Richard

Scooby-Doo may be the better ride of the two, but for smoothness and grace, Eureka Mountain really does hold up. I'd challenge you to find a ride (I mean any ride) that comes up to the level of Eureka Mountain with regards to the way it glides around the track so smoothly. The ony thing I don't like about Scooby-Doo is the way some of the turns and drops really jolt you around (the s-bend and dip before the "I escaped down here. He he he..." section at the end are most notorious). The laterals may be tough (certainly more so than Scooby-Doo), but it really is a damn smooth ride. Now, if we're going down the arms up route, then Eureka Mountain would have to be the winner again. I challenge you to ride that thing arms up all the way. If you've got the guts to, chances are you won't have them attached to you at the end.

You must be proud of that secret. I posted this in another one of his posts... http://www.nfn.com.au/gold1.htm CokeCool - I suggest you credit your sources in future.

The site is here: http://www.nfn.com.au/gold1.htm They're quite out of date - you won't find anything added in the past few years.

This has run its course and gone far enough. I ask everyone to shift the construction discussions to a new thread, leaving the attitudes and closed-mindedness here.

Regardless of what Six Flags did for Movie World Madrid, the fact remains is they only invested 5% of the total into the park (under €20 million). I don't know what the exchange was back then, but it wasn't really a great deal. Certainly when they spent more than that on SFMM's 2001 coasters alone. The Jazzland deal came along and was good value. $25 million to add a new park up to the standards of their "midrange" regional parks - they'd have been crazy not to go with such a deal. I don't know what attendance they're projecting, but I'm guessing that if they don't make back their investment this season, it'll happen some time next sason. A deal like that won't come to them too often. I didn't say that they're not buying parks. They put in a bid for Tussauds in England, and I think they looked seriously at the Vivendi (Universal) properties. Just I really doubt that they'll be buying a park that will cost them USD$75++ million, that will only make them USD$5 million each season. They've kept clear of Orlando Florida, and I'm going out on a limb to say that the Gold Coast parks are in a very similar position to those in Orlando (obviously on a smaller scale etc.). They could probably raise an equivalent park to Movie World in another part of Australia (just a few hours north of the Gold Coast is the Sunshine Coast - which is currently experiencing the growth of the Gold Coast of 20-30 years ago), for a lower price than they'd pay for an existing park. I didn't say that the managers were faceless, I said that that is the perception of them. I was speaking about the USA market then. Of course trying to disect that statement I made is irrelevant to the point I was making in that paragraph. I never said B&M did anything more than engineering. Though they are still responsible for every part of the ride's construction, from the very early phases up until the opening day. The park is quoted a price by B&M, and from there they make it happen. The fact is, the competition between these parks is, and certainly would be more so if Movie World was bought out, very tight. It's nothing like the "competition" that SFMM and Cedar Point experience. As I said earlier, this is more up on the levels of the Orlando competition. They may have mutual agreements etc., but the fact is, if Dreamworld really wanted to (and got the finance from Macquarie Leisure (i.e. $100's of millions), as well as scrapped the town center etc.), they could have WVTP on their knees begging for mercy. Just as WVTP could do the same back to Dreamworld (with the same sort of finances, but also some serious changes to the entire structure of the parks). Of course, John Menzies probably meets with Tony Braxton-Smith for lunch every now and again, and they're well aware that they're currently operating such that they benefit each other to an extent, but there is the really potential for serious competition, but neither parties either have the finances available, or see the benefits too short-term to be of any use. A bit off topic, but hey - I only go as far off topic as the person above me. Where the discussion goes, it goes (unless we start talking about watermelons, which I think is a little too far from home).

