themagician

The reopening date for the cyclone has been taken off DWs website. Maybe it's going to take a little longer than they thought.

Looking forward to riding it once again

It's not looking good for the chairlifts. When I was there yesterday there was no sign of the gondolas. I do hope they replace them and reopen it.

SW posted these photos on FB this morning of inside the tavern:

And to my knowledge, very few of us work at SW. Just general people who are themepark enthusiasts. If SW weren't doing the work they do, and had the same standards and enclosures as SWs in the US then I wouldn't support it. But everytime I go to SW GC and seeing the beautiful creatures it brings a smile to my face. Yes it may not be their natural environment, but they were born in captivity or are unhealthy, so therefore they wouldn't survive in the wild. Would you rather see the creatures die, or live a life in a protected environment, and helping educate us to help save the creatures in the wild. You are entitied to your own opinion, and this is mine.

I don't agree with keeping orcas in captivity. And I also have seen the Blackfish a couple of times. But I think what SW here on he GC does is different from the US SWs. The ones here on the GC have either been rescued and are no longer capable of returning to the wild, or were born in captivity. The Dolphins live in sandy bottom enclosures, which is much better than glass enclosures. Yes I don't agree with animal captivity if they are being mistreated or are forced to do tricks. But the Dolphins perform natural behaviours (just search on YouTube) and they don't do tricks through hoops or balls on their noses. I think the work SW GC does is great, and is an essential part for our sea life. As shown today they returned a dolphin to wild after being rescued 7 weeks ago. People continue to complain after SeaWorlds, but the same could be said about zoos. Animals are kept in enclosures. And some do tricks. But I believe that it is important to educate people about our wildlife and the importance of them. I have done some study at university on climate change, pollution, etc and some many species are endangered and are ending affected from human actions. It's with places like Sea World GC, Australia Zoo, etc people can be educated about wildlife and appreciate the animals beauty.

So its been a couple of week since I visited the park and quickly checked out if any changes had been made to the area. There weren't any major differences, except a 'ring of fire' had been added at the top of the first drop of the coaster, the dora show had a new sign and the TMNT stage area had a basketball hoop installed.

I didn't get a chance to go inside. The outside is looking a lot better now though.

I'm at the park now and the Dockside Tavern is now open, but the skylink isn't

I really hope that they don't close the chairlift forever and will do all they can to keep it at the park.

On a side note, we never saw any celebrations for Tiger Island's anniversary, or renovations to the area. Maybe the upgrade has been delayed due to the birth of a tiger cub. Hopefully we will see an upgrade next year.

^No not really. As you can imagine, the layout has changed slightly due to the new location, but overall very much the same. I remembered a lot of the scenes from last year as I went through the mazes.

Hot Wheels Coaster would have been fine. But HWHL, no. A part from that, everything else sounds good.

I agree that the smoke is an essential part to the event, but is an issue. I do think that a fence down the middle of the alleyway would help, and if they put signs up saying keep left, then you'd hope people would do what the signs say. And fencing (I'm think construction site fencing) could also provide a good opportunity for scare actors, as they could lean up against the fence and jump out, bang against it, and reach through it to scare people passing by.

Based off the info on Wikipedia, it originally opened in 2002. And at the end of 2009 it remained as the spas. I do remember going on the original ride there, and it was almost just like going on the lazy river, but instead, t was just in a circle. Wasn't anything special, and would much prefer to go to Calypso Beach. I do think this space is wasted now. Another slide, retail and/or food outlet would be a much better use of the space.

Regarding the security, when I went on the 9th, I did see a few security surrounding some teenagers in the Zombieland area. And when I left there were a couple of police cars, with police speaking to a number of people.

I'm glad the 'Dreamworld' doesn't move. If the fountain was found and the globe provided good photo opportunities all the way round then yes, 'Dreamworld' should move with it. But because you can only have photos in front of it on the stage, I think it's good that it doesn't. I do agree with the fountain could be a bit more elaborate, and I do think that the current 'fencing' should be made more permanent, but I think they might have used that barrier as it isn't as obvious as fixed fence would be, and therefore provides better photo opportunities.

And unless you'd been on the skyline chairlift or know about them, it isn't obvious that they were rides/attractions. They both blend into the theming of the area and unless you look carefully you wouldn't know. It will be great if they reopen Eureka, but if it remains there for many more years then it isn't a major issue.

^If people have seen the vehicles being tested on track, I'd imagine that most of it would be alright, maybe a few sections might need fixing or replaced. I could be wrong, but I'd imagine that they'd need new vehicles anyways, to add padding and modern safety systems to them. They wouldn't need to close the whole Gold Rush area, but they would need to close the river rapids. And if they replaced the track and vehicles there shouldn't be any reason for it not to work.

Be sure to do all 4 mazes as I thought they were all good, but I thought Friday the 13th was great, so if anything be sure to do that one. I did have favourite scenes in each maze, but don't won't to spoil them in this post (I did mention them in my review of the night). My favourite precinct was Zombieland, but there weren't too many scare actors about.

I've had a couple of family friends that their young kids in the past, and didn't realise that it was so scary and/or wasn't aimed at kids. I didn't question them about it, but surely people would read that its recommended for people over 14yrs old. Still this year when I went I saw quite a few parents with kids and babies in the park and I still get surprised when I see that. And a couple of times in the past I have seen security escorting them out of the park, as the kids were so scared.

