DaptoFunlandGuy

Majority of the people parking on grass are in fact parking on private property. The few who do park on the outside of the perimeter fence aren't worth it. If WVTP don't complain to council \ police about the parking (and why would they when they're making money off of it), it's unlikely that would happen. On the other hand - the police should grab a group together like they did at Ipswich and Gold Coast V8's, and run through the parking lot checking rego and defects. THAT would be worth their while.

Right before your 3rd birthday. I'm planning on doing it in the next few days.

Interesting though that it was in use for white christmas - what exactly are they doing in there?

Indeed that is correct, but perhaps the retheme, relaunch, retrain increases their expectations as to how long people will wait - kind of how Corkscrew stopped being a walk-on when they opened Sea Viper.

As far as the Universal Studio Tour, it cost a lot, but it was built over decades, and a lot of the static sets you are toured through are built for films. Six-Points-Texas comes from the silent era - the point though, is that each and every film shot on the universal backlot either utilises (and pays for the privilege) or builds\renovates new sets that are then added to the tour. Only the interactive attractions are built specifically for the tour - and even then, they're utilised in films at various times (Earthquake was used in Beverly Hills Cop 3). The problem is there isn't the demand for structurally sound semi-permanent sets, nor is there enough room to house a "backlot" (unless Paradise Country is levelled). As for AOS complex being used for equestrian events: [*]I'm sure equestrian events could be considered, if they were actually on the games list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Games#Approved_sports [*]I'm sure VRTP would be hoping to capitalise on the games by selling tickets to the show (i forsee if the show is still running at that point that for the games period, VRTP may host more than one show a day) [*]The arena itself could house a single showjumping arena. You need multiple dressage arenas, and a cross country course also. This would take up most of the available AOS land, which is used for grazing. [*]There are insufficient stable facilities - more would need to be built, and they aren't cheap for a short term use of a facility that isn't purpose built. [*]All equestrian events need to be held within the same geographical area - as many riders compete in multi-disciplined events. [*]The Gold Coast already has purpose built equestrian facilities that would need little or no upgrading to handle an international equestrian event - Cedar Lake, Oakleigh and Hunter Lodge to name a few. [*]The Sydney International Equestrian Centre (built for the olympics) has world-class facilities including major Indoor and Outdoor arenas, 10km of trails, a Steeple Chase Track, Cross Country Course, Stables and Accomodation. You won't fit all that at AOS, especially not as a "temporary" venue. It's simply not feasible.

Ok - so cancel the August night-time event.

An open air station is slightly disappointing? Have you seen what they've done to the station house? how sleek and modern and crisp it is? What did you want them to do - build a soundstage over the top of JUST the stationhouse? It's opinion, and you're entitled to it. Personally, I think Movieworld surprised a whole lot of us in relation to theming and design, I for one am quite impressed (but that may be heightened by my lowered expectations when we saw white roofing and grass).

^^^ My thoughts exactly... hang on - someone better check whether its a WB release!

So I had this nice long explanation typed out, and then the page refreshed and dumped it all. As you say - opinion is there. My (somewhat outdated) opinion still rates Space Mountain higher than any coaster at SFMM (that I've ridden). You did only state 'good' coasters and Disney easily meets that benchmark. Whether they can be considered great is, as you say - opinion. I consider Disney has some of the best coasters in the world. They may not be the highest, or fastest, longest, most inversions or any other record holder, but they are simply done better. Anyhow - this main debate surrounds what park we'd like to see. Enough of the realism about how "disney would never build here" or "cedar fair can't survive" - the question is what would you like to see, not what could realistically be supported here. It's a dreamer's thread - let us dream.

As for visiting the studios - Fright Nights give you that opportunity...

