Richard

Now that "real" construction is underway, we've got our first construction update of this coaster up. http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/gallery.php?gid=180 It features 29 high quality photographs showing every aspect of the construction and should clear up a few of the matters being discssed here.

The Saver pass appears to have died a quiet death; evidently Dreamworld have no idea of what they're doing with annual passes as over the past few weeks they've tweaked and retweaked just about every pass they offer. One must wonder what they're doing for customers who purchased a Dreamworld pass on the basis that they could visit the water park in the afternoons given it's now not an advertised feature. I'd hope they're honouring it for the duration of the pass.

That particular piece of information comes from a conversation I had with a source in Europe. The European amusement industry is quite different to here in that information is quite freely available and manufacturers such as Intamin will often talk openly about what is coming up for them. The sidecar information has never been officially confirmed and has never been reported as such. As I'm sure most people here know, we don't, nor have we ever, sourced news articles from within theme parks (i.e. from employees) unless it is released as part of the park's official documentation or comes directly from management. If you read something here, it's either: a) confirmed via official communication (i.e. press releases) confirmed via external sources (e.g. local council development approval), or c) confirmed via visual means (i.e. we have photos to verify it). I've gone a bit further than answering your direct question, myk, but I think it's important to stress these points in case others think otherwise.

Incidents like this at Disney parks almost invariably point to pre-existing conditions, often unknown to the rider. I don't think it's a result of more thrill rides as such, but rather the numbers of guests that their parks see through the gates. The odds are people will die at Disney parks. It's always very unfortunate when things like this happen. The families are there to have a good family time, which will now always be associated with something so tragic.

No formalised reports have yet been released by Kentucky officials regarding the matter. The investigation didn't conclude until very recently (the past day or so), the findings of which are not yet known -- to anyone. A gut feeling is the culmination of years of experience; an intuition based on years of experience. You can quietly skip over the fact that Six Flags and Cedar Fair have shut down all similar rides pending the results of the investigation and suggest that Dreamworld is somehow more clued in in this situation as well as try to refute everything I say but the fact is neither one of us have even a small percentage of the facts relevant to the situation. You're trying to argue with 100% certainty that to do anything but keep the ride operating is foolish; I've been arguing that without all the facts, Dreamworld shouldn't have been so hasty and assertive in their decision to keep operating, and this has been reflected in the media. I thought I'd take one quote from the News.com.au article: Now of course the media are out to misquote everyone out there and bend the truth and all, but they're waiting on the results of the investigation? Doesn't that strike you as a bit of an unnecessary risk?

My point has been so completely missed here. I never once said Dreamworld should close the ride because it's unsafe. I've said several times that there is absolutely no reason to think there is anything wrong with Giant Drop. Dreamworld made the decision to keep the ride operating without any information available from the situation in Kentucky. I have no doubts that from a safety point of view they were well on top of it, but from a PR point of view they did take a hit that could have easily been avoided. As I've mentioned, they've shut rides in the past for similar reasons, which have gained media attention, but not to the extent, nor in the negative manner of this current story. Forces and wear and tear on the wire ropes for each system would be quite consistent with each other, taking into account that Giant Drop is taller and has heavier gondolas. The two systems are fundamentally identical. Certainly to the point where if there were a flaw with the SFKK lift system, there's a good chance it'd also exist on Giant Drop. When the incident occured, and when I made that post, no information was available to suggest anything about the situation - to myself, nor to Dreamworld. Six Flags and Cedar Fair made a call that saw similar (NOT identical) rides around America immediately shut until a cause was found. This does include drop rides that use the same winch lift system as Giant Drop. That is why this issue attracted any attention at all for Dreamworld; they made a gut decision which went against the gut decision made by two of the largest theme park operators in the world. A lot of you are also conveniently forgetting one very crucial thing in this entire situation. The problem here is not that the cable snapped - it is that in the process, it cut a girl's feet off. Cables on these rides snap. It's happened before and it'll happen again. This'll happen regardless of the lifting mechanism in place, because it comes down to fatigue, a result of general wear and tear. Tell me with 100% certainty that if the cable were to snap on Giant Drop, it couldn't do similar or worse. Kentucky investigators don't yet know what happened to cause the injuries.

