joz

Um, thanks?

You could always just move the Lethal Weapon entrance (and exit?) around to the Superman Plaza, and just gut the theater to put a flatride in there and use the existing switchbacks for the new ride.

Now thats exactly right, but the thing of it is most woodies are either poorly designed or maintained, and as such, said well designed ride is something of a rareity. If either Intamin's wooden coasters or the mostly steel Gravity Group coasters turn out to be more hassle free then older designs, then I'll maybe say Wooden Coasters, but until then I'll say steel all the way.

$30 for the Slingshot isn't too crazy but which rides cost $15?

What'd you expect? For them to pat you down before entering the queue line? Most of the time a visual glance is enough to tell if there's something in your pockets, but as the rider you have to take some responsibility in what you take on the ride. Something like a $1 coin in your pocket isn't going to stick out at all, so in that case it up to you to do the right thing.

I almost wonder if part of the reason is beacuse Village isn't wanting to part from their park models they already have. I mean it'd be pretty stuipid to build a Movieworld or Seaworld in Sydney so it'd have to be something they don't have much/any experience in. I don't doubt they could pull off a different style park, but they seem to want to stick with what they know. You'll notice that the parks they have talked building O/Ss are new SWs, MWs and in the case of the Sunshine Coast, another WnW rather then a new style of park.

I say go for it, and stretch it as far as you can. Its the closest to experiencing DW "Pre-flowrider" as your going to get, and Flowrider has already been prophisized as the first sign of the Apocalypse, so its better to pretend its not there anyway (For the record I'm not a huge fan of Flowrider, but don't mind it either, just felt like stirring)

Its interesting to hear them talk about building more Movieworld parks once again. One thing I want to know is what made Warner Brothers sell Movieworld in Germany, and what Village knows about that parks books that makes them feel as if Movieworld parks are a good model. Another point which I feel has been lost over time: Movieworld Germany was to some extent "selected out of convenience" as before Movieworld was built there was a movie themed park on that site which lasted all of one season. One thing I can't help but feel though is whatever they do, a hefty chunk of that AU$200million had want to be on rides. Problem is that the scale of European parks is much grander then Australian parks, so much so that even if you recreated the all the rides at MW in Athens, it'd probably even then be too small, particually to compete with Disney and the parks in neighbouring countries. Now obviously you aren't going to be able to build a park identical to MW for $200mill, so they'd want to have something very creative up their sleve, or at least be very carefull about what rides to take over (how about Scooby AND Gremlins?). I know, I sound rather pessimistic, but I'm far from it, just I think this isn't going to be a "walk in, build a park let the profits roll in" sort of thing. You have to trust that they've put in allot of research into this, afterall Village can't afford to sink $200million into a park that is anything but a 'blockbuster'. They're already $250million in debt from buying out WB's share of the parks don't forget. As for the Asian market, why bother building a $200million Movieworld when a $5million Paradise Country would probably do just as well?

I think allot of the problems are how wide the radius of the turns, including tophat, are. Thats is where allot of the tweaking is going afterall. The stage I'm up to is making sure all G's are in the green and reflect what they should sorta be doing, and so far thats good, except there doesn't seem to be much air over the first bunny hill, so that'll obviously have to change

Been working on this one for the last couple of weeks, not quite finished yet, but I doubt you'd even notice what I'm still tweaking anyway. Its almost identical height and speed wise to the real thing for the majority of the ride. It did end up a hundred meters longer then the real ride somehow, but I think otherwise its very accurate: Superman_Escape.zip

You gotta love the Chinese Media: Hopefully they've learnt how to deal with the Chinese market after their efforts in Hong Kong. Not ganna hold my breath though and to be honest I'm more looking forward to another round of crazy news reports about guest behaviour when the park opens then anything. Edit: Is the placed really pronounced Poo Dong?

Thats really interesting, just out of curiosity how spaced out are the cars? I seem to recall at SW a 'train' couldn't be dispatched untill the one in front went down the second drop. Any idea what the dispatch trigger is now?

I can't say I fully 'get' this ride. I can't see it driving attendance at all, and there are already heaps of kids rides at DW, and I can't recall seeing a queue for any of them. The only benifit is adding something to Wiggles World which (as has been pointed out) is a bit lacking in the rides/anything to do at all department. Beyond that its pretty much a "Why bother?" sorta ride. It makes me wonder if there has been any guest feedback indicating that WW was to small.

