As long as when it does open it's safe, and finished so the first riders don't go away disappointed! 

(That would be a very foolish move!)

You can see the lights in the queue, the stairs that lead up to the second level and the intergration of the ride's external facade to the coffee shop.

New road paving through Main Street is looking good👍

Temporary fences are gone! Not the Boxing Day opening we were hoping for but at least all construction is completed. The curb entrance is just blocked off by a few retractable belt stanchions now.

Edited December 26, 20187 yr by mssveattck

27 minutes ago, mssveattck said:

Temporary fences are gone! Not the Boxing Day opening we were hoping for but at least all construction is completed. The curb entrance is just blocked off by a few retractable belt stanchions now.

Someone left the door open.

@Slick what do you think of the facade?

29 minutes ago, dylan_oregan said:

@Slick what do you think of the facade?

It's fine I guess - it doesn't at all hold a candle to the old facade - I dunno who thought white panels was going to trump a Disneyland facsimile facade - the facades they demolished still appear in many of their photos and it's as iconic as the entrance plaza - but there you go, not my business I guess.

The shade design is the best bit - it should be the icing on the cake but right now with the white panelling I think it looks like it's missing something. As a theme park, white walls is just not good enough, as a building design, it's just not good enough, as something that's going to remembered as a potentially iconic turning point for a company, it's not good enough.

Recently I visited New Plymouth in NZ to checkout Mt Taranaki and the Len Lye Centre. In regards to the Len Lye Centre, my thought there is that if a regional town over the ditch can create an iconic aesthetic to their museum's facade then a multi-million dollar company like Ardent should be striving to do better. Especially if the benchmark's already "it used to look like a Disney facade" who are basically the defacto global standard in theme park quality, and especially if every shopping centre's dining precinct (like the one across the road at Westfield) does it better.

My advice if someone from Ardent is reading? I'd actually take inspiration from the Len Lye Museum and replace or treat the white panelling with a very thin sheet of coated aluminium mirror sheeting. Instead of bland white facades, they'd have a mirror finish which would reflect the sky and thus tying the "soaring over the sky" subtext  of the ride experience much more closely to the real world design. It'd be a relatively minor design change that wouldn't be too expensive to implement and would bring up the look of the ride to something very, very premium and iconic. It'd also make the design look more like the original concept artwork.

 

Len Lye Centre above.

Other mirror-finish facades.

As I said - you can get the aluminium cladding down to a fraction of a millimetre thick and delivered on a spool.

Edited December 26, 20187 yr by Slick

A few of the white panels are slightly dented. Presumably done during construction to force them to fit when they were not quite the right size.

It's not a huge deal but it is easy to spot. Not sure if Dreamworld will be demanding the contractor rectify this but I think they should. 

If the metallic finish was applied though the imperfections would likely be unnoticeable. 

1 hour ago, pushbutton said:

A few of the white panels are slightly dented. Presumably done during construction to force them to fit when they were not quite the right size.

It's not a huge deal but it is easy to spot. Not sure if Dreamworld will be demanding the contractor rectify this but I think they should. 

If the metallic finish was applied though the imperfections would likely be unnoticeable. 

I'd say that was due to the recent storms.

@Slick why on earth didnt you come and see me while you were in new plymouth!!!!

2 hours ago, themeparkaddict said:

@Slick why on earth didnt you come and see me while you were in new plymouth!!!!

I had no idea we had enthusiasts in such a remote joint - that’s a solid two plane trip to get here!

Hey @Slick glad we get on. I am a themepark enthusiasts, apologies for the spam a week weeks back.

Are we days or weeks away from opening? 

Every day closed is a missed opportunity. The 26th-30th of December are historically the busiest days with crowds up to 5 times that of a low season day. I wonder how many Holiday makers will visit DW only if Skyvoyager is open?

They should have thrown everything (short of putting a roll cage!) to get this thing ready on time. 

Understand but adequate amount of training first 

3 minutes ago, MickeyD said:

Are we days or weeks away from opening? 

Every day closed is a missed opportunity. The 26th-30th of December are historically the busiest days with crowds up to 5 times that of a low season day. I wonder how many Holiday makers will visit DW only if Skyvoyager is open?

They should have thrown everything (short of putting a roll cage!) to get this thing ready on time. 

My crystal ball says days - they're definitely burning the midnight oil to get this running.

31 minutes ago, MickeyD said:

I wonder how many Holiday makers will visit DW only if Skyvoyager is open?

I wonder how many holiday makers know it isn't open?

5 minutes ago, joz said:

I wonder how many holiday makers know it isn't open?

I wonder how many holiday makers know what it is?

Or even if it exists?

It's not really a ride you will do more than once...

The building on its own looks good but doesn't really fit into main street. I think the ride will be a big hit though. Cant wait to get up there and give it a go!

There’s a ride attendant out the front saying it’s going to open in a couple of weeks.

1 hour ago, dylan_oregan said:

It's not really a ride you will do more than once...

Depends what sort of ride you enjoy. I for one will be on it at the very least once a month.

3 hours ago, dylan_oregan said:

It's not really a ride you will do more than once...

Tell that to Soarin’ fans. 

4 hours ago, dylan_oregan said:

It's not really a ride you will do more than once...

Yeah bullshit mate. How many times have you been on one if these rides?

Personally I have ridden Soarin version 1 more times than Rivals. And I am not alone

55 minutes ago, MickeyD said:

Yeah bullshit mate. How many times have you been on one if these rides?

Personally I have ridden Soarin version 1 more times than Rivals. And I am not alone

Let's all calm our farms - i've had to hide a few posts which weren't necessary.

The key will be just how good the film is, I think. If it's not up to scratch that's really going to hurt chances of wanting to re-ride.