Dreamworld, Sea World, & Movie World Trip Report - Jan 2022

[Guest 239]

I finally had the opportunity to get over to the Gold Coast after about 18 months over this last weekend and it was great to see how things have changed and adjusted as we start venturing out of the pandemic. I won't give a details 1-to-1 of everything I did but I wanted to point out some of the major things I noticed after being away from the parks for so long.

Dreamworld - Friday 28th of Jan
We arrived at Dreamworld around 11 AM on Friday after landing in Brisbane. 

• Getting into the park was painless with check ins, vaccination and ticket checks. I got my pass online during the drive down and added it to my Apple wallet which meant that I could just wander on in. The staff at the front were super helpful and friendly which gave a warm welcoming experience to the park
• Obviously the first thing we did was wander over to Steel Taipan to check it out. There was a little bit of a line and we had some others coming to the visit us so we wandered around whilst we waited. Despite this area not being necessarily 'themed' I still found that it was presented extremely well with the taipan and Australian motifs. I likened the presentation to that which you'd expect to find in a zoo and I don't feel it's out of place for a park like Dreamworld. I wouldn't have an issue if this was the style moving forward because it's effective and inoffensive.  
• By the time our friends arrived around midday there was a queue for Steel Taipan that was around a 20-30 minute wait and it grew behind us once we got in line. At this stage they were only running one train but it wasn't long before maintenance came over to assist in getting the second train on the track. From there the park was running two trains until close and it was a walk on for the rest of the day. Whilst some may say that this is a failure on the parks behalf, personally I find this great as you can do the attraction as much as you'd like and I can imagine that many people would prefer doing that over waiting in line for over an hour.
• Despite the carpark being rather full there didn't seem to be too many people in the park and most lines were a walk on. Operations were efficient and there was barely a stage where I thought that Dreamworld could lift their game expect for one staff member who dubbed a safety video as 'boring' and then proceeded to sass out guests who talked during the 'boring' video. 
• Extending from that, staff at the park were excellent. They seemed rather cheerful and energetic which is what you want in a theme park. There were a lot of characters out and about, and in the ABC Kids area we had B1, B2 and Wags hound us down for a photo. The costumed characters were great to interact with and B1 kept on giving one of our group members some sass after he tried doing wiggle fingers for a photo where the bananas pretended to get offended. 
• Presentation wise the park is doing pretty well. The back half of the park seems to be rather forgotten about considering that the main clientele for Wild Life are currently unable to enter the country and the mood down that way is rather gloomy with demolition and a lack of attractions, but the other half is clean, vibrant and buzzing with atmosphere with the horticulture being where the park currently shines as the gardens and greenery are lush and picturesque. 
• Food was okay. I only had Kenny's Fried Chicken which was seasoned well but the chicken wasn't the best quality in my opinion. Others in our group had the parmigiana which they all said was great with decent value.
• All round I had a really fun day at Dreamworld and it left me feeling good about the direction that the park is going in. It has it's problems but it seems that its actively working to improve them and I'm excited to see this park's future.

Movie World - Saturday 29th of Jan
We arrived at 9:30 and met our friends near Scooby waiting for Wild West Falls where we got our first sneak peak of the wonderful world of odd decisions that constantly being made at Australia's premier park. 