Intamin was indeed suggesting that the cable in question was not their own. The ride would be designed to use a specific gauge of wire rope for the elevator lift system, presumably one that is a standard in the elevator industry, allowing Intamin to cut out excessive R&D costs that would be associated with developing new rope and allowing owners to source replacements from local manufacturers. Mythbusters is so woefully unscientific that it doesn't surprise me that they didn't get anywhere with that myth. Their interest is in wowing people with building oversized contraptions and blowing things up to make viewers happy. Great from a television entertainment perspective, but not much else. I'm not convinced the same thing would have happened in the media had Dreamworld chosen to shut the ride. Rides in this country have been shut as precautions many times in the past when nothing was wrong with them other than some bad press for similar rides abroad. Giant Drop has even been closed for similar reasons in the past with less negative press than we've currently seen for Giant Drop. There's no story in taking precautions... it doesn't sell newspapers.

The way it reads in the articles is Dreamworld heard about the Kentucky incident and disregarded with "we maintain our rides well, so we don't need to worry". They haven't indicated, neither implicitly nor explicitly, that they've done anything out of the ordinary with regards to upkeep of the ride as a result of the Kentucky incident. From a public perception and a media coverage standpoint, that sends out a slightly uneasy message. There is absolutely nothing yet known to suggest that Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom were at fault in the incident, while the comments from Dreamworld imply that because they have better maintenance programmes (who's to say that's true?), such a thing could never happen. They said outright that they don't yet know what happened, but that they are confident that it couldn't happen at Dreamworld. That there shows why the media have picked up on this story - Dreamworld have created an issue where there wasn't one previously. If Dreamworld had closed the ride for a few days (again, a totally cosmetic measure to appease the media/public; there is nothing to suggest there is anything wrong with Giant Drop), along with a firm statement that they have impeccable maintenance and safety standards and that its closure is only a precautionary measure until the facts of the incident are fully understood, they would have fared much better in the situation and not received the slightly sensationalised media attention that they have. I think on the whole, most people understand much better that closing a ride as a precautionary measure is justifiable decision; not closing a ride and making refutable claims about the quality of maintenance at Dreamworld vs. SFKK is less so.

Seems like it would have been wise for Dreamworld to shut the ride for a few days, to appease the media if nothing else. They've taken a PR hit which otherwise could have been completely avoided if they followed suit with Cedar Fair and Six Flags. As I've said before I'm quite confident that what happened at SFKK was a completely freak accident, by virtue of the fact that cables on these rides very rarely snap and when they have in the past, injuries are typically superficial at worst, but from an image point of view, Dreamworld could have dodged a bullet by just shutting the ride for a few days, maybe using it as an opportunity to perform some annual maintenance that'd otherwise see the ride closed when it's not surrounded by controversy.

But particular models of planes have in the past been grounded as a result of crashes. I'd say without much doubt that this is a freak accident, but I find it a bit of a stretch to call such a valid and justified precautionary measure 'neuroticism'. I can't see how it would make sense to keep them open until they can rule out with 100% certainty that it's not a design flaw.

Great first post, shock_bus. Welcome along and I'm sure I speak for others in saying I look forward to a lot more like it. Your first question, regarding whether it doesn't seem as good simply because you're older, I think you only need to look as far as Sea World or Movie World to answer that question. Sea World is every bit as good as it was 10 or 20 years ago, and has built solidly on what it was then to only improve everything aspect of the park. Movie World is the same, but I think to a lesser extent (for the simple fact that they have replaced too many attractions without really growing the park). I just can't see kids today visiting Dreamworld and looking back at it in years to come with the same nostalgia many here have. I know I've dicussed this with many other people who agree on this point. The water park was completely a money-driven decision, which is understandable given that's the reason Macquarie Leisure exists. I do however agree that in a perfect world we'd see one great park rather than two average parks as we currently have.

It was planned a few weeks ago but I didn't want to post it here until I received confirmation from the producer, which as it happens didn't come until moments before the interview went ahead, so I didn't really get a chance to post it here. It was their evening programme.

