Richard

All old news. They were looking for ways to reopen the ride a long while ago. At least their story hasn't changed, which is a good thing.

America ain't coming here... and if they ever did, don't expect much. The absolute bottom Six Flags parks, SFKK, SFEG etc., get well over 1,200,000 guests/year. That's seasonal. Wonderland, and indeed all Australian parks, at their best get 1 million/year, and that's year-round operations. The Australian dollar is a bit more than half the value of the US dollar. You do the maths - they'd be much better off sticking where they are.

Well, as rabid said, you've got to start somewhere. A few Spider-Man appearances here and there for the past few months, now a shop... and there's no way that Wonderland will let the Marvel contract go to waste without really becoming a big draw for the park - even if it takes a few years.

The first advertisements of Nick Central were in mid-October 2002, around two months before it actually opened. Cyclone was similar, if not later. Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster was being advertised in the park as early as six months before it actually opened - long before anyone even knew its name, let alone seen it advertised on TV. TV advertisements aren't the starting place - they're the finishing place. Whatever this attraction is, I expect we'll see something on TV as it comes closer to launching.

Might I refer you to this: http://www.wetnwild.com/Orlando/Main/Main....SubCategoryId=1 Several other "Wet 'n Wild" parks (note: not Wet'n'Wild ) across USA have such rides, but unfortunately only that one's website is working. It's certainly not unheard of to have a coaster in a water park. These rides certainly aren't ideal at a normal park, as they truly are wet rides. Now, just to confuse things, this isn't a "water coaster" - a water coaster is the ride style from Mack (Water Coaster), Premier (Liquid Coaster) and now Intamin (no idea), which combines flumes and track. The Water Coaster wouldn't really fit into a water park - and it'd be competing with The Ride Formerly Known as Wild Wild West (if that Prince joke hasn't been beaten to death, I don't know what has). The suspended "thing" we're talking about is the Setpoint Swing Thing. Now, having attempted to clear that up, I'd much rather see the tube ride that north82 was talking about. There's a documentary floating around on Discovery about a Brunei water park that has one of these rides (the entire park has this great oasis/Aztec theme), and it certainly looks like a great ride (circumnavigating the park). They are referred to as "uphill water coasters". I really don't see one heading to Wet'n'Wild any time soon (well ever) - take a look at all the parks that once one, all massive resort style water parks (the sorts of places that are bigger than combined Wet'n'Wild, Sea World and Movie World).

A quick decision about it out of the blue. :?: Whatever they're doing, whether it is a new 20 loop B&M, a new show, a new land, or even a new ATM machine, Wonderland Sydney would have known what they were doing at least 6 months, if not a year ago at the very least. The fact that a poster has been put up sort of suggests that the planning stages for the attraction in question has been completed, and they're going forward with it. Nick Central, what was by all means a huge addition to Dreamworld (complete deconstruction of about 1/4 of the park, and then a complete rebuilding), and it took around 3 months to complete. They had to completely rip up concrete, demolish buildings, rip out trees and plants, relocate animals... and that was all before work started on Nick Central. Watching that built, I must admit - they were going very slowly about it all (until of course, like just about all construction sites two weeks before the deadline), there didn't seem to be any pressure to get it done on time. I have no doubts that Wonderland could get a complete new land running by September. We're also talking the "dead" season at the park, where any inconvenience they may cause, wouldn't have great effects. Whether or not it is a land is a completely different question.

Someone'll have to take a shot of this poster for us. It certainly sounds promising. I can't see something like that being anything but a new land. Doesn't necessarily mean a new ride, but how could you have a land without a ride? (unless you're Movie World about 10 years ago).

Actually, I think that is why it wouldn't be feasable to put it over tropical gardens or anything. With the riders able to dump the water, you wouldn't really want them to be giving your gardens a good dumping. Not only would it be a bit of a waste of water (which isn't exactly what they're trying to achieve), but I'm sure you'd find your plants drowning. I suppose if you weaved the gardens out of the reach of the any water, you could get the effect happening, but you'd still need concrete however you go. I like the idea of waterfalls. If the park were to go all out on this imaginary ride, I'd love to see some (concrete) moulded cliffs and rocks with waterfalls that the ride weaves in and out of - and waterfalls that the track goes through.

The Technical Specifications (PDF) states a 1200pph capacity. Even with the theoretical capacity bloatings we're all used to (though, you must admit, Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster seems to float around 1000pph now worries), that's a pretty decent capacity. Even so, most water slides are maximum of what, 150-180pph (over several slides may be as high as 500pph)? One question, that hasn't yet come up, is that Wet'n'Wild doesn't currently have any staff that are even remotely capable of operating something like a rollercoaster. My guess, is that if such a ride were at Wet'n'Wild, it'd be considered part of Movie World for staffing, and WBMW staff would be rostered to operate it.

The PGA Ferris Wheel is a three-armed version, not two like Zodiac. Wonderland's Zodiac came from Paramount's Kings Island (as did many of Wonderland's flat rides - back in the 80's when PKI was seemingly ridding their park of all flat rides). Though, this isn't really to do with the topic at hand...

