Tuesday 19 April 2016

Theme Park Nut Update - 19th April 2016

The biggest news this week in Australian Theme Park news, is that Rocky Hollow Log ride at Dreamworld has closed (temporarily) after a man was injured after a fall from the ride. There is some conjecture about how this happened, and whether the man in question may have had some kind of intellectual disability, however all that is confirmed for the moment is that this issue is being investigated as we speak. The ride is currently close, but despite some media reports, it is expected to reopen in the coming weeks.

Looking more globally, the news was also not good for Hong Kong Disneyland, where rumours suggest that employees are being laid off due to a slump in profits. Hong Kong tourism is a difficult thing to measure, as the fact that their dollar is tied to the US Dollar, means that the local Chinese market has massive swings in value from visiting the region. At the moment it is a bad swing, and so even with the wonderful new attractions at this park, there has not been a significant growth in visitors. Who can say what affect the opening of Shanghai will have on this market in the coming year as well.

This week we heard ThemeParkInsider remind us that we have another park, other than Shanghai Disneyland, opening this year with a spotlight piece on Motiongate Dubai. This park looks like such an interesting mix of IPs, who knows what it will look like when finished, or in 10 years time for that matter.

Over in Anahiem Disney officially "broke ground" on Star Wars land. But let's face it, this ground was broken MONTHS ago, so there isn't any great surprises here.

In Orlando, we got to see a POV of Mako the brand new coaster for Sea World. It looks like a thumping good ride, but it is totally to little to late for this park!! Over at WDW, Animal Kingdom has again delayed showing it's new show River's of Light. They must be going through some serious unexpected technical hurdles, to have pulled the plug on the media day for this show. Hopefully it will all be worth it, when the show debuts (we hope) some time this summer.

For more Theme Park coverage, follow me on Twitter @themeparknut. Until next time, Cheers!

1 comment:

  1. Oh my goodness that's a little awful about the log ride - hopefully he's okay!!

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