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Gazza
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Posts posted by Gazza
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Oh yeah for sure.
The one at USS is kind of lame because you don't even control the acceleration.
Needs to be "push a pedal and it goes" type deal.
Side point, does anyone even make petrol vintage cars anymoree?
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Maybe I'm uncultured, but a couple of the Metalbau car rides I did earlier I thought were quite 'nice'.
I think the theming is more important than the propulsion system.
https://www.parkz.com.au/attraction/dino-xpedition
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Lets be honest, no park is going to install a new petrol powered ride in 2024.
For me, if its a car ride where you get to steer a bit either side of the rail rather than strictly following it that's a win at least.
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Depending on the layout, you could make it half and half, and have the turntable at the midpoint so its balanced. Depends if the first half or the latter half is better backwards though.
It's a cool concept. Panic Coaster Back Daaan does something like this with its layout, but you go around twice so you every train starts the same way.
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1 hour ago, themagician said:
The coaster will go up an inclined track forward/backward, the train will be held in place, the track will rotate about 20 degrees on its axis and then the train will be released and will travel in the opposite direction. Which means the train will arrive back into the station facing the opposite way. The coaster was marketed as travelling in both directions during the presentation and you don’t know which way you will be leaving the station.
So is it something like this?
Train can leave either fowards or backwards, and then the turntable connects into the main course with a transfer at the end to get it back into the station?
Or just a singular turntable and every 2nd train faces backwards?
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For the Big Red Boat, notice that the track has a bar in the middle. Does anyone else think it could be powered?
And is this supposed to be a drive wheel?
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I've already put in the database as a new attraction.
New ride hardware, new course.
I'm guessing it would have to be electric with fake engine sounds, just about every new car ride has this.
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Why do tigers need a performance though, as opposed to other animals?
Eg if it was Lion Island or Rhino Island, you wouldn't expect that right?
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Yeah thats what im thinking, Murrisippi Motors sounds 'bush', Jungle Rush is obviously 'jungle' so curious as to what the vibe of the area will be.
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Yes Sea World had one
Sea World has never had a waveswinger.
****
As for the tilted turntable, is that how it could do the forwards and backwards aspect?
Train comes onto an inclined section of track and is held (Like on a classic boomerang) turntable spins to align with next section. Train released and you roll by gravity off it again.
Could be a cool moment if there is a bit of theming you come face to face with before rotating away.
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Does anyone else reckon Dreamworks could be turned into a broader Asian themed zone that feeds into Tiger Island.
Kind of like Wild Asia at Chessington
https://themeparkguide.co.uk/theme-parks/park-areas/Wild-Asia
You'd need to do something with the Shrek end, but the Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda bits are a strong basis.
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21 hours ago, red dragin said:
I'm surprised no one here has tried to work out what it is from the shape of the slab.
The slab is a wedge shape and i cant think of any rides that move in that kind of sweep.
Could it be just another mini drop ride, or a small ferris wheel with the support at the back like Bug at LPS?
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I dunno what brought on the argument last night but have cleaned up the thread.
Clearly it's a ride being built, hence the“Ride ℄” (Centreline) on the peg.
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PowerPark (Powerland) is an entertainment complex located in central Finland about 350km north of Helsinki / 200km north of Tampere.
https://www.parkz.com.au/attraction/powerpark
So its not really that conveniently located. Initially I was going to hire a car for a day, but that was going to cost close to $200 for the day.
However, the park is located a couple of km from the tiny obscure train station of Härmä on the main line to the north of the country.
Finnish trains are well priced, but annoyingly, only a couple of trains per day actually stop there, which I guess made me uneasy since you don't exactly want to miss your train and be stranded in the Finnish countryside for an additional day.
But as it turns out, the park has a shuttle that meets every train, the northbound train gets you there around 11.30, and the southbound leaves around 6.30, so enough time for a day in the park (Though you might want to stay overnight if you wanted to do every last ride, do some go karting etc)
Free lockers too, but it was definitely a 'push' (And there's only 12 so keep that in mind)
The park is owned by a wealthy businessman who manufactures industrial machinery (The factory is actually behind the park) and the guy seems to have a thing for go karting and stunt planes. So really the park is a passion project where he seemingly just builds rides, hotels etc on his land because why not?
Overall, the look of the park is a mixed bag.
Some parts are themed properly.
Some parts look 'okay' but not necessarily what I'd call an attractive style.
Some parts are just Italian flat rides chucked down everywhere.
Some parts they clearly had an interesting idea on what to build.
And there are various other facilities like go kart tracks, hotels too.
So it ends up looking like this.
But anyhow, onto the rides.
Junker
Top class, and has everything. Decently quick launch, a top hat, huge looping element around a walkway, airtime, twists and turns, and a couple of quick final inversions including a dive loop into a tunnel and a sudden corkscrew at the end.
