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AW used to be an amusement park. Now it should be classed as a hybrid theme park/water park. In terms of themes there are multiple. Dragons Kingdom, Kahuna Falls and cafe, Water mountain which now has a Gold rush theme to it, " Nautica" which houses Kraken and nearby slides, The Abyss area now incorporating the well themed Goliath and Rampage. You cant say with the level of theming present that AW is an amusement park. As for whoever said "Fun Park" go wash your mouth out with soap!!

All valid and I wish there had been more cohesion between Goliath (Biblical?) and Abyss, the theming was definitely supposed to provide a close link to that dark, fantasy and menacing side of the Park. I thought the definition of a "Theme Park" though was a park with at least one, or many themes? I agree having defined "lands" or zones is ideal, but multiple themes still make it a theme park. Look up Hybrid theme park/water parks and you will find it is actually a growing trend. AW was a front runner (lol) And show me a park that blends amazing landscaping/carpet like lawns with all of that stuff going on visually better than AW does. Pass the salt.

That "Council Park feeling" rates AW as the top Park in Aus based on Trip Advisor reviews for 2016! (based on the % of 4/5 star reviews of the total) at 92% from memory. I might be a bit biased but that's a bit harsh! I forgot the Pirate theme which hopefully will be expanded on overtime in that zone of the Park.

Tim, Abyss is not rough compared to AA and HWSW. I prefer to sit in the back row of Abyss and get a great ride every time.

I love the way people condescend to Mark when they probably haven't even been there. You can't compare AW to a side show. There's just so much more that AW brings that can't be seen on random photos or a satellite view. It's a fantastic set up that almost defies being categorised. When you look at what the park started with, it had no real off the shelf amusement park rides at all. And, as I've told people before, you can quite happily spend the day riding rides there and not go anywhere near the water. If you want to call it a theme park - call it one.

I'll spare you all the requirement of reading another four thousand word essay and simply say this: Amusement Park - to me, I think an amusement park is simply a park that presents itself well with no true story prevalent in either individual attractions or the space they're in. Luna Park or say Cedar Point (in general i.e. most attractions & midway etc.) are parks that are generally presented nicely and represent the idea of an "amusement park" in my mind. Theme Park - again, "to me," I think a theme park is a park that has attractions and areas that carry a story or a theme. Now - it's worth nothing that debating the quality of those stories, themes or lands or even if every single thing needs to have a theme inside a park to be then defined as a theme park is a whole other debate. So, with that context in mind, Adventure World definitely gets a theme park tick, the kids land is a coherent themed space for one with clearly defined portals, and while Abyss/Goliath etc. don't exist inside a "gouhland" or some kind of over-arching title, there's more than enough effort and original creativity in a defined space of multiple specific areas of the park to warrant it being more than worthy of being a theme park (or hybrid water park/theme park.) Also, as a side note, i'm pretty confident in saying that with the exception of @Mark Shaw, @Tim Dasco and myself, most folks here haven't actually been over there in quite some time and are actually probably relying on my photos as an accurate representation of the park itself, and those photos are three years old now.

Doesn't the definition you posted say it's a theme park? "1. an amusement park in which landscaping, buildings, and attractions are based on one or more specific themes, as jungle wildlife, fairy tales, or the Old West". Why don't we have a Theme Park option to vote on. Not all Theme Parks are like MW. My Vote is for a Theme Park - like Adventure World.

A lazy river would be a capacity soaker that AW needs for peak seasons and with a lot of heavy theming that the team is capable of doing it could be classified as a MI. However I’m convinced it will be a Proslide and wouldn’t mind a hybrid with many elements including the flying saucer element. EDIT: Heard from staff within the last season that The Lagoon (Main pool) was going to be receiving some TLC. Do agree though, not to sure what they would do anyway.

