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  1. Moana 4D confirmed? credit to the VTP execs getting Disney on board
  2. I agree that area deserves something better than a Surfrider - or an Intamin twin hammer - but making the best out of a bad situation would be, imo, throwing in the towel with Doomsday and putting the Surfrider there because: a) You need an attraction semi reliably running in your (debatably) most well themed area to justify its build cost. b) It gives people a reason to go down that end of the park (since Scooby has gone down) other than solely as a thoroughfare to WWF, decongesting the front of the park (and feel free to correct me if i'm wrong but i think there's a whole 'the further you walk, the longer you stay, the more you spend' thing Disney believe in). If the Flash was a long planned installation then yes, the helix is a better place to put it, but given the context of both Scooby and Doomsday's non operation, and as purely a filler, I believe that area of the park would be much better for the 'new' installation.
  3. Disney's Hollywood Studios https://www.parkz.com.au/search/photos/location/disneys-hollywood-studios (For more pics) Last but not least from my November trip. I ended up here on a couple of the days through park hopping. For the thrill seekers, the park probably has the best lineup at Walt Disney World. Plenty of new stuff to see here. Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance An amazing attraction. I don't think there is much that comes close in terms of being a true start to finish immersive experience with a strong storyline. Haunted mansion is great for instance, but they still whack you on an escalator at the end of the ride for example. Big Thunder is pretty, but no story right? Harry Potter is a great ride, just make sure you stay looking straight ahead! But this, its so well thought out from start to finish. You begin in a reistance base, carved out in some caverns on the edge of the settlement, full of supplies and munitions. The first preshow tells you that you have to get off the planet since your current location is no longer safe. A cute BB-8 Animatronic whirls around in a concerned manner. You then head outside and board a transport ship. It's like a mild simulator ride, (not too strong since everyone is standing up), anyhow your craft is intercepted by the first order in a space battle, and you are dragged into the shuttle bay of a star destroyer. The doors open, and you are in a completely different location, the massive void of the shuttle bay! It's real wow moment, up there with that moment on POTC where you turn the corner into that huge battle. And you turn around and there your ship is, parked against the wall. From there you are taken into custody hustled down into holding cells and locked inside. Kylo Ren and General Hux try to interrogate you, but are distracted and wander off to deal with other issues. In that moment, some unseen allies come to your rescue, and burn a hole in the wall to bust you out. From here its into your next ride vehicle, a trackless transporter. From then on, the fun really starts. You start sneaking off through the corridors of the star destroyer, but within about the 30 seconds you are spotted by some storm troopers and they open fire. This is where the Disney magic really shines, with actual laser shots ricocheting around you, holes being blown in walls etc. From then on its several minutes of running for your life through different battle scenes. At one point you are darting around like mice under the legs of an AT-AT, at another point Kylo ren sticks a lightsaber through the roof and tries to cut you up. The only real downer was that on all my rides the last couple of scenes were running in B mode. None of the huge moving laser guns were working, so your vehicle sort of just moves back and forth erratically, seemingly dodging ghosts. The final scene had no Kylo Ren animatronic, so you just see him hovering outside in his spaceship before getting shot down, and you head to the escape pods without the rushing air effect of being sucked out into space. And then of course its a wild finale where your vehicle drives into a simulator pod meets freefall ride and evacuates out of the star destroyer, crash landing on the planet. What makes this cool is the unload area is actually outdoors, so the whole thing is wrapped up in a neat little package and you are back to where you started. Did this 3 times. Ah well, maybe when i return to one of the parks it'll all be going. Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run I've done this back at Disneyland when the 'soft' opened their version of Galaxy's Edge and Rise wasn't ready yet, and then Covid happened and here I am finally seeing the rest of it in 2023. A huge recreation of the Milennium Falcon sits out front And you make your way through a well themed, but some what lifeless workshop themed queue. IMO they should have made it more like star tours with more things moving, though the soundtrack is quite humorous in this area if you listen in. And then after walking through a gangway, you board the faclon. On one ride, just before closing i had the most odd experience where I had an entire pod to myself. The ride is an on the rails shooter, with a bit of steering ability, and of course all your motion simulator fun, as you go off flying to steal some coaxium from another planet. A couple of of players shoot, a couple shoot and a couple do mostly nothing except hit one button at the right moment. So I got to take on the pilots position, with everything else being done on auto for you. Slinky Dog Dash Possibly the gentlest LSM launch in existence? The theming is quite fun, they have actually got this whole sub narrative that what you are riding on is a roller coaster kit owned by Andy, so the queue is scattered with spare bits of track and supports, as well as a lot of oversized toys. The first launch goes into a horseshoe turn and helix. Stops at the 2nd launch, which is themed a bit like a launcher on a hotwheels set. From there is a floater hill, a bunch of very mild bunny hops that would be right at home on a Japanese jet coaster, finished off with an S bend. When you are waiting on the brakes, squeaky penguin sings to you with his microphone, which was a nice surprise you dont see from the queue. This thing can get painful queues, but I tended to try and ride it later in the day and waited like 30-40 mins on both rides. Alien Swirling Saucers This is the same ride as Maters Junkyard Jamboree, several turntables interconnected so you move in a double figure 8 pattern, with some mechanism below the floor allowing your car to move from one turntable to the next. What is also cool is that your car is connected to the turntable by a springloaded tow bar, so your car drifts and swings wildly from side to side, not unlike the classic whip rides. Good fun. The "pizza planet" in the middle of the ride is a nice detail. Now why dont they have an ACTUAL pizza planet at Disney, it would be a license to print money Lightning McQueen's Racing Academy Fine for kids, but its Disney so its still decent. Imagine an animatronic Lighting mcqueen with a projection mapped eyes and mouth. Hey greets the crowd, moving about on his podium. He then demonstrates his speed, with a panoramic racing simulator on a giant screen behind. But his arch rival hacks in to try and beat him, but of course McQueen prevails. Tower of Terror Still excellent. As the prototype, this one actually has a section where your vehicle moves from one lift to another through a brief dark ride scene, with some cool optical illusions. Paris still wins out in terms of sheer intensity of the ride programme, and probably Tokyo has the best preshow. Rock n Roller Coaster Some embuggerance with this one, as it kept bloody breaking down. Surprisingly, one of my favourite things about this is how the whole loading area is themed. The preshow has you watching Aerosmith recording in their studio, and they invite you to join them at their concert via stretch limousine. When you step out the back door of the studio, you are in an alleyway, and your limousine is waiting in a multi level car park, but the theming is so immersive, eg the operators booth is inside the cashiers office, the secondary control panel is on the call box, there’s all sorts of other details like a motorbike being fixed, and even a low clearance height bar above the track where it leaves the station. The launch is powerful, and its a smooth, frantic layout full of positive gs, with a sea serpent roll, a lot of helices, and then a surprise corkscrew at the end. Mickey and Minnies Runaway Railway This one is fantastic. You head into the chinese theatre, ready to watch a short film featuring Mickey and Minnie on a road trip, (Hmm reminds me of how the gremlins ride started out). On the way, they meet goofy driving a train, and an explosion on the train in the cartoon creates a real explosion in the theatre, creating a smoking hole in the wall that leads to the cartoon realm. You are invited to pass through, and inside, everything is done in the art style of the cartoon, with scribbled details on the walls, 2d props etc. The ride vehicles are a train of trackless pods behind a locomotive driven by goofy. Shortly into the ride your cars become detached from the loco, spinning out of control through a number of projection mapped scenes, often taking different routes. On the way you keep encountering Mickey and Minnie in peril. One scene had you caught up in a tornado, with very strong winds. Another was in a big city, where a jackhammering worker causes everything to shake. An impressive moment is where a room has faux rockwork and looks like a jungle, but when you return to it, it has transformed into an underwater environment. There’s also a nice moment where you end up in a dance studio run by daisy duck, and all the vehicles waltz side to side in unison. But, the quality of the graphics was something else, it just looks so bright and crisp, like a blacklight painting come to life, and they have managed to incorporate other moving props into it seamlessly. Did this a couple of times. I ended up timing it to try a few of the food items at the park. The Totchos from Woody's Lunchbox are a big ole bowl of carbs. Chilli con carne with corn chips and potato gems. But i think the 'blandness' of the corn chips overpowers everything. And i was sure to have booked in a drink at Oga's Cantina. I was recommended to try a Fuzzy Tauntan, which was rum and a few other sour flavours, but the foam on top actually made your lips go numb, like as if it had Lignocaine in it or something. The other drink i had was like a juice blend with coloured boba balls floating in it. They had a theatre showing newer Mickey Mouse shorts. Since when did it become like Ren and Stimpy? Overall, I think the park has one of the best ride lineups at Disney, and a mixed bag in terms of Immersive theming. Star Wars and Toy Story are great, but the rest of it is generic city streets and backlot theming, with a fair bit of the latter being under renovation. *****************************
