Theme Parks Reopening Post COVID-19

[Zanstabar]

4 minutes ago, Smol bean said:

So it looks like movie world are doing a daily countdown with a video showing a ride each day until movie world is back open

How many rides showcased in the countdown will open with the park? 

[Brad2912]

Village Roadshow preparing to reopen more Gold Coast theme parks, Vortex ride ‘almost ready’ as part of Atlantis precinct

The finishing touches are being put on Sea World’s latest attraction as the park celebrates bumper crowds on its return to business. But there’s one more thing that must happen before it opens.

A NEW thrill ride is almost ready at Sea World as more Gold Coast theme parks prepare to swing open their gates once the border opens to interstate visitors.

Village Roadshow is putting the finishing touches on the Vortex, part of the new $50 million Atlantis precinct ahead of the border restrictions easing on Friday.

The company has welcomed back up to 3000 of more than 4000 workers before Movie World and Wet’n’Wild reopen on July 15.

Sea World is open and limited to 6000 guests, which it has not yet hit. Outback Spectacular, Paradise Country and Top Golf are already open.

Village Roadshow Theme Parks chief operating officer Bikash Randhawa said it has been a big job readying to reopen, particularly at Wet’n’Wild.

“In terms of Wet’n’Wild there’s a lot of water quality issues we need to address. We need to refill the pools, we need to have the water running through the rides and we need to make sure the chemicals and quality are to standard. Once it has stabilised we are in a position to open rides,” he said.

“We’ve been doing necessary maintenance, critical maintenance.”

Mr Randhawa said work on the Atlantis precinct, which will include a huge wooden rollercoaster called the Leviathan, was their “main focus” and the Vortex was “almost ready”.

“We’re just waiting on engineers being allowed to come to Australia from Germany,” he said.

“Once they arrive they’ll commission the ride. It takes between 4-6 weeks and the ride should be ready.

“I can tell you that ride looks absolutely amazing. We’ll be only place that has an attraction opening during this time. Getting the Vortex going will be a big tick for tourism.

“And we’re working through the wooden coaster to see when that will happen. The ground works are completed, now it’s a matter of getting the Americans down to install the ride.”

Mr Randhawa said Sea World “has gotten fairly close” to 6000 guests some days.

“The borders haven’t opened, we have zero interstate visitation and zero international. When you look at that, we feel like the domestic market has embraced Sea World well,” he said.

Village Roadshow typically hosts about six million guests per year.

“It’s evidently clear that theme parks play a critical and crucial part in driving attendance and driving visitation to the Gold Coast,” Mr Randhawa said.

“It will a big blessing in many ways to have all the parks open and operating at a reasonable level to start with and then the hope is it ramps up towards September.

“We should see a reasonable attendance. It will be quite interesting to see what happens on open day.”

Dreamworld, operated by Ardent Leisure, has announced a staged reopening of the park and WhiteWater World “in time for the September holiday period”.

Specific dates have not yet been announced.

https://www..com.au/news/gold-coast/village-roadshow-preparing-to-reopen-more-gold-coast-theme-parks-vortex-ride-almost-ready-as-part-of-atlantis-precinct/news-story/714ae4165a3a8babbff72a5dfe34f34a

So nothing new really. 

still months away from Vortex opening, and with news that we need Americans to arrive to build Leviathan then that will be a LONG way off

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

21 minutes ago, Brad2912 said:

we need Americans to arrive to build Leviathan then that will be a LONG way off

There's ways to do both that and commission Vortex. Its down to who is willing to pay for it.

 

[Thrill Seeker]

1 hour ago, Brad2912 said:

Village Roadshow Theme Parks chief operating officer Bikash Randhawa said it has been a big job readying to reopen, particularly at Wet’n’Wild.

“In terms of Wet’n’Wild there’s a lot of water quality issues we need to address. We need to refill the pools, we need to have the water running through the rides and we need to make sure the chemicals and quality are to standard. Once it has stabilised we are in a position to open rides,” he said.

Wet’n’wild would be a difficult one to start over. As I work at an aquatic facility over the period we had to dump all of our water. When we had a date pools were then refilled with fresh water. However the pumps have to run for at least 8-10 hours a day and then it takes about 2-3 weeks to get the water stable. It is a very fine art to get the water levels stable from scratch. 