This is my point exactly - I went to both Hallowe'en and White Christmas (and Corporate White Christmas where only Superman and Batwing were open). I didn't intend on doing 'lots of rides' but i wouldn't have minded going on one or two without spending the entire night in a queue. The corporate party was obviously very different - but for $150, it was a 4 hour open bar, 1 hour operation of Superman and Batwing, and a Buffet dinner (which included seafood). Now if you cut out alcohol (well... the free stuff anyway), the 'free' food etc - that would have been approx 300-400 people. Superman still had a 30 odd minute queue (one train and skeleton staff) and batwing a 5 minute queue (it took that long for the two staff members to cycle). Now - increase it to say - 5000 people. You can still sell food and drink (go adult and have a 'licensed' section like club blood) and you could easily charge $75-$100 for the night, without much in the way of entertainment, and still turn a profit - if I knew attendance was capped to 5000, and ALL rides would be operating... I would go. I'm sure a lot of others would too - sell it as exclusive events, tie it in with movie premiere or special performances, and you're on a winner. Having said that - if you don't want to cap attendance, do pre-book-only events throughout the year. I'm in agreeance with everything Gazza said, except the 'year round' bit. Once every two months, (or every month) one-night-only events... and to save the Marketing department from the trouble - here are my suggestions (with some already put forward \ already running) [*]January - Summer Sunsets (multi-night event) [*]February - Candlelight Thrills (Valentines Day) [*]March - Rise of the DC Heroes (DC Comics) [*]April - Bugs' Easter Eggstravaganza [*]May - Mum's Night Out (Mother's Day) [*]June - Winter Wonderland [*]July - Christmas in July [*]August - Boogie Nights (guest Djs - make it a big dance party style event) [*]September - Spring Fling [*]October - Hallowe'en Fright Nights (Multi Night Event) (The gold coast 600 is also on at this time - 19-21 october) [*]November - A night that stops a nation (play on melbourne cup) [*]December - White Christmas.

I'll just take on Disneyland here - but: [*]Space Mountain [*]Big Thunder Mountain [*]Matterhorn Bobsleds

Ah ok - i thought it was ice like they did in Brisbane's King George Square...

Especially when they're getting on in years...

I went on sunday night. As for the advertising - sometimes it's hard to update television advertising the moment the tickets sell out as the clip would have been produced weeks ago, and submitted to the station. Stations may sometimes charge to make changes after the spot is sold. Anyone in their right mind should not turn up at the gate expecting to buy without confirming on 133 FUN or the website first. As for the event - I had the opportunity to fill out a guest survey on my way out. Good points: The park and the entertainment were well done and at the standard i've come to expect from Movieworld. Well done to those technical persons behind the scenes who orchestrated these parts of the park. I'd seen the lights previously during my corporate christmas party, but seeing the extra touches put around the place, and in the other areas (wild west and wb kids) was also nice to see. Some very nice lights that i may have to invest in myself - also good to see moving heads mounted on the poles for the roof now. The truss was a great idea, but the pole-mounted fixtures look more permanent, integrated, and less "in your face". Bad Points: Kwazy Christmas was a nice concept, and great to see Pepe, Granny and other characters dusted off from the archives who do not make regular appearances. I did see some families walking out part-way through, but in my opinion, the 7:10 show was poorly organised. A lot of the usher staff had to rush over from main street's lighting ceremony to open the doors, and the show stage wasn't even half full when the lights dimmed and the show started. The first 10 minutes we had people shuffling along the front aisleway until the ushers eventually roped it off and directed people up the back. This was made worse by the characters inviting kids to come down the front of the stage to dance - further bottlenecking the aisleway. My biggest disappointment of the night - the park was way oversold. There were way too many guests in the park for that event. All rides had minimum 40 minute queues every time i looked. After seeing some entertainment and grabbing a bite to eat, we decided to ride lethal as it usually had the shortest queue - unfortunately the queue was all the way back into the 'new' queuehouse at the bottom of the ramp and we decided to ditch it. It shouldn't have been advertised as Ice Skating if it wasn't ICE. It was last year so the expectation of a repeat was high. So for the night - Show count - 1 Ride count - 0 F&B count - 1 Ambience of the park 9/10. Now that the rant is out of the way, it wouldn't be appropriate to whinge and leave it at that - so here's my suggestion for fixing the problems: 1) Cap attendance at a lower figure than it was on sunday night. If you have to increase the ticket price - then do it, it's obviously popular 2) When you sell a premium product (such as VIP gold) try to make the purchasers of that product feel a little more special on the night (such as 'front of the line' on an alternating attraction throughout the night?) - Now before I get people arguing that VIP gold already receive benefits \ got the entry to the event free - I want to add that it wasn't free, that was the incentive to pay the extra money. It was also paid for more than half a year in advance - thereby giving the park firm numbers to rely on for the event. Besides - the other 'benefits' a Gold VIP member gets aren't really more than the old monthly MyFun special vouchers online... and usually involve upgraded purchases, rather than anything cheaper, or free. 3) operations staff to run at the maximum. Merchandise staff (cheap flashy crap) reduced. You're still going to sell cheap flashy crap to everyone in the park - but you'll cut your staff costs. 4) more entertainment, more spaced out. The main reason for the issue with the 7:10 Kwazy Christmas show is that the lighting ceremony and frosty the snowman show ran pretty well back-to-back. Space it out - you've got all night! 4a) SOMETHING in the HWSD arena would have soaked more people up too. Two shows for the night wouldn't be bad - circus of the damned or Showtime FMX style shows (appropriately themed of course) would work well - hey - why not bring santa in on the back of a Lancer (On Dasher, on Lancer...?) Overall the park needed something that was time consuming, enjoyable and worthwhile that was lacking. I've never seen someone walk out of the Dolphin show at sea world, or HWSD at movie world - but i've seen people walk out of the show stage! I realise that every single thing i've said either increases costs or reduces profits - but the events need to be enjoyable by all, or people won't go next year. the one idea I had was for the park to do something more regularly - like Screamworld - so that the 'holiday' events aren't as packed. There are some people who go just to ride rides in the dark - and i'm sure people would take the opportunity to go on a "standard" night event to do that, which would lessen the strain on the holiday events, and provide a regular "after hours" income stream. I'm not saying do it 5 times per month - but whats wrong with once a month? once every two months? you can leave the lights on the buildings (maybe change colours once in a while), and logistically, it's less to organise as the majority of the night-time equipment is permanently installed. Who remembers Wonderland's 5 after 5? $5 after 5pm is too cheap for our parks these days, but what about a regular $24.95 night-time entry ticket? Day-ticket holders get to stay in the park, but cheaper entry for after hours? Wet N Wild can do it in the summer for the dive-in movies, why not movieworld? Neighbours? not an excuse... so.... rant over, suggestions kind of over - i'll leave it to the board for debate...