So I went to FN tonight and overall I was very impressed. Here is my review of the night, details on mazes (there may be some spoilers), scare zones, etc. So I go there just after 5 and there were 10 people in my group. We headed to the front of Main Street as we wanted to go on SDSC. We were expecting the rides to open at 5:30, as the website states, but they don't open until 6. After that we did our first maze, Wolf Creek 2 (I'll do my review and queue times on them separately). We then went on SE and thankfully they had 2 trains going, so the wait was only about 20 minutes. We then went and did the Wormwood maze. After that we got a bight to eat and did the Friday the 13th maze. Then finally we did the Evil Within Maze. Precincts: Zombieland: I thought the scare actors and references to the film were really good. This was the most effective scare zone and you could hear people screaming. Freaks: A part from the creepy clowns that chased people, this precinct I found was more of a fun one, which offered good opportunities for photos Demon's Lair: There was no extra theming to the space for this one. It was just scare actors that had been seen before and some fire dancers. They did give scare some people pretty good though. Gothic Hall: This was more a space for entertainment from some musicians. Not really a scare precinct. Mazes (May contain spoilers): Wolf Creek 2: After experiencing this maze last year it was interesting to see how much of it was the same. I can say it was very similar, despite the layout changing for the space. I remember last year this maze giving me some good scares and it did yet again. Scenes such as the crashed car, bushland and truck were memorable ones and gave good scares. As I am someone who gets scared quite easily, I did jump a lot of the way through and was one of the scarier mazes of the night. There were a couple of scenes which did seem a bit blank, and just included a couple of trees. The scares actors were as good as always in the maze and at times managed to keep very still and you would question if they were actors or not, until they turned and scared you. The queue for the maze was also pretty good. It was only about a 20 minute wait (RED SHOWS WHERE I WAS, WHITE SHOWS WHERE THE QUEUE GOES) Overall I was pleased with the maze and am actually glad it did make return. 9/10 Wyrmwood: Having not seen the film I didn't really know what to expect with this maze. It was well detailed and did overall provide some good scares, with some that weren't expected at all. The maze used sound effects well, with a lot of gun fires and banging noises being made. The forrest scenes are always ones that I don't look forward to as there is usually someone dressed in tree camouflage and will jump out behind the trees. In one of the scenes were the was some furniture, but you couldn't see any actors. Then a bench top suddenly lifted off and a scare actor jumped out. There scared everyone in my group and then while distracted by him, Ned Kelly came out behind a wall and pumped a gun at us and a loud gun firing sound effect would play. The following scene was an empty hallway with a couple of bangs, so that allowed for us all to recover. There were a few scenes were it felt like a scare actor was needed, but instead would be a wheelchair or a tree. Despite the big scare, this maze was the one which I overall got scared the least in. It just felt a few scare actors short. Maybe it was the time that I went through. The detailing was pretty good for the maze and despite that I hadn't seen the movie I felt like I got a reasonably good idea of what the maze was about, I felt like it could have gone a little deeper into it (Unless the movie doesn't have much of a story line, then it was pretty accurate). The queue line was about 20 minutes as well for this maze. I think this maze will be better next year within a smaller space so some scenes don't feel like they get repeated or there aren't as many hall ways. I'm giving this maze a 7/10 Friday the 13th: I haven't seen this movie either, but this was the maze I was very anxious of and had good expectations for. And this maze, in my opinion, smashed by expectations. The opening scene was very nerve racking and at many moments was expecting someone to jump out. You start by walking into a forrest over a wooden bridge (which had a good effect as you walked over it, as some of the planks moved a little) and it also had a pretty cool running water effect. There was a lightening effect and plenty of thunder and banging. Then the scare actors began to jump out. As you walk through, the scare actors got very in your face and were quite threatening as at times they charged at you or ran past you into the darkness. At one point there was a scare actor (or it might have been people on the terror tour, not sure) spraying water at you. The maze had plenty of flashing lighting effects and made it very nerve-racking to walk through as you felt like someone was going to suddenly be there. When walking down a couple of the corridors there was also some banging and flashing lightings. As you made your way into the cave scene we were all expecting someone to jump out from somewhere, but instead Jason suddenly started running from a distance at you and it almost wasn't until he was right in your face you would notice him and that was quite frightening. The maze had the longest queue of about 30 minutes, but as a lot of us know, is no where near some of the queue lines in the past. In my opinion this was probably one of the best mazes I've been in at FN, despite there being a couple of empty corridors, I thought it was great. It was also one of the scariest mazes I've been in before. 10/10 The Evil Within: I really enjoyed this maze last year and thought the detailing of it last year was very good. The detailing was very much the same this year, with all the memorable scenes returning. The chainsaw scene was one that was unexpected (unless you look at the monitors before entering where you can see him scaring people), the spider lady and box headed guys were the stand out scenes in the maze. Most of the maze did have actors in, and all provided good scares. There were a couple of scenes without anyone in, but overall was good. As this was the last maze we did and we entered the queue at about 10, we only had a 5 minute wait. Was almost as good as last years, with most of the detailing still there. 8/10 OVERALL: This years FN was very good and for me provided some of the best scares. It was a shame that there weren't any scare actors down the alley towards the sound stages. Maybe next year a precinct should be here, instead of the one next the re-used mazes. In a way I'm kind of glad they reused two of the mazes from last year, as it meant that all of the mazes should be of good detail and scares, and they were. It was great that the queues were much shorter than I ever remember FN being, and that may be because there was more entertainment this year. As always they do a great job and was very pleased with this years event. I'm giving it a 8.5/10

Just went to FN and when I got there, there were 4 guys in the station with trains with test dummies in them. And then 10 minutes later I saw them testing the ride doing a full circuit of the track a couple of times.

You can check out a POV of the slide here: https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/29764039/test-riding-the-kraken/

I definitely think they should at be open 9-7 during December. And 9-9 in January (as they did at the beginning of the year). In regards opening 12-7, in my opinion I doubt they'd do that. It is a good idea to open for an extra couple of hours after school during November/early December, but I still think they should open at 10. Even if they stayed open for an extra hour (10-6). That would give a decent amount of time after school finishes.