Richard

Before anyone gets confused or lost, I've split the sponsorship-related posts off into their own topic.

The only reason to have the ride basically completed this far in advance of the opening is because of the way theming and scenery will be built around it. It's not that the ride is taking a long time to build, it's that it needs to be in place before the rest of the precinct can come together around it.

The "rep" was Ardent Leisure CEO Deborah Thomas. The "hack" was an Australian Financial Review journalist. http://www.afr.com/real-estate/ardent-leisure-open-to-working-with-chinese-competitor-wanda-20160217-gmwb6j Within the industry it's not as far-fetched as you'd think... it's a plausible and viable pathway into the Australian market for the Wanda Group.

Visit the Parkz Shop After a lot of great feedback from members, I'm really pleased to say that everything has come together nicely to offer our first range of products. Everything is in stock (and looks great) and I urge everyone to have a look. To answer a few inevitable queries... Is it secure? Our checkout process is secured by SSL (https://) and payments are processed by leading online payment company Stripe. We don't store any credit card information. Who am I buying from? Parkz is operated by Timber & Steel Pty Ltd. All payments will appear on your credit card statement as such. How are orders shipped? Australia Post Regular and Express. When will orders be shipped? We'll aim to get all Express Post orders shipped within one business day and Regular Post orders within one week. Wherever applicable we'll provide tracking information and if there's any delays at our end we'll try and let you know ASAP. What if an order goes missing, is incorrect, broken etc.? Contact us and we'll sort it out. When will you have my size? We have limited numbers of shirt sizes to begin with, but we'll try and keep up with it and order in new quantities as needed. How do digital subscriptions work? If you join the Parkz Crew your account will automatically be upgraded for the duration of your membership. At its conclusion you will be sent a reminder to renew; if you choose not to renew then your account will revert to its previous level. We don't automatically renew memberships. Help! Something went wrong! The ecommerce facility is a new feature to Parkz so if you encounter any issues please let us know and we'll look into it. The Parkz Shop: http://www.parkz.com.au/forums/store/category/2-parkz-store/

I think it goes without saying that revealing personal information about members without their consent is not on. Everyone is welcome to add their opinions and should be able to do so without fear of things becoming personal, petty or excessively combative.

Not to delve too much into the legislation, but Dreamworld almost certainly holds a commercial special facility licence and would be required to provide water free of charge. I don't think the handful of water fountains hidden around the park would cut it given that by design they're nowhere near the venues that sell alcohol.

Still not lawful if it was an outlet that sold alcohol, which almost all of the meal places did a few years ago, and most still do. They may be trying to self-impose restrictions @downunder196, but the fact that the indoor seating area in the garage is a 50m+ stroll from the bar is a good indication that it's not a restriction of their license.

Considering Dreamworld has a park-wide licensing, being charged for a cup of water anywhere at any point in recent history would almost certainly be against the law.

I don't expect this one to get much activity just yet, but to try and separate the discussion of these two very different projects, let's try and keep all roller coaster speculation and discussion here. Discussion about Doomsday Destroyer, the 2016 flat ride is over here. A few pieces of reading materials to get things started: http://www.parkz.com.au/article/2015/11/21/369-Village_Roadshow_promise_worlds_best_attraction_for_Gold_Coast.html http://www.parkz.com.au/article/2016/01/30/384-Construction_fences_up_as_thrill_ride_rumours_fly_at_Movie_World.html And our ride profile, where we'll have all likely and confirmed information as it comes to light: http://www.parkz.com.au/parks/AU/Gold_Coast/Warner_Bros_Movie_World/ride/2445-Unknown_Roller_Coaster

I called the other one a looping monstrosity. It's a joke of a ride in every sense. (There's like... three puns in that sentence.) From now on, articles will use the following tags: [joke] Movie World is definitely building a Superloop. [/joke] [sarcasm] Because they are such great rides. [/sarcasm] [hint] RCDB is pretty accurate. [/hint] [redherring] Look at these air conditioning repair men. [/redherring] Honestly no idea why the default limit would be 10 per day. It's now unlimited... feel free to like every post you want.

If it can be reasonably deduced from the publicly available information then I'm happy to help people join the dots; in this case we have a confirmed 21 metre tall looping ride and stock footage of an Intamin Suspended Twin Hammer. I've got no real interest in seeking out insider gossip and coming out guns blazing with scoops and reveals... but if you're inclined to read between the lines on most of the articles I put together, you'll probably realise that I seldom actually speculate or lend credence to rumours.

It's an Intamin Suspended Twin Hammer. No fan of the media's shoddy reporting, but do you honestly think they went and dug up footage of an obscure flat ride in Malaysia of their own choosing? Sometimes I feel these discussions go around in circles...

Oops... that was meant to say Mack.

