DaptoFunlandGuy

I sure hope they sealed those statues to the ground well - that fabric is going to hold a lotta water! (on a serious note, I hope they do maintain the fabric and don't just let it rot away in six months...)

Based on those comments, rather than buy a new train, they just need to reprogram the PLCs, or allow a manual override. I know we're talking different horses and different courses here, but i've parked Bush Beast a few times in it's day. Once the train stops on the brake run, the op manually depresses the brake release to bring the train into the station. Since Cyclone doesn't do it that slowly for comfort (it still whiplashes each time the brakes are applied), why can't an op just bring the train in a little faster under manual (or semi manual) control? The emergency braking system could still be tied in on the re-program to detect if the train was exceeding a particular speed in the station and automatically lock out for 5 seconds or something like that - teaching the operator what is too fast, while still allowing manual parking... The worst case scenario is an overshoot, but training should overcome that, and most people wouldn't complain about an automatic re-ride (and most queueing wouldn't know the difference anyway)

Gazza, I wasn't having pity on him, and I wasn't criticising you. My reply was tongue in cheek - because you weren't being sensitive to his disability - because if he couldn't google it himself, he must have a disability that prevents him from doing so....

i'm betting it will be open sometime between now and Easter.

Sorry Zacsta, these guys just can't understand what a debilitating illness laziness really is. You'll be walking around 6kms. In the summer heat, you'll undo all the refreshing coolness you'd get from swimming. You're also walking through about 3 or 4 suburbs. It's only 6ks... pay for a taxi - it'll only cost about $10 to blacktown station, or (as will most likely happen) catch the bus they will put on for that purpose. If you're going to catch a train from Wollongong, whats a bus as well? https://maps.google.com.au/maps?saddr=Blacktown+Station,+Blacktown,+New+South+Wales&daddr=wet+and+wild+sydney&hl=en&sll=-33.788613,150.902136&sspn=0.039733,0.0739&geocode=FRi7_P0dPq7-CCkLMpkz_pgSazF5kHj-QMX3_Q%3BFWEj_P0djar-CCG94Pd28ctHsinpyr5SK5gSazG94Pd28ctHsg&oq=blacktown+train&t=h&dirflg=w&mra=ls&z=14

10 years is a good run. I'd like to see something else come in - talk of technology is interesting, but i'm not sure an animal show with a conservation message needs 'technology'. Hearing that conjures up lighting effects, smokefog, etc for me - i'm not quite sure what other technology they'd bring in? Let's recap the current show: get on your mark drink some milk drink some milk up really high show their teeth climb the rope-wrapped pole jump across the gap jump over the log jump over the log together for big photo finish sit around in the enclosure with a microphone and answer questions at other times... I'm all for natural behaviour, and the conservation message, but every time i've caught the show, it is EXACTLY the same, while it's great to see the cats, and to see what they can do, (as well as the fact that they may not be able to change it up because of the animals routine), i'd like to see them have a little more variety in the show, so you occasionally see something different. In contrast, the Imagine Dolphin show does things differently in each show. It does follow the same loose format, (and you may see 20 shows in a row that are identical) but the trainers will frequently cue different behaviours depending on which animal they are working with, and what kind of 'mood' they've picked up on - if the dolphin is in a bad mood, they'll sometimes hold that animal back from the big stunts and let the others who aren't cranky do the finish - meaning sometimes you'll get a huge 4 animal acrobatic finale, and sometimes 3. Sometimes they'll fly over the rubber ducky, and sometimes they'll just do a big aerial flip all together. My point is, on the same day, you could see imagine twice, and still not know whats coming next. For me, Tiger Island is just repetitive, which doesn't really encourage repeat visits, except to see the animals being natural.

A new train isn't likely to change that. No offence intended towards those who favour the Viper... but with the upgrade to Kumbak trains, Vipers load time is as slow as it always was... so I don't think Cyclone has any hope of improving by installing a new train.

