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The YouTube channel ‘Coaster Studios’ have announced they have made a new documentary about the challenge with building roller coasters in Australia, with a particular focus on Leviathan. The documentary comes out this weekend. “Surprise! We made a new documentary For our next project, we wanted to cover something we'd never really seen discussed before. Most people know building a roller coaster is no small feat- but did you know some countries make it more difficult than others? Australia is known for having some of the strictest regulations in the world, which can add stress to what might be an already difficult project. We sat down with @thegravitygroupllc and Martin & Vleminckx Rides to find out what it took to develop Australia's only modern wooden roller coaster. Leviathan is unlike anything the country had ever seen before- which meant an uphill battle to bring it to life. On Friday, we will share that story with you through interviews, custom music, and never before seen pictures!” https://www.instagram.com/p/DKLCQWAJzO6/?igsh=N3R6NTN4cWc2MnIz

Ok well I was waiting to have a minute to post but I will chime in here. I finally got to visit Rivertown last week… To say I was impressed would be an understatement. Easily best thing, or certainly most complete thing any park has built in a very long time. The entire area is immersive and detailed and just so on point. The detail in the theming and hidden touches just top it all off. Retheme of Vintage cars - amazing! Jungle Rush Coaster - what a perfect choice for the family demographic, and genius use of a relatively small footprint. Fun and thrills for all ages. As for the comments above, so off the mark. Yes I definitely feel the money must have run out in the turntable chamber, and it’s what turns this possible 10 into a 9. But is 10 year old me gonna notice? No As for the interior queue, it’s almost Disney level, there is nothing that anyone visiting a regional park in Australia should be complaining about in here. …and this is from the most critical old bastard that has never been backward about criticizing Dreamworld. Oh and for bonus points, all the staff were smiling!

I know it is off-peak season, but running only one train on your duelling coaster despite the line going the whole through the barn, outside and the whole way back to the stairs outside indoor area with Dorothy’s house is ridiculous… so too is that we’re still at 5-6min dispatches on Wicked Witch despite 6 people working the ride, which just means they chat in bigger groups between cycles.. only letting one cycle worth in the castle and everyone out in the sun is even more anti-guest experience

You have got to be kidding They take the actual most amazing vista in the park which has as much appeal offride and onride and they go and destroy it with probably the most stupid fence ever known to man Who is the absolute liability clown thats advising these people on these ridiculous safety measures Its bad enough you have FENCE-The Ride over at wizard and now they have this shithouse attempt Totally lost the plot

I was cautiously optimistic of the ride returning to the opening (of the ride) standard when this was announced, but after Oz and various visible maintenance/upkeep issues around the park I don’t have faith anymore. I’m not even confident it will open this year tbh.

The wedgie is no longer, from driving past the only piece visible from the highway is the trapdoor entry, crane still on site

Its a hard pill to swallow when a rollercoaster can be built in a year, but it takes 3 years to rebuild. From what I understand, they had planned on upgrades with Mack and had booked their build slot - which I believe was supposed to be after WoZ opened - but the ride had to be closed earlier than planned - the build slot couldn't be moved up, so the 3 years has just been waiting on Mack to deliver in the timeframe previously locked in. I believe they've taken the time to improve other bits and pieces (and all the cars are getting replaced too, I think?), so there is a lot being done - but the time it has taken is much longer than actually required - which may set some false expectations.

Update: The Track Piece for The Vertical Lift that was found outside Kansas Twister's Station has been Reinstalled back inside.

