Richard

Slides require quite literally a fraction of the construction time spent on them. You're assembling a prebuilt fibreglass that's infinitely easier and quicker to assemble than a multi-tonne steel attraction. Honestly, a few weeks tops would be all even the slowest construction company would need.

Well, call me the bringer of good news... I hope. This has actually gotten me very excited. It seems that Dreamworld, in addition to a good relationship with Nickelodeon, they've also boosted their relationship with Paramount, which makes sense due to the closeness of Paramount and Nick. There's a Tomb Raider show coming (though not necessarily a show, just a non-ride attraction). This is due within the next fiscal year. Now, the good stuff. A "Teen Market Thrill Ride" is slated for the 2005 fiscal year. For what it's worth, it also sounds like they're getting a "real" petting zoo for this year - more than just a makeshift fence where animals are brought in daily. Sounds to me like Thunderbolt's immediate replacement (for the coming Christmas) is something very Crofty, and the real stuff comes next year. Let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet. As I've said in the past, there is no planned significant capital expenditure for this current year. No matter how much they desire, it would technically be illegal for them to surprise us with an unannounced attraction because of the way the stock market works.

In recent years, there's nearly always been two trains in the station. They took one out for a short time last year for maintenance or for whatever other reason, and put it back on the transfer track. Not really anything groundbreaking.

I was out at the Ekka today (don't worry, photos, videos etc. coming "soon")... it's the same ride as it sounds you rode, rabid (well, Reverchon make two models, so there was a 50% chance it'd be the same ride). It's certainly not as rough as some made it out to be. Quite smooth for the entire ride, which is VERY short. The spinning doesn't start until the second level of hairpins, and I was amazed at the affect this has on the taking of the turns. One turn you're barely moving through it, and the next one everything is a blur because of the way you spin around it. The final dip is taken spinning, which was a pretty freaky experience. Now... the bad part. $7.50 for a single ride! :evil: That is outright a joke. As if $5.00 rerides make up for that joke (even $5/ride is way too much). For a company that can't even make up their mind on what the ride is called (Crazy Mouse, Spinning Coaster, Crazy Coaster), they sure do want to get their money's worth... jackasses. What happened to the Ekka where it was about bringing the country to the city for a family day of fun? Don't give me the "insurance premiums" excuse again... RNA are just a bunch of greedy, money-hungry snobs. They had a 21 year old singer from up way north to sign as one of the highlights of the evening, and RNA, who would have had 20,000 people there today (that's 20000 x $15 (or so) = around $300,000 from entrance ticket sales today alone), kindly thanked the kind couple that sponsored her trip to Brisbane to perform. If they can't cough up the $1,500 tops that it would cost to bring her down for a week, then I really think that they've really forgotten what they're trying to achieve. The carnies (we here at Total Thrills are politically correct), food vendors, showbag sellers etc. are just as much to blame as RNA, but it's beyond a joke. It'll take more than a shiny new coaster to bring me out there next year... and indeed ever again. As you can see, I'm somewhat annoyed.

Japanese regulations mean that a coaster must have walkways for the entire track (though looking at Thunder Dolphin, they must have a different way of achieving this than the traditional catwalk). So they've always got ways of getting people off the rides when the strike. I'd also be certain that the rides are designed to withstand particularly rough earthquakes. Looking at Thunder Dolphin's supports, I'd guess they do a very good job of absorbing any forces on them, meaning the structure would probably sway a heck of a lot in an earthquake, but not collapse.

Thunderbolt is blocked to run two trains with easy - such a long course would mean that there's no rush to dispatch trains, and there'd be little chance of stacking. Whether it's ever been done is another question (I'd challenge anyone here to recall a situation where the ride did run both trains).

The major gripe here isn't with the staff's attitudes, necessarily. No one has even hinted that Dreamworld has rude or unpolite staff. Dreamworld has nice staff. I doubt anyone that couldn't smile and ask how someone's day was, regardless of the guest's attitude would actually be hired by the park. The problem, as most people have suggested, is with the efficiency at which they work. 15 minute dispatches on Cyclone are completely inexcusable. There's no other reason for it than slackness, and no attempt by the park's operations department to attempt to straighten things up. And besides, the fact is, even an average employee of a park, in my opinion, should be able to be courteous (is that the word you're after Wayne? ) if you walk up to them looking like the angry red dudes in RCT. I've never been anything but polite to staff in any theme park, and certainly at Dreamworld, they are nearly always the same back. But, boucing back to the efficiency point, an employee of a theme park is hired, regardless of whether they're a sweep, cashier, ride operator or attendant, to make your day good. Queue's are a pretty quick way to deteriorate the quality of a day (especially if the conversation seems to be a perpetual silence), and there's no attempt from most of Dreamworld's staff to speed up queue times. Need I also mention that there have been occasions where queues were moving nice and fast?

This isn't the place to discuss the photos. If you've got something to say about the photos, by all means start a new thread in the park's respective forum.

That's the one.