Remember a few things - standard trading hours in Queensland for certain industries (such as Retail) are actually legislated. I'm not saying the parks aren't legally allowed to trade later, but it's possible this might be a contributor. Queensland as a whole is still struggling to overcome the 'yesteryear' syndrome. Infrastructure in Brisbane is only just catching up with population and demand. On average, the state is about 10 years behind NSW in development and infrastructure. I've actually had a very lively debate with a friend of mine in the last couple of days about daylight saving for SE QLD. I honestly believe if SE QLD went to DST, there is a high likelihood we could see our parks open later in the summer, just as the big USA parks do. Look, i'm hearing the arguments for, and I have to concede you (and Joz) have good points. I've seen San Diego's Dolphin show, and agree, the Gold Coast's show shits on it, in my opinion because GC focuses on the dolphins, conservation and education. San Diego confuses the issue with birds, and bungee performers, and high divers... it's not a dolphin show - its a show with dolphins. However, I could easily spend 6-7 hours or more at San Diego, once you take into account the pet show, sea Lion show (while the dolphin show is shit, their sea lion show was far better than ours), Shamu show, and then add in attractions like Manta, Atlantis, and even just a chair lift which takes you up high and for a decent journey, plus the simulator (i forget what it was called but it was a good quality sim), and the ob tower. It's been said numerous times (including in the 'half-day sea world' thread) that you could do most of what you'd want in SW GC in 4 hours or less, which in my opinion is because that type of discussion is between non-family types that aren't interested in spongebob, nickelodeon or the jungle gym thing. I'm not just talking a straight comparison of ride to ride, and attraction to attraction. When it comes down to it if you do that, there isn't much between them. But if you take out the Shamu show, and San Diego, in my view, still has 2 hours+ on the GC, which makes the difference between a 'full day' park, and a 'half day' park. I concede that what we have is (mostly) top quality stuff, but the park still isn't a full-day park, and in my opinion, you can't say it's "world class" when you're done in half a day. Storm will make that gap smaller, but it won't close it - and in my view, the GC doesn't have the land necessary to make the park a full day... unless you're pushing a stroller.

A lot of the promotional material is main street lit up and the giant christmas tree - it's not so much re-use, but theres only so much you can do with light-strings on buildings... Side note: [i've recently been learning a little more about christmas lighting, and much as I know it would be an incredible pain in the ass for the techs who would have to put it together, i'd love to see dumb RGB string, or alternatively intelligent RGB node modules instead of single colour LED, so you could either: 1) have a wave of colour rainbow that pulses up the whole street, or: 2) matrix the intelligent modules and actually use it as an LED display screen (which could also be used for fright night) - imagine santa "popping out of windows" or "snow" falling... try googling 'christmas light nutcracker effect' to see what i mean. I also know that those 'in the know' will have 40 good reasons why this has already been considered and canned] At the end of the day though, it's a wishlist item, not a requirement. I haven't yet been to fright night this year, but I have faith that tthese two night-time events will continue to improve on previous years and better themselves every year because the people behind the show have the passion to better themselves every time. I don't see Movie World as a park to rest on it's laurels.

