Richard

I don't know. For one Disney haven't built a truly great park (outside of the Tokyo resort, which is privately owned and in a market which absolutely adores everything American - more so than the USA) in a good 10-15 years. Disneyland Paris more or less failed and is still struggling today. The problem here is not the design of the park or even directly attendance but rather an inability to profit enough to cope with the debt. Animal Kingdom was a flop. When it opened it struggled to be even a half-day attraction. The concept is great but they failed to create enough attractions to warrant spending long there. Disney's California Adventure was well executed but lacked adequate attractions. Only with hugely discounted tickets and the hasty introduction of a number of new attractions were they able to receive even moderate success. Disney Studios (Paris) was a poorly conceived park which lacks any sort of depth or even quality as a park to warrant a visit of any significant length. Hong Kong Disneyland was built on the cheap and simply lacks enough to be a significant drawcard. They don't seem to have a history in recent years of doing this properly. There's every reason to be doubtful or even against the idea of a Disney park here.

Let's start off by saying $1.5 billion is a big number. $1,500,000,000.00. Assuming a per-capita spending of $75 per person per visit (ie a three day stay implies three visits) - I've made this $15 more than at Dreamworld, and an operating margin of 20% - I've made this a bit less than what Dreamworld's margin because there will be higher operation and staffing costs at a Disney-standard park. This means that for every guest we'll say the park will profit $15. Given the higher standard of everything, this is a generous figure. Interest on a $1.5 billion loan will sit at around $100 million per year. Now we're looking at needing over 6.6 million guests a year. That's more than the combined attendance of all of Australia's existing parks. No bank or investor is going to hop aboard this ship.

If you squeeze in a day or so down at San Diego (only an hour or so south of LA), a SoCal CityPass becomes very attractive. It's $185 for adults and includes a 3-day hopper pass, Knott's entry, SeaWorld San Diego and San Diego Zoo. Normally Knott's and Disney would run you back $184, so $1 for the San Diego parks isn't bad. You end up saving about $80. You basically rock up to any of the parks and buy it at the normal ticket window. A lot easier than doing it online. This doesn't include Universal Studios. If you look around when you're there you'll find plenty of $5 off and similar vouchers in magazines and brochures. They had a deal when I was there where you could purchase an annual pass for the price of a day ticket so we just took that and went back for a few hours when we ran out of things to do.

Article: http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/article.php?aid=71

To be even fairer, Cyclone was not a planned capex investment. The ride came onto the market at a price that was literally too good to be true and they scooped it up. I'm not sure I'd say it's sad. Ultimately what this is doing is relieving the company of a huge amount of debt - probably around 20 or 30 million dollars in interest per year alone. I wouldn't be surprised if they don't get rid of a few more of their parks in similar circumstances as it ultimately will allow the company to prosper in future, which I think is far more important to the industry. People have suggested Elitch Gardens due to its similar predicament - urban location (valuable land) and lack of room to expand. If they were to get rid of two or three parks like this, it would probably be the difference between breaking even or not (as they have been in the past few years). The rides will all be given new homes so there's no worrying about that, and all of these locations could benefit from new parks in more remote locations, created by these new gaps in the market (Houston is the third largest city in America for instance, there's no way they'll go without a theme park for too long). Also, "indefinitely" would imply that there would be a chance (however slim) that the park may reopen. The park is gone - full stop.

Roller-Coaster.com.au was invited to attend the media event however I was unable to attend. Blame me, not Movie World for that lack of coverage.

Article: Superman Escape layout complete Latest Gallery (September 17): http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/gallery.php?gid=113

The lack of information presented at this stage has been completely out of WVTP's control. Dreamworks are very protective of their property and it has been taking longer than anticipated to get their approval on the information. All will be revealed (and then some) later today.

It was a rush to get certain aspects of it operational for the launch. You can rest assured that a number of things have been or will be improved as time goes on. It's just a bit hard to do certain things in one hit, now that the attraction is open daily.

To be fair it doesn't really seem like he's suing so much as he is requesting the cost of his tickets not be refunded, but donated to a charity. Fair enough. I wonder how many tickets Disney parks gladly refund on a daily basis. The queue was probably just too long for him at City Hall to complain... As for the behaviour of guests, it seems nothing short of disgraceful. Regardless of cultural differences etc., that is just simply not on. It's just a huge sign of complete and utter disrespect.

A few interesting press releases have been issued by the Premier's Office in the past few days. Amusement Park Is Serious Business In Hong Kong: http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/release.php?prid=42 Smart State Branches Out In Hong Kong Disneyland: http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/release.php?prid=43

Yeah, going again with the big "if" (this whole post relies on this if), why else would your friend send such an email if not to do anything but potentially help the park by giving some insight into what people possibly want? What if your friend sent an email saying something along the lines of "The burger I ate in the park was too cold, you should heat them better." as feedback for the park, and as a result the park improved the burger heating system. You'd just think that the park used the information provided to better service their customers. How is it any different from sending an email saying "This is the kind of ride I'd like to see at WBMW."? One would naturally assume that these ideas were freely exchanged and unsolicited, that there was no mention of payment in exchange for these ideas, nor was any attempt made at any stage to gain legal protection of said ideas. In fact I think you'd find legally the information your friend provided (to customer service) would be considered market research and provided to WBMW as-is and without any inferred or implied ownership. If further discussion regarding the ideas was entered it might be different, and there would presumably be concession for consulting costs. It also strikes me as odd that five and a half years ago your friend had described a ride which included elements (you say he described the layout) which didn't yet exist - things like a top hat or overbanked turns. Your friend also sent details of a combined dark ride/coaster themed to a character that wasn't at this stage part of the Warner Bros. family? I mean, how else could you possibly make a Scooby-Doo themed thrill ride? What about a Superman one? There aren't too many options. Perhaps if your friend had any further ideas you could share them, so that we know what the park will build next. Or maybe even tell us more about the Superman idea - I know that WBMW are far from revealing all aspects of this ride.

