. By definition, that is taking what I said, which was merely that they had cash and loans available, and using it back against me in bad faith. It's a "Slick cliche" because you keep taking people's words and twisting them to suit your point and it's exhausting having a conversation about semantics instead of the topic at hand when those who engage in discussion aren't engaging in good faith. What do you strip back before it's too barebones? What do you add that could create an infinitely better experience for not a lot of cash? That's a far more interesting conversation, imo. This is the kind of positivity I like to hear. Based off how they handled guest feedback from Happy Halloween, it looks like they're making some big strides in quickly adapting based on feedback. @Gazza I also don't mind the turnaround being outdoors. I actually think it'd be cool for the train to be able to leave the station and have an opportunity for guests to see people's nervous faces before entering a launch tunnel of sorts.

"At 29 June 2021, the Australian business has $18.1 million cash available and a further undrawn debt capacity of $49.9 million." Well that would be ridiculous if anyone did, present company included. But taking what I said out of context and using it to form a bad faith argument is a bit on the nose. Guests definitely noticed when the steam trains stopped rolling through, when Wipeout's pool was drained or when rides are left SBNO. They might not outright shun a park, but it's a theme park - these places should be destinations of escapism, not constant reminders that these days shopping centres tend to be better themed. Just because i'm not a Formula 1 driver doesn't mean I can't judge a driver's performance. Great execution often results in having the entire theme and name stripped out not once but twice. /s

You forgot meerkats.

So you don’t think they used the money they saved on that launch system and spent it on rock tunnels and diverting the train? In any case, I’ve shared some thoughts on how I would’ve themed it with the same budget, and made the case on why spending a bit extra is worth it, and cited some local examples. What would you rather they had done?

Am I actually assuming that though? Taking a step back, it’s pretty clear there was budget available for theming, and they spent that in a way that’s different to the way I would’ve spent it and, in my opinion, may have made it a far more iconic experience. It’s also just my opinion, we all know i’m passionate about the park, and just because they didn’t do it my way doesn’t make them wrong either. Putting aside what budget they actually had, why risk a 30 million dollar asset’s success over an extra 500k? It’s a theme park - experience matters, and not only is it a once in a generation investment, the whole park now relies on the success of this ride, so being austere at this point is borderline negligent, especially when it’s been proven that tactic hasn’t yielded results. Sky Voyager is a great example of how delays, poor marketing and a mediocre pre-ride experience (and facade to boot) killed a 20-million dollar investment - why make that mistake again, especially when it literally casts a shadow over the new project? Superman Escape was delayed and ended up having another four million spent on it. The end result though was that the park was transformed into a legitimate player against Dreamworld in the thrill ride space and drove a 9.5% increase in attendance.

Dreamworld has typically done this in the past, and has thrown in a pun to boot. Have some fun with this stuff I say.

I think you're being a tad revisionist in terms of the history of the ride. We know (thanks to the tender documents that were posted on here) that most of the design and theming was locked in before COVID-19 and is what we see now, despite the fiscal hardship.

Seconded. It’s finally more than Adventure World’s off-peak season pass. If we want better parks, this is the road we need to be on.

FYI @kennykoala the banner on the mobile site still needs some love.

If it was five years ago when it closed, I would've said (and did!) that they were crazy not to spend the money refurbishing Viking's, particularly during a period where they didn't have a lot of attractions on offer. Now I wonder if they spent the money tomorrow, would it be worth it? I figure they've got plans for the castle but it'll be after Movie World's next build, so we're talking a few million to refurb only for a SBNO to run for another year or two? I don't see it ever happening now, unless the castle is 100% staying and just being gutted. Even then, is that the best case scenario for the castle, a new ride and Vikings? In a perfect world, redesigning that castle from the scratch is the way to go. Designing a building to look like a lighthouse (or whatever you like really) that can encompass a dark ride, the log flume and even some sort of observation space would be brilliant. Hell, bonus points if you can fit a new ropeway platform in there too.