Six Flags only holds management rights for Warner Bros. Movie World Madrid, and only a 5% stake in the park - contrary to popular belief, they don't own, nor were they responsible for much of the development and construction of the park from what I can see. And with Jazzland - Six Flags really would have been stupid not to buy the park. With a $5 million price tag, plus $20 million invested into the park, the place will have paid itself off within two or three years maximum. The difference in this situation is we've got a park that will cost them far more than $5 million (more in the realm of US$50 million I'd expect), and wouldn't have returns quite as luring as Jazzland. And really, if Six Flags did come along, they'd still have to put up a fight for market share. With what would be two directly competitive parks all within around a ten minute drive, as well as one water park right next door that'd be competitive to a certain degree, they'd certainly be putting up a fight for their share (and then some) of the market. They could do this with flashy new coasters every year breaking their own records, but I'd like to think that they'd continue with their own unique movie edge. The fact is that those faceless Six Flags managers you hear about that are responsible for every bad Six Flags park won't just appear here and start running the place. The park would largely be run by the same team of management. Sure, they'd be answering to different people, and be given different budgets to work with (higher or lower is anyone's guess), and have different agendas, but at the end of the day, I don't think we'd see too much change - certainly not for the worse. I thought it'd be useful to mention, while I'm rambling, that B&M subcontracts their steel work. Giovanola does their European steel as I'm aware, and an Ohio-based company does it in America. BHP has done many of Australia's coasters, and I'd expect them to be doing any future coasters where trackwork isn't done in-house. Consequently, additional costs would probably only be for things like trains, electronics, etc. :bert:

These rumours are here every year around this time almost without fail. Six Flags is several billion dollars in debt. Their current goal is to reduce that debt, hence reduced expenditure in the short term (or long term?) future. That's why we only saw new rides at their major parks this year. That's why the only park they've bought recently was one that's probably already paid itself off twice over this season. It's also why we're hearing about customer service improvements, and other general (but vital) improvements in many of their parks. Now, Australia's dollar is around 2/3 of the US dollar. That means that every dollar they make here is worth only 2/3 to them. Movie World, a year-round park, is currently doing its best to bring in somewhere in the vicinty of a million guests each year. Take your bottom Six Flags parks, say Kentucky Kingdom or Elitch Gardens - both of which beat out Movie World for attendance (I don't believe that many, if any Six Flags parks don't beat out any Australian parks - and they're all, bar SFMM, seasonal). It's not exactly screaming out "Look at me, this is a great deal!" Perhaps someone along the lines of joz can confirm this, but I'm under the impression that John Menzies (WVTP CEO) basically lives at Sea World (in the little turret atop the main entrance building according to reliable sources ), despite his 'official' office, along with the WVTP management, being located at Movie World. Cedar Fair (owners of Cedar Point, Knotts, Dorney Park etc.) would be even worse. They have a strict policy of return on investment (ROI). Essentially, they've got to be guaranteed that a park will gain significantly from any capital expenditure - quite unlike Six Flags' "build it and they will come" philosophy. This is why all their parks bar Knotts and Cedar Point are somewhat lacking in the new rides department (Knotts is number one for attendance, followed by CP, but that's location more than anything, which is why CP gets most of the money). I'm not getting terribly caught up in the worry etc. that everyone associated with Six Flags coming here. What ruins their parks is the individual parks' management, who are dictated by company policies. Like Six Flags Europe, if they came here, they'd be fully structured as a different sub-company of Six Flags, and would make decisions based on the Australian market. Still definitely don't see it happening though... And just seeing as it's come up here, I'm going to say that I'm undecided as to which is my favourite park - Sea World or Wonderland Sydney. Probably for entirely different reasons, which we don't need to go into here.

Let's do our best to keep this to the topic at hand, whatever that might be. Site/Forum issues should be in the Total Thrills forum. If you've got requests/queries regarding your own account or the forums in general, post them in that forum or PM me directly if some sort of privacy is required.

boycotta created the new account prior to me disabling his old one. I disabled the old one because he had a new one. I don't want people running around with multiple accounts. If you want your username changed, let me know - if you want to create a new account, that's fine, but if I find out, I'll disable the old one as you obviously don't need it. And just in case you're wondering, I changed boycotta's title to "Account Disabled" last night. But I didn't actually disable the account until this morning at around 11am - after Nightshifter said: "richard for som reason disabled my old boycotta account.so i started a new one."

The file seems to have vanished for the second photo. If you delete the broken one, then reupload it, it should fix it, Slick.

I'd be lying if I said I've even gotten around to thinking about starting it. Thanks for the reminder though.