We were featured on Brisbane radio station 4BC on Saturday night. Not only was it our fifth birthday, but June 16 also marked the 123rd anniversary of the first roller coaster in the United States at Coney Island. I did an interview with the presenter talking about the impact that the first roller coasters had on the world and how they developed from the early switchback railways designed to trapsort coal to become the first thrill rides, the importance of John Miller's contributions to roller coaster design, as well as the usual stuff about Kingda Ka etc. and what the future holds.

That link there would be the original Total Thrills, where theme parks were only a small component of the entire site. About a fortnight after that archive I switched hosts and lost all the existing data in the process, which led to the creation of the theme park focused Total Thrills Forums that we're still using today. The original Total Thrills site as it was pre-R-C.com.au is actually still online. I'll put the link up when I can find it for anyone interested in taking a trip back. It took us a year to reach the 1,000 post mark. These days we average between 500-2,500 posts per month.

Today marks the fifth anniversary of these forums, Australia's oldest and largest theme park community. Of course this community started out as Total Thrills back in June 2002. It originally dates back to February 2002, but the forums you see today date back to June. Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster had only just opened, Wonderland Sydney still had a future and Nickelodeon Central was only starting construction. In March 2004 we relaunched as Roller-Coaster.com.au but retaining the exact same forums. We have grown to well over a thousand members (if only all of them were active) and the site is frequented by the management teams of theme parks all around Australia. Unfortunately we couldn't do anything major to celebrate the occasion as I had originally intended, but rest assured there are huge changes to come in the near future. Thanks to everyone who has been a part of this community over the past five years, and I hope we can all stick around for another five years.

That's quite correct in just about every other construction context, but for some reason the coaster world has always referred to them as footers to the point where it's become the accepted norm. Do a Google search for coaster footers and coaster footings and you'll see what I mean with the number of results you get for each. Good point AlexB... don't know how I didn't notice that before. Consider it fixed.

Though I've not read any of the Harry Potter books, and only having seen bits of the films, I have little doubt as to the longevity of the franchise. Harry Potter will be a hugely profitable series until well after Universal have recouped their huge investment and made a bundle. The first major Star Wars theme park attraction (Star Tours) opened at Disneyland nearly five years after the last movie of the first trilogy and the last version opened close to a decade after. They've been consistently popular since. Who knows what they'll be learning in 400 years time. For all anyone knows Baby Got Back will be regarded as classical music as predicted by Futurama. In the context of Universal Studios coughing up USD$1.22 billion to build this thing, I think looking at the popularity in anything greater than decades is pretty irrelevant. If today's slipping standards are anything to go by, I'd expect that studying Shakespeare plays will eventually be replaced by Pauly Shore movies.

The basic concept is that the hotels will be combined with water parks and other attractions as part of the entire experience. They won't just be standalone themed hotels; they'll be complete self-sustaining holiday experiences. If you look overseas, there is a very big trend towards this concept of linking hotels directly with attractions, namely water parks. The Great Wolf Lodge chain has been very successful with this concept, and parks like Cedar Point and Alton Towers have both opened up hotel-only indoor water parks to allow year-round operating. It's the closest thing to a turnkey hotel operation. Where in the past hotels could essentially only be built in areas where people would be likely to stay (holiday, business destinations etc.), this is a concept which allows them to build where they want by creating their own mini-destination. It seems to me you've changed your tone as soon as you found out it was Marriott, not IHH. The fact is Nickelodeon is anything but a fad. Kids that grew up watching the channel in the 1980s are now having children of their own. Over the next decade or so the number of families like this will increase hugely. Nickelodeon is one of the strongest children's brands in the world and children are increasingly playing a vital role in family decision making. Just watch as this becomes a cash cow for Marriott.

Yeah I wouldn't go so far as to say a waste of money, because Harry Potter has shown time and time again that anything the franchise touches turns to gold. I would however agree that they're at least a few years too late to maximise their immediate returns. If this were unveiled a few years ago they would have been able to get so much mileage off the films, which leads me to think that perhaps the agreement between Universal and Warner Bros. was that it couldn't go ahead until the films were all completed. I also find the decision to make it part of Islands of Adventure a little puzzling. The park to date hasn't been an overwhelming financial success, for reasons largely to do with the fact that Universal Studios Resort as a whole can't compete with Walt Disney World. A third park, one themed to something as universally popular as Harry Potter could add so much to Universal and make it so much more of a destination. Evidently they don't feel that the infrastructure of IOA has To make this viable, they'll be predicting an attendance increase somewhere in the millions. Come 2010, the crowds at IOA will become very different indeed.