Take on board what you're saying Joz, but a few points of disagreement - the suggestion wasn't 'animals' the suggestion was 'expand the wildlife offering'. Given that one particular area is known as the 'Australian Wildlife Experience' it is natural to presume the suggestion revolves around native, not exotic animals. Yes - if you want to introduce another "blockbuster wow" animal like a tiger, or a gorilla, you're on a winner - they're large, amazing animals, but the introduction of different native species to the existing offering is going to up costs (for care and feeding) without a noticeable positive change to revenue. This was my point on this issue. As for an increase to native animals being a license to print money - Koala sure - they'll happily sit in a tree for several hours - making a ton of money, but you can't hold a kangaroo in front of a tripod for 5 minutes, and without the captive animal, you don't have a captive market on photos - they'll take their own, which reduces your license to a learners permit - you'll attract asian tourists, and get admission dollars from them, but you'll usually offer a large discount to the tour company, otherwise they'll just go elsewhere... like paradise country. Re: motocoaster, i'm sure we all agree we'd like to see it go, but we've debated the points on the issue well and truly - and it isn't going anytime soon. We don't have the second hand market for coasters that other continents have, simply because we don't have enough parks to make it viable. I've a feeling that Motocoaster is here until it reaches the end of it's usable life. Dreamworld is not the type of park that will remove an expensive attraction with many years left in it to install something new... Hell - Movie World ran it's attractions almost to ground before it closed them out (BATR and LTRR), so it's hardly something likely for Dreamworld. I'll admit, I see your point with Sea World when you put it like that, and given your background (and obvious love of the park) I don't blame you. In my own opinion, I view Sea World as being split - those with young kids (and teenage girls) versus the rest. I guess that I tend to exclude half the park when I view what it offers, which is probably why I hold the view that I do... I'll put the animal attractions aside for a moment, but for the record: Penguins, More Penguins. Seals and Sea Lions. Tropical Reef fish and Sharks. Polar Bears. Sting-rays (Ray Reef AND Shark Bay), Dolphins. I guess my view here is that we don't have the diversity of different animals in our park, yet we're duplicating them by having two penguin enclosures (albeit different species) and two stingray places (albeit different experiences). You've just finished advocating an expansion to a wildlife offering, and as you claim, it would boost revenue - so instead of a second round of penguins, why not otters? Or Alligators Crocs? Turtles? San Diego also has the pets stadium animal stunt show, and the animal connections which are land based animals as well. Moving onto attractions and shows, the parade lake show revolves around spongebob, a quintessential childrens character. Your 5 kids rides. The Kids showstage. The Spongebob 4D film. The Kids playground. See what I'm getting at here? I realise every park needs a childrens offering, and Sea World of the three is probably the best set up for younger kids, but it forms a duality within the park, where the only common ground is the two major shows - Dolphins and Sea-Lions. For those that aren't getting into the kids attractions, the splash battle and the flume can be shared between the two demographics, and then you have three coasters, and two transport rides. The chairlift has an interminable wait due to the inefficient design (not the parks fault - it just cannot expand to handle the growing demand), and the monorail requires, at the very least... AIR CONDITIONING to make it anything but a mobile sauna. To a very high degree, most of the issues I have with Sea World (and most of the reasons why I say it doesn't compare) are outside of management's control. They are land-bound on the spit with little room to move. Sea World Drive bounds them to the east. the Resort at the north (i'd love to see a massive coaster fly over the resort even though this would further imbalance the number of coasters in the park though). They have in the past reclaimed a little land to the west encroaching on the broadwater, but there is only so much they can do there, and due to the nature of the structures at the southern end, it is extremely unlikely they could move much south, with the exception of a carpark coaster or similar. This particular vein came out of a discussion calling our parks 'world class'. In this day and age, the un-air-conditioned monorail, the lack of expansion space and convoluted navigation including paths to nowhere says to me sea world is lacking. I'm not suggesting for one minute that what it has isn't absolutely kick-ass, but it lacks the room and some diversity to compare it to the USA sea worlds - and thats just my opinion. And no - it's not because of the Orcas (they do take up a lot of room).

Yeah I will - the third change will be a staggered change over the next 12-18 months, whereby the careful attention to detail is casually destroyed by bored guests, the special effects will die due to lack of maintenance, and the attraction will close after this forum complaining for 6 months that it is tired and run down, at the end of the staggered period to be 'transformed into a new and exciting attraction

By that definition, you could also argue that a true 'world class' theme park would be open 364 days in the year, which instantly rules out every park owned by Cedar Fair Entertainment Company, except Knott's. The rest run a summer-only season from May-October (or thereabouts)... ...and if Dreamworld expanded their wildlife offering - they'd increase their costs dramatically without any measurable increase in revenue. ...and if Dreamworld replaced Cyclone with a decent coaster, they'd lose a fortune on what is a very well designed and ultimately functional ride with many years of service left in her. ...and if Dreamworld replaced Motocoaster every member of these boards would tell you why you're wrong (which you would be) Dreamworld has needed, for a very long time - a good size, good quality, full scale blockbuster coaster. Alas they've bastardised themselves so much that I don't see even that rectifying the revenue losses they're suffering without a major direction shift, and a huge capital injection. As for Sea World being almost on par with the American Sea World parks - not even close, purely by the array of marine life and the diversity of attractions. SW-GC simply doesn't have the LAND to ever be considered remotely close to the USA parks... but personally, they do something far better - they are actively involved in rescue and rehab, and are the first agency called when Australia has injured marine life. Not so much in the USA.

