Slick

Believe me, Huss are not known in the industry for quality or reliability.

This thread would be great if this country had more then 10 decent coasters, so with that in mind.. 1) Roller-Coaster, Rainbow's End 2) Sidewinder, Dreamworld 3) Refurbished Scooby Doo, Movie World (i like it in the dark) 4) Escape from Madagascar, Dreamworld 5) Tower of Terror, Dreamworld 6) Crazy Mouse, Ekka 7) Wild Mouse, Aussie World (RIP) 8) Eureka Mine Ride, Dreamworld 9) Storm, Sea World 10) Road Runner, Movie World

Can confirm Joypolis is tits. Veil of Darkness is one kickass roller-coaster given each harness has a weird game controller built into it that lets you shoot moving screens as you go through the ride. I think the age of having a theme park with a very narrow focus (i.e. one character's universe like Sonic) is well and truly over. Space World in Japan (which is closing next year) is a good example that this doesn't work anymore. That's why any major park will have multiple IP's like Superman or Bugs Bunny to attract a wide audience in through the gates. I loved Joypolis, and it would've been sweet if they did something that size in Australia (technically they did, and that failed), but the arcade culture here that makes it possible In Japan is dead here or at best, incredibly niche. It's why arcades all over the country are closing their doors. People game online in their homes. By comparison, just the size of Japanese homes is enough of a reason for you to go to an arcade, nevermind how batshit crazy some of their arcade machines are.

Technically they rebuild the same waterslides.

Please, let this not be Movie World's "jumping the shark" moment. So let's be clear, Dreamworld is combing through every millimetre of every ride, being very open and transparent and yet are getting their arses handed to them for a sharp edge on a Flowrider mat, meanwhile Scooby Doo is almost completely gutted, there's no park communication why they've completely changed the ride experience in any way (which would come as a rude shock if you've waited an hour to jump on) and now they're just pretending people will be sweet and won't notice the difference? I'm so completely confused on this one. This is some weird "she'll be right, mate" mentality coming from a park that prides itself on trying to match its global brethren in terms of quality. This is a tough thing to write, because I want to be positive, but it's really tough not to be critical when you appear to be holding a lot of contempt for your customers. If they said "we're redeveloping our ride experience, please excuse our mess" on a sign, or told the greeter to say it, I think it'd almost be okay. But to bury your head in a sand is a recipe for disaster.

It's worth mentioning that of the two left in the world, Wipeout is still the only one that still utilises a lot of the original ride program (the other one in Mexico still operating is very gentle now to avoid screwing the gearboxes). There's something about the length of the Vekoma variant that one ups the Moser clone, with that much play you can hold true to the whole "armchair on the end of a wave" basis and throw people forwards and backwards just as much as you can up and down. Getting back on track, I do hope they get to open Doomsday asap. It's such a nice area and great overall addition to the park, and i'd hate for them to abandon the idea of doing things as quality as this because of extended downtime.

What's up with VRL needing to use either a different site UI or a completely different booking system for new offerings? In terms of ticketing systems, this is via Booking Boss, Farmstays is via another called "The Booking Button", then there's the core ticketing portal for general admission (which is on a domain different from everything else), and finally another booking system for Sea World Resort (which i'm pretty sure is MicroSap?) Then you look at UI's... you've got the core portals which still don't have any mobile optimisation what so ever (and regardless of how much traffic your site attracts, Google would be tarnishing your online visibility just for that alone), then Farmstays & WNWS is on the new design that the seasonal events use, and now we've got this thing. Seriously, the photos don't fit and that's the core imagery for your page. What's worse is that when you click the header, it takes you back to the main WNWGC page which has no mention of the page you came from, which is pretty sub-par UX design right there. We've got four individual booking systems and including MyFun they've got a totally out of date spiderweb of half integrated sites. Why in 2016? As a sidenote, this is something I would love to do, I just don't understand how they expect the target audience (me) to find it and use it when it's impossible to discover online outside of enthusiast websites.

If we're being accurate i'm pretty sure it's "Swampside Precinct".

Just not true. Sorry.