Well, most parks work on a 3+ year plan, which at least give a general idea of what the coming years are to focus on (even if it is as general as "New Thrill Ride", or specific as "New B&M Floorless: 6 inversions, red track & blue supports..."). So I'd say yes, Wonderland do know what they're doing. That and the fact that most manufacturers will need several months preperation for any ride, before any track is even assembled (except Vekoma, who under previous management, had one complete ready-to-go SLC and Boomerang in their plant). Just as a disclaimer: nothing I said in this post is at all reflective of what Wonderland may or may not do. This is all hypothetical talk from me, and any similarity to future announcements from the park is entirely coincidental.

As suggested, I'd make an appearance if someone brought this up here. The coaster goes by the wonderful original name, Mad Mouse. It's a Herschell travelling mouse, dating back to some time in the 60's or 70's. I'd imagine it was advertised in some industry classifieds within the past 10 years or so, and someone brought it over here for the park (known as Downunderland). The park operates weekends, and holidays. I got the credit last year on the way home from a ski trip (I had previously seen the coaster in 1999 on a similar trip, and vowed to someday return and ride)- it can't have been above 5ºC at the time. It's really nothing special. Apart from just about rusting itself into pieces, it has this strange habbit of "jumping" when a car engages the lift (as it's merely standing on wooden chocks, the force of the car "clicking in" makes the supports shake, and lift off the ground a tiny bit). It's got a tiny drop of airtime in the bunny hills leading into the brake run (that can't be more than 75cm tall). Do it for the credit, but that's all you'll get out of it. Here's an RCDB picture, and accompanying information (courtesy of me ): http://rcdb.com/installationgallery2399.htm?Picture=1

Well, there we are - a few things have been answered. 1) It's not quite a factory. 2) It IS part of the Business Park 3) By the looks of it, it isn't replacing the carpark (which would be just plain silly).

Thank's for that wonderful piece of insight!

The park was built for an opening in 1985, owned by Taft Entertainment. At the time, they owned the "Kings" parks (PKI, PKD). This company was bought out by Paramount in around 1992, and so naturally, they got Wonderland Sydney. They held onto it until 1998, doing the bare minimum to keep the cash flowing (i.e. adding Space Probe to counter Luna Park's Big Dipper). I think they wanted to get rid of it for much of the 90's. Let's face it - the Aussie dollar isn't exactly great, and add onto that the park only gets about half the attendance that their bottom US parks gets. You've got profits, but nothing to be terribly proud of. They sold the park in 1997 or 98 to Sunway, the Malaysian company who are the current owners. They're the ones responsible for bringing some life back into the grounds, turning what was once a very dirty and unimpressive park, into one that is certainly very presentable (and it and Sea World top my list for most impressive overall park) and quite pleasing to walk around. That's the basics, add Demon some time around when Paramount got the park, and add that they changed the name for the Sydney Olympics in about 1999, and you've pretty well got everything that's happened at the park.

Let's all chill out, and stick to the topic at hand. If you're not going to say something nice, then don't say anything at all. I personally don't play the rumour game. To me, it's all nonsense until it's confirmed.

It is the most popular thread we've had here, but that's the thing. There is no set topic here. It's quite hard to follow when there are several different topics being spoken of. Let's keep Construction to the new construction thread, and if you want to discuss any other aspects of Wonderland, keep that to a new thread. It'll make it much easier to discuss a variety of things at the same time.

Please please PLEASE, use the button that is in each post, to add anything to your posts. There's no need to post three times in a row like that, within 11 minutes.

I hardly think this is the place to discuss Vekoma clones, or comment on Avatars.

You'll have all gotten a copy of this in your email account. I thought I'd post it here, just in case.

You'll see that its somewhat back to normal. There's still some changes that need to be made to make nicer, but you've got all your features back! Stick with me for a few days/weeks/months/years and everything will eventually be nice again!

The album: http://www.totalthrills.com/forums/album.php Personal Albums: http://www.totalthrills.com/forums/album_p...sonal_index.php You'll have to remember these links until I get it fixed again.

While modifying the theme this morning, I happened to corrupt a file. :x :x Until then, we'll have to make do with the old theme. I'll get it fixed over the coming days.

Well, this is the 130th message in this thread, and I think it is time to get some new topics started up. Let's get some new topics started - this one is getting really hard to navigate. If you want to talk about construction/rumours, start a new topic about that. If you want to discuss other stuff, start a new topic dealing with that stuff. Thanks for making this so busy and popular! 8)

Wonderland lost their Hanna Babera license and didn't renew it, which is why it originally changed to Little Wonders Land. The reasons stated by the park of the closure was that guests thought the park was too big, which is fair - it IS a big hike from Beastie to Bush Beast. And one point to make - just because Movie World holds the rights to HB, doesn't mean Wonderland couldn't simultaneously. Of course, this is irrelevant, as Wonderland did let their rights expire, eventually replacing it with Marvel.