Normally Gerstlauer can be hit and miss, eg sometimes their rides run great, sometimes they are rough.
In this case definitely a hit, and the fact the trains only had lap bars made this even better.
Pitts Special
If Junker was the hit, this was the miss.
When this was being built, I thought this was pretty cool, A steep drop going into a mix of twisted and straight airtime hills, a variant on a non inverted loop, and even an RMC style wave turn. It almost reminded me of a mega lite coaster.
Anyway. Not to be. The non inverted loop thing knocks out a lot of speed, and then the rest of the hills are slower and drawn out, so you get virtually no airtime anywhere, just the sensation of scooting over various elongated elements, though the wave turn was sort of interesting.
So they bought a lemon I feel. If the idea was that it's meant to be less intense than Junker and more 'family' oriented fair enough, but then why put in an intimidating vertical lift hill? Its a shame because the design had so much potential.
To add insult to injury, the park was running only a single 8 car train, so the wait was a bit annoying. I gave it another go later on the arvo, and it was still pretty average.
Thunderbird
A good ride from GCI, though again the staff were a bit slow. It opened the year after Thunderhead at Dollywood and clearly it had similar thinking. It would alternate between huge high banked turnarounds, and fast paced sections low to the ground where it was full of little bunny hops and twists. Ran really well too, so its a quintessential "out of control" wooden coaster. Hopefully our Leviathan has a similar vibe.
Cobra
Vekoma Boomerang. A lot of people complain about the roughness of these, but the main problem i have is doing 3 inversions backwards in quick succession is a bit nauseating.
That said, this one ran well too. The trains are not the latest type (Eg like on Gold Coaster) but rather an intermediate design that was only ever used on a couple of coasters.
In terms of looks it's battling it out with Sea Viper, but at least it's comfy
Joyride
A coaster from the early days of the park when I think they were just spamming carnival rides. It's almost like a Galaxi 2.0 , with nice transitions and helices rather than the design many of us would have ridden back in the days of Metropolis or Thrillseeker.
I did find this support amusing.
Mine Train
Zamperla family coaster nearly identical to the Spongebob one at Sea World.
Devils Mine Hotel
Fairly standard ghost train fare, with trucks blaring headlights at you with their horn, and store dummy animatronics popping up.
But lets be honest, most of your attention is focused on the shooting if such a system is installed, and there were enough moving bits and bobs to make it interesting.
Oh, and they only give you a set number of shots. But even spamming the fire button didnt seem to cause any problems in terms of running out early.
Neo's Twister
Spinning wild mouse, but with fairly shallow drops, so not that fast. What it lacked in speed, it made up for in spinning.
The layout looks like something from Roller Coaster Tycoon.
One problem...The seat dividers were literal metal bars rather than moulded fibreglass, so they would dig into your thigh and pelvis bone at every turn. Ouch!
(The spinning coaster at the Perth Show is a similar design, but thankfully had moulded seats)
Dragon Tower
A tall drop ride from Moser. Can you really separate drop rides though? They all feel bit similar, though this had 360 degree rotation on the way up.
Seats could have been a little less bulky.
The park also offers and observation tower mode where you just get lifted up and down slowly, without the drop. Though no cameras allowed so didn't bother with that option.
Fun House
After a bit of research, it seems like a lot of these European fun houses are made by https://gosetto.com/fun-house/
Essentially, you can purchase various modules like walkways, conveyors, spinning tunnels and then whack them together to create your walk through.
So aside from having a thing for planes and go karts, the park owner seems to love construction as well, and there was some vague decoration base on this.
Typhoon 360
Not sure who made this one, and normally I skip over these 360 pendulum rides, but I had to in this case because they built this cantilever roof that goes either side of the pendulum, creating an actual head chopper as you swing under.
Thankfully this got up to the full inversion much faster than other versions, so it wasn't too much of an endurance test.
Balloon Tower
No queue, so onto here for some photos.
Giant Wheel
And good photos from up here too at the other end of the park.
Kwai River
This is a flume ride from British company interlink and has perhaps the most bizzare layout I have seen on a flume.
You actually start at the top, travel across a bridge, then drop through a slot in the bridge. The boat runs on wheels so is able to make a turn halfway down, before a secondary drop. A flume that thinks it's a wild mouse.
The remainder of the ride ambles along and eventually you get to the main lift and drop.
And then a lift at the end of the ride to get you back to the station.
So an interesting concept though the bare concrete and grass means it's not much of an 'adventure'.
You can see there are plenty of other decent flats like the Booster and the Feista Mexicana. Had I had more time I probably would have given them a go, but in the end I focused on re-riding the coasters since they are unique to the park.
How do I rate the park? Junker and Thunderbird are worth the trip. I had heard the karts were good too, but I just didn't have the time.
