DWP

So at the end of my relaxing and theme park filled little holiday away from Sydney, I too will sing the praises and virtues of the Star Tour as did it today (with a couple of Parkz members as well that I stupidly forgot to find out their forum name but looking at past posts I suspect it was @Invertedand his wife. Hi again if it was) Firstly Scott and Luke were great as hosts and did a great job with their fun facts and interesting Easter eggs they pointed out along the way and I'm guessing the cat's out the bag as were no "don't tell anyone else stories" like the early tours had. Ticked all the boxes from the previous tours with AA walk, SE pre start up/winch room, JL3D walk,kitchen,Stunt Driver stuff,Scooby Walk etc. As well as a little bonus of the Friday the 13th maze walk through and when I mentioned that maybe future tours could incorporate the Villians Unleashed interactive area to my surprise we all got a free RFID wristband which was a cool unexpected bonus! Other random thoughts - Killer Croc and the Joker are the 2 best elements in VU and a lot of fun getting unsuspecting people standing in the wrong spots - VR on AA is amazing and can never go back to just riding it normally after that plus getting 2 free rides of it helped ? - Seeing all the front roller coaster construction in person instead of through these forums was a treat and really got an idea of just how massive this coaster is gonna be seeing the size of the area All in all a good day was had by all

So the Rampage at AW isn't the same model as the Wipeout? I always assumed it was the same although thinking back it was way more intense than the Wipeout ever was

I was about to suggest the dark ride concept could be defending whales from whalers on a ship but the fact so many Japanese tourists vist the park that wouldn't go down so well I'd say.

Unbeliveable work there @joz and I think your true calling in life could be theme park planning and design. VRTP or Ardent could do worse than hiring someone like you. Only issue I saw was the Serpent's Fury going under the pier would mean that that part of the pier would have to be closed off from the public to prevent people from throwing/dropping things onto the track and car which would be a major safety hazard although installing some clear perspex panels horizontally from the pier over that part of the track enabling people to still see the coaster passing under them would be a decent solution. All in all 2 thumbs up!

Looking at that old entry photo of DW it seems that the entry is still elevated over the carpark height as is the case today although the grass area between the carpark and entry doesn't seem as steep or as long as the current staircase is although that could be a perspective issue from the photo being taken further away but still it does look strange not seeing the staircase.

Wait so you had to watch that pre ride video of Bermuda Triangle every time you rode it? To me that would get old real fast as after the first time I'd be like can we just get to the ride already. Now before people jump up and down I've read the previous posts about how great the pre show was for Bermuda and how it enhanced the experience etc. and while I see how a good pre ride can help the ride and is something that is much loved by people who experienced it, it would appear tiresome to me to have to deal with that on multiple occasions on the same day etc. Now granted that people here have mentioned that later in the day that at times the pre show was skipped but still. I'm sure some will argue that going to MW and riding Superman Escape multiple times will result in having to deal with the pre launch trip through the subway every time but for mind that's part of the ride as opposed to lining up in a queue for x amount of time only to then once reached the end of the queue to then have to enter another room to watch a video before finally experiencing the ride. Apologies to people who grew up with this style of pre shows for rides as the norm as I never got to experience the parks until a few years ago but just my 2c on the (non-existant) issue

Strange as I rode it on Wednesday for the first time under the Hot Wheels name as previously had ridden it as Big Dipper and Cyclone and found it to be rougher than ever although the new restraints were good and the audio was a nice touch

Nothing tops the 1990 turtles

That thing looks amazing but imagine an evacuation from the very top of the lift hill as those stairs seem almost vertical. Would be an experience in itself just getting down them

Well played sir

I............don't...................even?????? Not to pile on any more shit on you push but that was quite the comment but hey to each there own I guess

My situation is different as I vist the Gold Coast once a year for holiday and do the 3 main parks (MW,DW,SW) regardless of what is or isn't new in the parks and once I've been to a particular park in my yearly vist then I don't go back again until the following year. If I were a native of SE QLD then things would be a little different, but that's my point of view as an out of towner

Oh bravo! How very mature of you to completely ignore the question asked.

