Gazza

^Use Dibond not corflute.

Dont parks do temporary signboards for the themed food carts at night events? And those are weeks not months.

But the rides are going to be open for the next 20 years probably. If i were managing a park, id probably pick a a different day so the news crews come out to me and are not competing with someone else for attention. **** Also, DAE reckon its actually going to be a fair bit of a drop into the saucer. Should be a good start to that slide.

Sarkanniemi is an amusement park in the city of Tampere, about 90 mins by train north of Helsinki. https://www.parkz.com.au/attraction/sarkanniemi-amusement-park Easy trip and a bargain at only 9 EUR! I got into the city around 8. The park is about 2km from the main station, so I just wandered across the city centre and took in the sights till opening time. It is located on a peninsular on the lakeshore, and part of a broader tourist complex that has an observation tower (Similar to the ones in Canberra/Sydney) kids farm, aquarium, art gallery and planetarium. Your ticket includes all of these things. With more time to kill I wandered around the adjacent marina and got some photos. The main draw for me was of course Tornado, a rare example of an Intamin SLC . There’s a decent selection of other rides, and perhaps the highest density of Zamperla rides you’ll see anywhere. The entrance to the park isn’t exactly the most inviting… So, kicking off with Tornado. It’s so unique heading into an underground tunnel and finding a station cut into the rock. It feels like a themed attraction, even though its entirely utilitarian design. Should have called it “missile” or something like that. I had heard beforehand it was rough as guts, but it was running “fine”, not perfectly smooth, but not bad for something built 20 years ago. Starts off with an average first drop into a forceful loop, a straightaway in a tunnel, before a forceful cobra roll. A lazy banked turn that threads through the loop leads into a downhill section of track into another tunnel. Hidden inside is a barrell roll through the top of the station cavern. You come out on the other side, and into another barrel roll, which just about everyone gets this photo of: So yeah, pretty good, the layout feels a bit formulaic, as you can see from the aerial image, just elements plugged in one after each other. It has my favourite ride colour scheme ever too. Some nerd pics include the wheels, and the video AI system they use for checking if the restraints are closed. I think next i headed to Boom, a Zamperla drop tower. It’s a bit like Inferno at AW. It doesn’t really hit true freefal because you are attached to cables the whole time, it kind of just “goes down fast”. You have to give the engineers credit for doing the difficult thing of making the whole tower rotate rather than just the car. Turns out a lot of the rides didn’t really open till 11 so had some time to kill so wandered around the Angry Birds area and went on the Kantii X Kantii car ride. Nice views of the lakeshore but the thing must be 40 years old. Vauhimato was also here, an early model Zierer kiddy coaster. Hey where have i seen that train before? Realised that the observation deck and aquarium were already open so I headed back out of the park and had a look at them. It was getting close to 11, so i headed back down to go back into the rides area, and at this point the weather started to turn. I reasoned if it was raining I’d do Koskiseikkailu rapids ride. As far as rapids go, it was on par with Bæver Rafting at Farup. Basic concrete channel in the woods with not a whole lot of theming, though i did think the entrance waterfall did have a bit of this very Finnish mid century modern style to it: The rain got really bad as I was exiting. So i parked up at a Cafe near the Doghill Fairytale Farm and had an early lunch. The area was quite nice from the perspective of "Lots of wholesome stuff for kids to do" When the weather started to improve I continued with the park. Motogee Actually pretty fun! Gave this a couple of laps. It's a Zamperla motorbike coaster, and it in fact uses a cable launch like superman, but the difference is it's a simple electric motor rather than hydraulic. Has the right amount of speed, and relatively tight turns, so it feels quite zippy. And because most of the course is downhill, it never loses pace. Hype Premier Sky Rocket 2, and I love these things. A punchy launch, really fast vertical twist, good pop of airtime as you transition at the top, then a fun heartine roll. The 2nd half rapidly picks up speed as you dive down again, with more air in the non inverted loop. So despite looking quite simplistic from the outside, it's quite forceful and varied. I swear whoever did the theming from this borrowed from Bounce Inc. High Voltage A Zamperla power surge. Despite having these at LPM and AW, I've never thought I'd have the stomach for one. Anyhow, its actually not too bad, its sort of like being on Tailspin with the flipping seats, but in this case you aren't controlling the spinning. So nothing unbearable, its bark is worse than its bite, but Im not sure if I'd bother with one again. Trombi I last did one of these Volare flying coasters years ago at Canadas Wonderland, and it....wasn't good. The park was quiet so i did 3 laps over the course of the day to really cement my opinion on the thing and see if there was any way to enjoy it. The issue is that it has turns as fast and as sharp as a wild mouse, but you are in a flying position in a car that isnt very comfortable, so it is a ride of endurance. This is one ride where trim brakes would help it. If you just cruised through slowly, it would actually be somewhat enjoyable. I think looking down rather than straight ahead makes it a bit more comfortable, but overall it's just a bit of a failed concept to be honest. Tyrsky Zamperla Disko coaster with a cute dolphin theme. The setting was nice since its on a peninsular out on the lake. Sort of rode by accident, since I went up to get a photo, saw they were loading and it had no queue, so, what the hell. Tukkijokki quite an old school flume ride. It start off with a lift hill and then follows the terrain with several small drops working down the hillside, and at a couple of points you come quite close to Tornado. A second lift takes you to the big drop. Interesting for the proximty to tornado but it wasn't a particularly attractive ride. Some kids thought it was a stand up coaster. The park is reasonably compact. It was still raining sporadically so I did some re-rides and took plenty of photos, but eventually called it quits around 4 when i was getting a bit cold and damp, so headed to my hotel for a nice hot shower and a sleep. More photos of the park are here: https://www.parkz.com.au/search/photos/location/sarkanniemi-amusement-park Overall, it's a decent park. Operations were good, didn't really seem to wait long for anything, and they even had 2 trains going on Tornado despite non existent queues. Overall its a well balanced lineup, with higlights being Tornado, Hype and MotoGee. If you are going to PowerPark its on the way, and even if you aren't its a cheap and easy day trip from Helsinki.

