Richard

As you might notice, the forum structure has been modified. To give you a quick rundown of what has happened, the General Thrills forum has been split into two forums - Other Australian Parks and General Thrills. International Parks & Travel has also been split into International Parks (now found in the Amusement Parks category) and Travel Talk. What is the function of these new forums? Other Australian Parks - Discuss the smaller Australian parks which haven't got their own forums. This includes travelling parks/shows. International Parks - Discuss international parks, as well as specific rides. General Thrills - Discuss general rides or talk about the industry. Basically anything theme park related but cannot be pinpointed on a specific park. Travel Talk - Discuss your own plans to travel, either within Australia or overseas. It doesn't have to be theme park related. If you want advice on a specific park (eg what day to visit a certain park or what rides to go on first) then it'd be best to post this in the forum most appropriate for that park. If you have any questions about this, or want to know the ideal place to post a particular topic, let me know.

Let's try our hardest to keep on topic. If you have questions related to other parks and attractions, find a sutiable thread in another forum, or start your own.

The vision can indeed be shared, but I don't believe it can be fostered like it is at Disney. I couldn't and wouldn't say that Disney will forever be the best, because who knows what the future holds. Disney know that a $10 or $20 million ride, however good it might be, will never cut it for their parks. They know that their guests go to Disney to be amazed and to get top class services and experiences. So long as Disney continues this way (which they will), I don't see it changing.

I for one am glad to see the cable down main street go. It ruins the look of the main street, and obliterates that of Daily Planet and Studio Commissary. I just hope they get both of these buildings looking as good as they did before the supports for the cable were stuck all over them. Hopefully with the special effects tour gone, this new feature of the park will aim to bring an element of the "big screen" back into the park.

ads086, I'm curious to know if you've been to any Disney parks around the world. If there's a perception (among enthusiasts or otherwise) that Disney parks are better, it's because for 50 years they well and truly have been. I think that though financial reasons are the most prominent reasons for no other parks attaining the "Disney level", there are many more, which bubble down to Walt Disney's own quest for perfection, an attitude that is thankfully carried on (as best it can be) by Imagineering, a department at Disney consisting of true leaders of their respective industries who bring things to life. Disney is Disney. That's really all there is to say. I have a true love for their parks, because they are as close to perfect as theme parks come. I don't expect Warner Bros. Movie World, Universal Studios or any other park to be as good. That's not to say I don't love these parks, but there is no use comparing parks which at the end of the day are targeted at different people, and trying to be their own thing.

CoasterBuzz's RideMan (AKA Dave Althoff, Jr.) can help you out with that with this nice article. I'll leave all the explaining to him for now. Hydraulic launches are capable of accelerating much faster than LIM/LSM and pneumatic is again faster (or rather, capable of higher jerk/jolt). Of course, most coaster launches are pretty smooth (you wouldn't design a launch to be rough), they are more forceful, but good and fine so long as you keep your head back.

Between pneumatics, hyrdraulics and LIM/LSM, it's generally considered to be pretty much the same in terms of power consumption. Benefits (or drawbacks) come from the fact that LIM/LSM draw a current at sudden and irregular times (i.e. when the train launches), whereas pneumatic and hydraulics are a constant (and smaller) draw. Naturally, a lift hill is hugely cheaper to operate than any launch.

If it makes anyone feel any better, I have Foxtel and won't bother to watch/record this.

How about "Treasure Island" (1999) and "The Mole" (2000-2004). Those two come to mind, but I know there are many more that were around prior Big Brother. Big Brother's about as low-brow as it comes. It's not even worth wasting the time to argue about how bad it is.

Users are now able to add parks and rides they've ridden to their profile with the Park & Ride Count system. It's incredibly easy to use and will give you unparalleled results for Australian parks and rides thanks to Roller-Coaster.com.au's comprehensive Park & Ride Database. The system is fully integrated with the existing park database and your own user account in these forums. For that reason you need to be registered in these forums and logged in. Simply browse around the Database. If you have not added a particular ride to your profile yet a link will appear underneath the the park/ride's name which will add the park/ride. You can view and modify your own count by visiting the easy-to-remember page www.roller-coaster.com.au/count.php. You can view other members' counts by adding "?viewuserid=X" to this URL, where X is their Forum userid (eg my own profile is www.roller-coaster.com.au/count.php?viewuserid=1). This will be changed shortly so there is a link directly from a user's profile. Remember, if the park/coaster/ride you want isn't in the database, then you can add it here. This is a taste of many more interactive features to come over the next few month, so stay tuned.