  4. I just found this article from the Financial Review from November 2023, that hasn't been shared on Parkz yet. The article mainly talks about the history of the Kirby family's involvement in Village Roadshow and the ups and downs of it, but also talk about the parks near the end, which include some interesting details. Hidden behind Movie World on the Gold Coast is a low-rise office block painted in a shade of cream that gives a whiff of the 1990s. Inside the boardroom sit Robert and Clark Kirby, father and son, the third and fourth generations of a family who built the most successful entertainment company Australia has ever seen. Village Roadshow dominated the box office and the TV ratings for decades. Its hits included The Wiggles, Skippy, Mad Max, Bananas in Pyjamas, Brides of Christ, Priscilla: Queen of the Desert and Muriel’s Wedding. The company ran film studios, drives-ins, cinemas and theme parks. It produced VHS tapes, board games and CDs, and was early to bankroll FM radio. With cinemas and video distribution across Asia, Europe and the United States, Village snaked around the globe. It co-produced Hollywood blockbusters like The Matrix and bought theme parks from Hawaii to Hainan. Clark Kirby at Movie World: “We are by far the dominant force in the theme park industry here in Australia.“. Louie Douvis That dominance, which traces its origins back to the 1930s, is no more. A family fight turned into one of the nation’s most compelling boardroom battles as John Kirby carried out a sustained campaign against Robert – the company’s chairman and his brother. It sent the once publicly listed Village Roadshow private. Away from the spotlight, it shrugged off its gargantuan international ambitions to focus on Australian cinemas and theme parks such as Movie World on Queensland’s Gold Coast, a destination for ageing tour buses ambling off the Pacific Motorway. But this is not the Kirbys’ final act. Robert and Clark are speaking for the first time in depth about the family strain and the roller coaster ride that followed. They’re even talking about how the next generation might get involved, which would make the Kirbys unique in the upper echelons of Australian business – a family who’ve held on through five generations. “Wanna go see a theme park?” asks Clark. With tile-white teeth and voluminous black hair, the CEO of Village Roadshow is animated in real life. As we walk from the office behind film sets and into the park it’s a different world, heaving with school holiday traffic. Teens slurping snow cones dart in front of red-faced parents carrying inflatable carnival prizes. Tiny girls in tutus collapse in giggles after Superman throws a wave. Car revs fill the air from the Hollywood Stunt Driver 2 show running nearby. Clark Kirby on the cover of the December 2023 issue. Louie Douvis As Clark poses for The Australian Financial Review Magazine’s photographer, it’s clear this is not his first rodeo in front of a camera. Indeed, he seems disappointed at how tame the requested poses are. Not many CEOs want to appear in advertisements for their own company but Clark, 44, isn’t like most CEOs. He’s been made up as a zombie for Movie World’s “fright nights”, has been photographed on roller coasters and at one point was stopped by his own staff, for occupational health and safety reasons, from bungy-jumping for a photo op. His wife, Sara – a former Saturday Disney host and Seven News weather presenter – and three daughters fronted the company’s promos when the parks reopened following COVID. “He’s our Walt Disney,” says his father, Robert, who’s joined us on the Movie World tour, having just flown up from his Melbourne base. By now we’re standing next to the Looney Tunes Carousel, with Roadrunner, Marvin the Martian and a turban-wearing Bugs Bunny spinning round and round. With his cartoon-like Colgate shine, angular silver eyebrows and gregarious nature, Robert could almost blend in. Aged 72, he is training for his fifth marathon in two years. “He’ll take you through it in great detail, if you’d like,” says Clark, butting in as his dad explains he’s been measuring his heart rate since the mid-80s. He wears two smartwatches and listens to his arteries via a chest strap. Clark might not be in the same league as America’s most famous animator and entrepreneur, but he has reason to smile. Against the odds, a Kirby comeback is under way. They now own a smaller stake in the business – 22 per cent down from 42 per cent when it was publicly listed – but they say it has turned a corner. “We have evolved, shaped and steered the development of the entertainment industry in this country,” says the grandson of Village’s founder, Roc Kirby, and potentially the heir to the empire, depending on the next move by BGH, the private equity firm that owns 78 per cent. “[Now] as we come out of COVID, our focus is on the experiential component of entertainment, and it has never been more important.” Village’s Gold Coast theme parks – Warner Bros. Movie World, Sea World, Paradise Country and Wet’n’Wild – are benefiting from the wave of post-COVID revenge spending as tourists stream in. A day pass costs $105 and earnings are up 50 per cent on pre-COVID years, Clark says. Their resurgence comes as the stock of the company’s major competitor, Ardent Leisure, is down 25 per cent so far this year and shareholders are agitating for change. Globally, theme parks are enjoying quite the ride. Disneyland has pledged to spend $60 billion over the next 10 years to expand its parks – and so far there are no plans for an Australian park. “We are,” says Clark, “by far the dominant force in the theme park industry here in Australia.” And investors agree – Village Roadshow’s theme parks are in a league of their own. Says Christopher Mittleman, chief investment officer of former Village shareholder Mittleman, from New York: “Even though it’s not Disney World, it is probably the closest thing you’ve got to it over there. And Disney World itself is probably not a looming threat because the market’s a bit small for them to build one over there.” If there ever was a Walt Disney of Australia, it’s arguably Robert and John’s father, Roc. He didn’t start the family business – his father, George, had gotten into cinemas in the 1930s after a fire at their dairy farm – but he is central to the Village story. In the Second World War, he was tasked with becoming a radio operator in Papua New Guinea. Aged 23 at the time, his technical skills learnt from operating projectors in the cinema led him to dip behind enemy lines to report on the positions of the Japanese imperial army as well as intercept enemy transmissions as part of the secretive Australian special wireless group. “He worked behind the lines . . . and called in the air strikes,” Robert says. “He’d have five to 10 minutes to get out because they would just zero in on the radio contact points, and storm in, and they were never more than 100 to 200 yards away from the Japanese.” Encased in tropical heat and surrounded by malaria-carrying mosquitoes, the allied soldiers dreamed of the movies. Roc came back from New Guinea determined to set up a “drive in” just like his American soldier friends had described during their downtime. Once back in Melbourne, he set about convincing the local council as well as his father, who derided the plan as “pictures in a paddock”. But Village’s cinemas grew and grew. Robert and John joined the business when they were seven, selling lollies. “Everyone works in the cinema once you get to a certain age,” Robert says. Joining them in the business was Graham Burke, who began working at Village as a ticket collector and cleaner when he was 14. He became so close to the family he was known as the cinema mogul’s adopted son. In 1971, Village formed what would become one of the company’s most lucrative partnerships: a deal with Warner Brothers to distribute its movies in Australia. Burke, who was known for his frequent trips to Hollywood, was the driving force behind the move, according to Milt Barlow, a former Village executive who counts his time there as a career highlight. “Graham probably spoke to Warner Brothers four times a day,” he says. After Roc retired in 1988 – when the company listed on the ASX – the brothers and Burke, now CEO, expanded the business into a sprawling entertainment conglomerate, each man taking a different segment. “John was more heavily involved in the radio stations, and Rob more in home entertainment while Graham lived, ate and breathed movies,” says Barlow. They had uncanny luck in predicting shifts in technology. Roc always thought cinemas would remain king, but Robert was convinced that many would prefer to watch films at home. “The story goes that Robert was given $1 million to lose, sent to Sydney to do this silly thing called Roadshow Home Video and he very quickly made that very successful,” says Barlow. At times, it felt like Village’s executives had golden fingers. The company took a chance on a hybrid video board game called Nightmare. It was a cult success that went global, selling hundreds of thousands of units a year. Village also got lucky with Darren Hayes and Daniel Jones’ pop duo, Savage Garden. They were the only label to agree to the royalty deal demanded by notoriously tough agent John Woodruff; it was around double the rate record companies were paying at the time. But it paid off when the band pulled in millions of dollars. Robert Kirby: “My grandchildren would love to take over our jobs.” Louie Douvis “It was a decade where we grew the company into all sorts of areas – it was a glory time,” Barlow says. And everyone wanted a piece. Some of Australia’s wealthiest families bought Village stock; the Libermans and the Packers. Roc vaulted up the Rich List; Burke and his two sons became the highest-paid entertainment executives in Australia. They drove headlines with plans to buy Channel Seven and declarations that they would soon make as much money in Asia as Australia. Their dress matched the way they talked – Burke was fond of oversized glasses, John wore cowboy boots. They were a vertically integrated behemoth, with the ability to produce a film, shoot it in their part-owned studios and distribute it through their home video outlets and cinemas (and even get a cut of the popcorn). In 2011, Village Roadshow decided to sell out of its radio assets, which it had owned since the early 1980s when it was an original investor in Sydney’s 2Day FM, one of Australia’s first FM radio stations. “We are just circus folks,” said Burke at the time. “Our focus is on pure entertainment businesses. We’re not interested in anything more high-falutin’ than that.” It was a sign of what was to come. It was Village Roadshow’s rocky road to privatisation that truly wrote the family into Australian corporate lore. In some ways, the pain started with the horrific accident that killed four people on the Thunder River Rapids Ride at Ardent Leisure’s Dreamworld in October 2016, just up the road from Movie World. The tragedy, and Ardent’s poor handling of the aftermath, became a national scandal, and attendances at theme parks everywhere, including those owned by Village, began to fall. In the next few years, Village’s share price spiralled, and eventually the company paused dividends. The year 2018 was an exceptionally bad one. The share price dropped to just $1.77 in July, after nudging above $8 four years earlier, and it struggled under a heavy debt load. Village sold Wet’n’Wild Sydney – which it had spent more than $100 million building up – for just $40 million, and conducted a controversial capital raise. John became fed up. Even though he was a co-founder and had a holding equal to both his brother and Burke, he was no longer a salaried executive, having stepped back after the sale of the radio assets. Since Burke and Robert were aligned on the company’s strategy, John had lost control. As the company shed hundreds of millions in market capitalisation, John launched an all-out offensive, pointing out high salaries and raising questions over related party transactions such as Village buying wine from Robert’s vineyard, and swimwear from a business owned by Burke’s daughter. John wanted his brother to step down as chair and Burke to step down as CEO, and hired a bevy of corporate advisers, including former Rothschild investment bank boss David Kingston and legal firm Arnold Bloch Leibler. The battle for Village exploded into the public arena. At the company’s 2018 annual general meeting, Kingston described Village as the “dunce of the class”. The internal feud came as the streaming revolution arrived, displacing Village. “I can remember Graham saying the internet is for email and accountants, people are never going to watch movies on the internet,” says Barlow, hurrying to add that he saw Burke as a “giant” in the industry. A line was drawn under the affair in 2020 when the business was sold. Several private equity firms were interested, but the disruption of COVID meant that BGH was the last bidder standing and took just over three quarters for $586 million. “I am bitterly disappointed,” Mittleman said at the time, adding that smaller shareholders felt “ripped off” at what he thought amounted to a fire sale in the midst of the pandemic. “[This was a] disgraceful