What's the reason to put it on the same day?

Didn't vortex open with Kmart bins and then eventually get permanent ones on the fence?

Why no carrot?

More testing

@Rivals Nah, needs to be groups of guests filling behind each gate as soon as the previous group have taken their seats. This probably means having a group waiting in the cave, which would actually be good because its an awesome space you want to spend more time in. The station should have dots on the floor like Arkham used to have, so you should be able to have 2 guests for each gate plus 2 behind them against the wall.

The electrical room got water damage too.

I think perhaps if a ride is brand new you don't think to navigate through to the maintenance page. A thoosie might since they know that sudden closures can happen. But for a layperson, if the ride is promoted as open, you'd assume its open. I recall when Lighting Rod was having problems they actually had a banner across the park home page saying what the status was that day (It had been closed for several days before my scheduled visit so it was right in your face that it was closed...and then the day before my visit it was working again, so I jumped for joy and jumped straight in the car and got there that afternoon) Anyway, I think its a good way of doing it, since it makes it hard to miss and it's upfront.

I think what he meant is that he is surprised that painting commenced on the top without priming.

I would actually lol if the spelling gets corrected on the Vortex and precinct entry signs.

I think there's a vein of "sticking up for the little guy" too and people are happy to see a smaller park grow up. A Vekoma SFC is definitely a "higher effort" family attraction than some of the cheaper family rides out there. I would have been happy with that alone. Getting Buzzsaw reminds me of the circumstances DW got Cyclone, right place right time, and all of a sudden 2 rides in one year (along with the pre-exsting lineup) means Gumbuya is a small, but reasonably well balanced park. I feel now they don't have any real glaring holes in their lineup, they can add anything and it will be a plus.

Mitty theme parks also has some nice testing footage and a look at the continued site/theming works

^I disagree on that one because then you just get a crappy queue snaking on the midways out in the hot sun.

I dunno. There's a difference between being totally literal and a reasonable assumption. (link) Like when a new supermarket opens you understand that to mean its open for you during normal trading hours not open at that very second. ' Re guests understanding of what a soft opening is on the day and how well they accept breakdowns, I'll leave that for those with frontline guest experience.

Here is the full cypher if anyone wants to start decoding the messages in the area. This one says "worthy" This says spirit Vowt?x N?R ATLANTIS So basically it seems like the R and W got switched at some point and the letter E changed totally.

I dont think the exit is temporary walls. They are finished in that pearlescent paint with wavy lines, just like the photo pass area and the test seat area.

Would kids be able to tell the difference between a water playground made by Pro slide vs the current onevmade by Whitewater West? I still don't understand why people just want other parks to get the same rides that already exist in Australia. Eg why do you want a Steel Taipan clone?

It's a regional dialect.

Indeed, nice to have some variety compared to Scenic Railway or Wild Mouse.

It's actually kind of cool seeing a big deal made out of an opening day!

Nice little rundown of the install of the ride.

But the 1st train should be out of the station on DCR before the 2nd one gets back, so the station block is clear. If the train didnt have to fully stop on the brakes it wouldn't have to crawl on the last turn.