DaptoFunlandGuy

Good to see they're actually going to do something with it - even if it is just a nice grassed picnic area or similar. side note: how do you plant dirt?

Where's the drop tower? Isn't there supposed to be a drop tower in every theme park?

I don't have the background knowledge to think of any off the top of my head - but i'm going to look to Gazza for verification on that. I'm sure not EVERY theme park has a drop tower... (You said 'except sea world' - so i'm not counting Sea World San Diego - which also does not have a drop tower)

^except on these boards, where it still lives on in people's memories of things that never were. (FoF members may know differently however)

^sounds like The Claw

We're at page 62... there has been 1542 1543 individual posts. Wipeout's refurbishment is complete and the ride is open and has been for a month. Tail spin construction and triple vortex construction has been completed and both have opened with few hiccups, photos and videos have been posted. What else "on topic" is there to discuss, considering this topic is "2014 in dreamworld - tail spin construction, wipeout refurbishment and triple vortex construction" ? We've even discussed their switch from coke to pepsi, new shops - hell - we even discussed the recolouration of the ocean parade pavement... I don't think theres going to be much more for dreamworld in 2014, except for the obvious Big Brother House attraction at the end of the season... which i'm sure will get it's own topic. Frankly, the only reason this thread has made it this long and managed to stay close to topic is because the refurb and construction has only just recently been completed.

Doing really well themed mazes?

1,300,000 people at say $99pp on average for a ticket (not counting repeated trips from passholders) = $128,700,000 2,900,000 at the same price (SFMM pricing is a little more complex, so it's easier) = $287,100,000 Dreamworld = 85ha SFMM = 110ha Now assume each park has a base operating cost of $1m per hectare, including ride operation, maintenance, wages etc (and ignoring the obvious additional income generated by concessions which would also have their own costs) and you're left with this: Dreamworld = $128.7m - $85m = $43.7m SFMM = $287.1m - $110m = $177.1m That is obviously far more than "double", and $130m is, as you say - a "huge difference" - in terms of decent coasters - if we say $30m per coaster (allowing for compacts and mega coasters to average out), Dreamworld can afford 1 coaster, while SFMM can afford almost 6. I have obviously taken some liberties with numbers, however - consider that the cost of construction in the USA is less than here, and many other operating costs (like wages, maintenance etc) are cheaper in the US than here. (This is why I felt the $1m per ha was a reasonable figure for comparison purposes) Even if SFMM's operating costs for maintenance and wages are higher because of their higher coaster count... even if we made the operating costs $2M per ha for SFMM - they'd still be buying 2 coasters for every one dreamworld did - purely based on that attendance. When you're looking at figures, remember that every business has a critical 'break even' point for their cost of sales. Once both parks reach that point, every person through the door really doesn't add that much to the cost, because the rides are going to run, require maintenance etc whether there are people there to ride it or not - so double the people doesn't double the costs - and hence why SFMM is able to buy and build more and more than dreamworld ever will.

Dreamworld has similar visitation to Six Flags Magic Mountain??? Would you be so kind as to provide a source?

In general, rides where you ride in a specific number, or assigned rows, having single rider queues means you can fill the seats that aren't sat together by using the single rider queue (SRQ) - for example - Green Lantern sits 4 abreast. Groups of 3 leave a single empty seat. The car is leaving the station with or without that seat filled, but the park can keep the wait time down for everyone by offering single rider. Without a SRQ, the single rider you would have put on the ride is queuing in the main queue. When it comes their turn to ride (in the main queue) they take a single, and perhaps a couple gets on next to them, and then you're left with another single seat to fill. The point is that when a single is available, if a SRQ is in operation, the ride op can just call the person at the front of the SRQ directly to the seat vacant because the op knows a person in that queue is a single, rather than walking down the main queue calling out for a single rider which can take time firstly for the single to notice, put their hand up and then make their way down the queue line to the front. This is especially important on multi-carriage operation such as Scooby or Green Lantern to avoid a backlog on the brake run. However (as has been discussed ad nauseum) it isn't appropriate on a ride like TailSpin where each seat is a single. (And no - Scooby and Green Lantern don't have SRQ - I was just making them the example)

Is there enough space for them to paint the steps like they've done at WWW?

Touching back on 'viability' of thrills in parks (mainly SW and WnW) - A water park is expected to have both sedate (pools, lazy rivers) and thrills. To say there isn't a market to support that is just incorrect. As for SW, up until recently, the park's top three mechanical attractions were roller coasters. I don't think it's fair to say that SW couldn't support a market for thrills also - however because of the park theme, it must be done with a little more finesse than just plonking down a coaster 'wherever it fits' ala MDMC. Take a look at the foreign SW parks and realise that most have their water coaster, their signature coaster, a few transport observation type rides, and several flats... TBH if SW didn't have the height limitation, I think it would be a perfect spot for a large Obs. Tower or Falcon's Fury type attraction... what a view!