affair for all who facilitated it.” The rest of the company was left for Burke, Robert and John. Clark, who had been working as an investment banker at UBS, was appointed as CEO. “I don’t think BGH particularly wanted the Kirbys’ involvement but I think it was probably what massaged the deal across the line,” says one person familiar with the events. John Kirby (left), Robert Kirby and Graham Burke at Movie World for an AGM in 1995. Robert Rough Reflecting on the deal, Robert says BGH was a natural choice, having known the firm’s founding partner, Ben Gray, for more than a decade. “We have a long family history over the years, a long friendly history,” he says. And the Kirbys were never going to sell out entirely from the business that’s their legacy. “The fact is BGH bought in because of our management, we pitched the concept to them, they bought in . . . not immodestly, because of us,” says Clark. “[But] I have hurdles I have to hit as part of my employment, it’s in my contract.” Robert still rankles at the suggestion that the company was run off the rails and denies Village’s privatisation was inevitable. Instead, he says, it was caused by “dark clouds” generated by the media. “We were never under the threat of banks,” he says. “We still and always did have the alternative to continue as a public company and for the family to have that totality [of control]. Now we share that control with BGH.” Clark concedes the episode put the family under enormous pressure. “I certainly felt it myself, in terms of what is the future direction for this business,” he says. John and Robert Kirby in 1998. Robert Rough Like his father, Clark is dismissive of claims the company was poorly run. “It was great newspaper fodder at that time because we’re an entertainment company,” he says. Adds Robert: “There was just a lot of misinformation and innuendo and headlines and sensationalism that, I think, was wildly inaccurate.” And what of relations with John, who – along with Burke –  declined to be interviewed for this story? Like an experienced improv performer, Robert weaves and dodges when he’s asked about his relationship with his brother. Eventually conceding to answer, he proclaims the dispute affected everyone else more than it ever affected him. “John Kirby and I, well before any . . . dispute became public, we do live separate lives. And I have to say, that’s continued,” Robert says, eyebrows resettling. “But right now, John and Graham and I are very contented, happy shareholders in what is the new privatised Village Roadshow.” Three years on, the Kirbys are still in the process of lowering their heart rates. Before first light on the Gold Coast’s lush hinterland where he lives, Clark submerges daily in an ice bath, identical to the one he bought his father. The two sleep so well these days, they compete via their matching Oura rings. “I certainly have enjoyed being a private company a lot more than a public company,” Clark says. Talking to father and son, it’s almost as if in the Kirbys’ minds, BGH’s role as owner is one of backstage hands. “Murdoch does not even own 51 per cent of News Corp,” says Robert, who refers to his private equity backers as “partners”. BGH has three directors on the six-person board, one of which is Ben Gray, who sealed the deal and closely follows the company’s moves. Since the takeover, the company has a new head of its cinema division, a new finance director and a new company lawyer. “There’s been pretty significant changes to the management structure since BGH took over,” a person with knowledge of the company says. And yet still, there are vestiges of what was always a family business. “Whether it be a public company, whether it’s a private equity vehicle, we’re still seen at our heart as a family company,” Clark says. Village Roadshow is now doing a debt raise and restructure after it was left with an eclectic set of lenders, such as the Bank of India, in the lead-up to the privitisation. Clark tries to stop Robert discussing it, saying it’s confidential, but he’s brushed away. “We have the opportunity to find more debt facilities for both the opportunity to fund our future growth and secondly . . . potentially make a capital distribution to shareholders,” Robert says as Clark looks on, exasperated. Clark Kirby: “It was great newspaper fodder at that time because we’re an entertainment company.” Louie Douvis The parks have allowed the Kirbys to pull a rabbit out of a hat. Village has just finished a major renovation of Sea World to install The New Atlantis, an extensive precinct with a wooden roller coaster. Tens of millions are now being spent on a vast Wizard of Oz zone at Movie World, which Robert says will have a value of $100 million. It’s due to open in 2024. More hotels will follow, incorporating elements from the theme parks into the rooms and surrounds. They will offer, Clark says, “a truly immersive experience”. The cinema division, which operates in partnership with Alan Rydge’s Event Cinemas, comes up less in conversation. Rydge and the Kirbys have a long history; Rydge was a shareholder in the private vehicle, which in turn held a majority of the listed Village Roadshow. “There is some alignment between Melbourne people,” one person close to the families says. Clark says the premiumisation of their cinemas is “incredibly important” and argues streaming services have failed when only releasing movies via their own websites. “The pandemic proved once and for all that it’s far more valuable to release in cinemas than just on a streaming service,” he says. But post-COVID, cinemas are struggling outside of blockbusters such as Barbie. Wang Jianlin, the Chinese entertainment billionaire, has been trying to sell his Hoyts chain in Australia, but turned down a $700 million offer earlier this year and failed to get his $1 billion asking price, according to people familiar. The deal rumour mill is already swirling about whether BGH has a shorter timeline for hanging onto Village’s cinemas. “The general consensus is that theatres are ... in secular decline,” Mittleman says. Were there to be a sale, he says owners of Village may be thinking that they would have a “better chance of getting a fair value in the public markets when you’re not tainted by a lower-margin, lower-growth type of business” such as the cinemas. The Kirbys are aware the clock is ticking. “[BGH] want to continue to see growth in the [overall] business,” Clark says. “Yes, they will want to monetise their investment at some point. We expect that within the next three to five years.” When Packer’s Nine started building a stake in Village back in 1991, the company’s then-general manager, Ieuan Mapperson, moved to squash rumours the Kirby family’s hold over the company would loosen. “I can assure you that these are people who are thinking of their great-grandchildren’s equity in the business,” he says. Is there any sign of that changing? Robert is steadfast: “You should mention this. My five grandchildren would love to take over our jobs.” Clark, whose daughters are aged seven, 10 and 12, is clear-eyed. “They would all love my job. But their impression of my job is that I ride roller coasters and play with dolphins every day.” Some interesting notes there: Wizard of Oz land will reportedly have a value of $100m More hotels will be built that incorporate elements from the parks into them The wording sounds to me like there will be more hotels than just the one outside Movie World. The question is, where could they be and what style could they be?
  5. Yeah… disappointing. Appears to be no external vendors and only a slight variation to their normal offerings. I guess this is why they’ve dropped the “street” and only refer to it as “food festival”. There originally was high hopes of this event soon to be on par with Disney or Seven Seas… not any more. I think it’s time to drop the event altogether, back to the drawing board for something new.
  6. Magic Kingdom - Walt Disney World https://www.parkz.com.au/attraction/magic-kingdom I actually kicked off my 3 days at WDW at Magic Kingdom. Plenty of new stuff to see. Things are a bit more high tech at Disney these days, you can load your ticket into google wallet and tap in at the entrances, entering Lightning Lanes (the new name for fast pass) , and the app is pretty comprehensive in terms of being able to check wait times and order food, and credit to them this aspect is all very tight. The more recent points of contention is Genie Plus and Lightning Lanes and Boarding Groups for certain attractions. Basically, fast pass is no longer free, that's an extra cost to use per day, and the service is branded through the app "Genie Plus" I did without it on 2 of my 3 days since crowds seemed light enough and I could game single rider a bit. I swear though they inflate wait times to encourage people to use it. On certain rides you can also pay to skip the line on a one shot basis and enter via the Lighting Lane, and well, I ended up doing this for Tron and 7 Dwarves mine train, more on them later. And finally, boarding groups. At the time of my visit, due to their newness and popularity, Tron and Guardians (At EPCOT) both require you to go into a ballot for a time to board the ride. They do one drop at 7am, and another at 1pm. It does make it a little stressful because who wants to come all that way to ride the new stuff and have it come down to luck. Personally I think they should still offer standby. If someone wants to wait 2-3 hours to ride the new thing, more power to em! I did witness a couple of people at the entrance who were not familiar with the system a bit annoyed about being unable to ride and the complexity of it. But it turned out not to be a worry. If you are on the app at 7am and refresh as soon as the clock ticks over, you can pretty easily end up with a timeslot to ride in the morning. Despite this, I still also bought a one shot lighting lane for tron just because I wanted a guaranteed re-ride. I rocked up early: I had a plan to rope drop Seven Dwarves Mine Train, but it was broken down so I started on Goofys Barnstormer Standard vekoma roller skater but the theming is really really well done. In fact, I had never ventured into the whole circus area before, but I loved it. Under the Sea - Journey of The Little Mermaid Also new to me. An omnimover dark ride with some really detailed theming right from the start. The beginning is pretty cool, with Scuttle the seagull trying to explain Airels story in a confused manner, before your ride vehicle goes downhill and 'under the sea', with projectors used on the walls to create a sense of dropping below the waterline. The ride is fun and colourful, with a huge scene of fishes dancing to "Under the Sea". The ride kind of skips over the whole epic battle with Ursula and just has Ariel transitioning to human and getting married to Prince Eric. Very well done, and I can imagine kids would find it magical. A certain foodstuff I had wanted to try was LeFous brew from Gastons Tavern. It's basically frozen apple juice, topped with passionfruit foam, which was the most tart thing ever, it was like straight passionfruit cordial mixed with wizzfiz or something. With some time to kill until my TRON timeslot I reacquainted myself with Space Mountain. I still reckon the HK/DL/DLP versions are better, just lacks something without the music IMHO. The layout is a little tighter on the MK version and feels like a wild mouse. The exit route has way more theming than my last visit, with various cheesy displays of futurism. Finally it was time for TRON Lightcycle Run. The scale of this ride is enormous, with a huge canopy and broad elevated walkways leading to the entrance, with trains thundering overhead regularly. Once you get inside its a whole bunch of black corridors with neons and backlit graphics. The coolest feature however is a little preshow room with switchable glass with a projection. After a bit of fluff about being "scanned into the world of Tron", the glass turns transparent, revealing the trains launching below and some seriously cool looking theming. The double sided locker system works well, and has hundreds of bays. The trains have you hunkering down a lot more compared to your