Jumped the shark?

[joz]

I've noticed that recently, there has been quite a few negative opinions of Dreamworld, from people who aren't me. How did this happen? Not too long ago, Dreamworld was the Gold Coast's most loved park. Do you think Dreamworld has jumped the shark? If so, when? Opinions please...

[Flea]

It's the worst major park in Australia- no doubt about it. When I visited Dreamworld in 2001, I was very pleased with my trip to the park.. but that soon changed after I went to Dreamworld this year in April. The staff were all witty, food sucked and the park was packed. Not to mention the low capacity rides (along with slow loading times) which allowed me to get an amazing 6 rides in that day. A line with a mere 60 or so people in it ended up being a 45 minute line.. thanks to the 15 minute dispatch times on Cyclone. I'd like to say this again.. Dreamworld IS Six Flags Coomera Mountain. ~Flea

[Richard]

It's all about the staff: Tower of Terror's placement, though ruining an otherwise nice area of the park, doesn't really affect the park. The paddlewheeler show was interesting, though the fact is, I haven't ridden that ride since 1999 (at least partly becuase there is no show). Tiger Island only adds more variety to the park. Also, it's great to just watch them. I remember once falling asleep for a good few hours over there, watching the tigers. I might be the only person who thought that the Outback Celebration show was at least interesting and reasonably well put together. The three rides in question are at least fun rides, and they're not necessarily low capacity. Tower of Terror could easily run at around 900 pph, 600 without even stressing. Giant Drop should do no less than around 480 if run correctly. Cyclone was designed to cater for two-train operation, which would easily push it to 1000 pph if run correctly. As it is, it should be no less than around 500 or 600 pph. The fact is, on average, all these rides might peak at 200 pph. Nick Central is well put together, and certainly made better use of the land than Kennyland. Kenny Koala is/was a badly dated imitation of Mickey Mouse. Big Brother never affected me - I've never visited (for obvious reasons) on eviction days etc. I wouldn't say the restaurant is out of place - it could be done better (much better), but it's certainly fitting for the area. Ocean Parade made the area brigher and more "theme parky". Cyclone's location certainly didn't really affect them. Sure, I absolutely despise the location, or the lack of landscaping (especially under that helix). Koala Country's the best looking animal park I've been to (that adds up to a lot over the years). Sitting down in the Kakadu area with a nice hot drink (as nice as they can get in theme parks) is really one of the nicest places to be apart from, well... just about every natural place (south coast of NSW, Tasmanian Highlands, NSW Snowies, Lawn Hill Gorge up 'near' (i.e. a few days' drive) Mt Isa are some of my most recent favorites for anyone that cares). It really is the staff, which cause the low capacity, and neutral or unpleasant days at the park. I think it proves that coasters/rides don't make the park - and like Flea paralleled, it's the same at parks like SFMM (or SFWOA).

[Andy_q69]

Poor Kenny Koala. He has just been dissed by the park with a whole load of Nickelodeon characters. I remember when I was little, I used to enjoy the old Kennyland rides a lot. And yes, one of the main 'Jump the Shark' things is the low capacity rides.

[joz]

Richard, while I do whole heartedly about staff, and how that effects the parks, I've been hearing stories of bad DW staff since well before ToT. So that idea doesn't really add up for me. I do believe there is a higher proportion of rude staff at the park these days. Still, I can't really put that on the list since that's an on going thing, and rude staff have been going on long before all the negitive talk of the park came up. I personally am torn between low capacity rides, and the disregard for visual impact, but I don't think they jumped the shark until Cyclone. It seemed to be the culmination of everything the park had been working for. On a side note, I'd be very surprised if anyone picks Tiger Island or Koala Country as the reason for the park dipping downward. I just included them as 1. Tiger Island was a real step away from the Australia theme, and 2 some may feel that the upgrade to Koala Country made it loose its charm (I however, am not one of those people).

