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A tip for bored kids at school: don't sign up with your official school email address if you want to troll. It makes it really easy for admins to see who and where you are.

For the love of God NO VR! We don't need more than one coaster with VR, it's not a slap it on every ride item. One unique experience is fine. Just enjoy the real outdoor actual life life kids and get out of the video game for just one day.

Just came across this link on Facebook. Looks like it will give us another reason to make the trip to the sunshine coast! http://www.ausparks.com.au/2016/10/aussie-world-open-permanent-haunt-maze/

Thanks @Levithian - gave me a few ideas too - mine are a little different to yours, and i've only factored in park expansion so haven't allowed for hotel, new carpark or carpark rerouting. Ok - so you'll see i've moved the maintenance buildings out to the middle of the carpark. The black area is the overall park boundary, and then on top of that i've overlaid: Disneyland Main Street. (obviously not to scale) but I envisage a promenade leading to the fountain, with facades, or shops, perhaps even some attractions space permitting (and obviously no buildings or facades could take part of GL because of its proximity to the entrance way. This leads out to approximately the second row of parking, as you suggested. Yellow section is an expanded WB Kids area, with room for more kid friendly attractions, effectively doubling the size of that area. Red section - I have two ideas here - either the red section becomes a new 'show stage' building - providing a stage area for entertainment similar to what LT village had before RRRC was built. (Yes, there used to be a stage in LT Village) - except it would be enclosed, as the showstage currently is. This would then free up showstage for development and expansion, and place a multi purpose entertainment building within easy reach of a park boundary, should the venue be hired or used separately for night events. Alternative Red section - use this space for construction of another soundstage \ shed, thereby releasing the old LTRR building half that is currently used for storage to be utilised as the above entertainment venue, although without as many positives. Blue section - an expanded DC heroes area, where some of the 'lesser known' heroes and their sidekicks get smaller flat ride attractions in the shadow of Green Lantern Green Section - a new themed land - with easy access direct from main street as an alternative route to WB Kids, therefore providing more than one way around the park - adding to the 'occasional' shortcut opened up through the old Chinatown Alley. I have no suggestions for theme, but i'm sure VR has plenty to choose from. Potentially this area, being front of the park, could also have a separate entrance, and the ability to easily close it off from the rest of the park for a night-time entertainment precinct including restaurants etc - conveniently placed close to the prep kitchens behind Stars Cafe for easy access. The carpark entranceway would have to reroute - instead of coming down to the park boundary, it would turn right almost immediately after crossing under the 'road facing WB sign' above the driveway. A new main arterial road would run through the middle, with left lane traffic taking parking on the left side and right lane traffic turning right or continuing straigh on to the far end. I see the hotel potentially in front of the green section, or over on the grass, with carparking out onto the grassy area expanding as needed. Its rough, but its a nice idea. thanks for sharing @Levithian

I think something like Mako's (SeaWorld Orlando) queue & station would be great. It's not overly themed, yet still delivers.

I kinda of disagree with the it's just a station. At Dreamworld yes, Sea World maybe, Movie World no. It's already a stretch that the park now has bare roller coasters given it was meant to have an immersive movie theme. Green Lantern though is just sub par. There is nothing themed about it at all. It's barely more than a traveling carnival ride in its presentation. Fortunately it's the exception to the rule and anything that's gone in since has been really great. I don't think we should set any sort of standard by GL.

I'm really excited, Aussieworld has been stepping up lately and this looks amazingly themed! My only negative as of now is that the name could be better.