average straddle coaster, it's practically like being on a flying coaster. Some people have commented the ride is 'short' but its 1km long. I think what happens is people mentally dont count the outdoor section, and focus only on the indoor part. The indoor part is pretty cool, with you racing through glowing checkpoints, plus the occasional wall projection of other lightcycles racing against you. One thing that sets it apart from other indoor coasters is the turns are a lot larger and more sweeping. It's not like they have tried to cram a spaghetti of track into a box, its more like a full sized launch coaster that happens to be in a building. Impressive ride! No sign of Seven Dwarves being open on the app so I decided to try a few other tomorrowland attractions I've never done. First Astro Orbiter, which offers some great elevated views over the land. Then Peoplemover, which also offers moderately elevated views, interspersed with a few little dark ride scenes with a bit of a silly space age feel to them all. I had never done Carousel of Progress so gave this one a spin too. It's a rotating theatre, and during the show you stop in front of animatronic dioramas of a family in the 1900s, the 1920s, 1940s and so on, with the patriarch of the family talking all about all the latest and greatest developments in the world, eg the 1920s talked about how you could travel coast to coast by train, and how Babe Ruth was hitting home runs, and how their house now had brand new electric lights. And then you get to the 2000s bit and it was like 1990s mixed with back to the future. At that point it was time for my paid re-ride on Tron. First ride was in the back, so I took the front this time (It's never a long wait to request a front seat at Disney I find) Back is better if you want to see all the projections on the wall and more of the theming, but front is better if you want to stick your hands out and pretend to fly and feel the wind. What other new stuff was there for me to see. Never had done Country Bear Jamboree so that was a must. Loved this detail on the floor of the foyer. The show takes the piss out of rednecks, with the bears in the show singing drunkenly, having buck teeth, and even alluding to dressing in morally questionable (For the 1900s) mannee. Entertaining, I imagine the local audience would probably get more out of the stereotypes. When It came time to ride Big Thunder Mountain it started raining heavily. Fortunately the queue is all undercover, and they have added various themed interactive things in the queue, like Zeotropes, and fresh air monitors with displeased canaires inside. And yeah, Big Thunder running in the wet rocks! Swung by the conversion of Splash Mountain into Tianas Bayou Adventure. Enchanted Tiki Room was up next (Geez Im having a passive day!), a colourful animatronic show with four main singing birds, each with a stereotypical accent (French, German, Spanish, Irish), plus hordes of other birds that are lowered up and down from the ceiling for duets and choral sets. Its funny how times change, at the time it opened people were mesmerised by singing birds, but I guess today it feels like a room full of those novelty singing birds you get a tobacconist/gift shop. The sets are beautiful though, and the actual lyrics and storyline are entertaining. Swiss Family Treehouse is always worth a stroll through. And I couldn't pass up a ride on Pirates of the Caribbean, still the benchmark in terms of being the most immersive classic Disney ride IMHO. At this point, Seven Dwarves was still not open, and they had even put out a push notification to everyone apologising for the extended downtime. Another food I wanted to try was in Adventureland, Cheeseburger and Pizza Spring rolls (You get one of each). Still wish our parks had more gimmicky snacks like this on rotation. A total surprise to me was discovering they had a Christmas overlay of Jungle Cruise called Jingle Cruise. Most of the fun of it seems to come in the form of extra christmas theming in the queue with a tropical twist. During the ride itself, the jokes are just as corny, but of course with Christmas related puns. Further Christmas decorations on the way too At that point in the day I realised there was one other attraction on my hit list I had wanted to check out, Enchanted Tales with Belle. I was thinking it was more of a walkthrough, and it has a little bit of that, but by and large its a kids meet n greet that has a fancy beginning and some cool animatronics. The main thing I wanted to see was the magic mirror effect they have, which appears to magically grow larger on the wall in front of you and open up to reveal a direct portal into the Beauty and the Beast castle that you walk through. It's a pretty cool trick how they achieve it, and there are YT videos showing how they do it, so I wont spoil it. Surprised this hasn't been used on other attractions. Once you get inside they have a talking wardrobe, and most impresive, lumiere the candle, with actual moving flames on his 'arms', which fully move and gesture as he talks. But yeah other than that they get the kids up front and give them cardboard cut outs to 'act out' a scene from Beauty and the Beast, and then Belle turns up and meets the kids, so yeah not really worth it unless you have young kids. But, finally, Seven Dwarves Mine Train opened...And I was still stuck in this thing! The wait times were already building up, so I bit the bullet and paid for another lighting lane to get on it. Good Thing I did when I arrived at the entrance, the standby wait time had blown out past 90 mins, and even the lightning lane entrance was backed up. This ride has intrigued me since it has swinging cars just like Orphan Rocker at Scenic World, so it was good to get a glimpse at what it would have been like. Actually great fun, and the theming is really detailed, particularly halfway through where you go into the gem mine and all the dwarves are singing 'hi ho hi ho its off to work we go', with full projection mapped faces on each one of them, and lighting effects from all the glowing gems. The cars do actually get a a decent swing going 2 or 3 times during the run. I was expecting Disneyfied toned down intensity, but nah this was good! And I think that's all I did. I was still a bit jetlagged so felt there was a high risk of falling asleep If i did something like Small World, so park hopped to somewhere a little more energetic..... Did you know the streak down the middle of the street Liberty Square is meant to represent raw sewage of the olden days.
  7. If no roller coasters are opened - everyone should be offered a return for free pass at the gate. No questions asked. It’s embarrassing - I can’t recommend anyone go there. You either go in peak school holiday season when you’re lucky to get on 4 rides during their piss weak operating hours - or go during the off season when it’s not even possible to line up for a ride. Pathetic. Heaps of parks (even Disney) offer to return for free if the rides are closed due to circumstances they can’t control (weather) - Movie World are in complete control of their maintenance schedule and they still choose to charge full price.
  8. Disney's Animal Kingdom https://www.parkz.com.au/attraction/disneys-animal-kingdom Back to Disney, this time Disney's Animal Kingdom. I ended up heading here in the late afternoon on a couple of my days at WDW. I've been here before and it doesn't necessarily take a huge amount of time to see the park regardless. For the time that I had I didn't really take an issue with skipping over Kilimanjaro Safaris and Kali River Rapids for example. Of course, my main target was Pandora - The World of Avatar. You can spend ages wandering around and admiring the detailed theming. Here is when it really pays to visit in the evening, since you can enjoy the land after dark where it really puts it's lippy on. Satu'li Canteen probably has the best food in the parks too: I started off with Flight of Passage, a ride known for its huge queues, but somehow I was through in 30 mins! The queue is well themed from start to finish. In particular the avatar research lab has a massive amount of detail, right down to seemingly living blobs that move around inside their containers. And of course an avatar in a tank that is kicking and moving as it floats in its sleep. A long preshow explains the whole concept for those who don't know much about the Avatar universe. Basically Pandora is an alien planet inhabitied by the Na'vi. They have bred clones of the Na'vi called "avatars" that humans can control via a neural link, allowing humans to better explore Pandora.... ...and even take part in riding on Banshees, a flying creature that Na'vi ride for fun. The ride is like a much more intense version of a flying theatre. There's no gentle soaring over landscapes here. You are wearing 3D glasses, and diving, twisting and moving quite aggressively the whole time, apart from a brief breather halfway through where you stop in a cave and those little flying jellyfish spore things land on you. Felt on par to me to those simulated flying sequences on Harry Potter and the forbidden journey. The rows of seats are even able to drop a few meters, allowing for actual freefall moments during the ride! And the graphics are spectacular, and very colourful. The seat looks a bit like a Zamperla Disko seat, with some extra vibrating seat pads, and even some inflating air bags to give the feeling the banshee you are riding is breathing. A great trick is done to transition you into the ride film. Your seat has tiny little led strobes that flicker right in your eyes, and as they do this they quickly open the door in front of your seats, play some more flickering lights on the dome screen and then wham, you 'wake up' in the world of Pandora. Na'vi River Cruise is the other attraction. Suprisingly this thing had a longer wait whenever I looked. It's a pleasant well themed dark boat ride through scenes from Pandora. But I guess the thing for me was, the ride scenes and theming are just like what you have already seen out in the main park, with the difference of a few screens showing animals scurrying around and some additional moving things overhead. Though it does come good in the end with a dancing singing Na'vi priest lady. And the queue is quite beautiful, seemingly built by the Na'vi, and full of artefacts. As for the rest of the park. Harambe Marketplace is food district the park opened. Again, the food here is great if you actually want something proper with a bit of flavour. I think i had some Chicken flatbread thing with tahini. They certainly got the developing country vibe right, love the meta copyright infringement. Expedition Everest is fun as always, and quite pleasant at sunset. Dinosaur is a motion based dark ride with exactly the same layout as Indiana Jones, but something about it doesn't click for me. I think it's because is so homogenous from start to finish. You are riding around in a jeep in a dark jungle looking for a particular dinosaur just before the asteroid wipes out the dinosaurs. But it's the same thing the whole way through. Twist and turn then stop, the onboard computer IDs a dinosaur next to the track, nope its not that one, twist and turn some more, another dinosaur, nope not that one either, etc etc repeat that for most of the ride. It eventually reaches a crescendo at the end. You know how on Indinana jones you dive underneath a boulder. On this one you dive under a giant T-Rex head that lunges at you (Clearly inspired by the ending of Jurrassic Park River Adventure!) They took out the Spinning Coasters, but they still have that Dinorama area. The gift shop is worth a look for how zany it is inside. Tough to Be a Bug I did for old times sake, and because the posters in the waiting area is funny. The show is presented like a cabaret of different bugs on stage. Creative use of 4D effects in the cinema, with stink bugs and poisonous bugs shooting at you, and even ones that sting. The other ride I had wanted to do (I've managed to miss on previous visits) is the wildlife express train, but it closes quite early in the afternoon. Ah well, guess I'll ride it in a few years time. And thats Animal Kingdom.
