Dreamworld Updated Park Map - 2023

[Gazza]

What makes it a 0% chance of something happening though?

 

[REGIE]

Yeah it would need a bit more then just doors to get 0% but if they added a soft roof to the cars as well and signs saying “stay in at all times” the chances would definitely be lower and since there was signs it’s not the parks fault if someone purposely struggles out of the cars to just be hit by another very slow coming car.

[Slick]

35 minutes ago, REGIE said:

Yeah it would need a bit more then just doors to get 0% but if they added a soft roof to the cars as well and signs saying “stay in at all times” the chances would definitely be lower and since there was signs it’s not the parks fault if someone purposely struggles out of the cars to just be hit by another very slow coming car.

What if they just made the whole thing an at-home VR experience? You could really lower the risk that way. 

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

1 hour ago, REGIE said:

I know you have given clear points and it makes sense but what if they added doors onto the model T’s?  It’s still in house but if theres 0 chance of something happening on a in-house built ride it seems OK?  Little gates wouldn’t be to hard to add on. And basically eliminate the worry of people coming out of the cars.

Yeah, and then on the log flume they can make little steel canopies with retractable roofing to stop people from standing up in the logs too...

[New display name]

38 minutes ago, Slick said:

What if they just made the whole thing an at-home VR experience? 

Don't give DW ideas.

[Stevie]

10 hours ago, Slick said:

What if they just made the whole thing an at-home VR experience? You could really lower the risk that way. 

So that's why MW are uploading POV's of their rides to social media 

[RobMac]

On 27/02/2023 at 6:02 PM, Stevie said:

good on your old man!

[Prequel]

On 24/02/2023 at 9:37 AM, themagician said:

Dreamworld have updated the printable park map on their website.

Adding the grids and adding the list of attraction with height requirements and small description is good to see and should be very helpful for guests.

There was a time when the park map looked impressive.

[REGIE]

The map then definitely was more detailed and beautiful looking but I wouldn’t say it looks much bigger. The new map is a lot more zoomed out. In 5 years I can see it being a lot more similar sized.    If they showed WWW in the same map it would look more impressive.

Edited March 23, 2023 by REGIE

[Gobbledok]

It looks much bigger on that old map because it was much bigger

[themagician]

@Gobbledok arguably, based on map area, only the log ride and big brother studio is missing, the other areas have been replaced by new attractions

[Slick]

1 hour ago, themagician said:

@Gobbledok arguably, based on map area, only the log ride and big brother studio is missing, the other areas have been replaced by new attractions

Blue Lagoon, Thunderbolt, Chairlift, Wipeout, Rivertown Restaurant, Billabong Buffet, the five-odd things that were in Gold Rush County, Buzzsaw, Tower of Terror - I could go on, but let’s not kid ourselves here, irrespective of what mental gymnastics folks do, the park has contracted considerably, which was a literal strategic intention the current and former CEO (as well as current board) have openly talked about in investor calls.

[themagician]

I should’ve explained a bit further the point I was trying to make. The park attraction count has significantly dropped since that map, but in terms of park area/footprint, it hasn’t.

[RobMac]

Back when DW was decent park....now pfft one for the unskoooled kiddies!

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

On 24/03/2023 at 7:16 PM, Slick said:

Blue Lagoon, 

I think this one is getting on in years, and by that point, you should also consider how much smaller Movie World is now without the studio tour and the tram ride all the way to paradise country... /s

On 24/03/2023 at 7:28 PM, themagician said:

I should’ve explained a bit further the point I was trying to make. The park attraction count has significantly dropped since that map, but in terms of park area/footprint, it hasn’t.

Your point was very clear, and understandable - you didn't need to elaborate further as it makes perfect sense.

[Slick]

26 minutes ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

Your point was very clear, and understandable - you didn't need to elaborate further as it makes perfect sense.

Lol, did it? /s

Happy to have a pointless discussion about negative space on maps if you want? Seems fruitless though.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

18 minutes ago, Slick said:

Lol, did it?

