Richard

Yeah, that's true (and Dreamworld's website says more or less the same thing). It's only one thrill ride though.

Actually, come to think of it, Norb always did have a habit of using particularly "interesting" words. For those unfamiliar with the show (though, I haven't seen it in like five or more years, which come to think of it is a bit of a shame), I'd describe it as Brady Bunch style superlatives (you know, groovy, super etc. etc.), only they were always made-up words to describe made-up things. Now, doing some research here and there, the ever-faithful UrbanDictionary.com has for one listing that the word spooty was used in Angry Beavers "as a adjective that implies distaste and repulsion." I guess there's our answer - I never really thought about it in the typically unusual Angry Beaver fashion which did really hold the answer, just that it was an odd name. Now here's a discussion you never think you'd have.

Similar in concept to Spooty Spin (I never understood that name... and I'm quite familiar with Angry Beavers, so does it actually mean anything?), but Spooty Spin's arms are on free hinges in the centre and rest on a flat steel rail that dictates the vertical motion. Tasmanian Devil is a fixed wheel which tilts from central hydraulics (unless it's powered by a motor, I really don't know). Tasmanian Devil, for this reason can really give a much more intense ride. Here's a picture of the same ride at Luna Park in Melbourne. It's a traveling version and it's really really cranked up - by far one of the most intense flat rides I've been on.

Do you think Dreamworld can handle the maintenance of a wooden coaster? If one were to spring up, I'd give it three, maybe four years tops before it starts to go from pleasantly rough to painfully rough. Give me almost anything over a wooden coaster, for the sake of everyone five years down the track. Don't get me wrong, I'd love a wooden coasters, and I enjoy them more than many steel coasters, but I have doubts that Dreamworld would treat a wooden coaster with the respect and care it does need.

I'm not denying that the Big Dipper added a lot of atmosphere for the park - a 150ft tall steel monster is bound to do that. That doesn't mean the ride is that great though. It's got some killer elements which I absolutely love, but aside from those two parts of the ride it's a "nothing" ride. It's made out to be a lot more than it actually is. From the plans they've got, I think Luna Park has the potential to have a great atmosphere. It wouldn't be the same atmosphere as the 1930's amusement park some might be expecting, but a modern, arty feel to the place. Whether they pull this off or just end up with a bland amusement park with a circus down one end somewhere, I don't know, but I'd like to think they're really trying to get it right.

The ships sound very similar, with the robot at the front driving and R2D2, but there's obviously a very different story. That's pretty common with Disney - usually, even "clone" rides at different Disney parks are completely redesigned from the ground up so as to suit the specific park. The story behind the American Star Tours is as you'd guess an intergalactic trip gone wrong, because it's the pilot robot's first time.

Well, Ron Toomer, who was with Arrow from 1965 through to the early 90's and the designer of most of their coasters during this period was with NASA before going to Arrow. So you're not too far off with the rocket scientists comment. When there's so much that can go wrong and high speeds, high forces and moving parts involved, you've got to have contingency plans for everything. In the words Lt. Proctor of Police Academy Stunt Show fame, "If it can go wrong, it will...", and rides are always engineered for everything. It's better to have too much than not enough, right?

Cyclone's single days are pretty odd, and Thunder River Rapids is doing the same a few times. At least they're all weekdays (Mondays and Fridays - the least busy day of the week?). Many parks would just close them without any notice for single days.

This is a fairly frequent breakdown (as far as breakdowns go) on TOT. You couldn't say what causes it each time, but for some reason it must shut down the LSMs. It could be a speed misread, overheating, system crash, power back-out or any number of things. Normally what they do (as they did in your case) is set the LSMs to reset, and they will slowly tow the car back into the station. If for some reason they can't do this (computer errors etc.), they tow it back manually using a winch that's built into the design for this very reason.

Yeah, perhaps the Paris version is different, because both USA versions are themed to the intergalactic airline. The pre-boarding room (where you line up in your rows and whatnot) even feels like an airport terminal with its plain blue carpet and grey futuristic walls, which I think is an amazing feat - they actually themed it very convincingly and faithfully drab.

What Flea said is exactly right. It's not in terms of sea level though (Superman would surely win, with Magic Mountain being way up in the hills). It's just the distance from the highest point of the car to the ground directly below. Because it launches off the top of a hill, and peaks off the hill, riders are effectively higher off the ground. The ride systems are identical, the ride performance should be identical (with neither park running them at full speed, who knows these days).

I've got no formal training - just enough years of experience. If you saw what I was doing a few years back, you'd cringe. When I start to design a new site these days I take note of things I like and don't like in sites I visit. It'll then usually take one site to get the ball rolling in terms of design, which I'll start by basing my design on. The design doesn't end up even remotely similar through a few solid weeks of making the design meet the predetermined needs I've got. I can't start working on a new site until I know what it'll look like in my head. With Total Thrills I have no idea where the original design came from (that's two "live" designs ago), but the next design along was just refining it and making it look neater (it was still pretty terribly I thought). There was a design I tinkered with for a few months, which didn't last, though I did rather like it (you'll be pleased to know that the Park Gallery images on the main page of Total Thrills are about the only survivor from that design). The current design for Total Thrills was sparked by Guide to the Point, with the large header banner, and it just grew from there, and as you can see, it's absolutely in no way the same to GTTP.

The ride's called Star Tours, it's in Tomorrow Land at Disneyland, and at the Disney-MGM park at Walt Disney World. Truly some of the best theming ever, and incredibly faithful to Star Wars. I thought it could do with a bit of a clean up (parts were just getting a bit dusty and whatnot), but it was a great ride. As far as simulators go though, Back to the Future is the most thrilling I've been on.