I've done what research I could about the Wonderland Business Park and all things related over the past day or so. I'll try and clear up what I can here. The first stage of the development, consists of Sunway City Berhad (Sunway's property development company)'s Australian unit (Hartford Lane Pty Ltd) selling 40ha of land to Australand Holdings for the sum of $26.5 million. All subsequent land assigned for the Business Park (160ha in total) will be developed in a joint venture (50/50) with Australand and Hartford Lane. The property will be developed and I believe that they (Australand in stage one) will be selling off sections of land once developed (for instance, the Woolworths warehouse will presumably owned by Woolworths). The way I see it, there will be little to no connection between the Business Park and theme park (unlike what I believe were the original plans). Clearly Wonderland (or their parent company) has seen the surplus land that Wonderland owns could be put to a better use. Because they don't have the structure to develop property (they're a theme park), they've entered an agreement with a second party that will be able to maximise the potential of the development, and mean the park can concentrate their resources towards the park as they should be. One person at Theme Park Insider suggested that the 2003 Sydney UBD has the carpark to the left of the entrance to the theme park (i.e. those huge overflow carparks in the hilly land next to the main carpark) has been marked as "Wonderland Business Park". This is nowhere near The Beach, and as a result, I'd expect that any earthmoving etc. going on towards that end of the park is for the waterpark. Wonderland seriously owns a lot of land there. It's a huge block - if you follow the Great Western Highway out towards the Blue Mountains you really get an idea of how long their block spans for along the highway. They're developing 160ha for the Business Park alone - Dreamworld takes up 30ha of a 85ha block. Wonderland Sydney was over 60ha back when Hanna Babera Land was still open (take off a few hectares to compensate for that).

I don't think Dave would terribly mind his pictures being posted here. It certainly beats directly linking them to his site, chewing up his site's transfer. However, a big fat www.ride-extravaganza.com link in your post would have been the least that you could have done, boycotta. Anyway, the changes made between Luna Park and here were as follows: A coat of paint for everything - supports were changed from white to blue, and the track is now a lighter, brighter shade of yellow. The train was repainted. Because the ground under Big Dipper's station was actually raised from ground level, and Cyclone's site wasn't, some of the supports were extended (look at the support for the turnaround into the station if you can't see it - the one closest to the front). It's been changed from a reasonably smooth ride to a rough ride, as a result of Dreamworld's stellar maintenance teams.

It's August 13 - not for a long while. http://www.ekka.com.au/

An updated Dreamworld gallery is coming later this week. It's mostly to include Nick Central (around 15 or so quality shots of that). I might be getting some photos of Ekka 2003 up as well when it's on. It all depends on whether I feel bothered enough to go. The fact is, there seems to be an inverse relationship between the quality of the rides, and the entry price to the grounds (last year, it was $18 - the only reason I went was because I did volunteer work for RNA and that got me in). Carnival rides aren't exactly my favorites (didn't ride anything last year, but that was largely because of the lack of quality) - if spinning around were my thing, I'd be doing it right now on my chair. But I might get the inspiration some time to be ripped off. The Wonderland Sydney gallery yet again been postponed as I didn't manage to get down there (otherwise I'd be in some nice warm chalet somewhere watching bad TV in bed and eating lots of chocolate). I'm going to see if I can get down there in September to catch the end of the season, otherwise it'll be next July (it could happen over Summer, but I really doubt it). 'til next time!

You must be very proud of your accomplishment.

At this time of year, being both NSW and Qld holidays, you'll find that Saturday and Sunday are the best days to go. Standard holidays are normally a Monday to Friday deal, and so anyone flying north for the winter will be doing the parks midweek. Weekends are your safest bet because most interstate and general holidayers aren't there, so you're left with locals (i.e. Brisbanites and Gold Coasters), who even then tend not to go during the holidays. You'll certainly be able to get in enough rides on TOT, as well as most/all other rides. TOT might be able to creep up to 45 minutes if it's a heavy enough day, and Giant Drop will be more. Everything else will be nice and short (i.e. 15-25 minutes tops). Best of luck up here! Don't forget to post a trip report.

Reuse old rides? Sort of like Dreamworld's Nick Central that is made up of, with the exception of one ride (the ball jungle isn't a ride), rides that many of which date back to the parks 1982 opening (and some before that)? Not to mention the way they reused Luna Park's Big Dipper. Warner Bros. Movie World is reusing the building that Harry Potter was in, that's pretty cheap too! They even had the nerve to build Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster in the building that once held Gremlins. And let's not even get started on Sea World and the way the tried to pass of Bermuda Triangle as a new ride, when it was actually just a rethemed/redesigned Lassiter's Lost Mine. But I'm sure you'd rather they took out the remaining rides, rather than keeping them, if they were to reopen HB Land as something else. Otherwise they're cheap.