Yes.

On 24/03/2023 at 5:57 PM, themagician said:

arguably, based on map area, only the log ride and big brother studio is missing, the other areas have been replaced by new attractions

It is clear to me "based on map area" that magician was talking about the physical size of the park, rather than an attraction count, which we're all well aware has dropped significantly.

On 24/03/2023 at 7:16 PM, Slick said:

Blue Lagoon, Thunderbolt, Chairlift, Wipeout, Rivertown Restaurant, Billabong Buffet, the five-odd things that were in Gold Rush County, Buzzsaw, Tower of Terror

• Blue lagoon - already mentioned, but you really can't count that area of the park anymore, it's been so long since it was used. If you're going to go back that far in time, then you have to allow for the expansion and inclusion of WWW, which significantly INCREASES the park footprint too.
• Thunderbolt - likewise, but if you really want to be a pedant (and I know you do), much of it's footprint is still in use.
• Chairlift - This attraction didn't really occupy much of a separate footprint in the park, given the nature of the attraction. It overflew Log Ride, which was already accounted for in Magician's reply, so in terms of land area, would be double dipping. 
• Wipeout is now a shaded seating area, as you would well know. 
• Rivertown restaurant became ABC kids, although the seating area outside has been walled off for a while, it's in the middle of the park so 'based on map area' still plays as you don't really have a hole in the centre of the park map now - it's still there.
• Billabong - i'll give you that. it's clearly not in use (although it is worth nothing that the land space for the restaurant is still drawn on the most recent map, just not the building, as the train still circles behind it). hopefully it will be taken up by the new rivertown development in some fashion, but a restaurant in one corner of the park isn't really anything to get so worked up about.
• the five odd things in gold rush are now occupied by taipan. I'll remind you again that Magician's post was clearly talking about the map area, not the attraction count.
• Buzz - sure, it's gone, and i'm happy about that. it's land area is insignificant given the ride footprint and the proximity to the carpark, so much so that the overall footprint loss on this alone is negligible and only worth mentioning if you're really desperate to prove a point.
• Tower of Terror - like the rivertown restaurant, there's no hole in the middle of the map. they've removed a significant part of this attraction and no doubt the rest will go as and when construction on rivertown proceeds, but the overall map area of the park hasn't diminished with the closure of this attraction, given it's geographic position within the centre of the park. 

You can strawman this into an attraction count discussion, or a negative space discussion if you need the win, but the point is clear, both in the original reply and his follow up that he was talking about map area \ land size, and nothing you said contradicted that at all.

On 24/03/2023 at 5:57 PM, themagician said:

arguably, based on map area

On 24/03/2023 at 7:28 PM, themagician said:

in terms of park area/footprint, it hasn’t.

 

Edited April 12, 2023 by DaptoFunlandGuy

[joz]

Physically the park is smaller, and the attraction count is reduced. Also building a seperate park next door does not mean the park has expanded. Like I get you want to be all pro DW and whatever, but you can't just Trump it and ignore reality.

They're pretty upfront about saying they're reducing the attraction count and land area "right sizing". You can make a good argument for why that's justified, arguing that it isn't a thing makes no sense.

 

How about this nice and simple: the map used to need space for Thunderbolt and Blue Lagoon Rocky Hollow. It doesn't anymore. Also what used to be a themed land is now a single roller coaster, and many places where there was stuff, there now isn't, so as well as actually no shit being smaller, it also feels emptier.

 

The only thing I think is being missed that I don't think you've said, is aside from the point about why its justified, the new map sucks the big one. The design is stark and makes the place look empty. They've used it for years and when it came out I made the comment that you look at it and wonder how you'd fill a day there, and that was when the park had a much fuller attraction count. Look at old versions of the modern map from pre 2016 and you'll see what I mean.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

10 minutes ago, joz said:

Also building a seperate park next door does not mean the park has expanded.