I missed the bull riding thing too because it didn't open until late and I had to leave
In the end I did all the above once, though did 2x on Pitts Special and 3x on Junker and Thunderbird.
Visually, just wasn't a fan. Parks need to be themed, or presented well, but half and half like here means the ugly stuff undoes the efforts of the pretty stuff.
That all said, it seems like they are adding extra theming as they go.
Compare this pic from rcdb of the boomerang when the built it:
And today:
So, you wouldn't go to Finland just for this, but if you are already heading to Tampere for Sarkaniemmi then this is a good add on.
They seem to show no signs of letting up, so I'm sure more good coasters will be built here.
Feel free to ask any questions.
More photos here
https://www.parkz.com.au/search/photos/location/powerpark
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I've been thinking the same thing!
I saw some close-up shots of the face and thought it was a woman but then I've seen other ones of the whole body.
NB?
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So now it's a Proslide park?
Previously it was Whitewater, then Swimplex/Polin.
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1 hour ago, Dean Barnett said:
Just copy and paste the SWO one
How much of a saving do you anticipate by copy pasting?
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^And usually get put in last.
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Yes, Proslide offer open top versions of all their tornadoes, for example, volcano bay has 32s and of course one of the 24s at adventure Park is open top as well.
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https://www.parkz.com.au/attraction/kokpunkten
Kokpunkten was a place I found out about a year or so before my trip on Blooloop.
In a sentence, it’s an old power station that has been turned into an indoor water park and hotel, and given an ultra modern renovation and lighting package.
I love it because someone clearly had a clear big vision in their head about what it was going to be, put together a couple of contrasting things, and the result is really cool.
As a water park, it's not all that big, with only 4 major slides, but there are a few nice spas, whirlpools and interconnected pools you can explore. There's also an outdoor pool on the roof, and the option to do a "VR Dive" in the main pool.
It is located in Västerås, about 100km from Stockholm. I had stayed there the night before, so i was able to sleep in and spend the morning there before heading to the capital.
The park has free go pro rental if you sign up to their "Club", though you are asked to come back to the counter a little while after opening after they have cleared the entry crowds.As for the rides.
Black River
Never in Australia. The slide is more of a channel, with about a 30cm deep flow of water that is quite turbulent, so you are carried by the current. The layout felt like a bunch of quick s bends with the occasional longer turn. What makes it wilder is that its essentially in a big dark room, so you are just being tossed and turned, bumping against the walls. No rafts or anything, it's like canyoning.
The ride alternates modes, lights off is pitch black and not for the unconfident.
Lights on is still mostly dark, but you have the odd bit of pipework and uv paint that is illuminated.
Even getting out of the slide exit and paddling against the backflow is an effort
Inside out is one of these "Magic Eye" tube slides. Essentially an oval shaped cross section and a fairly shallow gradient, so its more about length than speed. In some ways it feels like the child that comes from the marriage of a lazy river and a raft slide.
Had some cool daylight rings on the way down as well.
There is the option to ride with a waterproof VR headset. The way it seemed to work is that there are transponders at various points on the slide and they are used to track your position.
Boomerang
This was a Boomerango type slide, but built by Wiegand rather than Whitewater West
Just like their toboggan runs, it's made of stainless steel.
This was the highlight, felt quite speedy. On other types of this slide you go down the drop, into the quarter pipe, over a little hump and then glide to a stop. On this one you carry heaps of speed over the hump and get funnelled into a couple more turns before the splashdown (also done at high speed). Hard to describe, but if feels almost scary the speed at which you hurtle into the last bit, almost like if you were going slightly off angle you'd smack into the walls or flip yourself. But of course the precision engineering has you 'threading the needle' quite well.
And of course, you can't beat the setting!
The other attraction is Double Racer
Another stainless steel Weigand slide. The low friction means you build up heaps of speed, so can make the ride as wild as you like.
Having drops at the start helps make it fast from the get go.
Note too the LED neon strips. There is a timing system and the LED strips glow green over the lane of the rider coming first at that point in time.
Transparent section too, but barely noticeable.
Overall, it's worth a look if you are in the area. A few more slides wouldn't hurt of course!
I had wanted to combine it with my day at Skara Sommarland which would have been perfect, but on the days i was there the opening hours didn't quite line up.
Photos here
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Yeah good point, I thought that after the fact.
I was thinking it was this bit.
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Nearmap from 18th of July
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Here's Nearmap from 18th of October.
Note the red ring on the ground.
Could this be a hybrid with a small funnel before a bigger one?
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Gumbuya World 2 coasters under construction
in Theme Park Discussion
Posted
The track is complete
https://www.leadstory.com/v/two-new-roller-coasters-are-being-built-at-gumbuya-world-2022112311?fbclid=IwAR3ZmLcPpAW3dxbeJRC0E66TLACcM7dzSlBUtp49mtlEzig4CcfogjC0MQs