I'm sure most have - but let's be honest - nobody is "rebuilding" anything - although there is a consortium that wants to build a new theme park in Sydney and capitalise on the memories and sentimentalists among the locals by calling it a similar name. You can see more info if you visit http://www.sydneyswonderland.com.au/ And I think 3 years is being optimistic at this stage... On topic, I don't think LPS has anything to worry about. They co-existed with Wonderland in the past. We've seen the park sit virtually stagnant (other than school holiday travelling rides), and now - with WnWS down the road, suddenly, hair raiser, ride retirement and removal, and talk of '5 year plans' for replacement and rejuvenation of the park. Competition breeds competition. So long as park management (on all fronts) are responsible in their spending, Sydney is more than capable of supporting several small to medium independent parks - in fact it is screaming for it. Any park that tries to be as big as Wonderland or as popular as Magic Mountain or attract the attendance of Disneyland has their head in the clouds and will surely sink. Wonderland stagnated because there was nobody to compete with. LPS had stagnated also - until WnWS came along. Even thinking back 10 years to our gold coast parks - and the attractions were few, and far between. Then we saw DW and MWSW launch salvo after salvo of new rides... if it happens, it can only mean good things.

Apology. We all have our bad days. That's no excuse. I just had a beef with someone external to the site regarding photographers and it carried over. It shouldn't have. For me, I saw Downunder's response to Richard's comments regarding hotlinking to be quite disrespectful. Although the policy has been put into effect it doesn't really seem to be managed. For the site owner to specifically state his reasons and for someone to specifically tell him to like it or lump it pissed me off. I also didn't mean to imply that a person needed qualifications in order to be a good photographer, I was just trying to give my own background on my viewpoint. In the end - it's not my issue, and I've let something get to me that really has no bearing on me. I can't see photos that are hotlinked in two of the three access points I have to this site, which is really my only issue - in that I can't see what others refer to unless posted here. FWIW I apologise to those I incorrectly and inappropriately directed my acid tongue this morning - and into the afternoon. I'll stick to hitting the 'report' button and leaving it up to those whose job it is to deal with it - and let them choose how they wish to do so. I think i'll take a self-enforced ban for a while...

My side note was unrelated to the current topic - it isn't all about you - i was being general. I worked as a professional photographer both in pro-labs and theme parks. I had tertiary qualifications in photography. I learned the hard way before digital filters and all the rest. My comments weren't, and aren't directed at anyone specifically, but just with the general notion these days that anyone with a <3 year old camera, or a DSLR is somehow worthy of screentime. I want to state that again - I was NOT directing that at ANYONE. ABP is a brand new corporate install this morning - it hasn't been customised in any way. I like it already.

It's not like you're on dialup and it takes 5 hours to upload them. Do you think you'll show em who's boss by withholding your updates from Parkz? This has already been debated in depth. As I've just delightfully discovered - AdBlockPlus actually blocks external images such as Flickr - so i'm already going without them - and to be honest - i'd much rather wait for a parkz update - taken with good quality cameras, and tongue firmly planted in cheek, happy to poke fun at the park while at the same time showcasing the changes. (Unrelated sidenote - i'm getting really jack of every kid with a digicam thinking he's a shit-hot photographer who deserves the exposure he craves.)

Ahhhhh.... The deployment of AdBlockPlus this morning considers hotlinked images to be an ad - and so it blocks them. Theres a ringing endorsement for uploading them directly to the site in line with the image policy...

Riveting... except the images didn't work...?

...for those people clearly unable to discern between a photograph, and a vegetable - I would point out that the photographer's contribution towards the discussion is amply more than your vegetative input. How bout giving them a break and just being thankful that someone is down at the park taking photos so your sorry ass doesn't have to. (And If you still take issue with it - how about you head on down there, and take a better shot!)

I'm due to get a haircut later this week.

Probably because you appear to come across overly critical about non issues, or hold viewpoints in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

<Earlier> So, to paraphrase, you don't see theming as vitally important - in otherwords, we don't really need it... or "it isn't necessary" (Otherwise it would be "vitally important"). But let's take "icing on the cake" for a moment... http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/icing+on+the+cake an extra enhancement something good that is added to another good thing http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/the-icing-on-the-cake something that makes a good situation even better By definition, you've described theming as 'something extra, to make a good thing better'. No matter which way you slice it, your 'icing on the cake' isn't going to get you out of this one. Either you're saying JDS is good, and the theming makes it better; or You're saying that BATRide, JL and LTRR would all be good rides, even with zero theming (ie: as I portrayed them earlier in big empty rooms) You can't have it both ways. I get the feeling you're being negative just to stand your ground on your earlier viewpoint to save face. If you look back into the early days of JDS - I was quite negative about the concept as well - bemoaning the loss of such a classic attraction for such a pathetic replacement... but it isn't. I've seen it grow and I recognise that this is a solid attraction suitable to younger kids - something MW is sorely lacking. You're sore that your children won't enjoy it. Or that you can't ride it freely. Tough titties. Everyone else on this board felt the same about it 18 months ago - however, most have come out and clearly retracted their earlier comments after seeing how well it's pulled off. You try to justify your different view by referring to yourself as being interested in theme parks, rather than a theme park fanatic - and yet YOU are the one carrying on like the typical theme park fanatics - always having a cry over something the park did that you don't like. If this were TPR, i'm fairly certain you'd have been blocked by Robb Alvey by now for your whinging and whining. Finally - to put this difference of opinions to rest - since the ride opened, how many times have you visited the park? if the answer is ZERO - then I invite you to experience the attraction before passing any further judgment.

*Facepalm* The photos are hotlinked.

This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

'clicks photo' "Ouch! those photos are HOT"