The attraction is named Wiggles World. There's only one of them, so possessive form is "Wiggles World's". If there were more than one being referred to it'd be "Wiggles Worlds'" ("Across the globe, the Big Red Car remains the many Wiggles Worlds' favourite attraction."). I think obviously it sticks out, but it is what you could expect given the nature of it. It is a very stark contrast from what was there before (skip over the Tomb Raider years), but I guess that's what change is.

Anything in particular? There are no problems with apostrophes from where I am.

No one said otherwise. I'd suggest re-reading what nev said. Naturally it will stay as the Roxy Theatre, though you can expect the façade to be "Shrekked" up (as it was "Marvined" up in the past).

Roller-Coaster.com.au's gallery from Wiggles World: http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/gallery.php?gid=110 There will be further content from Wiggles World being published over the next few days, including an up-close look at the Big Red Car.

It seems to me that it's not necessarily people from NSW or Qld who are disagreeing, but rather those who have been to Disney properties overseas, and know how special they are and how at this stage this doesn't sound promising. It's a $99 flight away. I could really care less about state-patriotism or anything of that nature. I'm just approaching this situation logically. Liveability and viability as a major tourist destination would seem to me to be two different things. I sure as hell would never want to live in Surfers Paradise or Orlando. By that same token I love Melbourne as a city - it's likely that I'll end up living there within the next few years. One thing is for sure, last time I was in Melbourne (May on a business trip), it sure was a great deal colder than it ever gets up in Queensland or even Sydney. Brilliant sunny days but the mercury doesn't get too high. A bit of research just now showed that the average maximum temperature across the winter months is around 14ºC compared with around 21ºC for the Gold Coast. That to me is the difference between comfortable and uncomfortable, especially in an outdoor environment. Disneyland Paris was built in a cold climate, yes. This park also happened to be a financial disaster - and that's with the very dense population of Western Europe. I don't think Australia needs a Disney park. We simply don't have the population to support it, even on a small scale. We're looking at a $115 bid. This is less than the cost of just about every major Disney ride out there. Dreamworld's replacement cost sits at around $250 million. So we're looking at a park that is also worth less than half what Dreamworld is. You can expect it to be no bigger than half the size of Dreamworld - that's without theming and planning expenses. It just doesn't seem like something to get worked up about at this stage, unless someone ups the ante, in which case it shifts from being a poor theme park choice to being a very poor financial choice.

Climate isn't so much an issue but location very much is. Location is affected by climate. In turn tourist numbers are affected by climate. Large-scale Disney parks are designed to be destinations. They have billions of dollars invested to infrastructure that create places where you can spend a week or more with ease. This is how they can survive virtually anywhere. A regional park by its nature would be a single-day affair, and as such not have the extent of supporting infrastructure (hotels, transport systems, shopping districts, etc.) and therefore not be able to attract tourists on its own merits, but rather need to rely on surroundings, as the Gold Coast parks do to attract guests. A properly done Disney park, even a small-scale one would need presumably around 2-3 million guests per year minimum to meet costs. Disneyland Paris is also in France, a country which happens to attract more tourists than any other country in the world. I think if you looked at a breakdown of guests attending in winter, a very significant percentage of these would be English or Japanese speaking tourists, who are visiting France not exclusively for Disney. Disneyland Paris also has the advantage of 17 million residents within a two-hour drive and another 310 million who can fly there in two hours or under. In Australia the entire population is not even 10 per cent that number (let alone those within a feasible travelling distance, be that by plane or car), and we're looking at needing at the very minimum 20-30% of Disneyland Paris' attendance to make this Disney park sustainable. I know I'd sooner spend $2000 on a holiday to Anaheim than $1000 on a holiday to Avalon.

The DVD release is the same as this film.

There is an article here which claims Lindsay Fox (who purchased Luna Park recently) has put in a $115 million bid to build a Disney park in Avalon. Avalon + $115 million. I can't think of a better way to dilute the Disney name. Believe it or not there were more reasons than a selfish government that caused the Melbourne Paramount park to go belly-up. You'd find unsuitable climate to sustain a year-round park would have been up there on the list.

News article can be seen on Roller-Coaster.com.au here: http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/article.php?aid=67

New construction images available here: http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/gallery.php?gid=108.

So long as the company meets interest payments (creating what is known as "servicable debt" - debt which they are able to appropriately manage) with revenue from the parks they are able to spend anything else they make on rides and other capital expenditure. The other option (and this is the one which Six Flags have been using) is to spend more than they can and create a bigger debt. The justifiction behind this is that things like new rides will bring in enough guests to make them viable investments.

South-East Queensland is generally the last to get theme park ads. They go south first because people are planning their holidays and need time to get things sorted - not the kind of thing you do overnight.

Terminator up against Shrek, you'd really choose Terminator? With Terminator up against Wiggles World, which would you choose if you had young children? Shrek's unique characteristic is it's totally effective across all age groups. There really is no group that it singles out or excludes. It's marketing heaven.