Richard

Cool stuff. Provided it doesn't get too packed, I think it'd be a great event. I'm guessing they won't actually close the park and kick everyone out (you never know though). Whether they'll let outsiders in between 5pm (6 for holidays?) and 7pm I don't know.

Depends really on what you want to do. My trip cost around $200 a day for two of us. That includes most expenses - accommodation, food, transportation and entertainment. A family will probably have different needs from two guys with backpacks and no qualms about walking a good few kilometres through less-than-desirable areas at odd hours. Then again, a family will only really do Anaheim or Orlando which are pretty well geared out for tourists. For a big trip (over a month), you'd be looking at about $5,000 each if you go with a mate.

Nothing I've read or been told mentions the closing time. I'd expect that they close at 10pm. So long as there's enough time to ride all four, I'd be happy.

Let's please try not to turn every thread into these arguments. Language could do with a tidy-up too, Daniel.

See this article on what I'm guessing may become a more common occurance at Dreamworld, with the emphasis being put on less capital-intensive ways to attract guests to the park. Anyone happen to know the significance of April 16? It's Easter break and all, but other than that my best guess was Full Moon, but that doesn't work, unless they accidently looked at the 2003 charts.

Beyond hope. Let's try to keep things on topic, and not resort to petty arguments. Let's also try to get some meaning into our posts. I'm not asking for a perfect post, just something that has a purpose and at least tries to begin an engaging discussion.

I'm not sure that there's enough activity in the Luna Parks forum to justify splitting it into two. Look at it this way, it's not at all difficult to find older topics in there, and it's certainly not cluttered.

Be sure to let us know how your travels went in the International Forum.

I remember when Wild Wild West had it's name change to Wild West Falls. I contacted the park to just see what the exact story was, slipping in that it'd be great if the reason was to build a Wild Wild West woodie like the other two Movie World's. What I got back was essentially, "The name change was because of a licensing issue, though I think the wooden coaster would be a much better reason!" Don't go reading more into it than there is, but I always thought it was cool that at least someone there knows how cool it would be. I doubt that with the way that they push gimick/uniqueness over thrill, we have too much chance of getting a wooden coaster at Movie World, but it sure as hell would fit in in the western area! Dan, wooden coasters designed in the 70's and 80's can and do look tacky (seemingly with the noticeable exception of SFMM's Colossus, which took 20 years of neglect to go from breathtaking to tacky), as is the case of Bush Beast. Modern wooden coasters look anything but tacky. Layouts have become more flowing and make use of nice swooping banked turns, which results in very picturesque looking rides. The more this conversation goes on about woodies, the more my vote earlier for a B&M switches to a nice wooden coaster.

Good call on that one. I hope it didn't come off like me wanting you to spill your guts about it all, because I couldn't really care less about most of it. My point was when you're on here condemning the place non-stop without any proof; it's hard as well as stupid for anyone to really take it onboard as the truth - nothing more than that. One thing I don't get though. You obviously don't like the way the place is run, yet you're saying, presumably in all seriousness, that you'd gladly go back to fill some gaps in these final weeks. If it were as bad as you're saying, I'd hardly be saying something like that. That leads me to believe that you're at least partially blowing things out of proportion about it all.

Welcome along. I've slipped this thread over to General Thrills. Let's keep it going from there! Daniel's right. There's this wonderful four million population figure floating around, but unfortunately that means no where easily obvious to put the park, especially if these four million are going to have homes, jobs or services. Wonderland had huge potential - they had the land, so it was just a matter of developing the place appropriately to cash in on these locals, which unfortunately didn't really happen in the later years. You know, Dreamworld was originally planned for Sydney, but way back in the early 1970's it proved impossible to find a suitable location - eventually they chose a swamp half an hour from absolutely anything over what was available in Sydney. If 30 years ago someone found it difficult to find anything suitable, even if they didn't look hard enough, what are your chances 30 years later, after the effects of urban sprawl have kicked in and are constantly gobbling whatever is left.