It's quite funny that the whole 'outdoor queue' in the old section of chinatown was ramped, and the last lead up to the station was ramped, yet the cinema section was stairs. Was there a ramp in the cinema?

It certainly hangs on the first drop for a fraction longer, and the lift hill was slower also. the timing of the segments from first drop to last shouldn't vary much, because the magnetic trim should behave relatively the same each time - but after that, only the trim brakes will change the overall timing of each segment. just my theory anyway.

As promised - i didn't have my good camera, only a little point and shoot - so i had to pick spots where i could rest it against a solid object to get a good shot without a flash... I left the Christmas Tree and front entrance too late - they'd already turned most of the lights off by then. There is certainly more lights we couldn't see - WB kids had lights down the bottom end as well that we couldn't see from Main Street. We did buy a couple of the 'pro' photos from the park photographers, but their equipment didn't bring out the right colours - made everything we were wearing look black and white... I did notice that night that green lantern had the station house built, but couldn't get close enough for a photo in the pitch black - thankfully the latest GL video shows it in daylight...

Having just been to the 'corporate christmas party' version of white christmas, let me say the crew have done an incredible job. Kudos to the guys who rigged the lights on the buildings - better than last year, and overall just a great atmosphere (perhaps a little more snow would have been great). I took a few photos - but i will get to them when i'm sober.

True. obviously, they were getting concerned over a lack of numbers, but in reality, devaluing their premium product just serves to piss off those people who bought it. Next time they offer a premium product, people will be less likely to buy as they will wait to see if the park prostitutes it's product when they get close to deadline. The events were an absolute sellout last year, but the overcrowding mainly came from the 'free' VIP entries. I'm not sure if they've overestimated it's worth. When you are comparing the values of the two though, just remember that Hallowe'en didn't offer cheaper entry to standard VIP, whereas Gold VIP did get in free...

It's all pretty much been said. Disneyland is usually a must - they combine thrills in their storylines, their theming is right at the top, and the overall experience is just magical. As for the other two choices - you really need to decide whether you just want thrills (SFMM) or more of an experience. Personally, i'd try and get in SFMM, DL Cali, Knotts and Universal - and california adventure if you have the time.

I thought Sesame Street was sticking around?

My 'Point' Jobe is fairly simple, and completely in line with your next sentence - Just because things are heritage listed, it doesn't necessarily mean the park is restricted from development - if they need to build, and something is in the way, the CAN move it.

Judging by the angle, i'd say the photo is taken from the southern cafe deck, which justs out beyond the counterweight's anchor point, and not a rock climber. It's kind of difficult to climb (legally) around scenic world's attractions - they get a little upset about things like that.

Spencer, Gazza's reaction is most likely in relation to your previous incarnations on this site - the last time you argued for the return of an attraction, you WERE serious, and there was nothing in your most recent post to indicate otherwise. Given your history, a little disclaimer at the end might have been appropriate.