• For as long as I can remember Movie World has always allowed entry 30 minutes before park open. I don't have a big problem with this except it's usually luck of the draw as to whether you can line up for an attraction or not. They were allowing guests to get in line for Scooby but not for Wild West Falls and so there was a rush of people heading this way to ride the attraction. 
• As soon as the park officially opened we got a Virtual Queue for Rivals whilst heading to Wild West Falls. VQ is an okay system but I don't love it because it's incredibly temperamental and get's wacky when you've got a large group. Also it appears to be geared towards pushing their one-shots which is a problem that I'll extend on later.
• Thank goodness we did rush Wild West Falls because otherwise it was around a 60-90 minute wait for the rest of the day. Thanks to an issue with the new boats they are unable to use the first row and what was once the parks people eater is now what appears to be an operational nightmare. From what we could gather they were only using around 6 boats with the new stop-start unload things moved really slow. The staff were making the best of a bad situation here but you could tell that it was putting them under a lot of pressure and there were not pleased about it. 
• Next up was Rivals as our VQ was ready. It was about 10 minutes before we got on but I feel sorry for those waiting in the stand-by line because it was stinking hot and that queue has very little shade. They were also blasting mist through fans to help cool down guests but that now means that your phone is going to be temperamental with it's touch screen whilst you wait almost an hour in line. Once we were on-board I was reminded once again what a great coaster this is albeit it's definitely not as smooth these days especially compared to Steel Taipan. 
• As soon as our VQ was scanned for Rivals we booked another Scooby-Doo. This lined up perfectly with unload so we head straight there. Scooby-Doo is still a very fun roller-coaster but my goodness is that ride in a sorry state. Multiple effects and screens were just flat out not working including the on-ride photo and the only part that seemed to be in an acceptable state was the disco room. It's still as popular as ever with guests consistently crowding for it but I could imagine that rider satisfaction would be pretty low.
• From here the VQ system becomes less handy and the app starts to falter. Most virtual queues had become full except for Superman which was an hour and a half wait. A lot of the wait times were wrong on the app which was frustrating as you'd reach an attraction only to find that it's an additional 40 minutes on top of what is posted in the app. After struggling to find something to do that didn't require us to be in line for a huge amount of time we decided to check out road runner and it's new trains. They look and feel great and they're definitely an upgrade.
• Eventually Superman was ready so we got in line and had a ride which was great as always except for being a bit headache inducing on the final bends. We noticed it was running two trains but they were constantly stacking at load/unload with little happening. Throughout the day it was not uncommon for a train to enter the station, then the staff would start organising people to the gates, then loading guests in and sending them on their ride. I have no idea why they don't start sorting guests at the gate sooner but its really awkward when the train is just sitting there and it seems like nothing is happening for a hot couple of minutes.
• Equally as frustrating; DC Rivals was only running one train. This is the parks premier ride that is constantly getting international praise and it baffles me that they're not just running a blanket two trains through the entire Summer season.
• In saying this, it makes a lot more sense when you realise that the park has monetised wait times with one-shots. Why should the park reduce wait times or add more access to VQ when they're charging $40 AUD to ride DC Rivals once? I would absolutely love to see the metrics as to how many people buy the one-shots because I feel like they'd be embarrassingly low despite putting the park in a position where it needs to decide whether it prioritises those who paid for a ticket or those who will pay in the park.
• We did Justice League as it was one of the shortest lines of the day and I understand why; in its current state this attraction should not be operating. The first scene has a majority of it's lightning not working so you can only see the starfish, a majority of us in our group found that the lasers just didn't register half the time, one of the screens was not working and apparently hasn't been for months, the 3D no longer works, many of the sound effects and musical queues didn't work and cyborg within the queue needs a hug as his face screams that he is in constant pain. 
• After doing this attraction and Scooby it compounded to me unfortunately becoming very jaded to the state of the park. Many of the buildings are filthy, a lot of the gardens are unkempt, the White Christmas lights are degrading to a disgusting brown colour, there are multiple dead ends with little signage to say what is going on, the park refuses to acknowledge Arkham, multiple ride signs are degrading with Justice League legitimately having a mushroom growing out of it and the villains area near Dooms Day is basically rotting in plain sight. The park is massively resting on its laurels despite being years from its 'A' game.
• Compounding onto this, Main Street had four external vendors operating with pitched gazebos and banner signage. This is just generally embarrassing. The presence of a Boost Juice van, Exotic Filled Candy stall, some donut joint and a custom engraved light up stand thing makes Main Street feel more like the Royal Easter show than a theme park. I am absolutely fine if external vendors want to be in the park, but at least make it thematically consistent.
• The first thing you see on Movie World's website is Australia's #1 Theme Park but this statement has as much weight as their marketing campaign which touts AOS as a park. It just feels like nobody at the top really cares about this place beyond the money it can generate and it's blinding them from the problems that are plaguing this park. It's a huge shame because these excellent attractions are being let down by mediocre theme park.