Believe it or not... it's here. Currently, there's nine photos of Reptar, I may get around to getting more Nick Central photos up shortly. http://oldsite.totalthrills.com/dwgallery.php

The Terms of Service for these forums have been updated to include some new changes and rules I've put in place. If you've not read them, then I suggest you do to familiarise yourself with them. It should remove any doubts you've got. As you're mostly aware, these rules aren't to give me freedom to do what I want (the fact of the matter is, I can do what I want ), they're to try and help keep things friendly and legal. http://www.totalthrills.com/about.php?page=legal#tos

It's all about the staff: Tower of Terror's placement, though ruining an otherwise nice area of the park, doesn't really affect the park. The paddlewheeler show was interesting, though the fact is, I haven't ridden that ride since 1999 (at least partly becuase there is no show). Tiger Island only adds more variety to the park. Also, it's great to just watch them. I remember once falling asleep for a good few hours over there, watching the tigers. I might be the only person who thought that the Outback Celebration show was at least interesting and reasonably well put together. The three rides in question are at least fun rides, and they're not necessarily low capacity. Tower of Terror could easily run at around 900 pph, 600 without even stressing. Giant Drop should do no less than around 480 if run correctly. Cyclone was designed to cater for two-train operation, which would easily push it to 1000 pph if run correctly. As it is, it should be no less than around 500 or 600 pph. The fact is, on average, all these rides might peak at 200 pph. Nick Central is well put together, and certainly made better use of the land than Kennyland. Kenny Koala is/was a badly dated imitation of Mickey Mouse. Big Brother never affected me - I've never visited (for obvious reasons) on eviction days etc. I wouldn't say the restaurant is out of place - it could be done better (much better), but it's certainly fitting for the area. Ocean Parade made the area brigher and more "theme parky". Cyclone's location certainly didn't really affect them. Sure, I absolutely despise the location, or the lack of landscaping (especially under that helix). Koala Country's the best looking animal park I've been to (that adds up to a lot over the years). Sitting down in the Kakadu area with a nice hot drink (as nice as they can get in theme parks) is really one of the nicest places to be apart from, well... just about every natural place (south coast of NSW, Tasmanian Highlands, NSW Snowies, Lawn Hill Gorge up 'near' (i.e. a few days' drive) Mt Isa are some of my most recent favorites for anyone that cares). It really is the staff, which cause the low capacity, and neutral or unpleasant days at the park. I think it proves that coasters/rides don't make the park - and like Flea paralleled, it's the same at parks like SFMM (or SFWOA).

Well, I'm a bit of a procrastinator. By the end of this week seems to mean when I can get around to doing it. Let's say this weekend, but no promises.

More like the only operating wooden coaster in Australia that's not in Victoria or Queensland - and even that record won't be theirs for much longer.

It will be the same one. There's no way with Australia's relatively one-way carnival circuit that there'd be more than one of this style of "innovative" ride in Australia. I'm going to make an educated guess (or two) as to why it's alleged (for lack of a better word) that it is running more freely. Either they're running it looser for testing get the ride running smoothly for when it opens - they do have some degree of control over the spinning (though changes would be manually made and require quite a lot of tweaking). Or alternatively (and a much more easy to grasp explanation), the lack of people in the cars, will result in significantly less weight, giving less momentum, and consequently make the cars more prone to spinning.

It's a Reverchon mouse - Maurer Sohne's spinning mouse isn't a portable design, and those two are essentially the only manufacturers of the spinning mouse.

Well, the only rides that I've taken on-ride videos or photos of are those that you take belongings on with you - Wild Wild West/Wild West Falls, Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster, Corkscrew and Road Runner Rollercoaster are four that come to mind as being in this category. There's no way that I can tell you what you can or can't do at a park. It's up to you as to how you want to interpret or act on park rules. I just think it's a bit of a risk to sneak something onto a ride to get a video that's not that useful (and personally, off-ride videos are much nicer). If a ride op is allowing you to do it, then that's fine. If they tell you not to, it's really not worth it to come back a few hours later and try to hide it.

That's pretty good news. I'll have to head out again this year and check it out.... not totally sure whether that's good or bad news (it's $18 entry - PLUS rides).

And as it seems to be going this way, it's worthwhile to mention that just a few days ago, one side of Batman & Robin - the Chiller got stuck upside down for some 20 minutes.