Well that would depend on how broad you want to make the definition of 'amongst the very best'... Nobody said they Rival the big boys like Universal and Disney - not even close, but as Gazza said if you take the big boys out: don't include parks by the following: Disney Universal Six Flags Cedar Fair Entertainment ...then suddenly what are you left with? A park that ranks it's best coaster as 21st in the world... If you subtract from the first 20 the coasters that are at the parks listed above, how high does Superman rank then? (Answer below) To be fair though, these 4 park groups only account for 6 of the top 20 steel coasters - again calling into question "what does make a park amongst the best in the world"... when Disney doesn't even appear until 74 (and then, it's with California Screamin')... Tobu Zoo gets into the top five, but that doesn't make it one of the best in the world (as a matter of fact by all accounts the park leaves a lot to be desired). So I guess at the end of the day, the statement is very subjective, which means you may not see our parks as 'amongst the best in the world' but depending on which way you slice it, there is a very good argument to be made to say that it is... The only thing I would say is that there are a lot of parks that would state they are 'theme parks'. Some people would even argue that parks such as Luna Park Melbourne (a typical AMUSEMENT park) is also a theme park. Depending on the standards you hold the parks up to, i'd say it isn't hard to say our parks, particularly Movie World are competitive on the international stage, given their domestic attendance. (The answer is 14th:) Expedition GeForce Holiday Park DE Bizarro SF New England MA New Texas Giant Six Flags Over Tex TX Intimidator 305 Kings Dominion VA Kawasemi Tobu Zoo JP Shambhala Port Aventura ES Skyrush Hersheypark PA iSpeed Mirabilandia IT Katun Mirabilandia IT Mega-Lite Happy Valley Song CN Maverick Cedar Point OH Nemesis Alton Towers UK Piraten Djurs Sommerland DK Millennium Force Cedar Point OH Blue Fire Megacoaster Europa Park DE Goliath Walibi Holland NL Montu Busch Gardens Tamp FL Leviathan Canadas Wonderland ON Nitro Six Flags Great Ad NJ Goliath Six Flags Over Geo GA Superman Escape Warner Bros. Movie AU

I've got a feeling there may be a separate ticket at a highly reduced price to come in at night (like $5 after 5pm at Wonderland but obviously more expensive), but I can't see them somehow clearing all the 'day ticket people' out of the pools and the slides while leaving the passholders where they are. If the park is open 10-10, then a day ticket holder should be entitled to stay for the full session time, being that they pay by far the highest price for a day at the park. Short of emptying the entire park to close at, say - 5pm, and then reopening at 5.30 (which would really piss off all the passholders for having to get out and then go back in), I think this is just a 'reduced price afternoon ticket' deal, which I personally think is a very good idea. It further appeases the locals by offering discounted admission at various times (which may result in further passholder purchases), and given their shortened operating season, bringing in additional guests for an afternoon after workschool on a weekday is a brilliant idea to add to their revenue...

Sorry Brad, I didn't mean to sound condescending - we use those abbreviations so freely that sometimes its meaning gets lost. When you said CAPEX expenditure, I figured you might not have known what it meant. All good..

Saturday just gone had tickets available on Friday night...

But that can also be debated - with the high number of VIP passes entitled to free entry to fright nights, I don't know that they would make an INSANE amount of revenue - Certainly it's profitable though. Also - Capex is short for Capital Expenditure... expenses of a capital nature. Capex is a roller coaster, or even just a new train for the coaster. It's purchasing a long-term asset, which must be depreciated over time (ie: you can't claim an immediate tax deduction against it in the current year). The costs of establishing these mazes would mostly be non-capital in nature, as the costs of the individual items for the mazes would be below capital thresholds, or alternatively items hired in on a temporary basis (as I imagine things like the cattle rails and the temporary fencing would be). Although I don't know the inside details on how VRTP finances Fright Nights, purely from principles of good business, I cannot see that much of Fright Nights would be capital expenses when they are by nature temporary attractions...

