Richard

I'm by no means putting the parks down. I'm just giving my learned opinion on the park. These aren't moodswings or anything. I praise Movie World for the high quality and thorough ride that is Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster. I praise them for the brilliantly themed Wild West Falls. I praise them for the intense and thrilling (though often rough and slow-loading) Lethal Weapon. I praise them for hands down the best theme park food in Australia. However, as I've said before, there are problems with the park. I believe that their live attractions have been steadily going downhill, as I mentioned previously. My ideas have been communicated with the park.

Well, not just because I'm a thrill junkie (I will gladly watch any theme park show, even over rides), but I really think that is a really poor choice, for reasons I've said a lot, mostly to do with park capacity and flow of people. Another reason would come if you look at what they've done to the shows around the park. They've essentially ruined Police Academy with a new intro, which really does take away from the show. They gradually turned the Wild West Action Show, something that was to me, far better than Police Academy, into a pathetic light and smoke show, and then into an even more pathetic superstar show. They turned the street parade into a tacky, unoriginal show, and completely ruined the aesthetics of Main Street with the disgusting cable and adjoining platforms. A particularly unspectacular 'Bat Spectacle' takes place every day, which combines bad audio with pretty plain visuals. And you really think that with that track record, something good could ever, ever come out of Movie World's inhouse staff? Sorry if my pessimistic mood is coming across strong recently, but I think the truth hurts. I'm curious as to how it looks more like a show over a ride. I know I've not been visiting the parks as much recently, and there are undoubtedly rumours that are skipping me , but the way I see it, at this stage, it might as well be either, both or none. Anyway, Movie World, go with the show, take the cheap, easier option, and sack another group of performers 18 months down the track as a result of unpopuarlity. I'm sure the recently delayed Superman movie that (was) due out within the next few years would make a good theme for the next show. What the future holds for the Maverick building after that, no one knows.

On the front page of the Courier Mail today was an interesting article regarding some measures that Village has taken as a result of not keeping ahead of the market. Essentially, they're now 'rationing the rides', much like what Wet'n'Wild will do during the coldest, wettest days of winter. I've been saying for a few weeks now, this is all because Warner Village haven't been able to keep up with a pretty obvious trend, and have gone against what you'd have thought were pretty obvious instincts, and actually shifted their focus to international markets in pretty dodgy times. And well, it's pretty obvious that they've just dug themselves into a hole, and detonated some TNT while down there. Look at Dreamworld. They've gone the other way - the right way, and they're certainly not in the same position as Movie World. I sure as hell won't be going to Movie World while such a programme is running. And who knows, maybe I won't go back for quite some time even after they return to normal. Cutting staff and costs is not the way to go when you've got a huge and easy local market who'd gladly visit the park if attendance wasn't so outrageously high.

I spoke with someone reliable at Dreamworld (exactly 16 months ago to this day ) regarding Thunderbolt. I was told pretty much everything I've mentioned here (and of course some things I haven't mentioned ). I also was informed a bit later that the plans were on hiatus for the development of Nick Central, but would be made a high priority following Nick Central's launch. What they are looking at doing, I don't know. They wanted to address the issue of roughness, which means make it a more pleasant ride. Around 50% of the problems with that ride are the train and restraints, and the other 50% is the track. The basic fix for this ride to me would be as follows: Replace the trains (lapbars anyone?) with sleeker, better articulated trains, completely replace the first drop and the transitions into and out of the loops and you've got a half-decent ride. There are problems with the track (you can see the badly joined sections of track quite clearly) - some decent shock absorbers, and more padded trains would remove this problem. Fix some of the transitions in and out of turns, and you've at least got a rideable ride. It should also be faster through the second half - those bad transitions kill all the speed - which would mean some gentle airtime and overall more thrills. Regarding B&M, I'd again have to disagree . The US Amusement Industry is quite different to the European market. Look at the leading US Companies: Arrow (don't bother correcting me), S&S, Setpoint etc. They could all be considered innovators. Meanwhile you’ve got Intamin who seem to have made their niche by perfecting older styles (hypercoaster, inverted etc.). Vekoma specialises in a few very specific and similar/identical designs. B&M have become to be known for their consistency and reliability on their small but perfected selection. If I were B&M (and I’m not…), I wouldn’t even bother bidding for a project like Thunderbolt, if approached. The time they’d spend designing a completely new style of train and track, is time that could have been spent designing a new coaster from their current selection. And it’s often suggested that B&M coasters are heavily in demand. Besides… B&M certainly wasn’t on the *list* I was given. 8) That’s my 400 word effort at stirring trouble.