You pick up enough in threads to get a vague idea about who does and who did work there. Maybe everyone's lying about everything, but I'm not responding to Daniel Whoever, I'm responding to the registered user Daniel. What you are or aren't in real life isn't what I'm concerned about, it's what you're saying here. I know most people are very different from who they are on the internet. Take me - about the most in-depth debate I'll ever have is whether Friends or Frasier is better (the answer is Frasier, by the way). Leaving the petty argument of "I might not be what I'm saying I am" behind, the fact that remains is you're pretty well disgruntled. Look up any good dictionary, and you'll find that it means you're not happy or discontented. When it comes to Wonderland, I wouldn't exactly call you happy or contented. You expect people to believe you, yet you've only made general comments. I've never heard so much as a single story that confirms what you're saying - even from yourself. If I recall, all this concern came from me suggesting that Wonderland is a well-run park. It wasn't about how their employee benefits or work conditions stack up against other employers. Perhaps you didn't believe my earlier comment about Disney parks probably being even worse in terms of behind-the-scenes conditions. I'm talking backstabbing, supervisors spying, serious over-working (a good story from Universal Studios - not Disney, but same league - where they hire people casual over the summer period under the impression that by law if they work 60 hour weeks for three months they are made full-time, and fire them when the big three comes around), attrocious hours and unrealisic expectations given the circumstances. I assure you that what Cast Members go through is ten times what any Wonderland employee experiences. It's worthwhile pointing out that those views and stories come not from dodgy websites but real people I encountered in my five days in Anaheim and twelve days in Orlando. I've already said that my view on operating a park comes from guest impressions and has nothing to do with whatever goes on behind the scenes. Ask anyone that came with us to Wonderland on March 7. Sure, the place is a tad light-on in the thrill ride deparment, but we had a blast. The place looked great, rides were running about as well as they possible can, staff were friendly (with the exception of our friend on Snowy River Rampage during the incident) and far more efficient than some of their Gold Coast counterparts, and all with the full knowledge that the place would be gone in under two months. How about this. A Hungry Jacks store is judged by the quality of the food it provides, the friendliness of staff to customers and the cleanliness of the store. It's a good store if all three are covered well. I also know from personal experience that behind that heat-chute there are half a dozen or so people yelling, stressing, copping it from managers who want a Whopper made 2.3s faster, all for hopeless pay. Does it change your opinion of that store knowing what goes on back there, especially given that it happens at most other fast food stores. Running a store like that well means answering to those three criteria, and absolutely no others (obviously within the confines of the laws or ethical business practice). As for employees, some can take it easily, while some can't. Those that can't won't stick around and there's other jobs out there. The longer my posts get, the more waffle they are. Read the first and last paragraphs and you should be right.

The exact location of the famous "excess land" is down the far end, essentially where the Coomera train station is (it was built where it is with the intention of being close to the planned centre), so it's a long long way from Dreamworld and doesn't really at all affect their expansion options. The Town Centre is to be larger than Pacific Fair in terms of shop space (about 20% larger) and the whole plan takes up about 60ha (not all will be a shopping complex), 35ha of which is Macquarie Leisure's land, so there's still about 20ha of unused land left at the end of it to play in.

I think my biased (you need to check your spelling... oh wait, never mind, that was a joke) comment was pretty true. Look at it from my, non-"first hand experience". There's all this talk here (not just you) about how Wonderland's so bad, but we've never once had an actual example. We've got some current employees, so that's understandable, what with the job on the line, but you're a disgruntled ex-employee. You should be crusading and spilling the goss' - SaveDisney.com style! Maybe if you gave some examples, instead of letting off these vague comments about how Wonderland is the devil, you might deserve a little more credibility on this topic, but you can't blame me for sort of discounting your dark opinions in the meantime. Still got your fingers crossed that Wonderland will call you and have you back? Okay, if they didn't do the work on The Beach, it wouldn't have opened. Doesn't that right there sort of show that the interest for Wonderland's management was in operating the theme park until the last day. Maybe they didn't even know the actual date (or know at all) of the park's closure, because doesn't it seem plain stupid to invest in refurbishments for a water park that'll only get one season of use? Don't know about you, but as much as this particular topic goes around in circles, I still enjoy it.