Sea World Carnivale - Saturday 29th of Jan
After leaving Movie World we went directly to Sea World for the opening night of Carnivale. 

• The atmosphere at Sea World as great! It was a stark change from Movie World as you can tell that a lot of the focus at the moment is on this park. 
• The food offerings are a bit lighter this year but the breaded chicken bro buns were nice and filling. I would personally prefer some smaller and less expensive selections so that you could try more because I've always found the food to be a big draw that was under utilised this year. 
• Entertainment was great but at times it felt like there were multiple bands fighting for your attention against the park music.
• I didn't see the night time dolphin show but frankly I'm against the idea. Let the dolphins rest.
• The new show at the front of the park is spectacular and has scrapped any story elements from yesteryears. It's a fun light show with fireworks, live dancing, live drumming and lasers but I do think that they needed an opportunity for each element to shine. Often times there was so much happening that it was difficult to know what to focus on and the pacing was basically 0 to 100 in 5 seconds where it stayed for the duration of the performance. This sort of high octane experience is good fun but can get very overwhelming very quickly. 
• I got to experience Vortex for the first time which is good fun. It's not mind blowing but it's very intense and does a decent job of fleshing out Sea World. In saying that the queue design is awful and does not assist the operators in any way. There should have been an area for them to stage guests with a number because from what I could gather they would send a group and then wait to hear how many more people they needed on their ear piece. This lead to cycles being over 10 minutes even with 4 staff members operating the attraction.
• I also got to do Jet Rescue for the first time in about half-a-decade. I forgot how fun it was! We got to use Virtual Queue for this but it freaked out when our group of 10 booked as some people were ready straight away and others had to wait 30 minutes despite all booking within 30 seconds of each other.
• Storm Coaster at night is always a pleasure. It seems that they've fixed some elements that haven't been working in years like the storm projection screen and the video just as you enter which is nice. Operations were great on this which seems to be assisted by a cleverly designed system that can accomodate so many boats/trains.
• Beyond VQ it wasn't worth getting in line as they were very long. I think for paid after hours events they should be doing everything in their power to keep queues down because it could be a major selling that the park has short waits during the event because beyond the entertainment and drinks there isn't too much grand appeal to Carnivale. It's great fun as an AP holder, but I wouldn't spend $60 on the event. 
• Side note; if New Atlantis opens by Easter then I'll eat my own face because they don't look anywhere near ready enough to open in 10 weeks.

The next day we were back at Dreamworld to cap off our trip and we visited WWW as well. I don't have too much to say about this day beyond reinforcing my perspective that I think Dreamworld is doing great things at the moment. Despite being a lesser version of its former self, it really does feel like it's finally got its footing and is on the up and up. White Water World is always good fun when you just want to do a couple slides and vibe out. 

Ultimately all of this is my own opinion but I'd love to know your thoughts on the parks. If you've got an issue with anything I've said feel free to quote it and provide your two cents.

Edit: I'll add more photos later as I'm just waiting for my phone to sync with my laptop.

 

Edited January 31, 2022 by Dom

[Ogre]

That was a fun read. Glad you had a good time overall!

Couple thoughts on MW: yeah, it's a shame to see the current state of the park.

JL has been in awful shape for a while now. The guns have literally never worked for me the few times I tried it. I'll have to check out that Mushroom 😬

Scooby Doo, where are you?! I want my favourite ride back. Removing those awful unsynced screens in the lift would be a good start...

[Rivals]

Speaking on the new boats for Wild West, i really wish they could’ve found a way to continue having the moving station. This use to be the ride even when it’s busy and had a long line, it didn’t feel long due to the line always moving, but now with the boats stopping in the station and the front row out of action, it moves incredibly slow which is such a shame to see

[themagician]

It is a real shame, I remember one trip the queue was full but it felt like it went quickly because we didn’t stop moving the entire time. Now, a 30 minute wait feels super long because you hardly move. It’s gone from the fastest load/unload ride at the park to the slowest. 