Edited July 7, 2020 by Thrill Seeker
Spelling

[red dragin]

The challenge right now is getting permission to bring the people into the country, and then actually getting them on a flight. Some people have taken ten+ days to do the Europe to Australia trip as returning citizens.

Do we really need American's to build Leviathan? Surely people who can work with timber construction and read plans are enough, with some skilled oversight.

Edited July 7, 2020 by red dragin

[themagician]

HSD has also been testing at MW as the fire ball recently went off. 
 

It also seems Rivals has been testing all day 

Edited July 7, 2020 by themagician

[Thrill Seeker]

5 hours ago, themagician said:

HSD has also been testing at MW as the fire ball recently went off. 
 

It also seems Rivals has been testing all day 

1. Firework company probably has to Re-certify equipment due to months without use.

2. All rides will probably see this In the coming days. Staff will need to be refreshed on their operating procedures. Due to months of downtime, each ride may have to go through the 100 dispatch testing again. I remember storm coaster was going nonstop for 9 days before SeaWorld reopening.

[Jdude95]

Y'know, you never realise just how much work goes into the water quality at water parks until it's actually brought up.

[Smol bean]

Here’s movie worlds next video with 7 days remaining til reopening 

https://www.instagram.com/movieworldaus/

[Whombex]

On 08/07/2020 at 1:57 AM, Jdude95 said:

Y'know, you never realise just how much work goes into the water quality at water parks until it's actually brought up.

I see what you did there...

[StingRay]

On 07/07/2020 at 2:37 PM, Thrill Seeker said:

Wet’n’wild would be a difficult one to start over. As I work at an aquatic facility over the period we had to dump all of our water. When we had a date pools were then refilled with fresh water. However the pumps have to run for at least 8-10 hours a day and then it takes about 2-3 weeks to get the water stable. It is a very fine art to get the water levels stable from scratch. 

100% on the money. Plus any wanter stored in tanks has to be treated and balancing out the chemicals for that can be a nightmare also. The filters need cleaning (these are the size of cars)and that process can take a while. Pools and slides get cleaned up also.

As stated before its also then the retraining of staff that becomes a big issue also. With governing regulations stipulating minimum training hours etc.

[Smol bean]

Here are a couple more of the movie world. Countdown videos

https://www.instagram.com/movieworldaus/

https://www.instagram.com/movieworldaus/

https://www.instagram.com/movieworldaus/
 

I’ll keep everyone updated on this until the park opens

[aussienetman]

I cant see any discussion just yet about the 50 redundancies recently announced by Dreamworld. Any tips on departments?

[Smol bean]

Here’s an article about where  you don’t have to pay to see the full thing (cough cough courier mail cough cough)

https://www.ausleisure.com.au/news/coronavirus-impact-sees-dreamworld-make-50-positions-redundant/

[Smol bean]

Here the next countdown video with 3 days to go this basically shows that you have to have a account on the vrl app to load you ticket to get In

https://www.instagram.com/movieworldaus/

[Jdude95]

18 hours ago, aussienetman said:

I cant see any discussion just yet about the 50 redundancies recently announced by Dreamworld. Any tips on departments?

Admin staff. Basically anyone who worked in the office who wasn't essential to operations was dropped. Media people, PA's, Basic admin functions. 

[rappa]

That could be more ‘glossing over’ over something if you tried. 
They sacked 50 people with likely a good 100 to come still, in a disgraceful fashion and they are all essential business functions and a lot of solid people. 
The place is screwed with no money to even keep itself afloat, and not a spine to share between the management. 
 

Makes me angry to see their behavior and even angrier to see the whole thing basically dismissed above. Have kept my mouth shut to now but that pisses me off. Disgraceful to see people sacked with nearly 3 months of Jobkeeper left. 
At the same time ‘mean old Village’ have kept everyone in a job. 
Ardent are a disgrace.  
 

It will be a surprise if Dreamworld ever reopens under their management, and certainly won’t resembling anything like we know and remember it. 

Edited July 12, 2020 by rappa

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Look, i'm rarely one to defend Dreamworld - but by all accounts a lot of their admin area was bloated.

I don't know any more than whats in the media (if you do, by all means share if you can) but from reading the coroners report, and going off what i've heard in the past, they needed a clear out. Its unfortunate that some good people are out of work as a result and it absolutely sucks.