More stuff like this would seem to be a good fit in the dark ride sections. From what I've seen so far the indoor sections and the promised 'show scene' seem pretty underwhelming. Still a great ride and well presented, but I was hoping for a bit more from the indoor parts

Continuing conversation from this reply i've put down my current thoughts on a WB Kids refresh. What WB Kids needs is to be gutted and refreshed. My ideal first plan would reclaim the other half of the old LTRR soundstage from maintenance - maintenance might need to relocate entirely if they've outgrown their own space. Put in a new kids area into the soundstage building with multiple attractions similar to Mermaid lagoon at disneysea, or USJ's Sesame Street Fun World. It doesn't need to be immersive, just an indoor area out of the sun with some rides and activities for the little kids to blow off some energy. The reason this is the first plan is it provides the opportunity to refresh the rest of the land without dropping the kids offering in the park. Once this is open, move to refreshing the rest of the land: Remove speedy taxis. It serves no purpose with the introduction of JDS Find a new home for the parents room that doesn't occupy prime attraction space and demolish Taz' Rest Stop along with the original Marvin facade to make space for new attractions. You could potentially provide parent's room facilities as part of the new indoor stage space if you planned for it. Consider the longevity of both Sam Train and Tweety Cages and perhaps remove them in place of new attractions If this whole corner of the kids area can be cleared, then also consider (controversial I know) removing the giant tree. It's a gorgeous old tree and it's been there for a long time, but it occupies prime park real estate and is a major blocker to expansion If the tree comes out, tweety, sam train, taz and the old marvin area are removed, you're left with a huge plot of land you can close all at once, which allows greenfield planning for a new install, with the added benefit you can actually run power to the character stage and bury the cables rather than flying them through the trees suspended on wooden poles. Update JDS to bring it current to today's park lineup (remove arkham, add WOZ, for example - and does it have DCR?) Turn the JDS arcade (is that still there with the new kids arcade?) into a JDS themed gift shop to bring more opportunity for merchandising into the land instead of the laneway entrance most people walk straight past. Reopen the restaurant with a new offering and re-establish a covered (umbrellas) seating area for parents to chill while the kids run their energy out. Probably a bit much especially for BGH's current attitude toward the park, but that's what i'd love to see. WB Kids currently offers a disjointed experience. There are 'rides for babies' plus road runner. So the slightly older kids that have outgrown the 'baby rides' but haven't graduated to hypercoasters don't have a lot of middle ground, so there's an opportunity with this level of expansion to provide some 'middle of the road' attractions - a lot like what Sea World offers in their nickelodeon area.

The gondolas arm has arrived and it’s scale is insane!

Just when you think it can't get any shittier over at Movie World.

Very pleased to report that during today's showings the emergency signs behind the screen are interlocked with the front barrier lighting and as a result now extinguish before the barriers lower and illuminate after they re-raised.

If WoO had more than just rollercoasters, then yes. Kids that age need to fill a whole day too. Right now, their options are all coasters (including Scooby) and maybe WWF if it's operating. Rides with small footprints like a Nebluaz, Condor, or ABC Interactive tower, would all have been solid additions to WoO and could easily have been themed to suit. It will be hard to add them later because so much space is wasted on the emerald city queue lines.

I don't think this is going to be received too well by the general public if after almost three years of downtime the net benefit (from a perception point of view) is a couple of extra doors and light theming changes. Most aren't going to notice or care about a new ride system/cars. Hell some think Wipeout moved to Seaworld. I'm looking forward to it reopening regardless; I'm waiting for it before we visit again.

Think that nail has been very well hit by dapto there

The fence looks awful in my opinion WWF was my favorite ride but in the last 5 years its fallen apart and most of the effects don't work anymore so this is just another stab to the heart.

Don't think so, here's a pic from Coaster Studios' tour after it closed

i mean that’s true but it’s been closed coming up to 3 years (even if it wasn’t planned to close as early as it did), and it’s meant to be opening in the coming months… i hope they’ve touched more theming then we can see.

This feels to me as insurance costs $1000000 with the old fence and only $200000 with the new. Either that or they decided everyone should suffer due to the patrons that would rest children on the fence/don’t adequately supervise. There’s been a couple of times where I have seen west staff literally yell at people from load due to stupidity.

Cheers for asking was a great success! Even Greg and his family came and played which was fantastic for see.

As many have said on this forum already people need to stop going and giving them $ otherwise they will continue to do it. Go to Dreamworld where they actually care about guest experience. The general public needs to learn that.