[rappa]

Well we can thank the regulators and insurance companies for that now that they are all “you can’t have nice things” thanks to the incompetent f$$$s that used to run the park up the road. 

[Guest 239]

1 hour ago, rappa said:

Well we can thank the regulators and insurance companies for that now that they are all “you can’t have nice things” thanks to the incompetent f$$$s that used to run the park up the road. 

I can't imagine that after almost 7 years that regulators and insurance companies turned around and forced Movie World to buy these new boats and loading mechanism. 

Also, no offence, but that's an extremely poor take. Regulators and insurance companies aren't saying we can't have nice things, their escalation of requirements is a response to ensure that more people don't get hurt in a culture that has a tendency to continually put profits above all else.

I can imagine that the park has been put into a tough spot because of problems up the road but frankly Movie World has too many scapegoats. I just expect at this stage that VRTP has something to blame their problems on that is beyond their control and it's embarrassing. They can blame COVID and Dreamworld all they want but it doesn't change the fact that multiple rides are in an awful condition, the park is presented extremely poorly, and their operations make La Ronde look like Disneyland. 

If the 'incompetent f$$$s up the road' can do these things then surely so can Australia's #1 Theme Park. 

Also I found the picture of the mushroom growing on the Justice League sign and it brings me joy. 

[Smol bean]

Why haven't they fixed that sign in years to the point where there are visible cracks all over it

Edited February 1, 2022 by Smol bean

[themagician]

Wow that sign is in bad shape, the park needs to spend some time refreshing and fixing all these issues 

[rappa]

On 1/2/2022 at 6:03 PM, Dom said:

I can't imagine that after almost 7 years that regulators and insurance companies turned around and forced Movie World to buy these new boats and loading mechanism. 

Also, no offence, but that's an extremely poor take. Regulators and insurance companies aren't saying we can't have nice things, their escalation of requirements is a response to ensure that more people don't get hurt in a culture that has a tendency to continually put profits above all else.

I can imagine that the park has been put into a tough spot because of problems up the road but frankly Movie World has too many scapegoats. I just expect at this stage that VRTP has something to blame their problems on that is beyond their control and it's embarrassing. They can blame COVID and Dreamworld all they want but it doesn't change the fact that multiple rides are in an awful condition, the park is presented extremely poorly, and their operations make La Ronde look like Disneyland. 

If the 'incompetent f$$$s up the road' can do these things then surely so can Australia's #1 Theme Park. 

Also I found the picture of the mushroom growing on the Justice League sign and it brings me joy. 

What does any of that redundant ramble have to do with not being able to have a continuous station at west?

And your assessment of regulators and insurance companies is inaccurate. They are extremely risk adverse now to the point that something that is extremely safe is no long enough. And it must be ridiculously safe to the point of being counter productive. That’s sadly the way it is, because no one wants another rapids. 
Village Parks always got a clean bill of health for safety because they took that very seriously. A faded sign has nothing to do with guest safety. 
 

Unfortunately this country will never see certain features of rides and immersiveness and efficiency again because of some very dangerous people who ran things at a single park. Thankfully those people are long gone. 

[Rivals]

19 minutes ago, rappa said:

And your assessment of regulators and insurance companies is inaccurate. They are extremely risk adverse now to the point that something that is extremely safe is no long enough. And it must be ridiculously safe to the point of being counter productive. That’s sadly the way it is, because no one wants another rapids. 
Village Parks always got a clean bill of health for safety because they took that very seriously. A faded sign has nothing to do with guest safety.  

im pretty sure one of the reasons they are extremely risk adverse now is because, you know, a literal wheel flew off GreenLantern? village isn’t perfect, that’s for sure 

 

and yeah, a faded sign has nothing to do with guest safety however, why are they unable to maintain high levels of guest safety while also maintaining the park as a whole and little things in the park like a ride sign? if they don’t be careful the parks going to end up looking like a Six Flags Park before they started refreshing most of them….

[rappa]

You can’t actually be serious with this post right?

There is a MAJOR different between a park religiously following all manufacturer maintenance procedures and an inherent design flaw out of their control causing an incident that injured no one, and a bunch of cowboys hacking together a non existent control system, ignoring safety recommendations AND BRUTALLY KILLING FOUR PEOPLE!

