Richard

I really don't know which way to go given that you've crossed Disney off the list. I think that Disney parks (particularly Walt Disney World - Disneyland Resort was in every way a fraction of the WDW experience) on the whole are just so much better than other parks that there's so little room left to scale non-Disney parks against each other. Six Flags is off the list - overall bad experiences at two of their parks, including SFOT which is meant to be a flagship park, cross them off. I found Knott's Berry Farm to be a tad on the tacky side. Most of the park is built from ancient relics salvaged by Walt Knott. Though they have a select few quite good rides (Xcelerator and GhostRider), the rest is really mediocre. I found both SeaWorld parks to be a fraction of what we have here, despite better rides. They have quite good food (admittetedly better than the food here), but Universal Studios Hollywood is good, but really does lack things to do. There's not much more there than there is at Movie World here. Universal Studios Florida was a much bigger and better designed park with many great attractions. I think the addition of The Mummy is exactly what they needed, because I think that another big ride was exactly what they're missing. Islands of Adventure has some of the best theming and best thrills, but I was really disappointed by their crowd control and capacity issues. I think that leaves me with Busch Gardens Tampa. This park has amazing theming that just so happens to also be one of my favourite styles. They have some of the best thrill rides out there, and somehow manage to have virtually no queues while the Orlando parks have hour-long queues. They also have excellent food and some of the best live entertainment I've ever seen. A few (more than we'd have liked) encounters with particularly rude staff were the only problems I can think of. Nine months from now I suspect Cedar Point will be my favourite, but until then I'll put down Busch Gardens.

They should be out by some time in November if all goes well.

For the purposes of clarity I've updated that point. In retrospect it was perhaps not worded as well as I'd have liked. Signatures may not be used to promote other sites unless direct written permission has been given by a staff member. Users are free to include their own website URL in their profile. Posting a thread or a reply to advertise content for the purposes of meaningful discussion is permitted. Threads or posts simply asking users to visit another site for no purpose are not allowed however. By all means give us links to good articles on other sites or where there's a nice big photo gallery, so that people can discuss the content. What this point is about is people using this site to just plug their own site at every opportunity. Again, if you want to post a thread saying "I updated my site with XXY, check it out here..." I'm happy with that.

It's not a problem when you're linking to another site for the purposes of meaningful discussion. It's more the "Come to my site!" sort of things we're starting to see in people's signatures.

The text is my biggest concern also. I more than likely won't go with it. For one thing it's a lot easier to design it with just a single image per page rather than multple images and then having to think of text to go alongside. Before I start taking orders I'll definitely put up a selection of images from the final design to give you an idea of what's featured and the quality of the photos. If anyone is has high quality and high resolution shots of any of Wonderland Sydney's rides (in an operating state, obviously) that they'd be willing to give in exchange for a free copy of the calendar then let me know. Minimum of 3 megapixel/2000x1500 please!

I forgot to mention that as with last time orders will be taken on credit card as well as cheque or money order if need be. Obviously that's not until much later. Here's the look at how the calendar will look at the moment. It might change, but it gives you an idea. Also, look at the information about last year's: http://oldsite.totalthrills.com/calendar.php.

First things first, don't double post - use the Edit Button (). Read the Community Guidelines. NoLimits can be purchased for USD$25 from here.

PRE-ORDER NOW FOR AUD$25.00 (INCL. SHIPPING). SEE CALENDAR PAGE FOR MORE DETAILS. It's coming time again for Calendars. The 2005 calendar will again feature a selection of Australian rides and general theme park scenery. It will feature entirely new photographs and wherever possible, rides that weren't featured last year. The photographs will be significantly better quality than last year. The design has not yet been finalised. Photographs and design will surely be selected and approval seeked from parks by the end of November. What I need is numbers. The more people who buy them, the cheaper they will be for everyone. If I get 15 or more, the price will be AUD$25.00 for a calendar, including shipping. If I can't get 15, then I won't bulk order them as with last time, doing it straight through Cafepress, and it will work out to being around AUD$35 or more, including shipping. If I bulk order I will need people to prepurchase them for $25.00. As with last time if the minimum (15) isn't reached, all orders will be refunded, at which point I'll switch to selling them through Cafepress for around $10 more. Please don't vote YES if you have no intention of purchasing one. Either vote NO or leave it until you have made up your mind.