You're unbelievably grossly misinformed. Query me this, if you were a poor Sumatran gentleman and one of the world's most endangered mammals was risking the life of your workers, what do you do? Call RSPCA while thumbing through new shows on Netflix? Nope, because you're poor and you have literally no options beyond killing the thing because that's the way the world is when you're poor. Furthering this, if the reason why the tiger is there in the first place is because of deforestation because of palm oil crops, growing populations etc. etc. etc. how do you fix that without pissing people off who are trying to survive and feed their kids? And if people are actively killing these animals for alleged medicinal purposes, how do you stop that from happening too? And to top it all off, how do you actually breed enough tigers to offset all of this to stop them from going extinct while you're trying to fix all the above? Let me be direct. You need great people and you need money. And a lot of it. And thank god for the amazing folks at Tiger Island, 21st Century Tiger and DWF who not only forward on 100% of donations to protecting tigers in the wild (which is spent sending teams over there and working in the community directly) but also work with many reputable international zoos as part of a large scale breeding program to go from "will definitely go extinct in the wild" to "oh wow, there's tigers in the wild again, and they're not suffering either, win!" But you're right, giving the tigers at Tiger Island an improved space to exist whilst continuing to educate the general public which then in turns drives awareness and more donations is a terrible "debacle" as you put it. We don't live in a black and white world mate where you can just throw animals into the wild and tell the locals not to kill them because it's bad. I'd also love to live in a world where every one of those tigers is back in the wild because none of them are being threatened. Sadly, neither of us live in those world, and if you'd like to live in that world someday, you should jump on the train and support those who are doing something about instead of being part of the almost satirically ironic position you put yourself into by being all for animals and hating on organisations who are making a genuine difference. Still don't believe me? Here's literally dozens of academic papers for you to read that support every word i've said above.

I really, really, really, really hope this is temporary.

Flicked past before, it's starting to really come together now that the core of the build is complete and it's coming down to facade trim & interiors that just need plenty of love.

Email marketing is coming out thick and fast. For the foodies out there, this is what they've got on the list so far.

I think the CEO of Mack actually mentioned in an interview recently something along the lines of "we're building a similar (or custom?) hyper in Australia." Something from IAAPA. Anyone got the reference? Definitely second this. It's not Disney, but just because a car isn't a Ferrari doesn't mean it's crap either. I think it's been given the love that it deserves. It's definitely a local icon, if not a national one, and the look and feel of the place matched with the grandstand seating is befitting that title. Also, it has Kirin beer on tap, what's not to love? Sad that Movie World will have two world class coasters soon and Dreamworld will have... yeah.

Nope, nah, no. Hope that clears things up.

Not everyone's a photographer. ?

Could you imagine if they put in a decent showstage on that island in the middle of the river there at the front of the park? Modify the the floats to fit on some hired out barges, throw some characters on each barge and run them around the stage while the show runs ala DisneySea style. Hire out two or three large live feed video displays and you have something that could be regarded as the "Sea World equivalent of the Movie World parade." I'd pay to see that. EDIT: Added some shots for you guys to get what I mean.

They're certainly working on it at lightning pace. I'd say we're talking weeks now, but that's at best a guesstimate.

Good on the team there for doing a major retrofit like that and not just closing the ride and leaving it there.

Parking looks like it'll be as fun as ever.

Sad to hear you go @Mark Shaw - you're one of the few folks in the industry that's impossibly hard to fault in terms of what you've built in your time at Adventure World. Abyss is easily the best bang for buck thrill ride any park in Australia has built in the last decade, and your hands-on approach through so many facets of the experience including dealing with us is admirable. Here's hoping we see you at the helm of something on the east coast soon.

For me it comes down to value right now, in that i'm asking myself "should this have been included in the entry ticket like Dreamworld's summer offering?" Because I think both locals and holiday-goers are going to go and compare the two, and I honestly think that the only way Sea World will get a competitive edge over Dreamworld's offering is if Dreamworld can't get a majority share of their rides re-opened for summer. It's not that I want to hate on Carnivale at Sea World, i've quietly thought that it'd be a great fit for a long while, and if they can carry the food offerings over and if the entertainment is overwhelmingly good, then I could be totally proven wrong, and if so i'll eat pie (hopefully from Carnivale). On paper as it stands i'm reserved. Ultimately, if you're charging for entry, then it'll need to live up to a higher bar of expectations not too far off from when it was at Movie World, and that in itself is a dangerous game to play, especially since Sea World probably aren't going to be matching Movie World's carnivale parade, which is strange given that's what the origin of Carnivale is all about.

Agreed, especially considering the park's other big coasters aren't themed to DC charac.... oh wait... Well maybe you're still right, you know, given it's not next to any other DC rides... oh FFS.

I had never seen that map before, cool stuff! Here's to another 35. I hope in the coming years the park goes the way of the phoenix and rises up from the ashes (speaking about the recent tragedy and the way the park had been run previously) and turns into something beautiful again. I think we're on the right track with how Tiger Island looks, but time will tell.

Someone's going to need to start pulling some all-nighters methinks..