 

And you can’t also believe aesthetics of a sign in any way correlate to the safety of a parks rides??? 

Don’t be dense!

 

Anyone is entitled to their opinion, like, dislike and critique of any of our parks. Hate MW, think they are crap? Sure. Think the sun shines out of DWs ass and a couple small changes to their shadow of a park is the greatest thing to hit the theme park industry? Go for it!

 

But facts are facts. Previous ex management of DW were dangerous, unsafe, arrogant, and killed people. This ultimately had major impact on the insurance and regulatory framework of all parks in Australia which will be with us forever. And this ultimately means ride capacity will play second fiddle to risk aversion. How anyone can argue this I simply can’t understand. 

[Guest 239]

1 hour ago, rappa said:

What does any of that redundant ramble have to do with not being able to have a continuous station at west?

Your ad hominem attacks don't make look you right, they make you look desperate. 

Honestly at this stage Movie World may as well have killed people because their response post accident is embarrassing. The park is on the decline and it's sad. I wouldn't have gotten engaged in and worked with the staff on Village property if I didn't deeply care about those parks so don't assume that just because I like some things about Dreamworld that I'm a shill or that I think Movie World should crumble. If I didn't care then I wouldn't point out the problems that I experienced.

The Dreamworld Incident had detrimental implications for the industry as a whole and it's a valid point that some of the problems that we experience today is a flow on effect from that event. The previous ex-management were exactly what you said and literally nobody is arguing against you in that regard.

However, that's not how you decided to interject and instead of refuting the central point you thought it best to come in guns blazing whilst slinging thinly veiled insults for no other reason then it seems that the conversation wasn't going in the direction that you'd like.

1 hour ago, rappa said:

Unfortunately this country will never see certain features of rides and immersiveness and efficiency again because of some very dangerous people who ran things at a single park.

Unfortunately some theme parks will never embrace certain features of rides and immersiveness and efficiency again because some very dangerous people who ran things at a single park gave them a scapegoat.

1 hour ago, rappa said:

And you can’t also believe aesthetics of a sign in any way correlate to the safety of a parks rides??? 

Don’t be dense!

It's not the actual problem; it's the perception. The entire park is in an awful state of presentation and this is from somebody who hasn't been to a proper theme park in over 18 months before coming there so my bar is pretty low. Do you think that instills confidence into the general public that don't care for the enthusiast discourse? If I see a rusted old car hanging out in a parking lot my first assumption is not 'well it must be squeaky clean and operationally sound under the hood!'. Instead I think 'if this is what they want to show me then imagine what they're not showing me.'

1 hour ago, rappa said:

And this ultimately means ride capacity will play second fiddle to risk aversion. How anyone can argue this I simply can’t understand. 

This was literally my exact argument that you decide to reflect with an ad hominem attack. The Dreamworld Incident is likely a fraction of the problem affecting Movie World's operations. You can't blame Dreamworld for Doomsday operating on 10-12 minute cycles, DC Rivals operating one train during Summer, Superman bizarrely operating two trains with not enough staff allocated to utilise it efficiently, and Wild West Falls only running 6 boats.

Dreamworld also didn't force Village to implement an app which directly benefits from extended wait times and therefore incentivises the park to take things slow and underperform to push more people towards One-Shots. 

[rappa]

Dude I literally commented on the specific issue of not being able to have the continuous Wild West Load. 
 

Any attempt to turn that into some personal attack is on you. Literally talking about one specific comment about a moving load system. Lay off your own kool-aide perhaps. 
 

And there’s nothing thinly vailed, I’m sad that the people responsible (and I know who they are) aren’t rotting in a gaol cell over the fatal incident. I’m happy to insult them all day long. They have nothing to do with present personnel at either park.  

[Guest 239]

7 hours ago, rappa said:

Dude I literally commented on the specific issue of not being able to have the continuous Wild West Load. 