The more I think about it the more a Tornado at WWW makes sense. I mean, why go to WnW for their big new attraction when you can go to the place you've never been to check out the same big new slide plus a bunch of others you've never been on.

That does raise the question though of how much brand awareness Whitewater World will try to leach off DW (at least early in its life). Though it wouldn't be surprising if it was pegged to WnW's price, since the other theme park prices have been identical for at least 4 years, and probably a long time before that as well.

Always wondered if anyone ended up buying thrillseeker, cheers for the article. Must admit though the idea of thrillseeker being taken apart and rebuilt a few times a year is just a little bit scary to me

WnW used to have a stunt show on the speed slides. They'd close down for a period during the day when they'd do the show. Some of the other stuff they'd do is get a real good runup and end up with huge amount of air on the bumps and be able to flip around. As well as "surfring" down the slide like you see, they would also surf down the slide standing on someone lying down on their stomach. I can't recall what else they used to do, but I can imagine slaughtering the daily speed record was part of it.

I dare say the 20min+ queue line Terror Canyon demands has something to do with the introduction of Blackhole. That, and it was there to be bought.

I managed to get my hands on a 1 day hopper pass in 2003 (quite a feet, they weren't sold till late 2004) and I spent from 8 in the morning till midnight at the parks and missed a bunch of stuff. But it was one heck of a day out, I'd say go both, and stick to the 'e-tickets'. Definatly do both in the same day though, afterall if you go to just DL you'll be thinking about ToT all day, and if you go to DCA you'll be thinking "coulda gone to DL" all day. Out of the two, I spent more time (about 3/4s of the time) at DL, but I'm glad I was able to head across to check out DCA, Cali Screamin' and Grizzly River are worth the extra price themselves.

The old speed slide was fun, except with the pool at the bottom instead of a straight run out, it was a really painful ride (about the only ride I've really injured myself on). I don't mind putting a hefty sum of money on the change over from the speed slide to speed 'coaster' was due to this. As it is now, its kinda fun, but its one of those rides you go on late at night when everyone has gone home and its a walk on. If the queue is more then say 5 mins, then its too much.

I think when it comes to roller coasters, DW is a distant second to MW. I mean there isn't one genre of roller coaster where DW wins out (except for perhaps Reptar, but at best I think that ones a tie). DW wins the thrill market because after the coasters they've got the flat ride lineup to make up for the poor showing in the coasters. Consider this: The only flatride on the Gold Coast not at DW is at SW (Pirate ship), and even that is a pretty tame ride. I agree though, DW is really going to need more then a kickass flatride lineup soon to keep that reputation from being taken away from them. Also, I don't think this year a new ride at DW is really needed (will be welcome however ). The waterpark will increase attendance at DW, through sale of the "2 Park excellent pass" (which is what I'm going to call the hopper till they give it a real name). Don't think DW's 2 park pass won't take people away who normally by a 3PSP. I have a hard time that a large number of families trying to decide what to do with the holiday, won't want to go to a new waterpark and DW instead of getting a 3 park super pass. Its probably going to be cheaper, and if DW is smart, they'll have a 2 or 3 day hopper instead of just a 2 week pass like Village. DW don't need anything this year, attendance should go up from the waterpark alone.

Its supposedly a fairly loud ride. However, given its location near Corkscrew, you'd think most of the noise won't effect the rest of the park too greatly. Most likley the extent of it will be that it'll be noticeable in Bermuda's queue, but given thats a noisy place anyway, with all the various sound effects/spookey music I don't think that it'll really make much of a difference. Pretty much the only quiet areas of the park you'll hear it are Dolphin Cove outside of show times and in the queue to SOS if its really loud. Beach already has enough noise going on to drown it out, and everywhere else you'd think would have enough of a buffer from that end of the park.

Is there a good reason why they shouldn't be? Also being relaxing and family friendly aren't mutually exclusive events. I mean riding on the monorail is pretty relaxing right? Well call me crazy but the monorail is a pretty good example of a family friendly ride (same goes for the train, skyway, and even the cartoon beach rides. Add into that all the shows and exhibats and you get the idea). All of the parks thrill rides are going to be in the same area, so the rest of the park should keep its current feel.

Poor Blue Lagoon. Its only reference on the DW website now is a link in the attractions and shows section, which links to a page which isn't found. Quick survey; anyone shocked?

Another from the Gold Coast Bulletin: