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There's literally no point in arbitrarily delaying the opening if it's ready to go within the next couple of weeks (at most). That would be leaving it quite late as NSW students are back at school the following Monday. Then again, there's not much to be gained from getting in just before Anzac Day either... ... If they'd had their shit together, early April would've served both QLD and NSW holiday visitors. Now, they're placed to open with great fanfare and nobody able to visit.

Had me going there! One can dream. 5.9/10

Just to clarify, new restraints or old?

I can see where you're coming from Brad, but Mr Dorsett's mother, Mr Hanson and Mr Haber have all willingly spoken to the media about this. The former has taken this as an opportunity to honour her son's legacy. I don't think we should be speaking on behalf of the bystanders, the victims or their families. There is an interesting dichotomy in these situations where a preventable tragedy occurs; we want those affected to be able to move on with their lives, but importantly we still need to acknowledge the failings and hold the appropriate parties to account. As for the media's role, yeah sure, we all know they profit off clicks, but at the very least these recognitions of bravery were newsworthy and the article is not the typical clickbait shitpost the media usually loves to capitalise on.

Looks great! Although... Not to piss on anyone's bonfire, but there's still the renovated theatre building which will still look inharmonious with the "timeless" aesthetic of the other buildings. I imagine they'll be sticking with it.

It's hard to feel disappointed when you never had high expectations in the first place.

Not that Village ever like to over-hype things... 😏 ... but, they are teasing further details coming soon. If I may be so bold, we may even get a concrete opening date, or at the very least, a "cOmInG tHis [Easter/Winter] ScHoOl HoLiDaYs!!!11"

You would think Village would avoid repeating the same error twice in a row. I'd also like to think they'll rethink where to place the holding area, so you've got one group boarding, another at the gate, and a third being held at the entrance. They need this thing to cycle crowds better than Leviathan (which, in another world, would've already implemented the necessary fixes). I'm quietly confident. Would I bet $50 on it? No. But the fact is MW will lose the battle for the summer crowds if they can't deliver this one on time. Healthy competition is a good thing. If both Rivertown and Wizard of Oz make it on time, it's going to be a fantastic season for everyone. Precisely. You're right, but it's a good thing for both. In the post-River Rapids lull where DW were in dire straits, Village got complacent. It's nice to see them trying to one-up each other again.

If you read what I said, never did I claim that Doomsday's operating conditions are optimal. I agree it doesn't have a long-term future, not because it's unsalvageable, but because it's not worth the expenditure. You're the one making the asinine suggestion that they should completely demolish a building for no good reason, so the burden of proof is on you, not me, to propose a fitting replacement. There is plenty of room behind WWF to build a marquee attraction like a coaster, so even if they weren't going for something compact to replace GL, and provided they even wanted to go for yet another coaster, that would be the next most logical place for it to go. Now to re-run the gamut of options I put forth for the showcase building (not an exhaustive list). Walkthrough attractions: the Intencity building has not been used for anything other than FN mazes in the last five years, so it's not like Village are in any rush to use that space more efficiently. Dark ride: first of all, JDS has already replaced LTRR. Love it or hate it, it's not about to go away, so why even bring it up? Justice League has an interactive element, which is not the only way you can do a dark ride. Same goes for Scooby-Doo, which, sure you can throw in there, but it is also a coaster. Show/theatre: You're really going to use HSD to bolster your argument? More to the point, you seem to think the park is only allowed to have one type of attraction operating at any given time. This is ignorant to the fact that, for most of the park's history, there have been multiple walkthrough attractions, dark rides and live shows running simultaneously. I merely provided a few examples to illustrate that there are a myriad of uses for the Showcase building without knocking the whole thing to the ground.

The tradeoff for the prototype models' extreme intensity was excessive strain on the tracks, which caused the reliability issues. The newer models (i.e. Jersey Devil at SFGA) are tamer by virtue of the element profiling and the increased train length (which also increases throughput per-hour). However, their profiles take up a lot more space. A custom, compact layout with the new trains is fully plausible. Neither Doomsday nor GL or on their "last legs" per se. Village could keep them both going for a while; it's simply a case of whether the operational costs are worth the effort. In the former's case, probably not; it's a pretty unpopular ride at the best of times, and they could've made a much better effort with making the area worthwhile to spend time in. As for tearing down the Showcase building and plonking a coaster down there, sorry, but that's a stupid idea. There's better ways to utilise the structure, yes, but it's not being removed, probably ever. They could hearken back to the days when it was used for live shows, put a properly-themed walk-through attraction there, possibly even a small theatre/dark ride. But tearing it down? Mate, that's something strange you're smoking. So you remove one unreliable ride, then replace it with a relocation of another equally unreliable ride? At first, I thought it was the green stuff you're on, but clearly you're more hardcore than I thought.

From mere anecdotal evidence, it appears the other El Locos are more reliable. I think it's a safe bet the train would be a factor as the increased payload puts greater stress on the track, its braking systems and the supports. Naturally, this would've required some tailoring of those systems, but it's the only El Loco with the four-across setup, so S&S were in uncharted territory during the design phase of the ride. I speculate, but don't know, that there's more to it than just that, though. @Dean Barnett already put forward the 4D Free Spin and Sky Rocket II, either of which I think would work. Just saying though, the Raptor clones take up about 1,900 m2, while GL takes up about 1,700 m2. Different shape (the Raptors are a longer, skinnier rectangle) but, with some creative crossover moments, I'd say it'd be doable. There's also some limited usable space adjacent to GL where the stream is. Provided it's operating, and that's a rarity in and of itself, it doesn't exactly pump through at high capacity, so that does bloat the queue line considerably. It's maybe the fourth- or fifth-most popular ride at the park, I'd say, and I don't think it would be a great loss were it to be replaced with something better (functional).

