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Wrong... There is a connector on the back of each car, the ops have a small battery back that they connec to each car in turn and with the push of a button power is applied and the harnesses are released. You can usually see one of these packs sitting in the corner in the station.

I think the key thing here is that this company is from europe where public liability seems to be much less of an issue than over here. Our extreme safety levels would probably prohibit such slides being an option for our parks. You only have to compare how we wrode Balder almost standing with no lapbars to how much they staple you in our parks or the US to see what I'm talking about.

Well yeah like Alex said. I know of the plan for the new Shed, but can't really say anything just because I'm not allowed, WVTP management do monitor this site (more than you would think actually) and I happen to like my job and want to keep it. If I was allowed I'd happily tell everyone everything. I am excited about the possibility of a new show but as I've said before the PA show is one of the best I've seen at any park in terms of enjoyability and re visits. They will have a lot to live up to and if the show was anything like the Lights Motor Action show at Disney it wouldn't because it really sucked.

Well they could make the loop section transparent or semi transparent i guess... that would give some sensation...

That's weird you say that because the Jambaroo alpine slides are probably the best ive ever seen. They suck if you're stuck behind someone that doesn't understand if you're on the advanced track you better not brake at all! But if you hurl that thing down the track its insane.

So where is this thing from? Who makes it? Where are the photos of the 1:1 models in action??

That is one point, the whole thing is a farce, if you really want to get loose items on, you will. An interesting this is one of my friends was at the park last week and the attendant on lethal made him remove his wallet from his secure pocket after boarding. He said it took him a good several minutes to manage to get the thing out of his pocket. I really don't see how it posed any risk of actually flying out by accident during the ride.

That's an interesting concept you have there Alex, certainly sounds plausable to me. Of course I can't confirm or deny anything with the information I have from work.

What I find a bit rediculours is they are now removing park maps and tissues from people! So what you now have is a whole bunch of people who get given the map on entry and then head straight to Superman for their first ride and bin the map. A serious waste of paper.

Don't forget our 1000s of hats for AOS! Seriously though, although the idea of this Shed probably doesn't excite anyone what it will allow for in the future probably will

You may be right, they may have bought out operations, I'm working on old info with that one so I'm happy to be corrected. No I'm not talking about station attendants being slow, I'm talking about people actually taking forever to get there crap and put it in the box but more importantly get their crap back again! It really is an aussie thing, I've been to parks in the US and Europe that operated with crap boxes on the load platform and people are much quicker. Australians really do tend to 'leave their brain at the gate' when they enter a theme park. I know that's a generalisation and of course it is not the official opinion of my employer, only my personal view but it realy is true.

Just to clarify they don't make any money out of the lockers. The lockers are contracted out to a private company and the money self funds the operation. What this basically translates to is lockers that are always available and working. If you made them free people would just use them all day and half the time they wouldn't work. At universal the lockers are free for an hour and then charge, but you have to be smart enough to make sure you don't leave it longer than an hour with your wallet locked inside. Given how stupid the average australian park visitor is (i was dumbfounded at lethal weapon yesterday how long it took people to get on and off the ride) I just don't think the above kind of system would work here. I don't understand how in the states people can be loaded and unloaded in 30 seconds and rides can run several trains but here the public takes FOREVER.

See to me I think Steve was meaning GIANT as in a kinda ka kind of massive 30 million dollar investment. In the context it was used I don't think Superman would be considered to be one of these GIANT rides he's saying the gold coast won't be getting. I took it to mean he was saying WVTP will continue to build thrill rides but we might not be looking at world record holders in size just yet.

That Courier Mail article is kind of amusing. If you read behind the lines is basically says Dreamworld is looking for ways to build less big thrill seeker rides and more interactive attractions. Where as WVTP is saying roller coasters are still number one, we want those.

Could that mean they have to be creative and build something that uses the natural surroundings rather than bulldose a nice big flat patch dirt and plonk something easy down.