My theory on the Perilous Plunge style ride is Knott's Berry Farm can't operate theirs with a capacity of over about 80pph (that's absolultely no exaggeration either, and has very little to do with the stupid restraints), yet run most of their rides pretty efficiently, I would hate to see Dreamworld, who are pretty well hopeless when it comes to ride capacity, give the thing a shot. As for a wooden coaster, they're certainly not a thing of the past. Especially in times like these when attendance is down and the economy's not so great (USA mainly), we're seeing a lot of parks turning for these sorts of cheaper rides - wooden coasters, wild mouses and flat rides. A wooden coaster today is not the same as one 20 years ago. Maintained, they can range anywhere from being silky smooth to "having character", and it's no great task to keep them this way even five or more years down the track. A wooden coaster is typically half the cost of a steel coaster of the same size, they have roughly the same capacity. Now, Dreamworld aren't the greatest for maintenance, but Cyclone's the closest they've got to rough these days and that could be running A LOT worse than it currently is. I could almost trust Dreamworld with a wooden coaster. However, my pick is still with a nice B&M. Anything from their catalogue does me fine, because they're all the best of the best, and need no more maintenance than what a week or two every year can give. So long as it has two or more trains and makes use of them all when needed, I'd be very happy. Stick one with a station near the Aftermath shop and have the lift hill heading roughly where Thunderbolt's loops were/are/shouldn't be and have a drop curving to the left with most of the guts of the ride way out, well past where Thunderbolt lies and you've got a very cool big coaster and still plenty of room for Tony's three or four other thrill rides. All you've got to do is give it a name like "Thunderbolt's Revenge" and evidently everyone but me will think it's the coolest thing to do.

I rock up to the place in the morning, have a great time out. Staff were friendly and efficient, rides were in reasonable condition and the place looked nice. That's a well run park, and those who are running it should be commended. What happens in employee areas of the park has no effect on that statement. I never heard much about industrial action or investigations, so I wouldn't think it's illegally bad.

Welcome to Total Thrills ASHLEE! Care to elaborate on that one a little more? You've brought up a good topic - one that we've not had here for quite a while. Just enlighten us with a little more detail and this thread will start off on the right foot.

Wonderland's management team starts with Stephen Galbraith and goes down from there. Sunway's board of directors is a group of eight gentlemen whose names I wouldn't want to try and pronounce. They oversee all of Sunway's involvements. There's a bit of a distinction between the two. Wonderland's management team's purpose was to operate the park. The Board of Directors have the interests of the corporation or shareholders as their sole interests. Some time ago, or perhaps even before the park was bought by Sunway, studies would have been done into the profitability, return on investment and the overall feasibility of operating the site as a theme park. Undoubtedly Wonderland's management team was involved with this, but I'd say that would be about where their involvement ended. Clearly the result of this was that shutting the park and selling the land was of most benefit to the company. Throughout the six years that they operated the theme park, I don't think you can argue that the park was operated in any way other than to maintain (or increase) the attendance and revenue of the park. If you want to try and argue against that point, look at the Marvel deal, fresh paint left right and centre, The Beach rehab, Saturday night trading. The fact is, though they might well have known that the park was closing, their brief all along was to keep the park going as a popular attraction. Many (namely employees) would say that the Disney parks are some of the most horrible and badly organized places behind the scenes. Meanwhile, on the surface they're easily the best run parks in the world. It's a guest-oriented business. How well it is run is based on how it operates out and about where the customers are concerned. If I took all the (biased?) behind-the-scenes stories about Wonderland, that really wouldn't change the fact that on the surface, it's a pretty well run park. You know, I knew from when I posted that I'd get caught up on that point... some of you people are too predictable.

Why blame the management? Their job all along was the run the best park possible with what was available, which is what they did. The decision to shut the place didn't come from Wonderland's managment, it came from presumably Sunway's board of directors. You can't help but feel that the government didn't do all that they could have to save the park, but could this perhaps be because in the greater scheme of things, an industrial area, providing several thousand jobs is really better for the economy than a theme park employing 500-odd (no doubt with lower wages than those in the industrial park would be paid)?