I'm not a car/motorsports person and not huge on the idolatry of sporting figures. The amount of foot traffic I've seen going through the museum seems to suggest that the average Dreamworld guest agrees with me. That said, the new parts of the area are really well presented. The food is a welcome improvement though most burger chains do equivalent or better gourmet fare these days. The beer is mid-strength and served in plastic cups, so about all you can say about the alcohol is that it exists. Hot Wheels Sidewinder is a pretty rubbish coaster with an improved train, bizarre on-ride audio and half-done theming.

I'll just remind everyone of our Community Guidelines. Please everyone write in proper English... we don't really want to have to delete posts, nor edit them to make them vaguely legible.

You all know we try to be hands-off and give everyone the freedom and responsibility of adults. We will delete posts that we feel cross the line into antisocial, but by and large we let things run their course and won't step in just because someone cops flak for sharing a minority opinion. If anyone has further concerns by all means bring it up in the Site Issues forum or message me, but at this point we should probably steer this conversation back to Sea World...

One of my favourite anecdotes was when Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster was in soft opening. A proud supervisor came out to talk to folks in the queue and boasted that the textured castle walls were "pick proof". Of course, immediately everyone in the queue reached out and started picking at the walls -- and soon showed that they weren't impervious to fingernails. John Menzies (former CEO and current Chairman of VRTP) is an avid helicopter pilot and has been known to commute between parks via chopper. If it looked like a group of business people then it could well have been him taking board members, investors or even ride manufacturers on a tour of the parks.

Call edit... called it... hashtagconfusion. As for the "today's grill" sign. It's great that they follow up on something in a Parkz Update so swiftly. Hilarious that they get the idea of a daily special so wrong.

If the same system air conditions the show stage as well as some of the smaller western buildings around it, then it's likely that they'd need specialists to shut off and disconnect some parts of the air conditioning before they can be demolished. I haven't seen any indication that the Show Stage is going anywhere.

A quick look on Google Maps using the "measure distance" tool makes it look pretty spot on 1500m to me, with an extra 200m for the maintenance track. Thanks for noticing @The Sunlander... that corrects a few decades of misinformation.

I thought it was covered pretty well in the article. RCDB don't post things they don't know to be true, while speculation on a forum is just that and to be interpreted accordingly. The article I wrote was a mix of what we know to be true, plus a roundup and elaboration of speculation that's out there. I'd like to think it was written well and we're respected enough that we're not contributing to the idle gossip like most of the hyperbole-laden coverage that has appeared since the construction fences appeared.

Thanks for the clarification and expertise @T-bone; I fixed the article accordingly. Trains aren't something I know a huge amount about so I hope I did it justice...

The Hong Kong park was clearly a product of a small budget -- a final parting gift of Michael Eisner as it were. In this case the money is certainly there and the sheer scope of some of these new ideas is unlike anything Disney has ever done. Some of the changes work for me -- TRON looks like an amazing coaster, Adventure Isle and Treasure Cove look to live up to what they're replacing. Main Street USA is a loss, but if the censorship theory is correct then it's better than no park at all! The one that really gets me is the lack of a railroad. Whether this is censorship, design constraints or something else, it just seems like the biggest departure from the Disneyland/Magic Kingdom concept of anything.

What I probably didn't enunciate too well above is that none of them make any sense as a standalone. There's no point to any of them as an experience on their own. So you can only meaningfully judge them in terms of what they contribute to the attraction as a whole. Otherwise our next topic might as well be rating the comfort of roller coaster trains before the restraint comes down. Except Mad Mike... if they'd kept him on as pre-show entertainer for Hollywood Stunt Driver then walking out after his bit would make more sense than if you stayed on for the show.

I would say that the deterioration of all three rides roughly coincided and had nothing to do with quality of build so much as budget and lack of willingness to maintain any of them. I'm not sure why you're putting BATR and LTRR up on some pedestal -- both along with BT were run into the ground over the better part of a decade. BATR's upgrade to version two killed that ride. The original was well done and had a theme, pre-show, ride and attendant scripts that all made sense. Best film tie-in the park has ever done... obviously in those early days when WB Burbank still had hopes for their own theme parks. The second was an ordinary cartoon shoehorned into the existing theming that was even more forgettable than the Justice League ride that replaced it. LTRR needed a huge refurbishment long before it closed. It died a sad, slow death. It seems to be unanimous that Bermuda Triangle was a great ride. Anyone that remembers the plot of the ride should remember that the pre-show film sets up a twist/reveal that leads to the climax of the ride. I'd argue that there's no other easy way to set the story they told into motion -- it couldn't have been done well with queue props or once the ride had started. If we're talking special effects then no it's not the winner, but if it's about how it relates to and sets up the ride then Bermuda Triangle's pre-show was perfect. If we're judging pre-shows as a standalone experience then a Mad Mike performance at Police Academy Stunt Show wins hands down and always will.