This night-time illuminations means the varied and haphazard colour patterns we were seeing on the slides makes a lot more sense... Retrospective changes to the pricing admits they got it wrong. I personally don't believe they did, but I guess buy 3 get one free is the same as up here for the VIP pass, and it's still $130 a ticket... so better than nothing really.

Which is kinda funny when you think about it - Construction - Movie World usually puts the mazes together about a month before hand or so (going off when the scooby maze begins construction) DreamWorld shut down AVPX what seems like 6 months ago Operation - Movie World will run their mazes for about 5 hours a night, for about 8-10 nights Dreamworld ran their Evilution scare maze every day for a month, and will continue to operate the maze as themed (with minor changes and modifications) as a laser skirmish maze for at least the next several months. Ranking Despite the far more temporary nature of the Fright Night mazes, the effort, detail, theming and finesse, by all accounts, everyone I've spoken to who has 'done both' declares similar to the post above - that Movie World has better detail, as well as better scares. The only thing that counts in DW's favour in this particular comparison is that DW offers Evilution as part of general admission, and not as a separate gate night-time admission, so I guess that's part of it, but the counter argument to that is that as a permanent attraction, rather than a seasonal one, it probably should have had more time, money and effort put into it.

Me thinks someone got metric and imperial mucked up and it was meant to be quoted as 100ft. I've a feeling there will be, my only thought is maybe they haven't finished and decided to keep the media - literally - in the dark?

Re: the park hopper. I recommend it - DCA you can knock over in a couple of hours, but you may want to go back there at night for World of Colour. If you suss out the night-time shows (ie: when is fantasmic on fireworks on etc, and go to DCA on a day when neither DL show is on, you might get away with spending all day at DCA, but otherwise if you do Disney on a non-nighttime show day, then you may want to use that day to head back to see WOC. DL usually requires more than a day, and even after 2 days, you may still find there are things you've missed, or want to do again - the hopper will let you do that. We actually bought the SoCal CityPass which gave us the 3 Day park hopper at Disney, and Universal and SeaWorld as well. Even if you weren't particularly fazed with SeaWorld, it still worked out a good deal, but SW was worth the trip for Atlantis and Manta, which are two very solid attractions, and very well done. Pretty much no matter what the season, SFMM is going to be pretty busy, and you're generally not going to get everything in inside a day - it needs more than a day to do it all - The Platinum Flash Pass is pretty much essential if you're only doing a day, but bear in mind that the shuttle tours etc won't be from park open to park close, so you're cutting your time even shorter. Also - SFMM has a very inefficient entry system, from Ticket booth to Metal Detector to entry gate, so be prepared to lose 20 - 30 minutes just queueing to reach the entrance.

Since they've already trialled the process at WnW GC, and have, to a degree 'ironed out the kinks', i'd suggest they're likely to make it available on a whole array of their bigger attractions, because they have been able to design queues and gates with that in mind, whereas the GC has had to ad-hoc it on rides they could work around in. Pricing based on height is reasonable, so long as the array of attractions that become available at the 110cm mark is the full adult range... Perhaps they should have a pricing based on height AND weight - because a 7 year old 110cm kid is probably going to be too light to ride aqua loop... and that's why it's fairer to have an age based pricing.

To be fair, they've been pretty flat out putting this thing together. We've seen them handling 'themed rock castle wall' facade... I haven't seen it outside anywhere as yet - we don't know whats inside the shed, but we're still a little while away from opening - plenty of time for additional things to be set up around the shed.