I wasn't arguing for that, only offering it to counter the suggestion that Blue Lagoon should somehow be factored into the 'current state' comparison when it hasn't operated since 2006.

 

12 minutes ago, joz said:

Physically the park is smaller

it undoubtedly is, and this isn't in issue - however, excepting log ride and BB studios, there isn't much 'area' missing from the current map, though sparse it may be, which was magicians original point.

Your summary is pretty acceptable in terms of describing it, I don't take issue with that view at all, what I do take issue is the strawman presented by others to make it a discussion about something that it wasn't.

16 minutes ago, joz said:

Like I get you want to be all pro DW and whatever

I think my credentials here have long since been established that i'm not 'pro-DW'. I used to consider myself 'pro-village' but lost a lot of respect for the group a few years back. I wouldn't put myself into either camp right now. My family don't even have passes to DW and the only reason we've got them for village is because memberships aren't sold anymore and its easier to let the debit continue. 

Point is - i'll call things how I see them. I like a lot of things DW are doing right now. Not because i'm pro-DW, but because i'm pro-what-they're-doing. Likewise i'm anti-some-things-village-are-doing right now, but i'm excited to see the things they're planning with Oz.

I'm really getting sick of folks dismissing the alternate opinion of someone who disagrees with them just because they've determined that that person must be a 'xx fanboy' to have such an opinion.

20 minutes ago, joz said:

the new map sucks the big one

I guess thats one thing both park chains on the GC have in common because the park maps on both sides of the highway suck arse. I've just gotten back from a few weeks in the states and used apps with built in maps to get around 5 different park chains with different map styles and all of them absolutely shit on our current setups.

[Guest 239]

4 minutes ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

I guess thats one thing both park chains on the GC have in common because the park maps on both sides of the highway suck arse.

This isn't just exclusive to the GC. The user experience for most modern theme parks is terrible. Way too many are to-scale and GPS styled which just don't work for printed guide maps. 

In saying that, Dreamworld's map isn't that bad from a user experience perspective. The paths are clear and the landmarks are fairly obvious. It could benefit from some more contrast between accessible and inaccessible areas alongside prominent rides between more exaggerated.

I do agree with @joz that from a design perspective the map looks sparse, but a positive emotional response from a guide map is generally a bonus. The maps primary purpose is to convey information. Disneyland's map is a great example of marrying up great design and user experience. 

In regards to the Village vs Dreamworld debate, I think Sea World actually does a great job at marrying these up. On the opposite end Movie World is a perfect example of a design-first approach which makes the park look nice and full whilst being utterly useless as a map.

[joz]

@DaptoFunlandGuyWhat i dont understand is what this has to do Village though? Whataboutism is a logically fallacy as much as a strawman is.

 

Also when it comes to the issue of Blue Lagoon, someone posted a map which featured it, and said it's smaller now. It is. That's not a debating point, that's a true statement.

On 24/03/2023 at 5:18 PM, Gobbledok said:

It looks much bigger on that old map because it was much bigger

That's honestly the answer. That's all that needs to be said. But the modern map at one point did have Blue Lagoon on it, and it was, to be fair to modern Dreamworld, a horrible map then too.

Edited April 12, 2023 by joz

[Tricoart]

I think the issue with Movie World's map isn't that it's design-first, but that they're just using an oversaturated, tilted version of their 3d one. Sea World doing their 3d map is fine, but that's because: The park's a rectangle so they can easily just do a birds-eye perspective (thus making the 3d-ness much less pronounced, and giving more space for iconography), it's colours are mostly blues & non-obtrusive beachy colours/pastels, and the park kinda fits a low budget mobile game art style by being relatively small & catered mostly towards families. Whereas Movie World's layout of both the map & the park itself means they needed to offset the angle from birds-eye to tilted, which makes the 3d effect much more pronounced, and thus the map seem much more cluttered. Also, it's colours are more saturated & obtrusive than SW's, as well as overlaying massive, obtrusive, harshly coloured icons on top of almost everything, enhancing the cluttered effect even more. Both SW and MW would benefit from better map keys, though, as the ones they've got just look like Excel tables.