Yes, you did, and it was a perfectly valid comment before it was depraved with personal animosity and a pathetic tirade where you attacked character over content. I wont let you drag this thread down to your level of petty insult slinging because you'll beat us all with experience.

Moving on, I definitely feel like Movie World is stuck in a limbo state at the moment where they're waiting to do start some major changes. I overheard some chatter between staff members in the park that Superman Escape was running two trains that weekend because it was close to going down to make way for Arkham removal. It could just be general staff chit-chat, but considering that Arkham was completely blocked off with construction walls in the courtyard area, I wouldn't be surprised if we see demolition start soon for the coaster.  

If they can get construction started for their new attractions relatively soon then hopefully they shouldn't be too far off. I've seen the concepts and I'm whelmed, but I would have loved to have seen Movie World go back to their roots with an attraction similar to that at Movie Park Germany. They created a coaster experience around a fake back stage tour and it's incredibly creative and well done. This is the sort of things that I think would add a lot of personality to the park.
 

 

[rappa]

21 minutes ago, Dom said:

Yes, you did, and it was a perfectly valid comment before it was depraved with personal animosity and a pathetic tirade 

See this is our difference. Nothing about the parks or comments on them is personal to me. A negative comment about them is not taken as an attack on my personal character because I can separate my identity from my interests. 
 

And if that one comment was a tirade I’d hate to see your reaction if someone really wanted to have a go about something. 
 

But I’m glad to hear YOU WONT LET ME do something 😂

[Guest 239]

Can you please keep it on topic? I'm trying to discuss theme parks here.

Edited February 2, 2022 by Dom

[Slick]

9 hours ago, Dom said:

Dreamworld also didn't force Village to implement an app which directly benefits from extended wait times and therefore incentivises the park to take things slow and underperform to push more people towards One-Shots. 

Most large organisations pour over Net Promoter Scores because in the case of our parks identifying satisfaction in park departments (F&B, Ops, GS etc.) is a key base metric to ensure repeat visitation occurs. Why is that important? Because repeat visitation is one of the fundamental keys to driving revenue for Australian parks (I think it sits at like 2.3x visits average from memory). And believe me, you make more money from a nuclear family coming in for a second visit than "scalping" a few regulars to skip the queue.

Therefore, it's safe to assume that provided park management and executive leadership are in alignment on the organisation's goals (which I'm very positive they are) and therefore it'd be very un-likely they'd be taking trains off duty to drive revenue at the cost of satisfaction.

A far more likely scenario is that part availability sucks. But what do I know? It's just my opinion, i'm not in the room with leadership. Therefore, let's all be mindful that correlation doesn't equal causation.

Another side-note - I often wonder how much enthusiasts extrapolate performance based off whether executive leadership is in touch (or out of touch) with the common man? In either case, I think it'd be foolish to assume any level of leadership is not trying to do their best in the frameworks they're provided.

[themagician]

42 minutes ago, Dom said:

 

I overheard some chatter between staff members in the park that Superman Escape was running two trains that weekend because it was close to going down to make way for Arkham removal. It could just be general staff chit-chat, but considering that Arkham was completely blocked off with construction walls in the courtyard area, I wouldn't be surprised if we see demolition start soon for the coaster.  

That would be a smart move to remove AA while SE is already closed. So they don’t have to close it again in a few months when they decide to finally remove it. I’m interested to see if they construct a more permanent looking fence under SE to block off access to the AA area while they construct the new attraction/s

[Slick]

11 hours ago, Rivals said:

a literal wheel flew off GreenLantern? village isn’t perfect, that’s for sure

Context is key. That incident wasn't caused by Village's organisational culture having a literal "don't even worry" value-in-action about park safety for three decades.

[Guest 239]

6 minutes ago, Slick said:

Therefore, it's safe to assume that provided park management and executive leadership are in alignment on the organisation's goals (which I'm very positive they are) then it'd be very un-likely they'd be taking trains off duty to drive revenue at the cost of satisfaction.

It just echoes similar sentiments to what we've seen at Disney where rides now don't offer any compensation such as fast passes when an attraction goes down because it directly affects their bottom line. Obviously I have no idea either and you make an excellent point that correlation doesn't equal causation but if they're making a profit from decent wait times and guests aren't complaining then it's a win-win for them. 