In my opinion, given the scale of the rollercoaster that is being constructed, we will only see theming in the land next to Justice League. Like I pointed out in an image I posted previously (above), I'm expecting nothing more than 1 narrow but immersively themed show building at a maximum. Within the show building, it may include theming immediately after you leave the station or just before arrive you at the station. It may even have great theming in the queue or a pre-show room like Batman Adventure etc. The externaI sides of a show building may even be themed like Justice League or DCSVU. I also like to point out again my speculation that this could one of the first rollercoasters in the world that could be built purely for VR: The only way to figure out if Movie World is associated with this is if someone can figure out how many rollercoasters Mack Rides are manufacturing. If 2 are currently scheduled for completion in the timeframe given above & Movie World's one of those, Movie World's rollercoaster could be one of those designed specifically for virtual reality. Adding a VR element (particularly one when the rollercoaster is built for it) would allow the entire rollercoaster track to be immersively themed rather than just the station. The only strengthening of this speculation that I've had is when I found out that VR Coaster was indeed the company that did AA's VR, which indicates MW has been speaking to them recently but about how many projects? One of the world's 1st rollercoasters built for VR (rather than the other way around) would surely count as "one of the world's best theme park drawcards" particularly if it is a hyper-(or bigger)coaster that rivals the best of their type with great theming to one of the most popular entertainment brands globally. I haven't experience GL (and don't know much about the GL franchise) so I can't judge the theming quality or whether it has a narrative but judging from what I've read here, it is very minimal but does have a narrative. AA had no on-ride theming (until VR was added) but it's pre/post-ride theming seems pretty good. Even when it operated as LW, whilst there was no on-ride theming (it was themed to a car chase after all), the Chinatown entrance, cinema/garage, car scrapyard etc. made up for it. Batwing Spaceshot is even themed enough - you're just travelling in the 'Batwing' up in the air & back to the ground - the giant pictures of the 'Batwing' attached to the ride proves this. To sum up, every ride at MW has some sort of 'narrative' & this new rollercoaster I'm sure won't disappointed narrative-wise. Like in my image above, there is a chance the rollercoaster may dive or have the brake run over the swamp at it's narrowest point. A few fountains inserted into the swamp around there may add a bonus feature/theming to the ride. They may even clean up the swamp to make it more scenic particularly with the lakeside precinct due to begin construction in the future.

At Sea world I wouldn't really change much that's there now. For Jet Rescue I probably would make it look a bit more like a dock. Timber and rope fence at the station, etc but that's about it. For that park as long as it's not trying to be a theme, like storm is, then I'm happy with Landscaped stations as Mickey suggests. More than happy for the park just to have well presented rides. As with DW. For Movie World I don't want to see landscaping, I want to see theming.

It would seem that many folks out there do not clearly understand the differences between 'Themeing' and 'Landscaping'

I think the Storm Coaster at Sea World is one of the best themed roller coasters in Australia (both the queue and the ride itself), the Jet Rescue has a decently themed track, however the queue and station lets it down.