The use of the word staff in the Community Guidelines is more of a "looking into the future" thing so that when the day comes that I do need help, I don't need to go back and change things. Plus, it sounds a bit better than "listen to everything I say or I'll ban you". At this stage, I can handle keeping up with all daily posts. I'd expect membership to reach 500 in the next year or so, so I can definitely see a need for assistance in some form in the future.

The Community Guidelines have been amended once again. Again, a few points were made easier to understand and two new points have been added. Roller-Coaster.com.au administrators and moderators are able to edit posts and threads of other users. This is done normally to fix problems. Normally, the staff member will leave a message stating that a post was edited and the reasons for editing, though not always. Staff may edit a post for any reason they deem suitable without notification. Roller-Coaster.com.au Forums may not be used to promote other sites unless direct writen permission has been given by a staff member. This includes, but is not limited to: threads advertising a site or a site's update, posts within any thread linking to a site and signatures containing links. Users are free to include their own website URL in their profile.

Typhoon Lagoon at Walt Disney World has a wave pool that can crank out six-footers. We're not talking that stupid swell stuff they call waves at Wet'n'Wild, but nice big breakers. I don't know if they're the biggest, but it'd have to be close to it. The park was unfortunately closed while I was at WDW, so I can't comment on how good it is.

Yosemite Sam (which is in the Magic Mountain park, not the water park) is a lot wetter than you'd think. We gave it a look and considered riding. There's no way you can come off the thing even remotely dry. I can't realistically see any additions to Nick Central for a good five or ten years. The great thing about a children's area like this is by the time the kids get sick of or bored with the rides it has on offer, there's a whole new generation of kids along to enjoy it. Just keep it looking nice, do the regular holiday promotions and advertise it on Nickelodeon and they're set. Thrill rides on the other hand cover such a broad age group that they do need to be added regularly to bring in the money.

GhostRider cost something like $13,000,000 due to earthquake-proofing, no less than twice what a CCI of the same size would cost otherwise. I don't know about SFMM, but ironically enough a fairly severe earthquake hit California (somewhere up north near San Francisco) while we were queuing for X, about two trains from the front of the queue. Nothing serious given we were so far from the epicentre, but it was definitely noticeable (probably shaking a good few inches to each side). Needless to say they shut every ride in the park to do a full inspection before reopening - it took us a further hour to get on the ride.

Its cost was so high because of the earthquake proofing required for the ride, not because Morgan built it. It has been noted that a coaster designed for an earthquake prone area can be said to more or less cost twice what it would in a non-earthquake prone area. Steel Dragon 2000's cost was something like US$50,000,000 and is 2479m long, i.e. $20169 per metre. Millennium Force was $25,000,000 and is 2010m long, making it $12436 per metre. I'd say the park got the ride for a good price, and I'd be willing to bet an Intamin of the same size in the same place would cost more. Many people (who have actually ridden it) suggest that Steel Dragon is a better ride than Millennium Force. I'd suspect that there's more to the situation than just what happened as reasons for keeping it defunct for so long. I'd be looking at faulty design in some respect.

The plan is to eventually incorporate user reviews, ratings, trip reports etc. as a separate system, probably not any time soon though.

It's a roots music site.