  9. If this is true, then this looks amazing. Better than I expected. Looks to be up to standard with the big chains (Universal/Disney). I am very happy both Village and Coast are starting to get into the immersive land business. One thing I hope will happen is the Scooby elevator gets painted over, it will be weird seeing a land with very immersive theming and there is a white rectangle in the middle of it.
  10. Epcot 14/11/2023 https://www.parkz.com.au/search/photos/location/epcot for heaps more pics. Epcot is undergoing a bit of work, and they are really leaning into their retrofuturism, particularly with the renovations of some buildings in the hub, a new sculpture at the entrance and new icons for each attraction. And you know its kinda fun. They acknowledge the place is a timewarp, much like tomorrowland, but they are leaning into it. Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind Woweee. Did this twice, again by getting an early boarding group via the app by refreshing at 7am, plus forking out for a one shot lighting lane. An amazing achievement and a massive coaster. The queue ties into Epcot by posing as an exhibit about the planet Xandar. Xandarians have come to earth to teach us about their planet, and are even inviting us up to their mothership via teleportation. The teleportation is done well, a similar effect I think to the old Poseidon's fury at ioa where you go into a room, the lights go out, and the walls are lifted up to reveal a bigger room surrounding you. Of course, something goes wrong when a bad guy steals the cosmic generator from the ship, and before you know it you are loaded into trains to chase after him. The ride uses controlled spinning, and the building is divided into two huge halls with long screens running the lengths. The "preshow bit of the coaster" passes a few big screens, before you are rotated backwards and sent down a long launch with electrical effect's. The track twists and turns along each room, and the battle plays out, moving along the screen with you, and even distorts away as the track turns away from the screen. The rotation of the car keeps you focused on the action. I got "Im gonna getcha getcha getcha" on one of my rides, I forget the other song. No miami disco for me. Mission Space. This one has has a slight facelift since last time, with new films for both the extreme and gentle versions. For those who don't know, you sit in a simulator pod, suspended from a centrifuge, allowing for strong Gs during the ride. The gentle version has the centrifuge deactivated, so is just like a normal simulator and has you doing an orbit around the world, with some of the most cliche commentary ever...."soon we will pass over Japan, the land of the rising sun....below you can see Paris, the city of light. Things get a bit energetic towards the end where there is a storm as you come into land, throwing your space shuttle about. The extreme version.... Damn i forgot how intense this is, or maybe Im getting older. The ride is based around a mission to Mars. The bit during take off has quite long periods of sustained Gs, like a powerful rotor type ride. There a breather in the middle as you go into "hypersleep" for a few months to reach mars. And then an exciting sequence for Landing where you almost go off a cliff! Skipped Soarin because they were running the darn old Californian film (I'd wanted to try the new one!) Test Track Ehhh, I liked the old one better. The previous version of the ride was themed like an actual crash test facility, with your car swerving around cones, over rough surfaces, through a heat chamber etc. very fun and practical feeling. The new version tries to give the impression you are in a "sim car" , and all the interior theming of the ride is like tron. This is tied together with a preshow where you craft a car on a touchscreen, and yeah its fun coming up with some sort of abomination. I tried to do a car like the one homer simpson designed but gave up. But now i think the computer theme makes it too farfetched and sterile feeling imo. Still the outdoor section at high speed is pretty exhilarating still. Ratatouille This one I thought was better than the one in Paris, because the cars were able to shake slightly, which was deactivated in Paris for some reason. It made the motion on the screen have a bit more feel, kind of like the seats in a 4d cinema. The motion isn't Spiderman/Transformers level, but still pretty good. Journey into Imagination is quite silly. Typical Disney dark ride with rotating cars, but this one has them in trains, with a few dips in the track too. The ride is themed like an institute for inventors. The queue passes various office doors with punny names and odd things going on inside The ride takes you on a tour of labs, but the irritating dragon figment causes mayhem and sings a song Frozen Ever After The queue for this is a bit hellish, with streams of lightling lane users and then 3 or 4 people from standby, so spent about an hour stuck in this nicley themed, but crowded town square themed queue line. I haven't seen the film so can't really comment. One thing that struck me was how dark it is inside. Its not so much a white snowy wonderland, but a lot of blacklight theming and dimly lit scenes, which to be fair give it a real nordic dark winter feel. Journey of Water - Inspired by Moana This is quite nice, a walkthrough with all kinds of interactive fountains, including waterfalls that shut off right as you walk through, ones that respond to your hand waving, a water harp, pop jets for little kids, and a spectacular one that simulated waves crashing against the shoreline. My only comment would be why isn't this at Animal kingdom where it would fit in better. I guess it's supposed to be educational, but a strange fit for the future world area. Spaceship Earth I have hazy memories of because last time I was here i was jetlagged and fell asleep on it because it was nice and dark lol. The ride is edutainment, taking you through the history of the world and communication, so you spiral up through the spherical building, and pass through scenes of people in the ancient world keeping scrolls, through to people in the 70s using magnetic tape computers. On reflection, its the same type of ideas as Carousel of Progress over at MK. The final part has dated a bit. Your photo is taken, and on a touch screen you are asked questions about what you are interested in and your lifestyle, and it whips up a quick animation about what the future might be like, based on your inputs. The food and wine festival was on when I was visting. There was a muppets food lab where you could get a pickle flavoured shake. I opted to see what their interpretation of Australian food was. Lamington was nice but the coconut wasn't desiccated it was big soft strands, but the wine was good :} The weather was somewhat bad on the day so I was ducking for cover a bit when going around the world showcase. Another thing worth checking out is Coca Cola Club cool, where you can try free soft drink samples. The infamous Beverly is a clear but very bitter drink that tastes like drinking liquorice. My personal favourite was Joy, a korean peach pear lychee sort of drink I could have sipped all day. A few of them are just fizzy tropical flavours, so its a good go to if you dont want to pay Disney drink prices. Overall, still a great park, If I had one more day I could have really spent more time in world showcase and seen a few shows.
  11. One thing Disney in particular seem to be building into their rides is a "B mode" - a backup for when a primary effect isn't working. A notable example is the RoTR Kylo Ren animatronic being hidden behind a wall when it's broken, replaced by Kylo appearing "outside" (via some windows/screens) in his ship. So rather than an effect appearing obviously broken the ride still seems relatively complete. Given that VRTP have aspirations to be like Disney, hopefully they're paying attention and incorporate something similar in these new rides, where it makes sense.
  12. Disney do projection mapping very well. Just watch any of their Main Street/Castle nightime shows where they use projection mapping very well. My favourite use of it at a Disney park is on Big Thunder Mountain at Disneyland as they use it to give the impression the tnt is igniting on the lifthill and it's about to explode as you leave the mountain. I think on Scooby: Next Gen they over promised and they either couldn't get the projection mapping to work/ran out of money or they too were confused at what it actually is. I do hope with FOTWW they execute it well and use it in a way that adds to the story/experience, rather than it just being a gimac that gets overlooked and when it breaks they don't repair it.
  13. Pico Play have also shared this article about the project Pico Play to deliver full theming solution for Dreamworld’s new Jungle Rush roller coaster An ancient temple, filled with twisting tunnels, mysterious chambers, mystical artefacts and exotic creatures is taking shape in a state-of-the-art fabrication facility in the Vietnamese city of Hai Duong. Pico Play, a global leader in the planning, design, development and construction of world-class themed attractions and entertainment, is busy working on an ancient temple, filled with twisting tunnels, mysterious chambers, mystical artefacts and exotic creatures in its state-of-the-art fabrication facility in the Vietnamese city of Hai Duong. More than 75 artists, sculptors, engineers and production workers are manufacturing the temple which will become the centrepiece of Jungle Rush, a brand-new rollercoaster coming to Australia’s theme park Dreamworld in 2024. Pico Play director Darren McLean says the company is delivering a fully integrated solution to the theme park that includes all theming, show sets and audio-visual effects: “We’ve taken the concept and developed detailed designs through to fabrication drawings and then, of course, the fabrication itself at our Vietnam facility. In addition to the physical theming and show sets, we’re also developing a custom soundtrack and developing lighting, storytelling and animatronics to deliver a seamless, integrated and exhilarating experience.” At $35M, Jungle Rush is Dreamworld’s largest investment in a single attraction and the crowning jewel of Rivertown, the park’s new immersive land. Billed as a family attraction, Jungle Rush is a switchback rollercoaster, featuring the world’s first inclined turntable, different track paths and the ability to travel forward or in reverse. Pico Play is manufacturing 520 pre-cast glass-reinforced concrete (GRC) panels in its Vietnam facility to build the centrepiece temple and has sourced an ex-military dual-engine propellor plane to ‘crash-land’ into the theming. “We’re working very closely with the local architect, engineer and builder and using detailed 3D modelling to ensure our pre-fabricated pieces sit perfectly into their major infrastructure works,” adds McLean. “We’re developing an immersive experience that will take guests on a mysterious journey from the moment they enter the temple to when they exit the rollercoaster. “We want to offer guests more than just a rollercoaster ride. The experience is more than the ride itself, there’s a story, there are characters, there’s excitement and there’s anticipation and entertainment leading up to the ride.” Jungle Rush marks the 10th collaboration between Pico Play and Dreamworld with past projects including the newly opened Ocean Parade expansion, Steel Taipan rollercoaster and the Sky Voyager “flying theatre”. Dreamworld CEO Greg Yong visited Pico Play’s Hai Duong facility in early 2024 and was impressed at the efficiency and skill of its workers, including a large team of experienced artists and sculptors. “They’ve got a super talented group of people doing the work and it was really great to see the artisans and thank them in person,” says Yong. “I walked out of that experience in Vietnam feeling 100 per cent confident and really comfortable in how Pico Play was handling the project.” Nominating Pico Play’s global reach as a competitive advantage, Yong adds that the firm’s Queensland presence also contributed to the enduring relationship between the two companies. “They know the site and understand our vision with this project and how important the stakes are – this is not just another attraction, this is a meaningful part of Dreamworld’s story and recovery.” Yong explains that Jungle Rush is located in one of the park’s foundation areas and fittingly offers a nostalgic nod to Dreamworld’s history: “Jungle Rush is all about the theming; we’re bringing back a lot of traditional effects that people may not have seen in a theme park for a long time. Technology is so pervasive now that we wanted something ‘analogue’, something that is so completely immersive that you put your phone away and just get caught up in the quality of the narrative and the scale of the theming.” The Rivertown project is the final piece in Dreamworld’s $55M capital investment, with approximately $35M invested in the immersive Rivertown land. The project’s construction and theming phase is set to create more than 1000 jobs with the precinct expected to open in late 2024. At the end of last year, Pico Play announced the appointment of Kate Rogers as senior art director. Rogers has worked on some of the most innovative and beloved theme park attractions on the planet, including Universal Orlando Resort, Shanghai Disney Resort, Universal Beijing Resort, Hong Kong Disneyland, and Melbourne Zoo. https://www.pico-play.com/news-articles/pico-play-to-deliver-full-theming-solution-for-dreamworlds-new-jungle-rush-roller-coaster?fbclid=PAAaa72cG-6XAKEMstjUQ4fYQT39AFyuEo6YZRZsV6B_NC0Njqrd4i85NzZaI_aem_AfVrHVFLd2eQFxGicDVNWPcdcdovIoCHym6Vlf1s9SKKQClWxNnfUjRAdUd7VeqBveY
  14. If they can pull this off, WOW WOW WOW. This render actually gives me Disney/Universal vibes in their concept artworks. The detail in it is amazing and I truly hope they can pull this off because this will revolutionise theme parks in Australia and I honestly never thought it was going to be Dreamworld that did that. In my mind, Movie World (and maybe even Sea World) has always been the park to do that. In recent years MW hasn’t leant into that immersion and I hope with Wizard of Oz that changes. Sea World did a good job at it over ten years ago with Castaway Bay (when it opened) and Leviathans queue and station has also stepped things up a notch (it’s a shame that Atlantis as a whole didn’t). And to give Dreamworld some credit, when Dreamworks first opened, they did a good job with it. And I think Tiger Island is still the most well themed area of any Australian theme park, but based off what we’ve seen, if Dreamworld go all out with the story and detailing of the whole land that is Rivertown, this could be unlike anything we’ve seen. We already knew this from the lands plan, but it’s great to see (in a concept artwork) the two attractions interacting with each other. It will be such a joyful moment to be driving on of the cars and having the coaster travel past you. And having massive set pieces like this plane will be spectacular. The last concept artwork of the Jungle Rush entry was impressive, but looking at it again a few times, I definitely think it’s underselling what it will actually be (which could be a good thing). Hopefully they aren’t overselling with this concept artwork, and maybe it is if the budget begins to get blown, but I truly hope they go all out because this land will become the flagship attraction for Dreamworld, maybe even for the Gold Coast theme parks.