Consider staying in Anaheim, at least for the Disneyland/Knott's part of your stay. Hollywood really is a long way to go for these parks, which are within a few miles of each other and very easy to get between (catch the 460 inbound from out front of Disneyland to get there, outbound to get home). There's nothing quite like waking up in the morning, strolling over to Disneyland for the day and then walking back at night after the fireworks. I'd also recommend doing some of the other things Hollywood has to offer while you're there if you don't already plan to. Take the renowned Warner Bros. Studio tour as mentioned above or the down-to-earth NBC tour. Also consider seeing the taping of a sitcom (you can get free tickets to these from Audiences Unlimited, Paramount Studios or if you don't mind seeing something you'll have never heard of, get last-minute tickets from right in Universal Studios) or see a talk show taping (you tend to have to pre-book these or put up with multiple hour standby waits for uncertain results) - Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel and Craig Ferguson all tape in Hollywood. Personally SFMM is not worth the huge effort and expense it takes to get there. If you only have five days for theme parks, I'd say forget it, especially if you're not renting a car. It's next to impossible to get to by public transport, a taxi will cost you upwards of US$80 and VIP Tours aren't known for their good value. It's a pretty sad park to visit and though they've got plenty of good coasters (and plenty of really bad ones), I assure you it'll be the "worst" park of the trip.

I've made this its own topic because it's interesting. Story telling seems to be the one key area where Movie World "fails". Now, don't get me wrong, I love Movie World and they have the highest standards of rides in this country, but we're talking about why they're not Disney. The only attractions at Movie World that I think ever captured the Disney way of doing things was Great Gremlins Adventure and to a lesser extent, the Looney Tunes River Ride. I remember the first time I went on Gremlins, when the park first opened. You entered under the assumption that you were going into a screening room to see out-takes from movies. The whole place was decked out very authentically as an art-deco style screening room, exactly as you'd see in Hollywood. By this stage you've assumed that you must have entered the wrong queue or something and you're not seeing the "Gremlins ride". Gremlins take over the place and you're evacuated out. The attendants remain excellently in character and you're ushered towards the escape vehicles where the ride part comes into play. It's topped off with the sound of police sirens, followed by a loud crash. Riders then exit to see the police cars crashed and smoke rolling out. This was story telling at its finest. I'd say it was the best themed attraction Australia has ever seen. The effects weren't great and it was outdated, but it achieved everything a themed ride should, and did so very well in its day.

Yeah, because Wonderland Sydney sure proved that the key to financial success is mediocrity in all areas. It'll be interesting to see how WVTP play this new park. Specifically, whether they plan on making it totally complimentary to the Gold Coast park, where attractions are different or they make it just a second of the same thing (with new attractions debuting simultaneously at both), making wide-scale marketing simpler and using the new catchment area to their advantage. Obviously, Wet'n'Wild's target audience is the local market rather than interstate/tourism, so the less-developed tourism market on the Sunshine Coast shouldn't play a significant factor in the park's attendance, so I can see it doing pretty well early on.

I first visited Walt Disney World in 2004. That don't make the place new, does it? I think it is wrong that they advertise an attraction that is going on three years old as new. Yes, it's their current showcase ride, but that doesn't make it new. You make some good points, but the point scott was getting at was that we're consistently seeing Movie World remove what truly separated them from Dreamworld and Sea World - behind-the-scenes "movie magic" attractions - to make way for "cheap thrills". I don't see any reason for this other than because it makes things cheaper. Herein lies the problem. When a new major attraction is built, they would typically expect and predict somewhere around a 5-20% increase in attendance as a direct result. With the current trend being to remove old and underperforming attractions and stick new ones in their place with the same existing infrastructure, we're seeing this 5-20% increase on the exact same footpaths that were there five years ago, the same food outlets and amenities that were there 14 years ago and, most importantly, in the queues of the exact same number of attractions that were there 14 years ago. The last new attraction that didn't come at the cost of another was Wild Wild West. In all situations I certainly prefer what has been added to what it replaced, but I would far prefer to have both. At Dreamworld you've got the headline attractions, but you also have a whole heap of smaller rides and flat rides to keep you occupied. Movie World has without a doubt (to me) the best collection of headline attractions in this country, but there's nothing to support that. You have three hour-long queues, and that's it. Where's the 25 minute queues? Where are the ten minute queues? They've all been removed to make way for these hour-longs. These smaller attractions are what fills a day and makes a park "complete", not a small handful of "blow-you-away" attractions - these only make a park quality. Warner Bros. Movie World is a great park. If it weren't for Sea World, I would say it is our best park. What I'm getting at is that being good or being great etc., doesn't necessarily add up to being complete. Take Disneyland or any of the Magic Kingdoms. They have some of the most amazing rides out there, but then on top of this, they have smaller, simpler rides that don't get the queues, but they really are what make these parks so good.