The audio in that room is solid. My nit pick is the transitions between tracks are jarring… should flow better. But that could be playback system limitations, programming or audio composition (hey hire a good TD ) But otherwise audio is good

I would love to see what risks they did identify, because someone standing up on a character seems like an obvious one to me?

the thing with only opening Friday-Sunday, we will end up with the shit show that is Movieworld and their operations, which imo would happen because they would be relying on younger staff/new causal hire to only work the 3 days instead of having staff that have been there many years working a full weekly shift. Just my opinion

The monorail track has been completely removed from the eastern boundary and over the carpark

I visited both parks in July last year. It was definitely busy that time of year, but I imagine it gets much busier later in summer too. Both parks are huge though, which helps spread out the crowds; the biggest queues I encountered were for Voltron at Europa Park (which had only been open two months at this point) at around 90-120 minutes for the normal queue (I used the single rider queue every time). I was visiting by myself, so I made pretty extensive use of single rider queues, so some of my advice might not be totally accurate. Efteling roughly forms a circle, which makes it easy to move through the park as the day goes on. The big high-G rides there are all concentrated in the same place out the back though, so you might find yourself going back and forth, which can take a bit of time. If your partner is happy doing indoor roller coasters, then I'd highly recommend Vogelrock, as it wouldn't be any more intense than Jungle Rush, and honestly it was one of my favourites there. The grounds and gardens and random attractions all over the place are also really worth seeing, so definitely take your time as you walk through the park. The layout of Europa Park is far more chaotic, and I'd say it's probably impossible to see everything in a one day visit. I've gone twice now, and there's plenty of things I haven't tried, and probably some areas I haven't even walked through yet. It'll be pretty easy to balance out high-G rides with smaller/dark rides, as they're all pretty evenly distributed around the park. Down the front of the park you've got the Eurosat CanCan Coaster that's in the big dome. Both trips I've been surprised by how much I enjoyed it, and it's not too intense (probably similar to Jungle Rush, just a bit longer). Silver Star (the B&M hyper) is right there too, and that's a solidly enjoyable ride, but it often has some of the longest queues in my experience. Unless you're desperate to get on a B&M hyper, I'd prioritise several other rides first. If you've been on Steel Taipan, then you can probably prioritise other rides over Blue Fire (it's still a great ride though). Arthur is a really fun and pretty tame ride, that's definitely worth getting on because of how unique it is. And obviously I'd recommend Voltron as a must ride, there's pretty much nothing like it. My recommendations for must-do rides at Europe Park would be (in no particular order): Voltron, Blue Fire, Eurosat, Euromir, Arthur, Silver Star, Wodan. I've just then visited other rides/attractions as I've walked between those ones. I don't have any great recommendations for food at either park, because I've never gone out of my way to find food. For accomodation, I'd recommend trying to stay close to Europa Park. It's fairly straightforward to get there from elsewhere, but it can take a while on trains + buses (I was staying in Heidelberg and had a 2-3 hour trip each way last time I visited. Freiburg is only about 1-1.5 hours away, and is where I'd recommend if you don't want to stay in Rust itself). Efteling is also quite accessible, and it's much closer to big cities like Amsterdam or Rotterdam. Personally, I found the longer vlogs from Coaster Studios and Theme Park Worldwide to be really useful for getting a sense of what's in each park, and roughly how to get around. Feel free to fire away with any additional questions you've got too!

I was gonna say, that was 100% not there in 2012 when I worked at the park and did regular morning track walks of Scooby. So yeah, part of the next gen "upgrade" to tie in with the lift sequence ft. Scrappy Doo.

This is an awesome video that gives an amazing insight into the entire process from start to finish for the coaster. It reveals a lot of details many of us didn’t even know about and why there were so many delays in its opening. About halfway through the video it also gives an insight into the incompetence of VRTP and why they sometimes make poor decisions, or thinks take so long to get done!

I guess it's also another way for them to bleed $ from people as well because you won't be able to get a photo of anyone coming down without paying for the on-ride photo. How does it not cross their mind to paint the fence as a bare minimum though this place really has gone to shit.

if they had to go with a metal fence for insurance/risk aversion - at least choose a non-jarring colour that matches the surrounds, like a brown ffs

like - even *not black* would have helped.

nothing says "western town" like black steel posts....