  15. The fact it says ‘rooms and surrounds’ doesn’t seem to me like they’ll be connected accomodation, as well as there not really being much need/space for another VRTP example of that post-MW’s hotel. Maybe, instead, there’s a plan for something similar to a Paradise Resort, various Disney hotels, things like that, in which it’s a family-oriented hotel/resort, centred around an IP that VRTP has the rights to (Nickelodeon, DC, etc), that’s got enough self-contained activities for park visits to not be a necessity (but, ofc, offering shuttles to & fro). They have experience with similar, though less self-contained, locations with Sea World Resort. Though, granted, they didn’t construct it, experience with it’s operations could mean they have ideas as to how it could be improved if they were to construct one themselves. As to if anything comes from it, we’ll have to wait and see, but I’m guessing that’s moreso what’s being eluded towards.
  16. Realistically this is the best option. There’s no reason Mad Max shouldn’t be at movie world, it’s a perfect IP for village to integrate and something they already own. But there’s no logical fit in the park. You could maybe get away with having it next to West but the best option is to have it take up that arena on Main Street. You don’t even need a current ip - Waterworld is a movie that came out in the mid 90’s that the vast majority of people who go to watch the show at universal have probably never heard of let alone watched (throw backdraft in there too when it was open) I’ve never personally watched stunt driver 2 but I did watch police academy and the original stunt driver and thought it was memorable. Based on what I’ve read it seems the stunt show is in desperate need of change. Shows have their place in parks, they disperse crowds around, and having a good one can determine the difference between massive lines and not so massive lines (Waterworld or Lion King at Disney come to mind). Gut everything after all the major projects are done and while lantern & doomsday are limping, and build a mad max show, have some explosions, falling stunts (which mad max lends itself well to) and make it memorable.
  17. I visited France back in June and visited a few parks over the course of 3 weeks. Might as well get one of the easier ones out of the way, with Walt Disney Studios. https://www.parkz.com.au/attraction/walt-disney-studios I had a two day pass which was the right amount of time for Disneyland Park / Walt Disney studios. But for the purposes of this TR I'll just go attraction by attraction rather than a recount of both days. Getting to the park is easy, about 40 mins from Central Paris on the RER, then through the security checkpoint into Disney Village and the two parks. When you arrive, the main street is actually a sound stage, with plywood sets forming the shops and restaurants. Crush's Coaster Recommended to start on this one since it draws long queues. I frequently saw it reaching 120 minutes. It was broken down when I arrived, so I hung around for 20 mins and got on as soon as it opened. Really good! An indoor marina themed station (complete with seagulls chanting "mine") leads into a short lift hill, a couple of turns outdoors before heading back into the building. From there are a few dark ride scenes where you are going with the sea turtles to ride the east coast current, a jellyfish field, and finally a lift hill in the hull of a ship with sharks chanting "fish are friends not food". From there it's into a very dark show building with the standard Maurer SC2000 layout, with a few scrims with projected flowing bubbles to simulate riding the current. Much darker inside than scooby. The coaster is zippy and good fun. My only criticisim would be that too many coasters at Disney Paris rely on being in a big dark room with a few effects. Avengers, Crush's and Space Mountain all rely on it, so thats half the coasters. A tip, the single rider queue time lies. I saw it advertised as 50 mins, walked in and there were 3 people waiting, so it was more like 5 mins! Worth using since there is nothing worth seeing in the standby queue. RC Racer Similar comments to the one in HK. I really like these compared to the spinning halfpipes because the beyond vertical spike creates this great sensation where you are floating, but also being forced forward in your seat (much like the beyond vertical drops on GL/Abyss), combined with the launches picking up speed. Again the single rider queue is the way to go. Slinky Dog Zigzag Spin Missed the one in HK so did this because it has a short queue. Most gentle matterhorn ride ever lol, but the theming looks great. Not sure who makes it, but I suspect Intamin because it looked like the cars actually run on Intamin track. The theming is great, with a pile of dog toys on a bowl as a centerpiece. Ratatouille Hmmm, a bit underwhelmed by this one sadly. I love trackless and 3D dark rides, so was really looking foward to this, but it falls a bit flat. The vehicles can spin, but cannot do the full range of motion like you get on rides like Spiderman or Planet of the Apes or the Justice Leauges at Six Flags. You ride in large rat shaped cars that seat 6, and scurry around through the kitchen, being chased by angry kitchen staff, with a mixture of oversized sets (including going under a stove, into a fridge, through the wall cavities), interspersed by scenes in front of giant screens. For some reason I thought that despite the reduced range of motion the vehicles would still maybe scoot around a tiny bit on the spot or rotate a bit from side to side in front of the screens to give a little feeling , but nah you're just parked there in front of a giant screen for 30 seconds watching a giant movie, with things popping off but it feels strange and muted without any movement. The best part probably is the giant sets. A nice touch is when you are under a giant waiters trolley, and as you roll fowards the castors either side of you rotate as well. In this area they had a food festival going, with very permanent looking stands selling food from different regions of France. I tried this cheese and potato thing but it was a bit pungent! Spider-man WEB Adventure Ok, so it wasn't until shortly before I went on this trip I found out they built an Avengers campus at WDS (For some reason I thought it was just Rock n Roller coaster being re themed with other stuff coming later)....Cool, means I don't feel guilty about skipping DCA! This is another 3D dark ride, with vehicles that track the movements of your hands and allow you to shoot webs. Can tell you ahead of time there is nothing special enough to see in the standby queue, so by all means do this with single rider...You still get to see the preshow either way . The ride is themed like an old brick warehouse that used to be "Stark Motors" that has now been taken over by a tech startup called the "World Engineering Brigade" . The preshow is set in a research workhop and uses a few layers of scrims, and has Peter Parker showing you his new spiderbot . The spiderbot is able to mine materials and 3D print it's own replicas, which sounds cool until they start cutting holes in the walls and replicating out of control. That's where you come in to start hunting them down before they replicate into the millions, by blasting them with webs just like spiderman. The ride reminded me of a long lost relative of toy story mania, with large back to back vehicles travelling in front of game screens. The bits in between were probably better themed, and in this case yes they did take advangage of the spinning of the vehicle to get a bit of wild movement between scenes. I've heard this ride bagged out a bit, but I had a great time. The graphics and the gesture tracking was super crisp, and each scene had heaps of ways you could interact with it, eg shoot webs at the spiderbots, or you could fling a web at an oil drum, then sweep your hand a across and cause it to fling across the room and cause a massive explosion. Avengers Flight Force This was a rethemed of Rock n Rollercoaster, with a snazzy, but perhaps sterile queue set in Avengers HQ. Think lots of stainless steel and chamfered panels, like an Apple store without the wood. Simple storyline, some missiles have been sent towards earth by the bad guys, all the other avengers are busy with other missions, so its up to you to help Captain Marvel and Iron Man by flying in a manner that draws the missiles away from earth. There's a really good Iron Man animatronic in the preshow. Another touch I liked is the pulsating lighting tubes throughout the queue that all go haywire from the power surge when the ride launches. The coaster, again, excellent, with flashing red lights on the launch, followed by 3 inversions taken smoothly in the dark, with the odd curved screen with the two heroes shooting beams etc in the battle. The finale is a huge panoramic screen where you see the baddies missiles blown up in a spectacular green explosion, coupled with a cresendo in the music, all at full speed, before finally hitting the brakes. Pym Test Kitchen Forked out for Sit Down Meal for a change. This restaurant was a buffet with novelty food items that were either bigger than smaller than normal. The theming reflected this. Eg for burgers, you could get sliders, or get a slice from a burger the size of a hubcap. There was a bit of scientific mixed in too, eg blue coloured salad dressing, things in test tubes, this really nice lemon dessert that had an crystaline atomic structre pattern on the top etc. 49 EUR, ouch! Tower of Terror This thing is wild. I've done other TOTs in Cali, Florida and Japan but this one has the best most intense ride cycle and its not even close! Right from the first pushback, you are rocketing to the top forcefully. No slow lifting floor by floor, just several sustained ups and downs, all the while a creepy girl at each