You're right. There's an issue with the forum software since I upgraded yesterday which has something to do with linking thumbnails to their attachments. Try this link for now: http://www.totalthrills.com/forums/attachm...attachmentid=26

Here's a screenshot of a gallery page. The images come up at full resolution as a nice Javascript popup, so they're not at all obstrusive, and it'll be difficult for anyone to get lost and close the wrong window or anything. Right now, the exterior of the site is pretty well finished. I'm working on a sumbission system. Initially, it'll just be "for staff only" to submit articles and galleries and whatnot, but I'm eventually going to get it going so that members can submit articles, which will be added to a queue for editing and publishing. For the time being, any submissions will be done by email. Lots of bug-checking, some finalising of the design and we're almost ready to go. I'll probably have a period of beta testing, much like I did with Total Thrills in the beginning which gives people an opportunity to play around and comment before it goes final and live. Early March, or sooner sound good?

I hope the refurbishment they've done is nice and thorough. These rides hardly suffer from roughness like regular wooden coasters do, but seeing this thing running better than normal would be great. Blackpool's is slightly different, but it's an identical ride to that at the Royal Melbourne Show, and Aussie World's. A very wild design - a lot more interesting than the steel ones. I wouldn't be that daring to say that it's actually a lot better than Big Dipper was.

Nothing beats Splash Mountain's very cool medley. For me, that was one of the best songs to get stuck in the head. Walt Disney World's Carousel of Progress (originally from Disneyland - it was in the rotating building that Innoventions calls home) also had a very catchy song... "It's a great big beautiful tomorrow...". Star Tours discussion here.

Sounds like a very nice trip you've got planned. I was planning a similar trip for the middle of this year, but funds are a bit low after my recent voyage, so I'm putting that off and I'm going to do a world Disney trip probably the year after. That'll give me the extra time I need to save for business class, since I recently vowed never to return to economy (domestic is fine, but international flights are way too much in those cramped seats). Greyhounds are pretty awful. If you can, take Amtrak over buses, otherwise I'd probably go for a car, because it's a lot quicker (it'll be 3/4 or even 2/3 of the amount of time to go by car over bus) and there aren't any "questionable" people around you the whole time.

B&M are located in Switzerland. They design the rides, but don't do the actual manufacturering of the rides themselves. For all their European coasters, Giovanola do the steelwork. I've just looked it up to check for myself, and in America it's done by Southern Ohio Fabricators. I know they also buy their control systems and PLCs and whatnot from another company, and I'd assume the same thing for their braking systems. Whether the trains are actually built by them I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure they're all shipped from Europe. Everything is B&M's own design (with the exception of the control systems), but it's a lot cheaper to outsource. You buy a ride package from B&M, like most companies. They'll do everything from ground work to shipping/transportation of parts as well as the design and construction of the ride - mostly through subcontractors. As for what I make of the track rumours. At this stage, I can't make much of it. With the amount of information that is available, it could be anything - maybe not even coaster specific.

I played this game at Epcot's Innoventions for about 20 minutes. It's certainly a lot simpler than say No Limits, but it's a two way street in that it's also not as easy to do more complex things as it might be in No Limits, and designs tend to be very rigid (less so than RCT, but still quite "boxy") and don't flow very well. For what it is, it's not bad, and I'm pretty sure it's also a bit older than No Limits and others. $10 is quite good for this game, though I'd never buy it. If you're interested in the whole coaster sim sort of thing, it's definitely worth throwing into the pile for $10.

"The gay song"? Some political correctness wouldn't go astray here and there.

From a legal standpoint, regardless of what these snobs paid for their pokey little apartments, they are not "entitled" to a view of the harbour or the water or whatever. They can appeal the design, but if there's no written legal reason (height limit, building design code etc.), then I see little reason for the building not to go ahead. You can't buy real estate with water views way back up on the cliffs, and expect that same harbour view to remain for all eternity. As for the design, I admit, originally I thought it was hideous, but I think since then it's grown on me. It's fresh and bright, but not too bold. I'd love to see some closer designs of it or a model, rather than a low resolution impact study like we've got in that article. It'd definitely look a lot better in real life than that with all the glass and whatnot in the design. For anyone that used to play, does it look a bit reminiscent of some of the buildings in Transport Tycoon?

Hey, given the way the discussion regarding track was going, I've moved it into a new topic in General Thrills (see here), because it really wasn't park specific yet. Dreamworld here, coaster track and whatnot there.

Intamin do their own steel. Vekoma do their own steel. B&M outsource (in Europe it is done by Giovanola in Switzerland, USA I believe in southern Ohio). S&S-Arrow do their own, but they're not doing much coaster work outside of the wooden coaster department. Any other manufacturers are too insignificant to mention, and you'd be surprised at how little many of the companies, even smaller ones, outsource. While you mentioned welders, it's interesting to note that Vekoma actually put 12 hours of welding into each and every joint and connection when building the track and supports.

Almost no park anywhere will tell you what's wrong with a ride when it breaks down. You're very lucky if you get a "computer error" or "power blackout" response from an operator. Tower of Terror's queue is air conditioned, and very nicely might I add. If you choose to stick around (they'll almost always announce that the ride is experiencing difficulties and you can try again later), then you shouldn't really complain about the conditions you're in, because it's entirely your choice. I'll always stick around if a ride breaks down though - I've almost never got anything better to do at a park, and there are always interesting perks. At SFMM Scream! broke down, so we decided to go up to the station and see what was happening. Apparently we were inconvenienced because we popped in to see what's up, and we got exit passes, which was pretty neat.