Richard

Merimbula's Magic Mountain was done and up earlier this week. Also, I redid the Dreamworld gallery over the weekend. The old one, having looked back, was just plain rotten. The images are mostly old ones, but I did added 11 new photos: 6 of Cyclone, 1 of Runaway Reptar and 4 of the Tower. They're much nicer looking that the old ones. The colours aren't as messed, and they're now all standard sized (if you remember the old ones, the dimensions were all over the place). I'll look at doing the rest of the Scenic World gallery over the weekend.

It's a tragic thing to happen. Though if you, or anyone you know is in doubt about the safety of these rides, this might put your mind to ease: Based on what was said, they've had 10 deaths in the past 48 years. Assuming each year averages 10 million guests (which is certainly fair for the past 20 years, not totally sure on before that), meaning 480 million guests in total. That means 1 in every 48 million guests to Disneyland will die. I'd say that you have a 1 in 48 million chance of dying at the park, but most of the deaths were caused by some sort of stupidity. Incidents like this tragic one would probably be more in the 1 in 200 or 300 million range of things. Meanwhile, assuming there are 13 million cars in Australia (from ABS), and 1,800 road-related deaths each year (triple j Morning Show - Friday 5/09). That means that 1 in every 7,222 car owners can expect to die within the next year. 1 in every 11,111 Australian residents can expect to die on the road. Over at Westcoaster, it was quite interesting, and even scary, to see the number of members there that had just ridden it that morning. I just hope that they're able to get this thing operational for my trip in December.

I can't wait to see pictures of what they're doing down that way. Assuming it's all happening, what's everyone's picks for slides? Honestly, so long as they're on mats or tubes, and not body slides, I'm happy - besides, once you've got a set of body slides, you don't need more - they're all the same basic thing with not much difference between them. With tube slides, you've got a whole range of different styles of rides, and I think Wet'n'Wild has shown that.

I don't know if you "tried" it in Winter, when it was actually decent and refreshing, but on that day in January when we went before the heaters were in or on, it was pretty bad. You'll remember the floor and sides are made of a rubbery surface, pretty similar to what tartan athletics tracks are made of, and it had a habbit of rubbing off on that first visit, leaving the pools collecting lots of little chunks of rubber at the bottom. The strange thing was, it was still doing that by Easter - three months later. I can't imagine that stuff is much fun to clean out of the filters.

Well, the word "thrill" was used when referring to the rides the park would have. How the developers interpret the word thrill or kid I don't know. But hey, probably more than half of the guests at Dreamworld in a given day, queuing for the "big" rides, would be under 12.

Some once-again promising news from Melbourne. The Victorian Government has sold/plans to sell off the Melbourne Showgrounds. This is bad news, until you hear what they've got planned for it. Among things like hotels and shops and whatnot is a $100mil theme park, known at this stage as "Kids Kingdom", featuring thrill rides and the only thing that can possibly go with thrill rides it seems, an animal nursery. And this isn't a project for 20 years down the track - it's expected to be finished by this time in 2006 - that's just three years time! Certainly not to the scale of the fabled Paramount park, but still very promising news that I know I'll be getting excited about as the project moves forwards.

Fast Pass is included in the ticket price, it essentially works on a "first in best dressed" system. It's the Six Flags or Cedar Fair systems that cost money. Even if it did cost money, it's exactly the same as paying more for good seats in a stadium, or to some extent, buying a Jaguar XKR over a Hyundai Excel. It's not as if by not paying you're excluded from riding the coaster.

I'm going to have to ban discussions about the good coasters in California, Vegas, Texas, Florida and Georgia for the next three months. At which point, it won't matter to be, because I'll be too busy checking them out for myself.

Finally the "real" Whirlpool opens, September 20 at Wet'n'Wild. There's no denying that it's clearly not the same degree of excitement that you'd find on some of the slides, but it's certainly going to go nicely with the existing attractions. And of course, if nothing else, it'll mean 1000 people per hour less to deal with in queues for other rides. On that same day, they're kicking off the "Dive-in Movie season", with Matrix Reloaded. In honesty, it really wasn't as good as the first one (and to think it's still playing in cinemas), and it really did have a pretty unbearable middle (basically any scenes not in the matrix were pretty slow and uninteresting). Nevertheless, it's a good action film, and is among the best movies released in the past few years, and will surely please crowds at Wet'n'Wild.

I've not watched many travel shows in recent years, but when you've spent the past few months talking to people at Videopro, and trying out all sorts of expensive cameras way out of my range, you really do get an eye for the quality of both the picture and the shots taken. They really did do their best to get what I'd call a pretty rounded view of Knotts. Plus they did research beyond the average tourist brochure for a change, which was evident from the ACE reference. From what I've seen of GhostRider, I really don't think they did it much justice at all (given that they had around 5 minutes to squeeze in all this footage, I don't see how they could anyway).