floor tells you "not to scream, it will only make it worse". I get the feeling Europeans are a bit tougher in terms of thrills, so they get a better cycle as a result. The queue is the same as the others. Gorgeous. Cars Road Trip Urrrgh. This is unashamedly a filler while they build the Frozen area. It was the studio tour, it has been cut short due to construction work in the park, and they kept the catasrophe canyon bit, and stuck it in with this utterly rubbish road trip thing where you look at 3D props of roadside landmarks. Think lame stuff like a giant spanner, billboards, the Tyre-ful Tower. But then the catastrophe canyon bit is ham fisted too becasuse they took the tanker that blows up and put a cars face on it, so you're literally watching a setient tanker getting burned alive with a look of mild concern. Walk on queue said it all. Tapis Volants You know, out of all the Disney rides I've never done one of these Dumbo/Orbiter type things, time to rectify that. It's themed as if Alladin is being filmed as a live action movie. You can move the carpet up and down with a little lever in front of your seat. Supposedly the other lever makes you tilt back and forth, but despite reaching back and trying it did nothing? The viewing area was nice too. Cars Quatres Roues Rallye. Same sort of ride as Patricks Jellyfish Frenzy, a figure 8 motion demolition derby, but with Cars theming. The queue predates cars land, so it's like a mini mish mash of Radiator springs. Despite having two of the rides installed side by side it still must get long queues. Final thoughts The park is pretty good, though a lot smaller than every other Disney Park. The offering is about 1/3 of Disneyland next door. I did appreciate the thrill rides here, probably the most 'intense' lineup of any Disney park. Perhaps what it lacked was strong themed zones. The whole front of the park is this open bitumen area with a lot of plain looking studios and food trucks. The bits around Avengers Campus, Ratatouille and Toy Story felt immersive, but then the rest of the park is a bit mish mash. Perhaps once frozen is finished it will feel a bit more consolidated. At the moment, even the orignal DCA is better! The park seemed popular, with crowds and 30-60 min waits all day. As always, photos are here. https://www.parkz.com.au/search/photos/location/walt-disney-studios
  18. If the Indiana Jones rides at Disney are anything to go by id say the theming improves with a bit of weathering too. An ancient temple facade with slightly overgrown vegetation looks even better than when new
  19. Do you have basic reading comprehension? It’s quite the opposite these days They’re clearly going for something similar to the Indy rides at Disney with jungle rush and Rivertown more generally. That said the ride doesn’t look very tall (given the turntable has been testing in the Netherlands) so you don’t need a tall show building to enclose everything. The one in Japan is outstanding so I’m quite excited to see Dreamworld having a crack at the adventure theme
  20. This was the taste left in my mouth after our visit to USC. Felt like everything was a sim. Its interesting though how US/Disney have kind of flipped though with the new line up of attractions with US putting in more coasters and Disney more simulators/self tracked installs. After reading your post though it seems we missed a couple of attractions, ET, Mummy (was closed at the time I think), Villan Con, Bourne. We conciously skipped Supercharged being it was a yawn fest at USC. RRR was rough for us too, closed for the morning but opened in the afternoon. I selected Kick Start My Heart - Motley Crue, I think that made up for the roughness
  21. On October the 10th, 2020 Fox Studios Australia has officially been renamed to Disney Studios Australia. Fox Studios becomes Disney Studios, welcomes next 'Planet of the Apes' film - IF Magazine Disney Cruise Line recently announce that it's bringing even more to Australia by adding two cruises World's Seventh Disney Theme Park Gains Traction, Could Appear In South of Country - Inside the Magic As early as two weeks ago, multiple news related stories detailed that Disney had been looking at establishing itself in Australia, a push was made for Disney to be established in South Australia and at one time, the Gold Coast, Australia. World's Seventh Disney Theme Park Gains Traction, Could Appear In South of Country - Inside the Magic With the above mentioned and what appears to be an increase of footprint by Disney into Australia, could Disney be scanning possible locations for a Singapore sized Univesal studio version of Disney Theme Park. Gold Coast, Queensland seems to be the logical geographical location although SA as has been referenced as a potential. With Olympics quickly approaching in Queensland, with the Gold Coast being the mecca for Australian theme park and with new infrastructure being constructed and planned for the Olympics, the Gold Coast with its weather and tourism magnate, seems to be a more pragmatic choice. Warner Bros. Movie World during recent school holidays had good visitation, it is debatable as to whether Dreamworld was able to attract the same number of foot traffic. Ardent Leisure has significant excess land holding and may/could be looking to divest as per a recent ASX announcement. On face value, it may be possible that Dreamworld and its surrounding land may be viewed by Disney executives and being a potential acquisition. However, this is pure speculation, but would seem to make sense should Disney Theme Park be a real possibility.
  22. 2 for 1 deal in this trip report. For photos of both parks, see: Fun Spot Orlando https://www.parkz.com.au/search/photos/location/fun-spot-orlando Fun Spot Kissimmee https://www.parkz.com.au/attraction/fun-spot-kissimmee Both of these parks are quite "amusement parky", with travelling flat rides, multi level go kar tracks buildings that are mostly sheds, and a couple of worthwhile coasters that make it worth a stop. The Orlando branch is right near Universal, and the Kissimmee branch is not far from the entrance to Walt Disney World, they both are open till midnight, so I guess they tend capture a bit of business from their proximity to the majors. They are both also a fair bit cheaper, in a way catering to a secondary locals market who might be outpriced by the majors. They also offer a deal where you can visit both parks in one day, but my schedule didn't really permit that. Interestingly, both parks had some of the same rides, for example both had a screamin swing, both had a kiddy coaster named Sea Serpent. Interesting that they didn't try to give each park more of its own identity. You can buy wristbands or pay by the ride. I was dog tired when I went to each (On separate nights), so just did individual rides, even though it would have only been a few dollars more to upgrade to a wristband. Orlando: The Vekoma SFC Freedom Flyer was HNFT, so clearly no rides to be had on this one: They've also got a Sea Serpent kiddy coaster from Miler. Basic turns and dips. But the star of the show (And actually one of the best coasters in Orlando!) is White Lightning The perfect compact wooden coaster. Runs very smooth, a decent first drop leads into much smaller hills and turns, keeping the pacing strong. There's also a nice high banked turn at one end, reminiscent of what you see on Thunderhead at Dollywood. Also a cool double up and double down for the airtime fanatics. Interesting how they proudly promote it's a GCI Kissimmee They have the worlds tallest skycoaster, and some interesting looking go kart tracks with multiple levels, but with jetlag biting i elected to just stay for an hour or so and do the coasters. Galaxy Spin is a standard Zamperla spinning coaster (Near identical to the Reverchon ones) Another Sea Serpent kiddy coaster, though with a different layout to the others. (If you are wondering about the photos, I happened to grab brekky next door before heading to Disney one of the days, so went for a wander around. The whole place is open air. Hurricane is a type of coaster I've never encountered before, like a really bizzare travelling layout that feels like a mix between a Galaxi and a wild mouse, but a lot more interesting. Up this end of the park at that hour it was dead, there was just one operator floating around between 4 or so rides, so he just powered it up for my cycle. Looked janky as hell. But pretty good actually. Interesting to think that the likes of Space Mountain are actually pretty similar to this in terms of elements. What a difference some theming makes. This brings us to Mine Blower, probably the best worst wooden coaster in the world. The ride has had a reputation for being rough, even from the day it first opened. In some sections they have replaced the wooden track with a type of steel track from RMC. All I can say is thank heavens for that, I can only imagine how bad it would have been without this retracking. The ride shakes like hell on the wooden bits, and clatters around the track and when you see a particularly tight set of turns or hills coming up you feel like you're about to get brutalised, but like magic, it's those parts where it transitions onto steel tracks. These parts run very loudly. but at the same time makes those bits bearable. It's probably one of the craziest wooden coaster layouts out there, with a steep first drop, an actual zero g roll over the station, then heaps of dives, s bends, and little hills, and even an overbank turn at some point, so its a bit of a blur and when you hit the final brakes you wonder what the hell happened. I gave it a couple of rides. Totally worth a stop to experience because its so unhinged, but be prepared! In conclusion, yeah if you've got the time and energy, its worth dropping in for a lap on the wooden coasters, I'd even say White Lightning is somewhat of a must do when in Orlando.
