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The first interview of the batch is up! Many thanks to Maximilian Roeser, Mack Rides Head of Marketing, for sharing his insight on desiging Ride to Happiness, Hurricane and Steel Taipan! And also kudos to @themagician for his permission to use his Steel Taipan photos. Was Ride to Happiness specifically designed to provide a more intense experience? In that regard, did the Tomorrowland IP affect the ride design process? Maximilian Roeser: Ride to Happiness was designed to implement everything we learned from our previous tests and installations. So we could work on optimizing and tweaking the layout to the maximum and deliver a very thrilling experience. The Tomorrowland IP was added to a later date so that this did not affect the design at all. How did you design Ride to Happiness's layout with spinning motion in mind? Roeser: That’s actually a quite complex method of engineering. We have to keep in mind that the gondolas can rotate and therefore need to work with the most extreme outcome that we can predict. Generally speaking we still believe Ride to Happiness would be a great coaster even with normal trains – with the Xtreme Spinning Coaster it adds the ultimate experience. Ride to Happiness features very distinctive elements such as a "Curved Jojo Roll", an Outside Banked Top Hat and a "Banana Roll". Can you explain the thought process implementing those elements into the coaster layout? Roeser: Our layout engineers are free when initially working on a layout and presenting it the first time. Of course we have the guidelines of the customer and also budget and space are given. Therefore, we try to maximize the ride experience. We got very good responses on the "Jojo Roll" on Copperhead Strike and to the initial highlight of Time Traveller plunging down the station. We wanted to create something similar but with the given terrain an drop would not have been feasable. So in order to still keep this inital effect we installed the curved Jojo Roll and the drop effect was added behind the first launch section. The reason why the Jojo Roll is curved is pretty simple. The alignment of the launches and the station building was set due to the terrain and location of the ride. So, we had to get a curve to the launch section. The "Banana Roll" for instance is placed at the location where we needed to head back to the station direction, so we had multiple options and chose the banana roll for this. Hurricane at Suzhou Amusement Land Forest World will be Mack Rides' tallest coaster to date. Was breaking this record a requested feature from the client? Roeser: The client wanted to create a certain height but not breaking the record of our company. (Photo: Roller Coaster Dream China) Hurricane has a low-to-the-ground barrel roll just after the 62m Top Hat. What inspired you to create such a contrasting sequence of elements? Roeser: This ride is certainly the most extreme launch coaster we built. The inversion after the Top Hat will crack the speed record for world’s fastest inversion to date. So we look forward to the opening of the ride and how many people will dare to ride this spectacular attraction. (Photo: Roller Coaster Dream China) This coaster will also feature interlocking Cobra Roll and Looping. Can you describe the forces running through those inversions? Roeser: It’s a nice combination of hangtime and forces that push you into the seat. The elements are quick one after another so that you really have to look out where you will go next. The whole coaster is equipped with a high average speed so we look forward to riding it hopefully soon. What led to the introduction of a spinning car on Steel Taipan in Dreamworld in Australia? Roeser: It first started with the tests on Blue Fire for the Xtreme Spinning Coaster. We built 4 seats on top of the last coach of Blue Fire and tested at night to realize a working prototype. After this was done and we already got Time Traveller we knew we could provide an add-on for our launch, mega and hypercoasters and so we tested again with only a two seater configuration. Steel Taipan's final coach offers extra spinning motion (Photo: Gold Coast Theme Parks) As many coasters were designed as a standard seating coaster we can’t just put new trains on. But we have some of our launch coasters that would be capable of the new hybrid trains and we already see some parks thinking about this addition to their rides. We think it’s a great way to promote the ride with a totally new experience. Why did you add a backwards spike to the launch? The client requested this change in order to add an additional feature of three launches. There were also another ideas in place to create another launch sequence at the straight portion of the launch but we stuck to the launch as we got it on Blue Fire. (Photo: Gold Coast Theme Parks)

Made it out to Luna Park last night for the first night of public operation since lockdown at Halloscream. Crowds were massive and it was great to see so many people coming down to support the park, and as joz said before, it's looking to be a massive summer for the park. Queues were huge for most rides, with the Hair Raiser line spilling onto the midway, and the Boomerang queue being a consistent half an hour wait for most of the night. Starting with the new area, it looked... meh. Rides were using temporary fencing and the area just looked a bit cheap. Hoping they can fix it in the coming months and I understand it was opening night so things still needed to be tidied up, but in its current state, Luna Land is looking pretty sad. Sledgehammer was definitely the stand-out in the area, however it was a bit disappointing having that down (obviously due to unforeseen circumstances). Boomerang was quite a good little coaster, with some nice forces, so that's definitely a positive of the night. Mazes were fantastic again this year, all of them being hosted under the Big Top. Decaymart was probably my personal favourite, with great sets, props and actors, as well as a solid story, with Outback Slaughterhouse following closely behind. Rain Dead was perhaps the weakest offering - don't know if I just got unlucky, but it felt like there was a lack of sets and actors throughout. Staff were friendly as always, as were operations so that was definitely a positive. Was a shame to see many of the rides down, including 2 out of the 3 coasters for a good chunk of the night (Little Nipper had technical problems but did open later on), as well as Tango Train breaking down for the night, but this isn't the parks fault, and hopefully just all teething problems with the new rides.' I took a few pictures, nothing super amazing but hope everyone enjoys.

DW are already implementing new procedures to help with the parking issue. They have opened up the access road to Blue Lagoon park as extra parking. They are reducing the entry road to one lane. They have traffic control directing traffic down the first row so cars have to use the back half of the carpark. This is to allow day guests to exit easily and then Halloween guests fill the front car parks first. They have also removed the fencing that was used to store ST track.

Good stuff. All seems very sensible.

Anyone order a Wooden Roller-coaster with a side of huge metal shed?

Because of the train track rerouting, the ride photos have been removed again

I hear the train was overloaded.

‘Memorial’ appears to be finished

With the pathway open, it’s great how close to the coaster you can get

They do. They have to. There are heritage orders on. It’s and the operators must maintain both rides.

I’m surprised with that banner. I wonder if it’s temporary?

Pretty sad to hear the park opened like this. It's great that they're is getting a lot of visitors, but two of the park's signature rides (one of them brand new) being closed on its first day is just a bad look. I hope they clean up the new area soon, they did so well with Volare and the new Wild Mouse facade and it's disappointing to see them completely forget that. I'll try to visit the park soon to form my own opinion. Anyways, I want to keep my hopes up. We've been anticipating this for eleven months.

And that is just wrong because considering how much money they spent on Luna Land, and the extent of the upgrade, it shouldn't look cheap or sad. But it does. And are they really going to fix it in the coming months? They didn't fix Maloney's Corner for 17 years

Then you should plant some seeds when you go there next they shouldn't notice

Thanks for the pics themagician. The sad face emoji was because of how terrible and non-sensical that whole pathway and area is

If only they had the foresight to do this last weekend…. But at least they are fixing the issue now rather than just letting it fester for the remainder of this season

West side is testing And there is a new lift system installed (you can see the difference compared to the old one)

Filming for the Steel Taipan safety video starts Monday.

Will be a sad day for coaster enthusiasts when it retires. I hope both Luna Parks have ambition to preserve wild mouse and scenic railway for as long as they possibly can.

From reports the raft was under-inflated so the buoyancy was below prescribed. The tyre then was caught/flipped over on part of the rapids mechanisms.

I visited the park today (Luna Land) and took some pictures before tonights first Halloscream event.

Considering there is filming involved in this safety video I wonder if it will be in similar style to the sky voyager safety video.