[stdragon03]

I went to Dreamworld recently and agree that the ride capacity was terrible and most of the coasters and rides had only one staff working them. Apart from Tower of terror and Eureka Mine coaster the other coasters weren't that crash hot. In particular the ThunderBolt which would have to be the worst coaster in the world,very rough and braking alot.This is sad as when i went to Dreamworld 15 years ago it was a Great coaster. I wonder if mangement of Australian theme parks Realise how bad some of our coasters have become.Especially compared to other coasters overseas.Not only in Building coasters but updating and maintaining them as well.

[Nightshifter]

i rekon that dreamworld is the best theme park i have been in australia. it had the tallest roller coaster in the world, it has the tallest ride in the world, it has many great rides including wipeout, eureks mine ride, reef diver and one of the best roller coasters the cyclone, it contains a newly themed area witha kiddie roller coaster. i can keep on going on, but the fact that its busy or some downfsalls as the food is **** or they dont have many sideshows or anything like that doesnt make it a bad park at all, isnt that what we want, everyone is waiting for wonderland to actually start fighting back to be better than dreamworld and you think when it does happen wonderland wont draw crowds back again, it will be the most buisiest park in australia, cedar point, disneyworld florida and disneyland tokyo are one of a few very busy parks soaring with guests everywhere. you cant expect dreamworld to build a new ride or rides and not expect good attendances, dreamworld, movie world and a little o seaworld are the only australian theme parks that advertise on tv, mainly only dreamworld. now really think about it, is dreamworld the not good? dont judge the park if u visit it every week or every few weeks and then you get sick ofit like i did at wonderland now i gave it a big miss since 2001 jst to get myself excited and now im going there next saturday with friends and for once i am looking forward to going to wonderland. well reconsider before you actually post something.

[Andy_q69]

And exactly how many times have you been to Wonderland this year?

[Nightshifter]

ive been twice this year and thats my point i dont go very often which when i do makes the experience better than go ver now and then.

[Andy_q69]

Ahhh ok. I've lost count of how many times I've been. But I am up to 141 on Space Probe this year!

[Shaun]

What frustrates me is when you are standing in line there and they are not even makeing an etempt tp push lines through quicker. For the Wipeout they have like 3 staff members just sitting their talking while the rides operating and while we are just all standing outside waiting in line when we could be storeing our valuables and walking up through the wave which could save about a minute of time! add this up and you could have about 2 or 3 more rides an hour! that's 120 people!. On the wipeout they have all the equpiment and even the staff (surprisingly) to increae the capacity but they dont! Same with the thunderbolt, if they hired one extra staff member they could run it a lot more quicker. Anyway now you have got me started Shaun

[Andy_q69]

It's too bad CYclone and Thunderbolt have only one train operations. Dreamworld really have to step up a gear.

[Jaggie]

Well imo i would say the best park in australia is wonderland. It is cleanest, has better shows the rides take away tower of terror and what are you left woth at dw? Staff at wls are good etc... now it may be a bit biased in my opinion seeing as i am a big wls fan but my last visit to dw didnt give me that experience that i get from leaving movieworld, seaworld and wonderland.

[thunder001]

Ok we have all had this chat before so lets have it again. I really don't have any trouble with the staff at DW, and I think that I know why. It might all be due to age. Most of the ppl who post here are around the 13-18 age group I believe, so let's go through this from a slightly older point of view. I get to the park and the first ppl that we see are at the front gate. A friendly smile and a goodmorning is allways there. We get into the park and see that the rides have started, and on all the rides we are greated with a hello, just as I greet them. And I think that this is the key. If you are bright and happy towards the attendant, then about 90% of the time, you are greeted the same. It is called something that I can't even dream of spelling, that means that the person returns the same feelings that they are greeted with. So if you all have bad feelings towards the staff before you even get to the park, then the ppl around you will pick up on these feelings and feel the same way. It works, trust me as I use it with unhappy customers every day to get them the way I can deal with them. But if you are trully unhappy with the staff and the food, have any of you sent an e-mail to the park or called the park and asked to speak with the customer relations officer on duty. This way you are not just telling us, but the park knows as well and the problem can be addressed. I will send this link to the park so as they can see what faults we all here have with the park. Maybe nothing will happen, but then again you never know. :?:

[Andy_q69]

Well imo i would say the best park in australia is wonderland.   It is cleanest, has better shows the rides take away tower of terror and what are you left woth at dw? Staff at wls are good etc...