Of course keep in mind that the biggie, number three comes out in November, and works a lot better for the park (summer season and all). If we're to expect anything, expect it for number three. Oh, and it sure as hell better not be a show. Another show isn't exactly going to help with the park's horrendous bottlenecking.

And believe me when I say that the contention for that record is intense among Australian parks.

Nah, again, I have to disagree with you (or your source). There's no way anything with the existing ride (lift inclusive) would be compatible with B&M. It'd be easiest (and cheapest), if that's the way they were to go, to simply knock the whole lot down, and start again.

There is quite a bit of truth in that story. Dreamworld investigated possible courses of action to make Thunderbolt more pleasant during early 2002. They spoke with (at least) three companies, Vekoma (whose Asian partner is Meisho), KumbacK Coasters, a spinoff company that came as a result of Vekoma's bankruptcy, and the then Arrow Dynamics. Whatever has been heard about B&M is undeniably false. The thing the three companies above have in common is a similar track style to that of Thunderbolt, which suggests existing technology could easily be implemented in a rehaul of the ride. B&M on the other hand, have always worked with their European track style and quite simply, the technology is really in no way compatible. There have been rumours of a B&M replacing Thunderbolt, but that's about it. The picture attached is one of my old ones from RCDB. The project was originally penned in for a last-2003 release, but that was around 18 months ago, and obviously things change (there's a bit more to it, but I won't go into great detail). Between 2004-2005 Sounds right though.

The coaster was sold to an overseas buyer for the pitifully low price of $140,000 during the auctioning off of Sega World. No idea exactly where it is now though.

The Arrow 4D rumour came from an alleged comment from the park, that the new ride (and we're talking back a few years now) would be the second of its kind in the world. At that stage, it was either an Arrow 4D, or an Intamin rocket coaster. The rumour then turned into the second of its kind in Australia, and everyone was thinking an Inverted. Obviously, the cost of a trip depends and length and size of the trip. I'm headed over at the end of this year, and I've been told US$100/day per person (on top of plane tickets) will give you the bare essentials (accomodation, food, basic entertainment). If you did things the "proper" way, and booked and scheduled everything through a travel agent, you'd get better value for your money obviously.

Well, the best coaster in Australia is the undiscovered gem that is the Merimbula's Magic Mountain Toboggan. No ride has boiled up the adrenalin like this one did to me. You have not lived until you've tried this thing brakeless. And in a voice slightly more irritating than my normal voice, I'd have to ask you to keep the heat down in here... unless someone's got some particularly juicy comebacks.

Well, I last rode Demon in July last year. It clearly had recently had a wheel replacement, judging by the newness of the wheels. And in all honesty (having ridden every east coast coaster within the last year), it was the smoothest looper in Australia (I would say coaster, but nothing will ever track as nicely as Eureka Mountain at Dreamworld). There was no headbanging at all, no vibrating and no other annoyances. The ride is certainly capable of being smooth, and I can vouch for that. The ride did come from Expo 88. When they decided to close 'Space Park' (it was originally meant to be permanent, but abysmal attendance proved otherwise), the ride was then originally supposed to go to Luna Park in Melbourne, to replace the Big Dipper (this is how the Tourism Minister managed to get the permission to knock down a protected ride), but some complications left Luna Park with a Galaxi, and the ride went to Wonderland Sydney. You can see some of the white paint under the worn sections of track (look just outside of the station in the curve up to the boomerang).

I don't work at any of the parks (thankfully ), so that allows me to give a good opinion of the place. Warner Bros. Movie World here might look shiny on the exterior, but to be honest, I think the park is badly designed and disorganised. I'm not sure about the European counterparts, but on the world scale, our park shouldn't be very highly rated. For every good employee, you've got two pretty ordinary/poor ones. Queues to buy tickets (or in my case, simply flash a card) often extend to close to an hour. Once you're in the park, you'll get people running rides who'd rather (and indeed do 90% of the time) be chatting with the others working there. I don't want to single out Movie World, but it quite honestly this is the only park in the chain that is anywhere near this bad (as joz will tell you, Sea World's staff are relatively perfect ). And as for the ownership of Warner Bros. Movie World Madrid. I've seen figures where 11% is owned by Six Flags and 6% by Time Warner. I've also seen 20% Time Warner, and 80% by Government, banks, local investors etc. Then again, the park's price has been stated as everywhere between US$380 and $430mil. Both Six Flags and Waner Bros. (Time Warner) do have a stake in the park, but the percentages seem to be all over the place. Six Flags does hold managing rights to the park (aparently though, they don't accept SF seasons passes, for anyone going that way).