I'm sure you'd all agree that things are going slow with theme parks around Australia right now (next year will be a much better one ). I've also been busy with my own things (aside from a huge new - non theme park - site that's due out just before New Years I've also got a real life to deal with), so Roller-Coaster.com.au's looking a bit on the "un-fresh" side of things. I've spent a while today just tweaking the article system. I've adjusted the font size and line spacing to bring a bit more elegance to the design, as well as switching from grey to black. There's no redundancy with galleries - before there would be a link at the top to an attached gallery, and down the bottom would be the same link. Furthermore I've improved the connection articles have with the forums. Where an article has a corresponding thread, in the top right corner an image will appear () with a link to the thread. If there's no thread then it will just give a generic link to the forums, with no image.

On the plus-side, it's one of the few rides out there that made Bush Beast look smooth. Good to see our parks getting the recognition they deserve, even if it is just a few years late.

See, what I would say is skip SFMM. It's the least impressive park I've ever been to. Take the day you'd spend there and soak in more of Disneyland Resort or Knott's or drive up to San Francisco and check out PGA or something. Anything's better than the Mountain. If you're that set on going to SFMM then good and great. Just prepare for disappointment. I wouldn't say to you to skip X, because though it's not the smoothest and there are plenty of much better rides in the park, it doesn't come much more unique than X - anywhere.

I'd have to say I'm an X hater. I went in wanting to really like it, and I really did try, but there was no way I could. I've ridden rough coasters before, but none as painfully rough as this. It's the only coaster I've ridden that had any "leg banging" on it. It really wasn't worth the 3+ hours we spent queuing. Thankfully though, its badness was really overshadowed by so many other things in the park (people using footpaths as toilets in the clear view of other guests comes to mind).

One of the key benefits of this acquisitons as listed by Macquarie Leisure was the opportunity for cross-marketing. I'm guessing stuff like "buy two games and get a voucher for adults at kids prices", and maybe some nice big ads around the centres. As GoBoi said, who's going to Dreamworld to go bowling? Evidently people still do go bowling, because AMF seem to have done well out of it, and Macquarie think they will do well with this in their portfolio.

There's really not any other way to launch when you're dealing with hydraulics (or pneumatics). It's not really any more unreliable than any other launch method. Provided the condition of the cables are monitored and replaced as necessary then there is really no chance of problems. Even then, the snapping problem has only plagued Top Thrill Dragster which by its nature would be a high-maintenance system. I haven't heard anything about snapping cables from Xcelerator in its two years, nor do I expect any news of it happening from rides like Storm Runner or the announced European rocket coasters. I suspect over the next few years as the technology settles in, we may well see them find a way to get more life out of the cables, which is the only real issue associated with their use. I've always thought that it would be smart to scan (x-ray or otherwise) the cable as it resets so the ride knows the condition of it and can conclusively know when it needs replacing. I don't know if they do this, but it seems like a very simple (albeit costly) part-answer. Regarding Kingda Ka, I'm not that interested by it. Put it this way - I have no intentions at this stage of visiting the park even though I'll be in New York next year.

This isn't strictly Dreamworld-related, though it will have significant impact on Dreamworld. Macquarie Leisure Trust Group, the owners of Dreamworld have just recently announced that they have acquired AMF Bowling Centres, which owned and operated 40 bowling centres around Australia for a price of $67.4 million. This new avenue will account for 42% of the company's total revenue, with Dreamworld 48% and the d'Alboris Marinas the remaining 10%. Previously, Dreamworld accounted for around 83% of the company's revenue. So really, this almost doubles Macquarie Leisure's cash flow, theoretically meaning greater possibilities for investment in Dreamworld. Put it this way - whereas before the acquisition, a $10 million thrill ride was the equivalent of around 50% of the company's total profits (ignore that this profit figure takes into account capital expenditure), now this same $10 million ride is more like 30% of the total profits.

It's good to hear that emphasis is being put on ride capacity at Dreamworld. Seeing is believing though, but I do hope Dreamworld figure something out. That second train on Cyclone wouldn't go astray - just spend $48 million on the next new attraction if that's what it takes.

No site beats RideAccidents.com. I'm afraid you'll have a hard time finding pictures though, you sick puppy.