Wonderland, cleanest park?! Staff as WLS are good. Well, MOST of them..

[Richard]

The major gripe here isn't with the staff's attitudes, necessarily. No one has even hinted that Dreamworld has rude or unpolite staff. Dreamworld has nice staff. I doubt anyone that couldn't smile and ask how someone's day was, regardless of the guest's attitude would actually be hired by the park. The problem, as most people have suggested, is with the efficiency at which they work. 15 minute dispatches on Cyclone are completely inexcusable. There's no other reason for it than slackness, and no attempt by the park's operations department to attempt to straighten things up. And besides, the fact is, even an average employee of a park, in my opinion, should be able to be courteous (is that the word you're after Wayne? ) if you walk up to them looking like the angry red dudes in RCT. I've never been anything but polite to staff in any theme park, and certainly at Dreamworld, they are nearly always the same back. But, boucing back to the efficiency point, an employee of a theme park is hired, regardless of whether they're a sweep, cashier, ride operator or attendant, to make your day good. Queue's are a pretty quick way to deteriorate the quality of a day (especially if the conversation seems to be a perpetual silence), and there's no attempt from most of Dreamworld's staff to speed up queue times. Need I also mention that there have been occasions where queues were moving nice and fast?

[coasterfreak]

I believe that if you go to a park expecting the worst then that’s what you will experience. I have been to all major parks in Oz (Wonderland, Dreamworld, Sea World and Movie World) and I have always found the park staff to be pleasant. Treat others as you would like to be treated... The only time I was disturbed by one staff member’s antics was during a trip to Movie World a few days after Wild Wild West/ Wild West Falls opened. A girl had slipped getting into the car (she did not hurt herself) that I was getting into and a staff member laughed out loud. I understand that this is one staff member at one park but that does not make them all bad. coasterfreak

[Ian]

why cant all parks be like Disneysea

[Shaun]

I don't have a problem at all with the staff at Dreamworld, they have all been real nice to me and it's not their fault if they have been told to run at 1 train operation I think a lot of the time when you come across bad staff (and you havn't done anyhting to to stir trouble) you can normmally blame it back on the park itself due to iether poor trainning or lack of staff. Some times you do get the odd bad egg but it's up to the park itself to re-train and fix the problem. Can the Thunderbolt run 2 trains? Is it ever done?

[Richard]

Thunderbolt is blocked to run two trains with easy - such a long course would mean that there's no rush to dispatch trains, and there'd be little chance of stacking. Whether it's ever been done is another question (I'd challenge anyone here to recall a situation where the ride did run both trains).

[Andy_q69]

http://www.australianamusementfanatics.com...read.php?tid=37

I was at the park yesterday (12/02/03) and the Thunderbolt was shut down for its annual service. This has been its second week of closure. Finally both trains are back in the station. The second train has been missing over the past few months, getting its own annual maintenance. You have to wonder why they had it removed during the peak xmas period.

The trains weren't running but there were two trains. Your probably wondering what was the point of that..

[Richard]

In recent years, there's nearly always been two trains in the station. They took one out for a short time last year for maintenance or for whatever other reason, and put it back on the transfer track. Not really anything groundbreaking.

[Psycho]

Last time I remember seeing two train operation on Thunderbolt was on my first visit to the park back in 1993. They only ran two trains for a few hours then changed back to one. Seems that it's just too much effort to run two......

[thunder001]

Spoke to the park today and found that the Thunderbolt is shut down for GOOD. This was only through park relations, but that is what was told.

[Richard]

See this thread for more discussion about Thunderbolt's current state and future.