I'm struggling to understand what your saying here? People in Sydney didn't get behind a novelty attraction that was costing far too much money with only limited benefit while people in QLD kinda somewhat use a monorail in a theme park? Again I don't follow

sorry push as a lifelong Sydney resident your view on the monorail was very much in the minority as most people here barely batted an eyelid when it got demolished as aside from the tourists no one else really used it. I remember riding it on a school excursion in primary school back in the early 90's and never rode it again much like the rest of Sydney it seemed. Even then tourists usually only rode it once and that's it as it was essentially a gimmick for the tourists and not an actual viable transport system. Now days you wouldn't even know Sydney had a monorail system other than a few of the stations SBNO (particularly around Darling Harbour) The money cost to keep it running simply wasn't worth it in the end. As for Sea World's monorail while i've never ridden it (nor plan to) I understand the history it has in the park and is something unique for people to experience as it seems monorails are fairly rare these days around the world

Very interesting find there Smitty. Doubt there'd be many takers for a slowly dying 36 year old ride even at the cheap $100,000 price tag but evidently LPS trying there luck and hoping to get one last little payday out of the Tango Train rather than just scrapping it but seems to indicate that Tango isn't long for this world. The question is though what/where is that 1.7 million dollar coaster that's for sale there? Not sure any of our parks would take a 2nd hand coaster as an acceptable filler instead of the big dollar brand new coasters on offer but depending on the ride size and footprint, it could fit in well at a place like LPS or even in the old Blue Lagoon area of DW (if they ever do anything with that) or in the old Sea Viper area at SW (unlikely as would be a waste of all that area for a second hand coaster when could be invested on a brand new ride but you never know)

Having never ridden the original TOT but was the original louder than TOT2 with the tunnel? Because that thing is frigging loud as is and I'd imagine the enclosed tunnel would increase the noise level compared to out in the open

Ah I see as I've never noticed that but I'll remember to check it out next time I ride

Pardon my ignorance but i've never noticed a hallway illusion in Scooby unless I've missed it everytime I've ridden it. Where and what is it?

Funny you should say that as while I was having lunch at SW last week I watched the staff at sideshow alley and thought the way they interacted with their marks...er customers was exceptional (although of course that's what they're supposed to be). As for the rest of the park staff I've always found them to be fine although a tad slow in loading rides (Storm especially) which seems to be a VRTP (and a mostly Australian) staple.

While Cyclone (or the Big Dipper as I know it) has definitely seen better days and is the roughest coaster on the GC I'd say it'll be around for awhile longer at DW as the logistics alone of dismantling it while it snakes around the TOH tower at WWW would impact both parks (although prob more WWW than DW) and didn't DW say another attraction was getting a makeover which could very well be Cyclone although prob more likely the flume or TRR

I would have to agree here with Slick as a Perth theme park with similar rides to the GC parks would not hurt the Perth park in the slightest as despite the fact the travel time from (Sydney at least) to both Perth and Auckland are pretty comparable more people are likely to be heading to NZ than Perth and the fact it more often works out cheaper heading to NZ strangly. So if AW were to hypothetically completely copy DW in type of rides it wouldn't hurt them in the slightest because a GC park has the same type of rides

I thought when I was climbing the TOH tower and saw the LR line shut thought it was another slide shut but pleasantly surprised to see it was working when I got up there but that's strange they never have that line open as would help with the queues as they had it staffed pretty well with usually 2 people up there so would make sense to have it open but that's their prerogative to have that essentially the staff line instead

Thanks for the clarification magician as that's how the keeper described it. Cheers for the local knowledge ? Will be interesting if the parks all try and get some new rides and attractions up and running by the time the games start to try and cash in on the extra tourism that will be generated by the games. With 3 years to go till the games start you'd think that MW and DW will have something new but that could be more wishful thinking on my part haha

I got Sita the 16(nearly 17) year old female who is their oldest Tiger and apparently the only tiger who does the tiger walk experience as she's the calmest one to use and with her age doesn't get spooked by much as evidenced when they were testing TOT2 and she didn't bat an eyelid or care less by the noise of it