^I quite like Flight deck at CGA...Its not a big invert, but its forceful, and gets to the point without mucking around. The sort of coaster that is fun to reride. ********* I’m actually going to break order a bit and fast foward to the last park on the very last day of my trip, Universal Studios Hollywood. Partly because it’s still a fairly new attraction so it makes sense to be topical , and partly because I went to several “amusement parks” in a row after Carowinds, so i’ll break it up a bit better by doing a themed one. I haven’t been to Universal Hollywood for about 9 years, and a lot has changed, and some stuff was a bit hazy from my memory, so it was good to reacquaint myself. I think new for me were. -Transformers -Harry Potter -The modified SFX show. -Numerous changes to the studio tour such as Fast and the Furious and King Kong -Despicable Me -Springfield / The Simpsons ride Not bad… The previous day was a travel day from San Antonio to my parents place in Visalia near Fresno, with a lengthy stopover in Salt Lake City (Sadly not long enough to get to Lagoon though) The highlight of the flights was this lady. We got in late, but it was up again around 6:30 for the 3h drive down to LA. The park opened Harry Potter early at 8:00, but we didn’t arrive till 10, which was absolutely fine, with no queue longer than about 10 mins. They really have been busy here...The new multi level car parks are enormous! I took Mum along for the day (Dad had to work), and we had a great day! Wasn’t sure about how much she’d do, but we went on everything. Heading in it was straight towards the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Just like the one in Florida, there is immense attention to detail, plenty of fun foods to try and expensive souvenirs to buy. I do find it odd with both here and Orlando they went for the snowcapped village look, which feels strange since both parks are in warm climates. So, onto Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, initially riding alone via the single rider queue. If you want a run through of the queue theming, check out the galleries. The ride is a definite improvement on the Orlando version. More detailed, better lit sets, particularly in the chamber of secrets, brighter, sharper projectors in 3d, seemingly more arm movement, and better dementor movements. Basically, I think the issue with the orlando one is that the projectors are low power flight simiulator ones, and the rest of the scenes are also dark to match. The dementors on that one also just moved a bit like they were something you’d see in a ghost train. Onto the ride. For those unfamiliar, it’s a robocoaster on a track, which is basically a robotic arm with seats that can flip you around in any direction. This means they can really move you around in the scenes, have you on your back, and have motion simulator type sequences where you are in front of a screen being tilted around slightly. The robotic arm is deliberately well hidden….The station has a long slot in the back wall that allows the seats to poke through, with the arm hidden behind. The cars move through continuously, and you board via a moving walkway. Once you are seated an operator with an armful of 3d glasses hands you a pair, and another op checks your harness and uses an RFID band to tap your car to signify you have been checked. Those ops must get a lot of exercise effectively being on a treadmill. From the station you are lifted up, Hermione dusts you with floo power, and in a puff of green smoke you travel up a chimney to the astronomy tower in the castle past a projection wall. (Another change to the orlando one, you are basically just floating through a green vortex, rather than the brick chimney on the old one…didn’t like it as much, a bit out of focus) You then emerge in the astronomy tower, floating from side to side, and eventually fly out the window into the first projector bit, where ron and harry are flying on their brooms next to you. A dragon comes along and gives chase, culminating in it breathing a fireball right at you in 3d. At that point you peel away into a real life set and float through a charred section of the castle with the dragon clawing around the outside. The dragon attacks again, this time an animatronic that breathes a cloud of steam at you. The issue of the disjointed storyline still stands. All of a sudden you are down in the forbidden forest, with spiders dropping down around you. Next you flip onto your back and a huge animatronic whomping willow swats very close to you (looked like it had rubber skin a bit like a dinosaur animatronic) From there, you fly sideways into the middle of quidditch match on a projector dome. Dementors decide to swarm in and chase you and harry,and eventually you and harry are knocked down a ravine into the secret entrance of the chamber of secrets. This is the main place that seemed better than the original. The dementors moved a lot more realistically, the sets were more detailed, with more depth (vaults and arches continuing into the distance etc) The main thing missing is the bit with the fog screen and the photo of your face floating away when a dementor tries to suck your soul out. The finale of the ride is another projector dome, where the chamber begins to collapse, with you dodging bits of falling rock. You then escape the cave, and fly quickly across the lake to the great hall of the castle (why the rush though? Odd storytelling) You peel away from the screen seamlessly into the great hall, with crowds of students and dumbledore congratulating you, and then go through another fireplace to get back to the station. Odd storyline aside, it’s a great, very immersive ride, with impressive technology and sets. Between this and Transformers, it’s the best 1-2 punch of dark rides in the world. Next I did a lap on Flight of the hippogriff, which is a mack family coaster. If you tell the attendant at the entrance you are a single rider you get sent up the VIP queue, so no wait if you just want to try the coaster. Mack make great family coasters, very smooth and comfortable, and a touch more zip than a vekoma family coaster. The layout is very similar to roadrunner, except that the first drop is downhill all the way, and the helices seemed a bit steeper. Visually, its just as much of a treat as the main area. We grabbed one of those lovely frozen butterbeers and poked around a couple of the shops (So many interesting interiors!) before heading down the starway to the lower lot. Half the park is at the bottom of a big hill, so there are several banks of escalators (Imagine about double the rise as when you are coming out of Parliament in Melbourne or KX in Sydney, except it’s a ballache because nobody stands to the side, so you just have to ride at escalator speed for several minutes. At the bottom Mum and I worked through the rides in level of intensity, starting with Jurassic Park. I think I wrote about this one in my old trip report. Basically you ride in big boats past some nice tropical dinosaur scenes, but go off course into a back of house area where dinos have escaped. For those familiar with the ride, the dropping car effect is gone L You then head into the water treatment plant, go up the lift hill inside, and at the top a giant t rex lurches his head at you, but you drop underneath and down the main drop to the splashdown. It’s still a good ride, but I reckon they could plus the ride by replacing the dinos with more modern animatronics. Overall however, its one of the best boat rides out there. They had the nice feature of a kids play area next to the ride, which more parks should put next to major rides IMO. Next was revenge of the mummy. Again, a good ride, and I reckon people are too harsh on it in terms of it supposedly being bad compared to the Orlando and Singapore versions. Quick and to the point, but again, with current projection mapping tech they could surley replace those cardboard cutout elements in the main coaster section. Basically the first section is a slow ride through a tomb, with skeleton arms clawing from the ceiling, a big projection of some sort of sand god raging at you. From the tomb you are launched into the ‘underworld’, just a few quick turns in the dark, with some