Dreamworld's issues are kind of the opposite to MW's, in some ways. They've got the non-obtrusive colours of Sea World's map, no in-your-face iconography or incomprehensibly cluttered sections like Movie World's map has, and a nicely designed map key to boot. It's issues are on the other side of the spectrum, where it's too simple & open in some parts, and there's only a few things that are easily noticeable, with the rest of the map just kinda blending together into the sea of unobtrusive colours. I think the current (actual) Main Street, Dreamland, Tiger Island, Native Wildlife, and Ocean Parade areas of the map are perfectly serviceable, managing the balance of recognizability & obtrusiveness, or clutter & emptiness, well. What suffers the most is the outskirts of what's labelled under 'Main Street', where Steel Taipan, Motocoaster, & Giant Drop reside, with that whole section feeling more like wasted space than a fleshed-out area of the park. As to if that's the case in real life or not is up to opinion, but at the very least it shouldn't come across as such on the map. And the art style being akin to Sea World's family-oriented, simplistic one may too be seen as a detriment rather than a positive, as it seems more low budget & generic than what you'd expect from "Australia's Biggest Theme Park", or from it's detailed maps in the past. Also, the iconography is so unobtrusive that it's mostly unrecognizable, or even just nonexistent in some places. Major rides have a barely viewable icon, as all they've done is try to inconspicuously blend their ride logos into the pathways leading up to the ride, and those that don't have logos, or paths to attach them to, just don't get an icon. More notably, though, the map has literally zero mention of any food, drink, or retail stores in the park, including on it's key. As for the key, while being more pleasingly designed than SW or MW's, it takes up way too much space than it really should, which heavily encroaches on the size of the map itself. This makes the iconography issues worse, as all the icons you can see are dwarfed by it's overlayed squares, QR code, and the said inefficiently spaced key. 

Edited April 12, 2023 by Tricoart

[REGIE]

My favourite map style of all time is the amazing hand drawn maps like the 90s dreamworld map. But let’s be honest a map like that is just not going to happen these days.  I think my favourite newer style park map that I have seen is probably the one Currumbin wildlife sanctuary use.  It’s detailed and looks fun. But also works just as well digital as printed .  It makes it feel full of things to do. Another thing that doesn’t help dreamworlds current map is they exclude all surrounding bush and tree. Leaving a few would help I think. But overall it’s just been deleted from and added to way too many times and it needs a full on refresh. But it’s not worth doing that till the new areas are open.    Anyway here’s CWS’s map

[Tricoart]

I think zoo maps, possibly due to the nature of zoos in comparison to parks, and in conjunction a higher need for good maps to properly navigate them, will always be a great comparison for parks. With that, I think Currumbin's could still have some improvements (it's a tad too cluttered, the key's rather bland & small, the art style is too detailed for modern times, and the instance you sent is super oversaturated). If you're looking for concise, pleasing zoo maps, look no further than: 

They both do sections clearly, keep to an art style that's the right amount of detailed for modern times, have good keys (especially Taronga's, cause they don't need to list every animal on it), utilize space very well, and have proper iconography/labelling for animals, lands, and amenities without making the maps seem cluttered. 

Edited April 12, 2023 by Tricoart

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

14 hours ago, joz said:

someone posted a map which featured it, and said it's smaller now. It is. That's not a debating point, that's a true statement.

This is starting to make sense now. I can't see that map. It's broken so i've no idea what that map shows, and in it's broken state, I didn't realise there was even a map there - I just read that post (below) as being a wistful nostalgic comment about days gone by.

I still don't know what 'whataboutism' you think i've done - my only mention of village in my last reply was to counter the argument that I was somehow 'pro-dw' and I think that's logically relevant.