Submit defunct parks to the database here and you've got it.

Gazza, I don't believe Vekoma outsourced to Arrow as such. Rather they licensed Arrow's track and purchased trains and other various components from Arrow. Vekoma have really always done their own thing, albeit with borrowed (i.e. licensed technology).

matty, the studios being used for the filming of the movie are Fox Studios in Sydney. As far as I know they are doing location shooting and nothing more at the Gold Coast, so the Metropolis backlot will be built in Sydney. Even if it was up here, your quote suggests that it wouldn't become a part of the theme park as it is a permanent backlot, which they hope will be used in many future productions. One of my concerns with Movie World has always been that it seems to be a matter of removing old attractions to make way for new ones. While this looks good on paper, it really doesn't do much to develop the park in a more long term sense. Warner Bros. Movie World still struggles to make itself a complete full-day attraction, and this doesn't really help with that. I don't doubt that the Special Effects show was losing popularity, but this would be because it hasn't been updated at all in nearly 15 years, and most of what the show says or does is either ridiculously out-of-date, or just wrong these days. It's no surprise that Universal Studios' show which is consistently popular also constantly reinvents itself as friendsrama said. At the end of the day, I think the only real justification for the removal of the Special Effects show is that it makes the cost of this new Superman ride just that little bit cheaper. It would be nice to see an expansion of the park, and I know that the crowds the park gets these days would probably agree with me.

This is interesting, because Vekoma are notoriously in-house, and as far as I know always have been. Their track and support fabrication is done more or less exclusively in their own facilities around the world.

Picture a small curved section of track, but instead of having rails only on the top side, it also has a set of rails on the bottom side, curving in the same direction (such that if looked at from above, you would not be able to distinguish between the two sets as they follow them same curve). When this piece of track is one way up, it connects one side of the station to the main track. If this piece does a 180º rotation, it effectively mirrors itself, connecting the other side of the station with the track. It's more or less the same as Intamin's transfer system, only instead of linear it is rotational. The B&M system also uses rotation, but instead of rotational around the horizontal axis like Vekoma, it rotates around the vertical axis. Take a look at this shot. You can see how if you rotate it around the vertical axis it will join up the other station with the track.

The Community Guidelines are here. I'd suggest you give them a quick read so you're familiar with how to post here, in particular with spelling, grammar, punctuation and all those sorts of "basic" things.

Logic would tell you if you have questions about the item, your first step would be to contact the seller.

CV Wood passed away in 1992, age 71. He (more or less single-handedly) designed Warner Bros. Movie World as it appeared when it opened in 1991. He's got actually a quite interesting story with regards to his involvement in Disneyland. He and his team were originally hired by Walt Disney to find a suitable location for the theme park. "Woody" was the one responsible for the precise location of the park in Anaheim, and Walt was so impressed with the job he did in finding the site that he was kept on to oversea the construction of the park. It's also said that he managed the park for the first six months of its operation. The only other thing really known is that he and Walt had some sort of falling out in around 1956 and to this date you will find virtually no record of his involement in Disneyland. I think one point of added interest is that the original Western area at Movie World was really nothing terribly noteable. Most of the original stuff is there, but I think it pales in comparison to the new Western area that came with (Wild) Wild West (Falls), which I'd bet is largely a John Menzies creation.

The elevator actually uses chains, very much similar to those that are found on a regular coaster lift hill.

Sounds interesting. I'll have to tape it tomorrow morning. Thanks for letting us know. I'm also curious Paul as to why you'd hate Movie World. It's not exactly an easy park to hate.

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