cheesy cardboard cutouts of underworld gods. You come to an abrupt stop against a brick wall, where projections of beetles swarm around, coupled with leg ticklers under the seats. You then launch backwards through a bit more track, and then come to a stop on a turntable. Shrouded in CO2 fog, and a bang, a door opens and you are back in the station. It was onto another favourite of mine, which mum described as “awesome”….Transformers. Its neck and neck between this and Potter for the worlds best dark ride. A queue line through the halls of a military base, with a cool aesthetic and plenty of monitors and techno shit leads you to the loading station where you grab some 3d goggles, and board the rotating, motion based vehicles. The story goes that Decepticons are attacking earth trying to get the allspark, and you have to help the Autobots move it to safety by riding in the newest member of the team, evac. Perhaps the one thing I missed from the Singaporean version was the bilingual aspect of the queue videos (Basically the would alternate between English and Chinese, subtitled in the opposing language, so the Chinese one would have a few unique jokes….anyways) The ride keeps the blowtorch on the whole time, with quick progression between scenes and nonstop action. It is to dark rides what hypers are to roller coasters. You’re just being dragged along for the ride. Like potter, it’s a tracked ride running through a combination of real life scenes and immersive 3d projected sequences, with the transitions between scenes done quite cleverly. For instance, one part has you being chased under a bridge on screen, but you reverse out, and as you move out from the projector screen you pass under the same bridge in real life that you passed under in the footage. Highlights include a bit where Grindor chases you into a rail tunnel, but is decapitated by a passing train. Theres another great bit where you get picked up by Starscreams grapple hook, and are towed wildly through the air around skyscrapers, eventually fishtailing and smashing through into a level of an office building, hitting computers and filing cabinets. There’s great attention to detail, like a hole that gets blown in a concrete wall, and as you pass through the hole, the tips of the exposed reo bars glow red hot but fade as they cool down. Love that kinda stuff. I was hoping to try the Energon drink they apparently sell in the area…It has been discontinued We then headed up the hill and got lunch at Cletus’ Chicken Shack in Springfield. Being adventurous we tried the waffle chicken sandwich, which had fried chicken, tomato, lettuce and I think some sort of maple mayo…on waffles. It was odd, but kinda nice. Normally I’m good at not missing stuff at theme parks, but I admit I dropped the ball here, and forgot to try a Flaming Moe at during my visit You could also get enormous doughnuts that were the size of a Whopper burger. The whole Springfield area looks great, with places like the DMV, police station, duff brewery. This could totally be fleshed out into an area of scale of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, for example with walkthroughs through the Simpson House or Springfield Elementary. They could even have rides, like bumper cars themed to Crazy Vaclavs Place of Automobiles, where the little cars could be themed to Zagragev Minzlotnyk Diev, and you have to put them in H on a single tank of kerosene. After lunch we went on the Studio Tour. All the usual stuff is there like the Psycho house, Wysteria Lane, Whoville, Jaws, the Earthquake subway etc, so some things don’t change. They have deleted the dancing cars on robotic arms in an old Fast and the Furious scene (Which has since been replaced by another F&F sequence ill get to) . I think there used to be a mummy themed scene with a spinning tunnel. Even without any filming going on, the multiple staged scenes make it quite fleshed out. The two new additions are two enclosed sections that have 3d projection tunnels and motion bases that your vehicle parks on. The first is King Kong, where you are basically in a fight between Kong and some Dinosaurs, with you being jostled around, and even falling off a ravine but landing in some big vines. The other is a Fast and the Furious one which was utterly confusing because I only ever saw the first one. Basically theres some shit about a deal and secret agents, and I couldn’t tell who was good or who was bad or why we were in trouble or why we had been brought to a party in an abandoned warehouse. But it comes good in the final scene, where your tram is being towed by two very powerful tow trucks along a freeway, with cars and shooting happening around you, culminating in a big jump across a half built bridge, in true hollywood style. So what else? The Simpsons ride. It’s a big simulator with a giant dome screen and multiple motion bases that replaced back to the future. My only criticism would be they animated it in Simpsons hit and run style (Or like that Treehouse of horrors where Homer was trapped in 3d world) with smooth edges, rather than the way they do newer episodes and Futurama (Still 3D animated, but with the black outlines) A few laughs, the humour seemed a bit more like early 2000s episodes than newer ones. The other simulator is Despicable Me: minion mayhem. Same sort of idea as the Simpsons, but on a smaller scale, without a dome screen, but it is in 3D! I was expecting to be meh about this one because Facebook ruined minions (apparently adding a picture of a minion to a meme makes it relatable) But it was actually funny! Basically you are shrunk to minion size and sent on a training course, so it feels like you are in a computer game level, with minions falling over a d being knocked over by obstacles. The exit of the ride is a random disco room where you can party with the minions. Nearby is the newly opened Walking Dead attraction. Universal used to have the “Universal House of Horrors” which was a great permanent maze, quite dark with good scares. This has replaced it, and has well detailed sets, and a few more theme parky type features like animatronics and the like. But its fully lit, not dark like a true horror maze, and the scarers just come charging through. And it feels a bit odd because there are staff in medical uniforms as minders all the way through. So its middle of the road….technically well presented with good sets, but not particularly scary or stressing. We went back into Wizarding World and mum conquered Forbidden Journey and loved it. I did another lap on single rider, and on Flight of the Hipogriff because I actually liked it. We sat in Three Broomsticks and tried a few more things, including the Fish n Chips (Decent), the postmix version of Butterbeer (Better than I remembered, would get again!), and Pumpkin Juice (Doesn’t really taste of Pumpkin, it was more a spiced drink that tasted of Cinnamon…if you like Ginger ale etc you’d like Pumpkin Juice. The last attraction we did was the SFX show. This was quite entertaining, with plenty of techniques shown…A man on fire, miniature models, foley sound effects (yes, guests still cant get their cues right!), motion capture, flying rigs, makeup, fake blood knives. The theatre was a full house and nobody left early so can’t question its popularity. They also mixed a bit of theatrics and humor into it, rather than it being a dry demonstration. Eg the flying rig sequence all “went wrong” with the guy on the rig being tossed and tumbled all over the place. We rounded out the day with another go on transformers, and Potter before calling it a day around 5ish. It’s a great park, and has made some definite improvements, with a really solid line up of attractions. It wasn’t too much of an effort to get everything done. (We skipped Waterworld…seen it, and Shrek 4D was skipped for the same reason) I think the main thing the park needs is a signature roller coaster. Japan has Hollywood Dream and Flying Dinosaur, Orlando has Rip Ride Rocket, IOA has Hulk. Singapore has Battlestar. I reckon the park could also do with a family dark ride, like the ET or sesame st ones at the other universal parks. So, that concludes this diversion, and Ill return to chronological trip reports for the rest of this topic.