  23. Universals Islands of Adventure https://www.parkz.com.au/search/photos/location/islands-of-adventure (For all the pics) Ah, nice to be back at one of my favourite parks. Well themed, good mix of dark rides, water rides and thrills, and pretty well considered in terms of having plenty of things for kids scattered throughout. I've been here before, so less urgency to see everything (I skipped over the water rides), that will make this trip report a bit shorter. For those unfamilar with the park, it has a few themed lands: Port of Entry. The "main street" of the park, with a bit of exotic explorers theme, with plenty of gags. Marvel Super Hero Island: Built before the whole MCU thing / Disney, its a real animated looking area with oversized cutouts and stylised buildings. And because of the terms of the licensing agreement, Disney cant use these characters in their parks lol. Toon Lagoon: Errr, more comics I guess, but these are the ones you'd see in newspapers, like the Phantom, Popeye (But no Garfield or Peanuts it seems!) Jurrassic Park, needs no introduction, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Islands of Adventure was a good park, but just didn't get the attendances it needed. Potter turned all this around. Lost Continent. The only non IP zone in the park, but part of it was swallowed up by Potter, and the two attractions it DID have are now closed. Hopefully this gets redeveloped. Seuss Landing. The most kid friendly area of the park, wonky and full of colour. But lets cut to the chase, everyone probably wants to know about Jurrasic World Velocicoaster Yep it lives up to the hype, a highly themed, properly intense launch coaster from Intamin that is just a polished experience from start to finish. The story goes that in their quest to further thrill guests, Jurrasic World have decided to build a roller coaster in a raptor pen, where you can see them up close. The queue is well themed, a highlight being the medical room where a couple of raptors are in a crush getting their daily check up, and the room actually smells like antiseptic. There's also windows onto the launch track, with transparent screens showing raptors chasing each launching train. Just before the station you have to put your stuff in a locker, activated with your park ticket (and if your ticket is on your phone, they give you a card with a barcode to use instead. The final bit of the preshow is hilarious, with Owen the raptor trainer ranting about how the whole concept of a coaster in a raptor pen is a terrible idea and you should all leave, and Claire the manager saying it will all be fine and perfectly safe. There's a separate queue for the front row in the station, with not too much extra wait due to the speed they dispatch, so its worth doing once or twice. My tip, front right is the best seat, because on a few of the elements that side seems to get banked up more. As for the coaster. Before the launch is section with raptor pens either side of you, with screens showing them thrashing around inside, bumping the cage walls etc and workers keeping them at bay with cattle prods. A good launch leads into an Immelmann with strong airtime at the top (think DC rivals loop), dive down steeply into a rocky tunnel (and the rockwork on this ride is really good, with sharp spiky bits that you feel like you're going to hit. Next comes a dive loop, followed by a bunch of quick twisted turns, transitions, and a couple of airtime hills all crammed in. You are constantly rising and falling and avoiding rocks, so there's a real element of surprise as you work through this section. There are a few raptor statues perched on the rocks, but they sort of blend in, so you really have to look for them. Eventually you hit the 2nd launch, which really spices things up. A top hat with ejector leads to a steep drop, a high speed S bend at ground level, and then a very long zero g stall which has you hanging upside down for a few seconds. Next comes a 720 degree helix, but the 'helix' is interruped with elements, so theres this fake out reversed banked turn, then a wave turn (imagine a sideways airtime hill) And then for the wild finale, a speed hill over a lake, followed by the "mosasaurus roll", which is like a more agressive version of the roll on ST, really dunking you down and throwing you to the side, so you cant help but grab the bar. A quick couple of turns and you hit the brakes. I think the name of the element is a gimmick though. I get the feeling the intent was that there was supposed to be a jaws style animatronic jumping out of the water when the train goes past. They totally should do that. Pretty awesome overall, the two halves have their own character. Fast transitions and confusion on the first half, big grand elements on the 2nd half. Hagrids Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure A real 1-2 punch with the park having this as well. Imagine the fun of Jet Rescue spread out over 1.5km of track. The park is onto a winner, with it consistently having a a posted wait of 60-90 mins. Again though they tend to overstate, i saw a wait of 70 min but it was more like 45. The first bit of the queue is themed well too, full of magical creature classroom stuff. By magic they have duplicated flying motorbikes for everyone to join hagrid on for a lesson on magical creatures in the forbidden forest. The final room in the queue I thought was clever, Imagine standing under a deck, with people riding motorbikes and doing doughies above you. They used some form of projection to simulate this. Ocassionally too you'd see silhouettes other creatures like giant spiders appearing to walk above you. Loading is done by a moving conveyor, so this ride really does have huge capacity, its just that demand is high too because its a good ride. The first bit has a short launch then a drop down then a bigger launch, and a few quick turns at ground level. Eventually the track enters hagrid's hut, when a blast ended skrewt (imagine a giant double ended scoption shooting fire out of its ass) shoots smoke at you. With that you launch again, up into an airtime hill through a castle ruin, down a curved drop into a tunnel, more ground level turns, another launch, and even more turns. Already at this point the coaster part has been pretty substantial but there is more to come. The track continues into a short foggy tunnel through a rocky outcrop, with a crashed car on it, surrounded by cornish pixies. Well they have designed the sightlines well here, because the shape of the outcrop is good enough to disguise a vertical reverse stall, like a little baby tower of terror. Obviously you get to go up higher in the front seat, but i never got that sadly. You travel backwards, with a high speed track switch sending you up into a helix, and by the time you have had a moment to process all that you have reversed into a show building. In the show building, the walls and ceiling appear to be writhing with devils snare vines all around you. Great concept, but you can see the shed roof and trees ''cutting off" at the ceiling line quite clearly here, which undoes some of the immersion despite the money they would have spent. But a couple of seconds later, the whole track drops a few meters (Much like Thirteen at Alton or Namazu at Vulcania), and you exit the darkness into the open air. Then one last launch, the most powerful of all. The coolest feature is a trail of light and smoke along the side of the launch, giving the impression of rocket fuel (or in this case "dragons breath" giving you the power needed to accelerate. A couple of final high speed turns and you hit the brakes, and join a conga line of 3 or 4 trains rolling into the unload station, also with a conveyor belt. Overall this ride is excellent. Good level of intensity on the coaster bit, and the way it hides both the reverse stall and the drop tracks as suprises on the way, integrated seamlessly into the pacing works really well. The level of theming is high for the most part, aside from perhaps the indoor show building (from the outside it looks like a shed too, guess it needs more trees to cover it?) As a final note, I saw perhaps the most chaotic good, but non condonable behaviour ever at a park. On one of my rides i was in the singles queue, but it was moving slow. You get most people in even groups, which can make this line crawl. A group of people ahead of me decided to cut into the main queue sneakily. I was thinking they were just line jumping, but of course, I was not going to cause a scene and complain. But, the plot twist came when they were at the front. When the grouper asked them how many, each of them said one, one, one, one. Net result, was that 8 people got cleared from the singles queue in the space of a minute lol. Skull Island: Reing of Kong This is the only other 'new' ride for me was this. It's an immersive tunnel attraction, or rather a few of immersive tunnels in sequence. You ride in a tour bus that stops in long cylindrical rooms with screens either side. There's also a motion base, so at each of these points stuff happens on screen, before you drive off into the next. The studio tour at Hollywood has an abridged version of this (Where the tour shuttle will drive into a building shake table with screens either side) The queue is well themed, through a dark temple. A highlight is this giant worm in a glass cabinet moving about, a taste of all the other mutant things you'll see on Skull Island. You board your tour bus and from there set out on your jungle expedition. The next few minutes can be described as various battles and attacks from giant creatures, with a liberal amount of water being squirted at you every time something gets decapitated or shot, ugh. Overall, decent I thought, but I think the limitations of the bigger vehicles and the longer time spent at each screen makes it feel a bit less frantic than other screen based dark rides like Spiderman or Transformers. Incredible Hulk Coaster Tell a lie, technically this is 'new' since they replaced all the track since I last visited. The queue has been totally refreshed and looks great, with lots of neon scientific equipment, too bad you cant take pics, since the lockers are before you enter the queue, so no phones. Onboard, the launch tunnel has been fitted out with LED screens, showing energy pulsating around the train before you launch. Forgot how darn intense this ride is, with positive G forces that dont let up, and huge elements. And of course that zero g roll straight out of the launch tunnel is a great start to the ride. Cat in the Hat A bit of a sleeper hit. This ride goes through the story of Cat in the Hat, with the words being recited, with each scene being an animated version of a page of the book. A real delight actually. **** A note on food. I had the "Green eggs and ham". Basically potato gems, with scrambled eggs (with chives to make it green) and diced ham and some cheese. Actually a filling breakfast option. Amazing Adventures of Spiderman Always a favourite, and now in 4K (I've done the 4K version in Japan, good to experience it in English) Still holds up well, and the re animated sections have more background gags to spot. Harry Potter & the Forbidden Journey A great ride from a physical standpoint, after all, being flung around on a robotic arm whilst following a track is real technical achievement. But since then, the newer Harry Potter rides have done a bit better in terms of storytelling, leaving this one feeling a bit chaotic. I guess you cant blame them, this was the first HP ride ever built, so it seemed like they were trying to fit as many things in there as possible. Quiddich? Dragons? Dementors? Still a great ride, just wish more parks would do them, and with more themes (At this point, I think its only WB World Abu Dhabi that has done one) **** These days you can now get 'warm butter beer' in the area, but I thought it tasted like white hot chocolate mostly. I had a laugh that Heathcliff was mentioned....Heathcliff comics are absurd: And thats IOA for another decade likey.
  24. @CR4ZEyou may be disappointed if you believe every queue at Disney is a Garden of Eden. I've spent many an hour queuing in the sun at Disney.
  25. In short, yes. Disney queue line theming is best-in-class, so at the very least you're thankful to be not standing out in the sun surrounded by topiary and shrubbery and walking up to at a shed. Although, I'd probably have to fork out on line skips if I was on limited time. Sue Bob Iger. Granted though, this is a bit of an oxymoron. I would leave my enthusiast mindset at the front gate and just enjoy the experience for what it is. Honestly and FWIW, Sky Voyager was one of the highlights of my Dreamworld trip last week. An amazing day can be had of experiences like that, especially if they're on that Disney level. Still would be pumped for Tron, Rock'n'Roller etc. Would depend on how good the value is in a package deal. It probably is but I haven't looked into it. I wouldn't see myself losing sleep over missing Animal Kingdom or the water parks tbh. @franky that's a shame about your Busch experience. How was Iron Gwazi? It'd be really interesting to pit it against Zadra, particularly with their respective wave turns and inversions.
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