Well, animals adapt to their environment - and Thunderbolt was well and truly heard from over at Tiger Island. Then there's the various noise reduction techniques that manufacturers use these days that can make a coaster virtually unnoticeable. Plus, behind Tiger Island isn't exactly a small area. Actually, unless they hook this imaginary coaster way up behind Tiger Island, it won't be close to it at all.

Cheers for the tipoff! That's just made a moderately busy TV night (normally Frasier, Simpsons on VCR and Malcolm of TV, and Enough Rope) slightly more packed.

Illegal to run the ride? That's believable! I presume it is a law only applied in New South Wales, as many rides in Queensland go for years without any significant "maintenance". What really is done over several weeks of closure that can't be done in the standard inspections each morning? If there's some significant work to be done, I fail to see how in several days it can't be done. Furthermore, if this nonsense about annual maintenance being legally mandatory is believed for just a few seconds, then there is even less of a reason for them to bring it down to coincide with Bush Beast's closure. I could understand the situation if say Demon suffered from a snapped chain, while (and only while) Bush Beast was already well and truly into its annual maintenance. Absolutely any other situation, such as the current one, and I cannot at all empathise with Wonderland.

It suggests specifically "water ride", yet there's no mention of just a ride in general or ride. It doesn't take much great insight to realise that they've got some form of water ride on the drawing board (be it a flume or slide or whatnot). In defence of water slides (and again, based on what we've been given here, it can't be said whether they're talking about a slide), in terms of re-ridability, I've not found anything that comes anywhere near Aqua Racer at Wet'n'Wild (with the exception of perhaps one of my much-loved Toboggans). Surely Nightshifter if you're sitting around on a particularly hot summer's day, and you decide that a waterpark is what you want, you don't just pack your bags and take the day drive up to the Gold Coast for a visit to Wet'n'Wild. Wonderland Sydney's focus is the regional market these days. It is meant to be a relatively inexpensive day's entertainment for anyone within a few hours, whereas the shift with certainly the Warner Village parks and to a lesser extent Dreamworld, is towards "destination" park. They really want holidaymakers who are on their yearly family holiday, not the locals interested in a way to kill a day, and this is totally reflective in their Three Park Super Savers. Is Wonderland advertising the ride closures? They don't have it anywhere on their website, which I certainly object to. If they are anything but clearly signposted for all incoming guests to see (I don't mean an A4 sized sign on the window of the Guest Services window, way off to the side of the ticket booths), then I really do think that Wonderland should seriously rethink their approach. I have a lot of respect for Wonderland Sydney's administration, but closing multiple major attractions (especially when you have so few to start off with), regardless of reasons, is just plain wrong.

As someone who not only sat through, but also enjoyed (call me a masochist): Superstars: Live in Concert (Movie World) and Outback Celebration (Dreamworld), I can't agree with you more. Still, if you want interesting entertainment, nothing goes past Luna Park in Melbourne, who hired The Happy Sideshow over Summer - that was genuinely interesting, unique and amazing. I find it amazing that a group that toured with Machine Gun Fellatio, who themselves would have to be the Australian music scene's biggest freaks (and are 10x more insane live), find themselves performing for an audience whose average age would be all of 10 years old.

If I were following everyone else with regards to my opinion on DCA, I probably wouldn't have set aside three days for the Disneyland Resort - that's going to work out to being at least a day at DCA. It is a very nice looking park, and I am looking forward to it. And, you must admit, Disney's California Adventure's number of attractions is low. As I always say, I'm all for seeing shows or general non-ride attractions at parks, and I'm well aware that they are an integral part of a park, however this site is Total Thrills - I'm here for thrills, just as I'm at parks for thrills. If I can fill an entire day just riding rides, then I'm having fun. It's when you start looking for the shows etc. to fill in some time that you know the park is a bit short. And every other Disney park to date could be considered to have opened with the "full package" - with more than enough entertainment for at least a day (or the case of Walt Disney World, a week or two). And you need not look any further than Islands of Adventure (whose budget wasn't terribly much more than DCA's) to see that a park can be built from scratch into a thrill ride paradise, of which I haven't heard a single complaint ever. I don't see any need to defend a park. If there are problems, (and certainly in your post you by no means consider the park perfect ) I know I'll come out and say what they are. I know I've kicked up some fuss here because of my frankness about some of our parks. I'll also gladly say what I think is good about a given park. For any Australian park, I could give you a genuine good thing I like about it, as well as a genuine bad point.