Humans do things that are useless and meaningless every hour of every day I respect the fact that many people think that counting coasters is dumb. It may actually surprise you to learn that I don't actually disagree with this; it is a stupid hobby, but the fact is that I've made the choice to do this which is my prerogative as an individual. There's a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon that is relevant here: http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1995/04/27 I count lots of other things too – just because. I'm expecting to fly through my 250th different airport in 2018 – and whatever about coasters, I can definitely say that not all airports are equal! Thank you for that. Indeed not, and not always in the way you might imagine – I liked SpongeBob far better than Buzzsaw. And I liked having severe indigestion better than riding Mick Doohan's Motocoaster. People still have photo albums? Totally agree with this. Theme parks and coasters have led me to countries and cities that I'd never have been to under ordinary circumstances – by the end of this year I'll have visited seventy countries – and I have many great stories and memories. At least one of those memories involves a pathetic coaster; a fellow enthusiast broke his rib while riding a Wacky Worm in Cairo (he was looking over his shoulder as we hit the brakes, and the restraint clobbered him). As you can imagine he didn't get a massive amount of sympathy! Another great one was when a security guard ran up to us at Abu Dhabi Airport when we were getting out of a taxi to say that we must be at the wrong terminal. He couldn't believe that a group of western adults could possibly be flying to Bangladesh.

(0:17-0:23) Maybe before you judge a park by images on Google Earth or Nearmap, you should go to it first. And before you give me shit for posting this or the kid in the video, give him a break he has autism.

Abyss is not bad, it's a little rough. Of course it's not going to be super smooth. It's a Gerslaur, not a B&M of course it won't be bone smooth.

The fibreglass mould for the first carriage varies between LPM's version and Brisbane's one. I'd put money on it being Rob Croft's conversion that never worked out as planned. Good idea in theory but as the article alluded to, it'd have a pretty high centre of gravity for the relatively small axle that was originally designed for Zamperla's track guage and thus quite painful to operate off-track.

I can think of a few reasons: i'd imagine a lot of buyers were scared off after the two in Great Adventure were scrapped this was at the tail end of the "faster, taller, longer" rush for parks, and Intamin's hydraulic launch system was favoured as it was able to deliver those marketable metrics this is very speculative, but after Intamin ejected a few folk with their lap-bars, all the parks went through a phase where everything needed an OTSR (ala Superman Escape) and so parks would've shied away from their lap-bar train designs. It's not all bad though, Premier have made a comfortable comeback by delivering a really solid few post-GFC products that leverage their LIM tech for smaller, lower capacity and yet visually impressive roller-coasters (Tempesto at Busch Gardens, Williamsburg.)

What's the level of coherency required to achieve Theme Park status? Who decides when the level of coherency has been achieved? What does this mean for DW "Theme Park Status" since WWW is now part of DW? Hang on, DW has a zoo too. Dw has water slides, dry rides & animals. That doesn't sound coherent. Now I'm confused. I'm going for a lie down if anybody needs me.

Yeh.... No one stores photos like that.

Not necessarily because Dreamworld has themed lands with attractions in those lands themed accordingly, including rides, shops etc. The themed areas are somewhat defined. You walk into ABC Kids and the feeling is that you aren’t on Main Street anymore. You know due to the architecture, the music and yes the theming. Adventure world whilst I commend the work done to bring themeing standards up, we still have a council park feeling with themed rides here there and everywhere. There is no cohesion. And that’s my answer as to why it’s not a theme park, if anything it’s an action park.

I got bored. Of course not, Skeeta is not my real name. I think you have my view skew whiff. We are never going to agree who SpongeBob is built for. 1. The ride is designed to bring enjoyment to little kids. (The only enjoyment I get from it is seeing the enjoyment it brings my daughter) You say credit whores only ride kid’s coaster for the credits and I put it to you that credit race is a flawed system and poorly thought out. When I go to little Billy’s house to look at his stamp collection his stamps are sorted in value. Even though I know nothing about stamps, I can quickly appreciate that one stamp is worth more than another. Billy pride and joy is his stamp that was a printing mistake and only 1000 made. Billy also has a shoebox full of stamps that have all been used but he is hoping one day they might be worth something. (I don’t know a Billy) When I go to little Suzy house to look out her coin collection her coins are sorted in value. (I don’t know a Suzy) When I go to Reanimated35 house to look at his photo collection his photos are sorted in how he values them. (I knew a Reanimated35 but I think he died) When I go to Noxegon house to look at his coaster collection it means nothing to me because all his coasters are valued the same. Noxegon tells me he and Gazza are all locked up on 222 each and Noxegon is looking for his next coaster to tame. I suggest to Noxegon he ride Takabisha because Skeet knows Gazza is about to enslave Road Runner Rollercoaster. Noxegon tells Skeeta, “don’t be a weirdo, that will move us both to 223”. Skeeta spends the next sixty years trying to convince Noxegon Takabisha is worth a gold credit where Road Runner Rollercoaster is only worth a blue credit. In fact, it turns out all Gazza’s coasters are only blue credits where Noxegon has 221 Gold credits plus one super rare Black Opal credit he received for riding the first wooden mouse coaster ever built that is no longer available. Until a coaster credit has a currency to it, credit whoring is useless and meaningless. On a final point, I never thought or it crossed my mind or am I trying to imply that you are on the kid’s roller coaster for any other reason but to ride the coaster.

Ardent Leisure wipe up to $25 million from value as Dreamworld recovery slows Ardent Leisure have announced a strong trading period over the summer while also slashing $15-25 million from the book value of the theme park amid concerns its recovery will be slower than anticipated. Click here to continue reading

However by that definition wouldn't Dreamworld then be classed as an amusement park in its current state.

Very excited to see what’s next for AW! Whatever it is I’m sure it will be a strong addition to the park and help out attendance for the 2019/20 season. Cant wait to stalk this thread just like for Abyss, Kraken and Goliath.

Apologies for double posting here – not sure what happened, but the text editor lost about half of the post I made earlier so I decided to nuke it and start afresh. It is a gloriously cromulent word. I'm very fond of it. I genuinely missed that – mea culpa. That being said, the omission doesn't take away from the fact that the ride manufacturer describes it as a Family Coaster suitable for adults and children. As a further data point, nine of the forty-three extant installations have the word family in their name. I've ridden thirty separate models around the world and there's never been a problem. Separately, I can't help but notice how you've chosen to reply to one portion of my post, ignoring the rest Totally agree with this. However, I think it's equally fair to say that SW didn't say "we're buying a family coaster that most of our park guests can ride, but lets limit it to children only so that @Skeeta doesn't feel strange". I know that you're far from the only person to feel that way, but I find that view desperately sad. Why rush to judgment about someone who's quietly enjoying themselves in an amusement park? If you'll forgive a slight digression, I've been involved with a youth group for almost three decades, first as a child participant and subsequently as an adult leader. In the last ten years we've had to deal with increasing bureaucracy relating to child protection that is having a very real impact on what we do. To give one example, in times past we would often travel in a fleet of private cars, but we're not allowed to do that any more as regulations prohibit children travelling in cars with unrelated adults – even though in our case we typically had two adults/three children in each car. Instead we have to hire a bus, and the cost of that has reduced the number of activities we run. Every adult has to get police clearance every few years, and our younger members do the moment they turn eighteen - which has led to some asinine situations where two friends aged 17 and 18 have had to be separated temporarily because the older one hasn't received their clearance yet. (The whole clearance thing gives a false sense of security IMHO, since all it really proves is that a would-be malefactor hasn't been caught yet). The reason I mention this story is that it has become increasingly apparent that many people out there are afraid of their own shadows, to the point that anyone with an unusual hobby is automatically treated with suspicion or considered a "weirdo" or worse. This doesn't make the world a better place. Just my €0.02.