Assuming these are indeed for the coasters, I really like both names.

@DaptoFunlandGuy same honestly. I Googled this and found no usage. Some great insights and pics otherwise.

@Tricoart Note these are not synchronous as the launch starts at 0:33. https://youtu.be/bEPb0cb_yXU Adjusting accordingly, 0:49 on Ride Forces is the vertical loop's apex, so the MBCR entry pops in about -0.9 while the drop off pulls about -0.3. That's decent, although it's not sustained. By "dropping in", you are referring to the MCBR entry not exit, correct? Not that they're even remotely apples-apples, but now I'm curious how Rivals and Levi compare. (Android simp here so I can't check myself).

Overall, I have to agree. It's also stupidly overpriced. I see proportionately way more cycles go out with the back seats empty than filled. If Village were smart, at the very least they'd drop the price to get people on more consistently, which, from a corporate overlord's perspective, would make them more money. That first drop is pretty wild in the back, though. I haven't shared the story here yet of how I got my backwards ride for free. Basically, the app is non-functional (telling you something you already know) on Android so I couldn't purchase in-app. The young guy at the photo booth went out of his way to help me; we tried everything until he called someone up who added a ride coupon onto my account at no extra charge. The actual purchasing process with the half-hour release window sucks because the app simply doesn't work. I think the ops realise that, so I have to give kudos where it's due as they went out of their way. I got a free ride, so I'm in no position to complain. Makes sense but even if Village wanted to do that, I don't know that the automated systems would allow for it. I imagine the train physically can't enter the load station with the restraints down. Another idea, if we could go back in time, would be to design the station to have something like carousel-style or double-sided storage bays rather than free lockers. That would be more efficient year-round, guests could take phones and water bottles into the queue, and you'd still have separate load/unload areas. I've already said so, and as @DaptoFunlandGuy points out, it is a personal preference thing. To reiterate though, to me the forces on ST simply aren't intense enough for the extra whip at the back to account for much. You also get more lateral whip through the horseshoes and the heartline roll when taken with speed. If the layout emphasised air time and/or hang time more, I could see the backwards row as being superior. But it doesn't. I simply prefer the sensation of speed.

True, but not all ejector is created equal. That moment to me isn't powerful or sustained enough for it to be a true standout moment. It hits better than the airtime hill after horseshoe rolls, which really should've been the ejector moment. https://youtu.be/QzoZY9wTvZU According to this Blue Fire video, it peaks around -0.9 G off the brake run, but I find this very hard to believe.

That is a relief and nothing short of a miracle with all the fell trees in the area.

Does anyone have any insight on the extent of animal casualties through the storms? I dread to think but am curious nonetheless.

I did back right and front left and liked the front more. I'll agree there's more force on the spike, but for the rest of the layout, I really didn't feel there were many standout moments of positives or negatives. The heartline roll had better whip taken with more speed in the front, and cutting through the air with an unobstructed view was much more exciting. One concession I'll make is that I rode the back row around midday and the front row on the very last cycle of the day, so it had more time to warm up. It was quite cloudy most of the day, but the sun came through in the mid-afternoon. My stance could change with re-rides, but I will still say with confidence that Taipan does not deliver anything near the forcefulness of Superman, DC Rivals or Levi.

See, they are up-charges and should be separated from the normal ride experience. Full disclosure, I unfortunately missed out on the ST spinning seat (for a few reasons outside of my control), so I can't comment. I'd have to imagine a spinning car would greatly enhance the intensity of those inversions. I've ridden DCR, Levi and ST in front and back rows, and the former two backwards. DCR has the best backwards experience, you're splitting hairs between Levi/DCR for the general experience, and ST rides best in the front. I found ST surprisingly forceless overall with some decent whip through the inversions, although the strongest moment was far and away the heartline roll at the finale. I found the front row with its greater sensation of speed orders of magnitude better than the back. I can't disagree, but for a thrill coaster, layout is the most important factor, and it's a hit in that respect.

It's well-deserved. Besides the stumble out of the gate when it opened and the clunky ops, everything else about Leviathan slaps. The ride is fully-realised in just about every way, and the pacing from drop to brake is virtually flawless. I think it's fair to argue that it has better pacing than DCR; although I'm still putting the latter as my #1 in Australia, I totally respect why many rank Levi (or even SE) higher. As for the second-newest thrill coaster on the Gold Coast... They're entitled to their wrong opinion.

Yes, I'm an idiot. Didn't quite click that that was what I was looking at. So, there's more than enough space there for a Raptor but they're using it currently for storage (?)...

Very interesting. Zadra uses the same restraint system, which I found very comfortable except for some bumping against the shin guards. The lap bar gave considerable upper torso freedom and loads of room for air time, despite my being slightly stapled in on each of my three rides. As for ops, Energylandia across the board has some of the most efficient I've ever seen and Zadra was no different. They cycled us quick. The boarding platform uses a turnstile system which allows a predetermined number of riders through each gate, which was easy to understand and kept the lines moving. The ride experience itself lived up to the hype; every element simply slapped and the pacing never let up for a moment. Best coaster I've done. So, in a nutshell, our experiences were markedly different.

Old Earth image. What's there now?

Porque no los dos? I've never had an overtly bad experience with any op. I feel they largely do their best with what they're given. You do often get an air of dissatisfaction and general lack of enthusiasm about being there, particularly over the peak period. It's not a high-paying job and they do cop a lot. At DW last week, a teenage son tried to cut all the way to the front of Motocoaster where his parents were already queuing and was told off by the op, who sent him out. The dad loudly and aggressively berated the op and called him a "fucking idiot" or similar. The op was the bigger man (figuratively) and walked away. Not "judgy" in so much as just making an observation. You're right that nobody knows with certainty what/how it got through.