There's such a small difference in price between different types of coasters. Of course you'll pay a little less for say an Intamin coaster over a B&M, but that's not what a park looks at really. If Dreamworld adds a coaster, they'll look at the types of coasters they can add within their budget - not the manufacturers. The removal of Thunderbolt potentially frees up a lot more land than just the ride's footprint. Depending on how much Dreamworld wants to maximise the plot's potential, they could really fit in several large rides. Most parks well and truly know that coasters are the real ticket sellers. Flat rides do their part, but they certainly aren't as universally liked as coasters, and their novelty really does wear off for most. Now, I really could see a B&M floorless headed Dreamworld's way, keep it towards the back of Thunderbolt's area, and use land out to the East, up behind Tiger Island, and you'll still have 80% of the land to use for crowd management and other rides or attractions. Next Christmas is starting to look very promising.

You're probably right there - I'll be honest and say, although it looks like an interesting park, which certainly does have a lot of potential, it's got a while to go. California Screamin' - Lethal Weapon Mulholland Madness - Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster Grizzly River Rapids - Wild Wild West Maliboomer - ?? Soarin' Over California - Batman the "Ride" Naturally, you've experienced both, so anything I say may well be a little one-sided to you (or anyone), but to me it seems that most of their major attractions are in most ways better than ours. From the pictures I've seen, the theming is better quality and better executed, their rides seem to at least attempt to add some atmosphere. Maybe you got the park done in 90 minutes because their staff are so efficient and the rides are high capacity for a change, so it was an easier park to "complete". Granted, the park certainly does appear to lack a lot - certainly when Universal have proven that it is very possible to mix thrills with theming and atmosphere. Let's hope that Tower of Terror kickstarts the park's true potential (and let's also hope that they finish that ride a few months ahead of schedule, and it is open when I'm out that way). Also, good to hear from you and that everything's all good. It's been very quiet around here lately.

Looking over my summer Melbourne trip, on which a majority of the site's galleries were taken, I've certainly come to realise that the quality of the shots just isn't quite there, it's more so with the "post-production" I do, rather than the actual shots - the cropping, colour balancing, watermarking etc. When those galleries were added, I was fairly busy - I was working full time, so I didn't really get to put the time or dedication into it that I'd have liked to. Now that I've got a bit more free time (don't ask me where it's coming from - I should be busy...), I'm re-releasing the photos taken on that trip. So you all know, there's not going to be any additional photos, no new comments, nothing overly special - just better quality pictures at a slightly higher resolution. I'll just be putting up the new photos whenever I have the spare time - maybe once every week or two. No song and dance to be made about it.

Well, I maintain that there is no logical way that this ride can even be loosely classed as "suspended" or "semi-suspended". I don't think there was any doubt that the cars probably do rock/swing, but suspended refers to the position of the track in relation to riders - which in this case is definitely not suspended. Early mice coasters, such as Aussie World's use a loose upstop system to allow the cars to rock or tilt around turns, and I don't think anyone would call them "semi-suspended" coasters. As always, I'm happy to discuss/debate further this (or anything else), but let's keep it to the correct forums. In this case, it should be in the General Thrills forum - either as a new topic, or brough up within the existing Orphan Rocker thread.

There used to be a ride similar to that at the Ekka until about 10 years ago. I presume it also did the other major shows around Australia - pretty rotten memories from that ride though, but it was a very fun ride.

The shark was released as a result of a decision made by the park in light of the shark's condition. There has been a fairly unnecessary media outburst about this, but this a separate situation that was not as a result of the press attention. You'll find that the shark they released was quite badly injured when it was caught, and was taken to Sea World to be given another chance by the fisherman who caught it. The shark was nicely recovering, but some physiological changes over the past week prompted the park to release here, before her situation got any worse, figuring that she'll have a much greater chance of survival out in the ocean. The media are playing their little games, but it's certainly nothing that they've not had before. As has been suggested in the other thread about Shark Bay, there was a lot of uproar about introducing polar bears into the Gold Coast, but they seem to be doing very well (certainly better than they were in their previous respective zoos).

Some were taken outside the park, some from the carpark, some inside. They're really nothing I'm terribly proud of, I suppose in terms of rides, this would be a "filler" attraction. I'll get back to Wonderland some time in the future and take some real photos (looking at early next year, perhaps around Easter - between two USA trips).

I'd suggest bringing this up in its own topic in the Chit-Chat forum - there are many members here who have a range of digital cameras, we'd be able to help you with this matter over there, if you're in the market for one.

Free time seems to have gotten the better of me once again. The Scenic World gallery has been updated to include some more shots of the Orphan Rocker, including some great shots of the train were given to me by a mate, Kevin Einstein. http://oldsite.totalthrills.com/scwgallery.php It's going to get harder and harder to find more updates to keep the site fresh for the rest of the year, there'll be probably some Sea World and Movie World pictures, and maybe some more Wet'n'Wild ones by the end of the year. At the moment I'm essentially digging through old directories and albums for pictures that are worth putting up. I'll liken it to Woody Allen's latest few films, that were all concepts that he's had lying around for years, which he's just making now to satisfy his contract... but that sounds a bit nerdy.