We all found Africa beyond underwhelming. The resolution is awful, the soundtrack lacks impact or ‘heart/feels’ and the jump scares are forced. Sorry but it was a meh for me

As part of their increased focus on making Jane's Rivertown Restaurant a dining destination for locals on Friday and Saturday nights - starting tomorrow night they'll be launching a Friday night Trivia Night. Hope people get along and have some fun with family & friends. It's been a pleasure working with the team at Dreamworld to get this off the ground 🙂 https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19NTJW7aT5/

The supports are now in the carpark

Please take a breath and try paragraphs lifetime family passes are a huge prize and probably more than they'd ever likely wish to do. free day passes or annual passes would be about the limit of their generosity surveying guests on what they want is fine, you can be guided by that, but it isn't going to be a case of simply 'build whatever people say is the most popular... why? because: licensing costs money. Unlike parks that have an IP-owning media company in their shareholdings, (disney, universal, for example) MW has to pay a license fee for every IP they bring in. Some licences cost more than others, and it has to be financially viable. There's no sense building the most popular IP if it's exorbitantly more expensive than the next cheapest option - you'll profit more on a cheaper IP that is still popular longevity - just because the latest craze might happen to be Labubu or something that doesn't mean it has the timeless qualities that will immortalise itself in a theme park attraction that will stand for a decade or more. But you can bet those surveyed will be influenced by popular culture 'right now' only to lose interest in that product next week when the new thing comes along. Having the public design a ride... just... no. Ride design is a skill and not everyone can do it. I know a few people who are involved in this line of work and it isn't a cakewalk - those people are pretty amazing and special for what they can do. Sure - get the public to submit some ideas. maybe one or two of them won't actually suck (or at least will be practical, realistic and not defy the laws of physics) but it's no way to run a theme park. Chances are, the park already has the ride, the name, and the theme picked out beforehand - with their order in several years prior - because that's how long some of the waitlists are. The public campaigns where guests contribute to the ride design, theme or name is almost always pure marketing, nothing more.

My idea would be to somehow gut the area. Keep Road Runner, JDS (but update it), Marvin, the Parents Room and Arcade but flatten everything else and bring it indoors. Something like this at the WB park in Abu Dhabi could work but on a lower budget: perhaps a combination of matte paintings, more space between buildings and building facades closer to the walls (rather than building the whole building) could work. This would not only reduce having to spend money on repaints thanks to the sun but allow a difference to the other parks in having an indoor kids section. On a hot summer day in January where the park gets the most visitors, most families would likely rather be inside an air-conditioned indoor kids section rather than standing right in the heat.

The problem with wb kids as others have pointed out is that 1) the land as a whole has barely been touched up in 25 years and 2) apart from road runner there’s not much to do for guests who find the kiddie rides boring and the likes of superman and rivals too scary 1. Remove the taxis and JDS 2. Move the maintenance area on the other half of the JDS building to another facility within the park (or build a new shed like at sea world) to free up space for a JDS replacement 3. Replace JDS with a family dark ride. Make it like a looney tunes take on the great movie ride. 4. Re evaluate all the existing rides except Marvin the Martian and road runner, remove the ones at the end of their service lives and replace with similar models. 5. Install a nebulaz as an extra ride to occupy the middle ground between the kiddy rides and everything else. Provides good kinetics at every park that has one. 6. Repaint and touch up all existing buildings, signage, and fixtures. This way you have 3 rides in the land that both kids and parents can enjoy as opposed to just one, with all 3 having a low height requirement. This should be the bare minimum because some families aren’t going to go to Oz or west or scooby. People with young kids spend a lot of time in that land on its own.

I went on Saturday and everything looked the same to me, obviously the latest addition was the blue crystal in the que line. But no difference in the turn table/dark ride area

To be clear, it wasn't machinery the kid was actually stuck in, it makes it seem like he was caught in some big machine. He stuck his head through the ceiling rose and when the pole moved it pinned his head against the fibreglass opening on the ceiling. He wasn't just standing up on a character when riding, but literally climbing up the character and standing on the seat itself, sticking your head up against the pole. It's not a fast moving ride in the slightest, normally you would expect someone would see the roof coming close to them and duck down, not stick your head through the opening. There is absolutely no way to enclose the hole the poles come through, you have forward/backward motion of the crankshaft, plus some lateral movement due to alignments that have to be allowed for it to function. As said, they normally install this nylon brush stuff as a deterrent, but it's not something that actually stops you from sticking a hand (or other body part) through the ceiling.

Finally had a go on this last week. Very impressive.. only nit pick would be to enclose the bit of track from the station to the turntable room, add add more lighting effects and haze to the turntable room .

Really ties into the Western theming…

For once we agree @DaptoFunlandGuy 💃 Trivia nights are for & pubs & clubs.

100% was not suggesting your prior callouts were undeserved - though in some cases I would hold a different opinion!

Saw this today. It’s new and I thought it was pretty cool. It’s in the gem room in the queue

The majority of the ones in Australia that we have actually run faster than the Chance Rides models as well. I don't really see any showmen in Australia buying a brand new one. They aren't really as marketable as rides like The Beast or The Warrior (speed and height etc). As much as I'd love to see it, I just don't see it sadly. Hopefully one of the other Aussie built ones comes out of retirement like the Bad Ass Zipper recently has.

Another sure way of not making money is to open a park that nobody attends.... If WWW was even close to profitable during winter it would be open

Sneeky peeky at the lift section from a hole in Wizard of Oz

Universal Singapore has recovered fully from the covid shutdowns and is in full swing. Minions land is rumoured to open by Christmas - however many spaces outside of the park in the Resorts World area of Sentosa are under redevelopment so you may need to go farther afield from the park to complete your day (there's plenty of other sentosa attractions to occupy the day though!) After visiting earlier this year, I could honestly skip the Tokyo Disney parks on a repeat visit - Unless the additions since your last visit warrant a return. The crowds and the cost are simply too high right now. Universal Hollywood - if you've never done it before, I highly recommend doing the USH VIP Tour. While it is a bit pricier (and you should book further in advance to secure your spot) the inclusions do make it great value for money, and the experience is incomparable to visiting with a normal day-ticket. Knott's. Love this park. could spend multiple days just soaking the atmosphere. Enjoy it! Fuji Q and Nagashima - we missed these on our most recent trip to Japan. Travel times were prohibitive, so if you do plan to go, would recommend staying nearby and arriving the day before your planned visit. End of year will be winter, and from what I recall, the potential for bad weather may see the park close attractions unexpectedly, so bear this in mind. Universal Osaka - staying on property was great here - and Port Universal was a great little hotel a short stroll from the front gate. Express 8 pass sorely needed during busier periods. USJ has some of the most restrictive ride restraints i've encountered, so if you're tall, have broad shoulders, carry a little extra weight around the midsection or are otherwise outside the average japanese build (long legs for example) you may not fit on certain attractions. Test seats are everywhere and cast members will ask you to try at the entrance if they think you may not fit. The park has advertised opening times, but frequently opens much earlier - sometimes more than an hour before. It depends on crowds. If you want to ensure you can enter nintendo land and\or harry potter, you either need to arrive insanely early to ensure you get in early enough to get a free timed entry spot, or alternatively there are upcharges like the express 8 which include guaranteed entry times. Can't give any advice for China parks as I haven't been yet - but can advise you to drink and brush teeth with bottled water only Six Flags Magic Mountain - The current park operating calendar states that the park is closed from December 30th and doesn't show a reopening date, (though I would presume this just hasn't been loaded yet). I'd recommend going on a weekday as weekends are insanely busy with locals and passholders (check the calendar to make sure its open the day you want to go). The Platinum Flash pass has been necessary for us on our last two visits, and makes for a far more pleasant day. Going in winter you are far more likely to encounter ride closures, so do your research on what will be available ahead of time to see if it is worth going...