(Those of you that know me know i will sometimes come up with a long response. Some of you don't like reading more than a paragraph. For those of you who wish to do so - continue scrolling now - the bullet points are probably all I needed to say.) I too remember the toll booths at Wonderland but I think that was a throwback to the American park model, with massive sprawling parking lots, and shuttle buses that took you to the front gate as it was such a long walk. I also remember that those booths were removed somewhere around the year 2000. Wonderland's biggest problem there was that most people had to drive there, because the public transport arrangements were pathetic, and pre-purchased tickets didn't include parking fees, which was an unpleasant and unexpected surprise for many first time visitors. Hopefully WnWS has a much better arrangement with local bus companies, and perhaps connection to Blacktown, rather than Rooty Hill or some other backwater station. I don't know that paid parking would have been mandated by the relevant government authorities. I certainly know the relevant authorities would have insisted on sufficient parking being available... I see the 'payment' aspect simply being a way for the park to recoup some costs... They couldn't introduce it on the GC now because everyone is so used to having free parking, it would shock people to have to suddenly pay for the privilege, but a new park that sets it as the status quo, why not? It would certainly cut down on some of the chaos we see at WnWGC in summer - with people parking anywhere... grass, road verge... wherever they can. I think Sydney is more used to having to pay for certain things - paid parking is common, but the difference is the rates are usually reasonable. The operators installing it in Brisbane are moreso setting their prices to recoup costs of implementing it, and it's unpopular because nobody is USED to it up here... but with paid parking being installed at Chermside, Garden City and Carindale westfield centres, all reports suggest it hasn't impacted on revenue or visitation numbers... the only thing i've noticed as a visitor to both Chermside and Garden City on a regular basis is that parking is more commonly available in peak times (in other words, the turnover of cars every 3 hours is helping with parking availability - 3 hours is free so people rush to make sure they're out in that time). But I digress... Obviously WnWS isn't going to have a 3 hour turnover, so you're looking at all-day parking, with a limited number of spots, in an area (western sydney) that is renowned for scorching summers that will act as a magnet to the park in peak times. The 'pre-paid parking gold passes' have got me confused though - are they going to reserve a spot for each and every person who buys one of those for every day of the operating season? What happens if i'm a gold-pass parker, and i turn up at 3pm for a quick dip and there are no parking spots? All that aside - parking wise, I can see a lot of parents who will drop off their kids at the park (i'm condoning teenagers... not primary schoolers), so hopefully they have designed a good 'kiss-n-run' area that doesn't impede the flow of guests intending to park (like the GC does)... In summary, i'm all for the higher-priced ticket, the charged parking, and any and every other issue that has so far been raised. I'm happy for those penny-pinching people to say 'we won't be going'... GOOD. Less rude, obnoxious, poorly behaved brats in line in front of me (or pushing through the queue behind me) to dampen my day. I'm happy for the ticket price to be triple-figures - that means less self-involved people who feel that a ticket with a name like 'VIP' means that they are different and entitled to better treatment than the other 10,000 people who hold the same ticket. I'm happy for the paid parking - it will discourage people from abusing the privilege - such as those motorhomes and caravan tow-ers that take up two or three parking spaces on the GC, or those families with one child each, who take two cars, (or more) between families, when they could carpool and only take 1 van or tarago (if they had one). And all of these things mean the park is likely to be more self-sufficient and profitable, and far-quicker will it be able to expand and build new attractions, rather than stagnating after it's initial opening like WWW has. As for parking on the street - they can easily make the whole street a clearway Friday PM to Monday AM or something like that so that the industrial park workers have parking, but that the cops can make some revenue on the weekend. I guarantee there will be parking cops out there policing it and making a mint. And one last word on the public transport debate - but unlike the GC's Surfside buses, the blacktown bus company that would probably do the shuttle-runs aren't that well off, and most likely won't provide air conditioned buses. The worst thing about visiting a water park without your own car is sitting in a stiflingly hot bus, with sunburn, on vinyl seat covers that everyone sticks to. (because you don't send a bus with cloth seats to a water park, otherwise, the seats are constantly saturated, and the bus cannot be used for anything else. Public transport to a theme park is one thing, but for a water park, nothing beats getting back to the car wrapped in your sodden wet towel, and then folding the towel up over your car seat to sit on for the ride home in your semi-dry swimmers. </end rant>

I know it's kinda hard to come up with a storyline for a laser tag challenge where the 'bad guys' are just other guests from the park, but really - the setting is different but the storyline is IDENTICAL to last time. Hopefully the re-designed maze is enough for the attraction to last until the next re-theme.