I think people are still misunderstanding me. Probably my bad, I've never been good at phrasing things. The reason I don't like rides that don't make an effort to, if not be immersive, be visually stimulating or interesting, is that it just doesn't appeal to me to just be on a roller coaster that's called, for example, Batwing, when it has nothing to do with it except for a bat painted on the side and the fact that it's black. I agree that, with it being a large roller coaster, any storyline etc will go out the window, but what I'm saying is that GL is too little on the theming side. It's just... there. With the GL logo on the side and a few pictures of some villains. The other thing I think people misunderstood was comparing to Disneyland. I never meant to suggest that MW was anywhere in the leagues of any of the Disney parks. What I meant was that, for me anyway, WBMW's strength is the immersiveness, attractiveness and overall theming of their attractions, particularly compared to DW, its main competitor. This is similar to Disneyland's advantage over, say, a Six Flags park. While the attractions aren't as thrilling or even as world-class in their construction, they're immersive and built with incredible attention to detail. Look at SE compared to TOT. AA compared to HWSW. SDSC compared to MDMC. Just DCVU has more theming, and much better theming, than almost every attraction in DW combined. I honestly would be a bit upset if that went out the window in favour of, like I said earlier, RCT3/fairground-style rides that are just there. Clearly I've ground a lot of people's gears with that comment. Sorry. Just an innocent opinion passing through.

Having seen this event grow from nothing I think it's fair to say the first night is always a bit iffy and I'm sure any of the quibbles anyone has will be sorted by the next few nights for sure.

The thing is though, Although Movie World is meant to be this big themed movie park, the people want coasters. They proved that when Lethal Weapon was installed. Scooby was an easy gimme. They already had the soundstage built for another attraction, but to expect them to have a fully enclosed full circuit coaster is insane. Well out of MW's budget. So we either get coasters, and be happy with the minimal theming to station and queue, or we do away with coasters and build immersive rides that are fully enclosed. I know that would make some people happy but the GP would then view it as the subpar park to Dreamworld, simply because dreamworld would have more coasters.

The Peter Brock (or whatever his name is) museum looks pretty well done. I just wish they'd gone for something I was interested in. To me it's a shed full of old cars! I like the concept of a walk through attraction though.

(Right) Looks Like The Motocoaster is changing into a dirt bike coaster or maybe they have just taken the shell off. (Bottom) Then It seems that the brake fins have worn of a bit already or are just covered in grease.

I was kidding about the fin only

Absolute bullshit. Millennium force should be number 1 imo!!!! ☺☺