I think that's exactly right - but my point is largely with the operators who just plain don't want to be doing what they're doing, or a grumpy or whatever. One thing that's stuck in my mind happened around a year ago. I was at Dreamworld and in the queue for Giant Drop (I think joz was with me too at the time). Upon reaching the queueless queue, and seeing that not only the door to the actual "station" was open, but the chain they put up at the door was down, so we went into the station (every single other time I've been there, it was the case that if they were both like this, you were expected to walk through. We got in, and got told to go back out, and we complied - fair enough, you say, as did we. When she came out to load us, about 10 seconds later, she decided to say, with a pretty stubborn tone, that "the chain is there for a reason, and you're to stop at it", and when we mentioned that the chain was lying on the ground when we got there, she suggested it was because we took it down ourselves. When we said we didn't, she claimed that she heard it fall down. That, and the 15 minute dispatches on Cyclone, because of operators who like to take their time (and it's not as if they're engaging with the guests while they meander their way from row to row, to slowly check the restraints), has really left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. I guess they say that one can ruin it for everyone, and I think it certainly has in this case. People by nature tend to remember the bad moments over the good ones. To be fair, I've had some pretty rotten experiences at Movie World too (some were even before rabid got a job there ). It's just that I've had so many positive experiences there that the bad days or moments really do seem insignificant, whereas personally, Dreamworld's service seems to be either ordinary or poor (they're mostly nice people, but speed does matter to me). Funny you should use your kitchen fire example... let's just say that's a situation I'm familiar with myself in recent months.

I'll disagree with you (what's new ) on the point that all Australian parks have great staff - though Wonderland certainly does have staff that, if nothing else, work productively and efficiently, making queues bearable (Dreamworld on the other hand...). Wonderland do, as you suggested, have a fantastic position, certainly for regional guests and international. Sydney alone has more people than the whole of Queensland. They've also got the major international airport (though many tourists are bypassing Sydney and coming straight into Brisbane). However, Sydney's not the best location for interstate guests, whereas the Gold Coast is. The Gold Coast is Australia's Orlando - the warm weather and beaches attract ever single cold sole from around Australia. If a Sydney person sees an ad for Movie World, they're far more likely to visit than say someone from Brisbane visiting Sydney because of a Wonderland ad they see, which is why I believe Wonderland stopped advertising up here (1999 was the last time I saw an ad for WLS in Brisbane). The money they could spend on advertising up here just wouldn't pay off, when the alternative to Wonderland is bigger, better, brighter parks just an 40 minutes away. Back around when Space Probe 7 was first released, I remember the huge advertising blitz that they did up here - back then the park was certainly very attractive when someone had done the Gold Coast parks any time within the past five years. That money's now much better spent on further advertising down south, and their promotions which seem to work nicely. As you suggest, if they play their cards right (and admittedly, they've been quite slow over the past few years to do so), they'll be quite an impressive alternative to the Gold Coast parks a few years down the track. Maybe then we'd see some ads up here, but until they've got something to offer us, and they know it'll work, don't expect Wonderland ads to be blocking up the airwaves just yet.

I've heard of it happening at SFMM, and it sounds like nothing too special (as you'd expect) - the car hits the gate (though I think SFMM have more of a curtain rather than a gate) behind the station and is slowed pretty quickly. I'm not totally sure of the resetting procedure.

Tower of Terror does have essentially the same magnets in places, as Giant Drop and he acceleration of TOT does indeed use what are essentially electromagnets. I'm not totally sure of the braking of Tower of Terror. Whether or not it uses the same acceleration system for braking or not I'm not sure, but in the station and behind, they've got distinct natural magnets (essentially magnetically charged iron or alloy), which will certainly slow the car in the event of a power failure. Once something has been magnetised, it will essentially remain magnetic unless it is heated or beaten. Though, over time, electrons do "leap" off the north pole of any magnet and not make their way to the south pole of the magnet, and will lead to slow (barely noticeable) reductions in magnetic strength. I'm guessing the 1.2 million year figure that you see everywhere on promotional material for both GD and TOT, is the time that the magnets they're using have before loss of strength is significant. For what it's worth, by using a "keeper" (just a piece of metal) to connect the two poles of the magnet, its life can be significantly increased. Something tells me no one really cares though...

Not for refills, but reasonably priced (if it was at all, it wasn't too much more expensive than a normal fast food place). If you think that the chicken burger at Wonderland is good, you've clearly never tried the all-holy Cat Burger at Movie World, which seriously my all-time favorite burger (I've been known to stop by at Movie World if I'm passing by, just to get "take-away" Cat Burgers )

Wonderland Sydney currently rates absolute bottom for me with regards to food quality and portions - and I've certainly got the theme park food experience . Movie World's up the top, Sea World comes next, Wet'n'Wild following (the three do have noticeably different food quality), Dreamworld next (they've got some aweful stuff down at Rivertown, but the occasional quality fried chicken from Snack Attack really can be good). Wonderland is somewhere well below these ones. I had a chicken burger combo from the place in Botany Bay. The burgers were nothing special - about on level with Dreamworld's equivalent (same basic product - cheap crumbed "chicken", lettuce and mayo), but it was the pathetic small, cold chips and the over-iced (+50% ice) tiny Coke (regular was about the size of a small from McDonalds, which is bad considering the enormous things you get up here at theme parks). Oh, and for some of the best chips ever, you can't go past Luna Park - they use 'steakhouse' style chips, fried perfectly - no magical chicken salts or seasoning, just quality. Plus they serve Pepsi on tap, which is the best tasting soft drink to me (more restaurants and fast food places need Pepsi).