No nonsense. I think most of you will agree I don't run this place like many other places. The only thing I really ask in return is you take this "freedom" responsibly and with a bit of maturity. Keep the topics as relevant as possible. There's the PM system if you want to talk about other issues with certain people. rich 8)

Well, we've had discussions before on our different opinions about Intamin. No need to go over that. The fact is, there must be more to the company that makes parks go for them. They're generally accepted as equally as smooth as B&M, and far more intense. Their coasters are significantly cheaper. I think that most (if not all) of their problems come from their computer systems/PLCs, which are made in-house. And in defence of a few of them: Millennium Force's cable incident was predicted. The cable (not made by Intamin) had a designated lifespan of something like two years. Wear was noted well before the incident, so they quickly ordered a new one. Instead of shutting the ride, they took their chances, keeping it open for Millennium Mania, the major coaster event to be held later that week at the park. The Darien Lake incident was caused by the guy being over 300lbs. I seem to recall something from Intamin around the time of the Perilous Plunge incident (which falls into this same defence) that Intamin's restraints are designed to hold a person of a maximum of 225lbs. This would have been the parks fault for allowing the man to ride. What was the issue with Goliath (SFH)? I don't recall anything. And they're a heck of a lot more skilled at producing coasters than any company, bar B&M, and their range of rides is second to no other company (an entire park could easily be Intamin).

These delays really aren't anything out of the ordinary. It might be for Cedar Point, but that is because this is their first truly ambitious project (Magnum and Millennium Force, despite being the first to reach their respective heights, weren't exactly leaps and bounds over the previous record holders). Superman: The Escape didn't open until a year after it was expected to because of technical difficulties, and Tower of Terror was two months (Intamin worked out what was wrong, applied it to TOT, then once it worked took it to SFMM). There's more recent examples with the radical design of X that took around six months (or more?) to just get the ride barely running, and is still down every Wednesday for maintenance. Essentially, I think that's the way this industry works. The designers can't keep up with the parks who always want the most different and most extreme ride able to be thought up (last week I was writing travel brochures, this week it seems I'm narrating a coaster special on Discovery). The cost of this is downtime and technical issues (and tires being flung off rides), but once the first troublesome season is over, I think it has paid off.

Walking from where? Southeast USA?

We discussed this ride in another topic in the Wet'n'Wild forum. Looking up the stats for this type of ride (Setpoint Swing Thing), we found it had a 1200pph capacity. Even if it is a ride manufacturer's estimate (which often give less than easy dispatch times), it's still an accurate idea of the ride's capacity. Well, Movie World did fantastically with Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster, and they easily meet the manufacturers capacity (1000pph). Lethal Weapon, on the very rare occasion that they're running two trains and not stacking (had it once - and it really does make you happy knowing that the ops are genuinely doing their best). Corkscrew might run at about half that, Bermuda Triangle is supposed to be 1000 I think, and I wouldn't expect the Log Flume at maximum capacity to be anything less than 750 running properly (that's about one four person dispatch every 20 seconds). So you can see that it's capacity would be higher than those already at Sea World, and also that these capacities are attainable (and I must say, Sea World's staff on the whole are the most professional across all areas of all our parks - with the exception of the Movie World arcade ). You think that this could be justified as a Cartoon Beach attraction? That'd be about the only way I see such a ride coming. I know it wouldn't be too hard to theme to something cartoony.

I'll see what I can do.

I'd imagine that such a move would be inevitable. There are only two things that I think Sea World needs to do if they are to grow - that is remove anything that could be better experienced at either of the other two parks, and of course get a bit slightly more articulated paths running through the park (I think that building a nice boardwalk style area across the Corkscrew side of the lake connecting the front straight up with the back will need to be done some time in the future). The water park will some day gone - it just isn't economically viable. If say someone stays at Sea World Nara, they're much less likely to go to Wet'n'Wild, or buy three park saver because there's a waterpark right there for their use for free. Taking it out not only sends more people Wet'n'Wild's way, but it obviously frees up a lot of land for the park to use, which is very much a limited resource for them.