Similarly I'd love to be a fly on the wall when they're reading the metrics. I have no idea how the public perception would swing at the moment but just using Google as a reference, if you scroll through the latest reviews for Movie World they are hugely mixed and fluctuate wildly whilst Sea World, Wet'n'Wild and Dream World appear to be mostly positive. 

2 minutes ago, Slick said:

Context is key. That incident wasn't caused by Village's organisational culture having a literal "don't even worry" value-in-action about park safety for three decades.

I feel like his comment was more at the relaxed nature of the regulators and insurance companies during that time. The entire industry appeared to have a normalcy bias considering that incidents were rare and considering that nobody had been hurt in the past then they just believed it wouldn't happen in the future.

They were wrong, and the industry as a whole including Dreamworld were caught with their pants down and now they're more overzealous then ever.

[Slick]

1 hour ago, Dom said:

I feel like his comment was more at the relaxed nature of the regulators and insurance companies during that time. The entire industry appeared to have a normalcy bias considering that incidents were rare and considering that nobody had been hurt in the past then they just believed it wouldn't happen in the future.

They were wrong, and the industry as a whole including Dreamworld were caught with their pants down and now they're more overzealous then ever.

Isn't that a lot of correlation equalling causation?

No one else in the industry was co-ercing WorkSafe to extend plant registration without an RPEQ sign-off and huge gaps in paperwork. No one else in the industry was re-engineering large chunks of rides and passing them off as maintenance fixes. No one else was pro-actively ignoring a $3,500 fix that would've saved lives because minimising OPEX was viewed by executive leadership as more important.

I could go on - point is, the systemic symbolic failure that lead to those deaths was Dreamworld's fault and Dreamworld's alone. The notion that the industry as a whole was caught with their pants down implies that other parks had similar deficiencies, which by and large wasn't the case.

[Guest 239]

I think you're misinterpreting what I'm saying. Even though somehow we're getting back onto this topic again, I'm not disagreeing with you that the problem was Dreamworld's fault. The causation is still very much from Dreamworld's own actions which was proven in a court of law.

What I'm saying is that it feels that after the dust settled regulators and insurers were left in a position where they needed to severely ramp up their attentiveness around ride safety because they equally have a responsibility to ensure that these things don't happen. The capitalist business model requires regulation otherwise you get executives who prioritise OPEX over safety which is why I feel that regulators and insurers were caught with their pants down because their watchful eye should have picked up on these problems before the event happened.

This doesn't absolve ex-Dreamworld management of fault because the actions are still their own and they knew that what they were doing was wrong, but there should have been steps to prevent something like this from happening in the first place which leads us to where we are today.

[themagician]

I noticed on my visit today that they’ve added a couple signs around the path towards JR, to make it easier to find. 

Does anyone else feel like this is there attempt at marketing the ride again now that Steel Taipan is open?

Maybe they should just remove the bridge that serves no purpose to make accessing JR easier and more obvious. And then they can widen the pathway too so it doesn’t feel like you’re walking down a back alley to get to a major attraction. 

Edited February 13, 2022 by themagician

[Guest 239]

15 hours ago, themagician said:

Does anyone else feel like this is there attempt at marketing the ride again now that Steel Taipan is open?

Talking to my friends on the Gold Coast who have the opportunity to go more often, apparently these signs appeared around Steel Taipan's opening. I found it hilarious.

15 hours ago, themagician said:

Maybe they should just remove the bridge that serves no purpose to make accessing JR easier and more obvious. And then they can widen the pathway too so it doesn’t feel like you’re walking down a back alley to get to a major attraction. 

I know the Sea World layout on the top of my head and even I have difficulty navigating that park. It's full of dead end's that just don't make any sense. You can't intuitively make a line towards many attractions which I'm sure confuses some guests.

[themagician]

To add to that confusion, the ramp that takes you from the plaza down towards Storm was closed off as well. So you had to either walk through Nickelodeon Land or walk down to Penguin Point and around the castle