The timing, in relation to jobkeeper is downright curious - yes, they probably could have kept them on until job keeper ran out, but jobkeeper isn't compulsory either, so its not like the staff had a 'right' to it.

I don't agree with you on it being 'dismissed' or 'glossed over' and it just seems like you're itching for a fight. Jdude's comments were pretty factual, as I understand the facts.

It is, I agree, disgraceful - but they aren't the only business that's done it.

[Jdude95]

Glossed over, like the fact that Village are putting peoples health below the potential sale that everyone keeps forgetting? 

If there was glossing over, this site is the glory hole of it. 

Yes, it is shitty that Ardent have done this but the timing makes sense with everything going on in their business at the moment. Sure they could have kept the jobkeeper for a couple more months but then you'd just be opening the park again as you're saying goodbye to staff and that looks worse. 

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

I'm interested to see how many are shown the door at VRTP when JobKeeper runs out. That'll make for an interesting comparison, if it occurs.

[T-bone]

Let’s not forget that Village already did a massive redundancy sweep a few years ago which saw quite a few departments gutted and left a lot of admin areas bare. So would there be many left to make redundant that aren’t there for day to day operations?

[joz]

31 minutes ago, Jdude95 said:

Glossed over, like the fact that Village are putting peoples health below the potential sale that everyone keeps forgetting?

You still on about this? Why is Skypoint open then? Why is Currumbin Sanctuary open? Why is Australia Zoo open? Why is Aussie World open? According too Village opened too quickly when they shouldn't have because of their sale and disregard for health. Yet at the same time heaps of other things opened that aren't being sold? I mean even Home of the Arts which is government run is holding events again.

 

So maybe people aren't glossing over the sale, but people have instead been able to look around and see how unremarkable it is that Village have started reopening at a time when everything else is.

 

Also the increase in the offer price relies on both MW & SW being open. MW will be the last thing to open. If it was 100% about a sale, why didn't they rush MW to open with SW?

 

As for Ardent; why did they have 50 staff more than they needed when they were trying to get back to a point of breaking even? Do they even business? They're further up the shit than people want to admit, and it makes me sad for DW. I hope there's some sweet state government money coming their way because I think that's the only realistic chance they have to survive.

[rappa]

It's a real shame that some people are so anti Village and pro Dreamworld because when that shit hole never reopens they will have no where to go at all.

But honestly when at a time like this when so many people are out of work and down on their finances, people are almost 'meh they were just basic positions anyway, they are expendable', I am so disgusted that I don't even have their energy to argue.

 

When you are so incompetent at running a theme park that you have to sack people who did their jobs the best they could under your crappy leadership, but you keep your nice paying job and get to continue being incompetent, then you're a piece of crap.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

On 12/07/2020 at 11:23 AM, Jdude95 said:

Admin staff. Basically anyone who worked in the office who wasn't essential to operations was dropped. Media people, PA's, Basic admin functions. 

 

29 minutes ago, rappa said:

people are almost 'meh they were just basic positions anyway, they are expendable'

It is you who has inserted the emotion into that statement. You inserted 'meh' and 'they are expendable'.

Jdude's comment was directly replying to aussienetman who brought up the topic and asked whether anyone knew what departments the cuts were made from

On 11/07/2020 at 4:58 PM, aussienetman said:

Any tips on departments?

Jdude's reply was factual - office staff who weren't 'essential' to operations, including media, PAs and 'basic admin functions'.

For fucks sake mate - you need to stop looking for a fight. You've read things into the post that just aren't there to suit your own agenda, and as a community leader, you should be setting a better example.

[rappa]

Passively standing idle by is just as bad as being an active participant in doing shit things.

I'm not singling out one post, I'm talking about a general vibe, read the posts above, there is already defensive sentiment towards Dreamworld being expressed.

And as Joz pointed out, needless comparisons being drawn to Village. Village is irrelevant, if something is shit, it's shit regardless of if someone else is also shit. 

 

I don't have an agenda outside of expressing my feelings that Ardent are a disgrace of a company who don't deserve to be responsible for the asset to the community that was Dreamworld. But for some reason every time I try to express such a point of view I get shot down.

And as a community leader I am setting an example, one I will continue to set, that things should be called out for what they are, not ignored because of blind admiration.