Could've, should've, would've... I think it does the job - if ironing it then taking a picture means you'll buy one, then I suppose I can.

Sure, here's a shot of the shirt. You know, you're gonna have to buy one now...

He's referring to Luna Park in Melbourne. See the ride here. I'm not sure what you mean by your second question. It's a relatively common practice in the amusement industry. It's not a question of why they do it, they just do it. EDIT: HussRainbow beat me to it.

Movie World got Lethal Weapon in 1994, Wild Wild West in 1998 and Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster in 2002. That doesn't exactly give the best sort of hope until 2006. I think that Warner Village run their parks in a reactive way. Rather than adding attractions at a reasonable rate, they'll add one and hold off on a new one until attendance starts to die off. Attendance is still increasing on the whole quite nicely, but it goes in big jumps, with somwhat stagnant periods in between. Stephen Jay Gould called it punctuated equilbrium in evolution theory, and it's much the same, replacing species evolution with attendance. The problem is, a ride is added to Movie World, it brings in huge crowds, but the park can't handle them. It goes on like this for four years or whatever until the next major ride comes, . Truly, Movie World to me rates as the worst park in the world in terms of capacity relative to attendance. Only just behind it is Islands of Adventure - and I was there the day after record attendance was recorded at most of the Orlando parks, including Epcot's largest daily attendance ever so it was hectic. Movie World has some absolutely outstanding but desperately lacks in terms of high capacity attractions to absorb many of these guests, let alone a park structure that at all helps with crowd management. I honestly couldn't care if they got a B&M looper that handles 1,500 people per hour, or a relatively insignificant Sally dark ride that has the same capacity. They just need to increase capacity in any way possible. Why the old Maverick theatre is sitting there unused when they could put together some sort of nice show (i.e. not Superstars Live in Concert ) a few times a day is beyond me (don't give me the baloney reasons we've had over the years either). As for Wet'n'Wild, I think the problem there is to guests it looks like a great park. You don't need to tell people that White Water Mountain is really four of the same slide with the elements rearranged to make them all fit together, or that Terror Canyon I and II are the same, one with a waterfall over it at the end. Just make it look like those two things are eight different slides by giving them different names and split the queues and you're set. djrappa also "exposed" the place as somewhat of an unmaintained park, which means the place appears to be a free ticket for Warner Village. All profits, none of the costs!

Nice collection you've got there. Slick, I counted 281, but who cares... it's just a lot. Nonetheless, it's not a bad collection, even if I don't really like many of the rides featured. I've got around about 2,000 photos of Australian parks here, at about 1.5GB. I've also got a further 3,000 photos from my trip to America over summer, which is about 3GB. Slick, do you have a folder for every ride? I used to bother with renaming every picture, indexing them and everything, but I just gave up after a while. It gets to be too much work when you're dealing with about 100 photos every time you're at a park.

I'd have to disagree with that one. Thunderbolt wasn't really the ride that made Dreamworld what it is today (the debatable Australian theme park great). The park had a reasonably shakey first ten years - meanwhile this same period at Sea World was quite strong. It went into receivership and very nearly closed in the 90's. It was Wipeout that ultimately saved the park, which was built by the receivers essentially as a last attempt to save the park. When I visited Dreamworld as a child, I was left with these fantastic memories of Dreamworld as this magical place. It had this atmosphere that truly got me hooked. You know what made it a great park to me? The Captain Sturt hats you could purchase in Rivertown. The place had atmosphere. That is what made the park great, not two loops, or any single attraction for that matter. The Dreamworld we visit today is not the same as the one that many of us grew up with. Children today won't look back in 10 or 15 years time and think fondly of that charming park called Dreamworld. They'll remember a park with great rides, lots of fun, but it just won't have that feel to it. It's hardly a visually striking image since Cyclone (intentionally) blocked virtually any view of Thunderbolt to anyone zooming past at 110km/hr. I just hope they don't move it elsewhere. I don't think