Ok I'll answer seriously... -First I would do a radical shape up of how the opertations department runs the park. All of the rediculously low capacity ways of running rides would be out and the staff would have to haul but and get the people moving through there. I would put in place an incentives program where by staff compete for the highest throughput on their attractions and are rewarded appropriately. -Second I would be doing a walk through of the entire park and every single piece of damaged, missing, broken theming would be going and be replaced with stuff that is going to hold up against the abuse of patrons. Anything that required continual maintenance would be going because realistically in a theme park environment that just doesn't happen. -Before any new attractions were even considered some of the existing ones in need of love would be attended to. The mine ride would be opened or removed, chair lift would go, the cars would stop using a car port as a station and so forth. -The park would be abandoning the idea of thoroughly themed attractions, because they have never managed to build one and it's just not their market. I am a strong believer that no theming is better than half assed theming. Future attractions would be nicely presented and have a simple theme attached to them (like the claw). Budgeting and reworking of capex would be initiated so that a new major THRILL ride could be installed to put the park back on the map. -A new entertainment offering would be considered for the old Blue Lagoon site. A show has the ability to draw huge numbers out of the park greatly reducing the stress on rides to soak up the numbers in the park. That's me for now.

Its been proven at Disney that a 'fastpass' type system of que reservation can actually lead to INCREASED wait times rather than reducing them. They have found that removing the system from some of their rides had actually reduced the wait time considerably... I'm not about to go and bash my own employer but I would have thought they could have come up with something a little bit more intelligent, or at least themed than those wait time boards. Great idea, less than perfect implimentation.

I sort of agree, I think the Eye looks much better from outside the park than within it. I would have liked to see them rebuild a permanant Eye on the same site but it looks like that won't happen now.

Is this much different to Intensity going into Movie World? VR own Intensity, ML own AMF. I don't really like the idea of Intensity at Movieworld either but it just seems a bit sad that all DW can do is pretty much copy the concept Village Roadshow had with putting Intensity into their park.

It is a good ride and would look pretty impressive sitting in the middle of the island.

It was running on monday/tuesday. Heard it go at least a few times.

I'm going to agree with Joz, the disney show is just crap. The stunts were amazing but as a piece of entertainment it really did suck. After seeing it probably a few hundred times now I still enjoy PA every time I go, which is everytime I go to the park. It's a rock solid show that provides entertainment and laughs from beginning to end. Sure the stunts might be a bit dated but the show is a winner. and the fire ball at the end never fails to get a huge reaction from the audience. I for one am extremely excited about a new major show coming to movieworld which is seeing the show and entertainment department really starting to come back alive recently. But at the same time I hope it does follow the rock solid formula that PA does, which is to have some 'charm' about the show. I would actually like to see both shows continue to run but I doubt that would happen, we can only wait and see but given PA has run for what like 15 years now and still packs a satisfied audience I doubt its replacement will do anything but the same...

I totally agree with Nev, having been on one of these trips myself. A while back we looked at getting ride time on Superman, at that point I didn't really have the relationship with the group I do now (hell maybe I should just make mention of this idea to JSM next time I see him) but the response was pretty much you have to include a full F&B package in order to hire the ride. Which is fine but the price wasn't extremely cheap (but bear in mind that these rides are not cheap to run or staff). Now if we were to go ahead with such a thing I think the park would be more willing to come to the party on other things, perhaps free entry being one of them. I think we would need to pick a ride and run with it, as much as a lights on tour of scooby might sound cool, it's really just a wild mouse in a shed so not much to see with the workers on... Superman would be a good one, as it has both themed and coaster components, it would be someone from Tech Services you'd want to show you around because they will have the answers we would want. You may be able to get a look at the plant rooms, but no persons are premitted in the engine room when the coaster is being launched so don't get your hopes up for that. As far as the right person or persons for Q&A that's really up to what you want to talk about. More than likely if he's around Steve Peet may be happy to chat, he's a really nice guy by all accounts. Perhaps someone like the themed construction manager would be up this groups alley? And again if you want the nuts and bolts questions answered then you want to try and get a hold of tech services... One thing you'll find with a lot of these people at WVTP is they are very into this whole ride thing themselves, so they may be more willing to participate than you think

Surfrider is back open... Unfortunately it was a problem that no one could have foreseen and was discovered in morning checks the day you visited the park (why it wasn't posted out the front I don't know??) Parts had to be sent from overseas which unfortunately took a few days. I can tell you though they were installed the second they arrived and tech services were just as annoyed as you the ride wasn't running... You'd think Intamin would know what they were doing by now wouldn't you!

There are quite a few shows that all run on this similar format, medievil (how the hell do you spell that??) times is another example. The concept of an arena with animal/horse action, coupled with audience seated in a diner theatre type arangement is by no means new, but it works well. Seems crazy to re-invent the wheel just to be different for the sake of it. From what I'm told by people who have seen both AOS is more of a solid theatrical show with a competition segment, where as the dixie stampede runs for an our is pretty much all balls out, fast action and audience screaming the entire time... Both shows have proved extremely successful