Actually, if I'm not mistaken, FFS was taken down long ago. It can be seen over the hill behind Demon etc., with grass slowly engulfing it. I believe the park said it was gone for good, and I don't think it'd be worth much to anyone.

I'm lead to believe that the name that Village Warner are giving to the new Outback park is "Aussie World". Not the most original, but what have we come to expect from most Australian parks.

Wonderland is almost too cold to visit during the day many winter days, let alone once the sun has set. Right now its 6:15, mid-Autumn in Brisbane... and it's freezing, I wouldn't really want to be at any park right now.

I'll slightly repunctuate your first sentence for you... They've pleasant-ed it up a lot, but I wouldn't really call it theming (is a garden with gnomes in it fantasy themed?), unless your definition of theming is well... garden gnomes. Angry Beavers gets my vote. Thunder Dolphin is a very cool name (don't you just love Japanese culture, and translations ). I see nothing wrong with "Scream!", and Top Thrill Dragster just sucks too much to bother. As for the Z*nga's that seem to be the current craze. I like it (the Swahili names really do it for me too I guess).

I'd say without a doubt that Beastie was/is the best wooden coaster in Australia. Bush Beast was a pretty forceless ride that's overly rough. Scenic Railway is a boring slow ride that has been allowed to completely deteriorate into a painful ride. As far as I know, Beastie's closure was as a result of the size reduction and nothing more (it was at the furthest corner of the park). The park did look into relocating the ride elsewhere. Just because it hasn't moved yet, doesn't mean it's not going to. The ride could sit there for a good few years more with next to no maintenance (I see no reason to believe that they're not still maintaining it), and still be easily opened/relocated. There's still hope, but as has been said a fair bit around here (particularly recently), Wonderland has been jerking everyone around for the past few years, and you really can't know what to expect.

I would think having it in the actual coaster section wouldn't be too effective - a flash going off every 20 seconds would ruin the effects considerably. I was pretty amazed at the fact that they had no shop for Scooby-Doo, or any overpriced merchandise for the ride when it first opened. Any idea as to where the shop is going specifically? As you walk out the exit, to the left is the maintenance area, which has a transfer track straight down the middle, and obviously to the right is the "Spooky Castle Courtyard". the only easy way I can see would be to somehow put an extension on the building (tackiness alert!).

How large are the files, and what are the dimensions of them? You can upload into the forums anything that is under 2MB in size with any dimensions. The Gallery takes anything under 500KB and smaller dimensions than 1042x768. If you're having troubles, you could send them to me, and I'd upload them for you.

It hasn't been too bad, but there's no real need to bash the guy - whether facts are right or wrong. We can have a nice friendly debate without getting too personal. Again, it has been pretty amicable so far, and I think it can be kept that way. I don't really want to close any topics here, because that's not what I set out to do when I opened this site. There's plenty of other places I can be a Nazi. Think of this as a friendly piece of advice. 8)

They'd be pushing for any real space with the current lineup. My honest opinion is they should remove Metropolis, and replace it with a wooden coaster, similar in style to the Big Dipper which was of course what Metroplis replaced. They were supposed to get a looping Pinfari coaster, shipping delays was their excuse when the "new" Luna Park opened in 2001 and nothing more has happened. The park as a whole is just a big mess and when you've got a company running a park who think that they know what they're doing, but in reality are ruining the place more and more, you've got a pretty bad situation that'll be hard to ever repair.

... and for the better I think we'd all agree! "Amp it up!" That then instantly crosses out the idea that current construction is for a show, which I hope means ride.

A Reputable Australian Site™ said that Dreamworld has now been officially recognised by Guinness for Giant Drop's achievements. Dreamworld's Giant Drop is indeed the tallest in the world - regardless of where you measure from, or if you measure with a fictitious system where you randomly assign digits to each arbitrarily selected length and add all them all, and every forth is halved (suddenly it isn't sounding so fictitious). No idea as to when it will be made official. I'd imagine it didn't make the 2003 edition as they always seem to go on sale before the Christmas before (never figured out why ). I'd expect it to be in print for the 2004 edition, but no idea when it'll be on their website. Needless to say, I've never been a great fan or admirer of the Guinness system. Welcome along Alex - good to see a non-Aussie (or expat?) around here.

Not trying to cut in on Wayne or anything here , but feel free to upload any photos here. There's either the Construction gallery in the Album, or you could upload them to a thread here (up to 10 images per post ). Let's just hope that we're looking at a new ride - if they were doing a Spider-Man show, I'd imagine it'd go in the Action Man area (what are they doing with that these days anyway?).