Article: CEO says new thrill ride for 2007

[Richard]

CEO says new thrill ride for 2007 Wednesday 7 March 2007 - Dreamworld Greg Shaw, Chief Executive Officer of Macquarie Leisure Trust Group, owners and operators of Dreamworld on the Gold Coast says that 2007 will see the company ready to invest in a new thrill ride for the popular theme park. Read On...

[GoGoBoy]

I've been hoping for a while that even though Dreamworld's strict capex budget is $6.1 million per year, if they waited a few years before adding each major new thrill ride it would allow them to spend the big bucks again ($20 mill etc. for somethung huge). Unfortunately it doesn't appear to be working this way. It has been 3 years between new rides and the park is installing a relatively small coaster. As we are all aware there have been other smaller/family additions over these 3 years however. When I look at the park map I can't help but think the park should be bigger than it is by now, esepcially considering its success. I feel their expansion should have happened at a greater rate particularly seeing the park is so busy and could use additional capacity. I worry if they continue with this philosophy of wait 3 years then add a relatively small ride the park is just going to go backwards and we will end up with a smalltime park like Adventure World in Perth in comparison to other parks around the world

[Richard]

You raise a very good point about the park's recent history. In the past six or so years Dreamworld's attendance has increased by more than 40%. Over 400,000 guests per year, or an average of 1,100, more than used to attend the park. The alarming thing is the park's capacity hasn't increased by anywhere near 40%, and I don't think there's any denying that even back then the park struggled in terms of capacity and efficiency. I just can't imagine how a park that's always been stretched pretty thin in terms of overall capacity is able to handle these numbers in a way that doesn't detriment the average guest's experience.

[stardust]

OO does this mean another new ride for DW?? Yay!

[Adam]

Nice article. It's about time Dreamworld invested in a quality full-circuit coaster.

[taronga]

OO does this mean another new ride for DW?? Yay!

Where is our long promised thrill ride? As the article states this coaster will be a slower family version, i've lost all faith in this park and the direction it's headed. I don't plan on ever going to dreamworld again unless they deliver something other than family rides.

[Gazza]

I'm surprised this new coaster seems to have been rejected already by so many....I guess unless it costs $20 million its just not good enough For starters we're getting an Intamin, and without being a brand suck-up, that alone should be a good indicator in terms of the quality of the ride we should see, I would be interested to see how many 'bad' Intamin's people can name from the past few years. Also, I think people seem to be missing the point of what a 'family' ride is, you might automatically think of something like Big Red Car as being a family ride, but thats a children's ride. To me a family ride is something everyone can get something out of, now that doesn't mean it has to be super gentle because then people wouldn't be having fun. Something like SDSC or WWF could be a better indication of the sort of intensity i would expect to see, not so intimidating that many won't want to ride, but something that is just a lot of fun. IMO how 'extreme' something is shouldn't be the only indicator of how good a ride is. But really, boycotting the place for not building a thrill ride? There's gotta be some merit to a new coaster and I wouldn't expect it to just be a typical kids coaster. All this negative talk reminds me of when "DWWP" was going up, and a lot of people were saying "oh its too small", "those towers aren't big enough", "wont be any better than WnW"....and then it turned out to be one of the best things that has happened in the Aussie theme park scene, something to think about.

Where is our long promised thrill ride?

Promised? The park has never said anything.

As the article states this coaster will be a slower family version

No, that is just with respect to the Vekoma motorbike coaster. An interesting point to note though, Cyclone travels at 85 km/h, while Velocity (A Vekoma motorbike in the UK) actually goes a tad faster at 86.9 km/h. Edited March 21, 2007 by Gazza

[Churros]

Yeah, 85km/h is still pretty fast. Couple that with a hasty acceleration and the unique seating style and you could have a winner. And just because it isn't as fast as Superman doesn't mean a whole lot. Some of the best Intamin Accelerators around have a slower launch than Superman's. It means that more interesting track elements, etc can be employed and hopefully a different ride experience.