Yeah, people can edit Wikipedia. I don't think we need to be told everytime someone does.

The catwalk parts were repainted in Cyclone's blue but never ended up installed. They were stored (and presumably still are) in one of Dreamworld's maintenance areas. I was told by the then-CEO that Dreamworld would be looking at adding a second train after around two years (this was back in early-2002). Of course with a CEO change around the two year mark it never did happen. Now going on six years since, I'd say it'll never happen. In regards to LPS, I'm quite against the idea of vastly recreating the park as anything other than a traditional amusement park. There's so much potential in the idea of a Coney Island style park in the 21st Century. Firstly rip out anything that could be attached to a trailer and build the place up from scratch with modern rides, but in a 1930s setting.

I think that's probably the single most critical point of difference between Dreamworld and WVTP. Whereas down at WVTP decisions are driven by instinct - instinct created by decades in the industry - at Dreamworld they're driven by the bottom line. Both come to the same end - profits for the company and shareholders - but in the case of WVTP it's coupled with substance that'll last. I think the example of the hotdog stand pretty much sums up the difference between the two perfectly. It's seen throughout Dreamworld with the gaudy paint seen on any surface they can get their hands on. There's just so much tastelessness that no one would get away with at WVTP because there are people in charge who have enough insight to know where the line between 'fantastic' and 'excessive' is. Can you imagine if Disney put someone with absolutely no theme park experience in charge of Disneyland? It'd be the death of the place.

Honestly? All the parks on the Gold Coast have their problems. Even Disneyland isn't perfect. As I've said before, things would be very boring around here if all we did was endlessly praise all the parks. I think there's little denying that Dreamworld, of the parks on the Gold Coast, is in need of the most attention. You wouldn't hear of a restaurant with faded paint, gum stuck to the floor and only one waiter working when the place is full. You certainly wouldn't go back in a hurry. That's not to say that the other parks don't suffer from similar problems, but certainly not to the extent of Dreamworld. Macquarie Leisure are commited to the park, but their strategy is one which will make a good park, but as it currently stands, it'll never make a great park, even by Gold Coast standards. Growing up Dreamworld was always my favourite park. It remained this way for me until the early 2000s. Then as Movie World started to really get itself into shape starting with Scooby-Doo in 2002, Dreamworld seemed to step back by cutting costs ("improving operating efficiency") and focusing only on maximising specific revenue streams rather than the overall product. To me, over the years the two parks with the most prevalent idendity were Dreamworld and Sea World. Both knew exactly who they were, and as a visitor you could feel it throughout both parks. Dreamworld has lost its but yet Sea World's still very much what it always has been.

I'm yet to see a full release. I was notified by the park of the news yesterday morning, but won't be publishing the news until the full story is out. If WhiteWater World can claim they're even partly responsible for Wet'n'Wild's tremendous success, then it's logical that Sea World claim they're home to The Wiggles and Movie World can say they're home to the world's tallest freefall attraction. Wet'n'Wild's success can be attributed to their huge marketing campaign and the way they have changed and expanded their overall image in the past year or so. If WhiteWater World sugest they had anything to do with Wet'n'Wild's attendance figures, then I'd like to see an apology from them should Wet'n'Wild's attendance fall in coming years. Seems only fair.

The Play Pass will be launching June 1. I've not yet seen or heard any specific dates for the other options. As for cost, I think it's possible to consider this as a response to WVTP's continued slashing of annual pass prices. I would expect prices more consistent with WVTP's standard prices at the very least. I do agree however that they won't be what I'd consider cheap by international theme park standards. For some reason despite our parks being smaller and, in overall terms, of lesser quality than many parks abroad, the public here is still willing to pay a premium for the privilege of a day at a theme park.