Richard

I've not watched many travel shows in recent years, but when you've spent the past few months talking to people at Videopro, and trying out all sorts of expensive cameras way out of my range, you really do get an eye for the quality of both the picture and the shots taken. They really did do their best to get what I'd call a pretty rounded view of Knotts. Plus they did research beyond the average tourist brochure for a change, which was evident from the ACE reference. From what I've seen of GhostRider, I really don't think they did it much justice at all (given that they had around 5 minutes to squeeze in all this footage, I don't see how they could anyway).

Well, animals adapt to their environment - and Thunderbolt was well and truly heard from over at Tiger Island. Then there's the various noise reduction techniques that manufacturers use these days that can make a coaster virtually unnoticeable. Plus, behind Tiger Island isn't exactly a small area. Actually, unless they hook this imaginary coaster way up behind Tiger Island, it won't be close to it at all.

Cheers for the tipoff! That's just made a moderately busy TV night (normally Frasier, Simpsons on VCR and Malcolm of TV, and Enough Rope) slightly more packed.

Illegal to run the ride? That's believable! I presume it is a law only applied in New South Wales, as many rides in Queensland go for years without any significant "maintenance". What really is done over several weeks of closure that can't be done in the standard inspections each morning? If there's some significant work to be done, I fail to see how in several days it can't be done. Furthermore, if this nonsense about annual maintenance being legally mandatory is believed for just a few seconds, then there is even less of a reason for them to bring it down to coincide with Bush Beast's closure. I could understand the situation if say Demon suffered from a snapped chain, while (and only while) Bush Beast was already well and truly into its annual maintenance. Absolutely any other situation, such as the current one, and I cannot at all empathise with Wonderland.

It suggests specifically "water ride", yet there's no mention of just a ride in general or ride. It doesn't take much great insight to realise that they've got some form of water ride on the drawing board (be it a flume or slide or whatnot). In defence of water slides (and again, based on what we've been given here, it can't be said whether they're talking about a slide), in terms of re-ridability, I've not found anything that comes anywhere near Aqua Racer at Wet'n'Wild (with the exception of perhaps one of my much-loved Toboggans). Surely Nightshifter if you're sitting around on a particularly hot summer's day, and you decide that a waterpark is what you want, you don't just pack your bags and take the day drive up to the Gold Coast for a visit to Wet'n'Wild. Wonderland Sydney's focus is the regional market these days. It is meant to be a relatively inexpensive day's entertainment for anyone within a few hours, whereas the shift with certainly the Warner Village parks and to a lesser extent Dreamworld, is towards "destination" park. They really want holidaymakers who are on their yearly family holiday, not the locals interested in a way to kill a day, and this is totally reflective in their Three Park Super Savers. Is Wonderland advertising the ride closures? They don't have it anywhere on their website, which I certainly object to. If they are anything but clearly signposted for all incoming guests to see (I don't mean an A4 sized sign on the window of the Guest Services window, way off to the side of the ticket booths), then I really do think that Wonderland should seriously rethink their approach. I have a lot of respect for Wonderland Sydney's administration, but closing multiple major attractions (especially when you have so few to start off with), regardless of reasons, is just plain wrong.

As someone who not only sat through, but also enjoyed (call me a masochist): Superstars: Live in Concert (Movie World) and Outback Celebration (Dreamworld), I can't agree with you more. Still, if you want interesting entertainment, nothing goes past Luna Park in Melbourne, who hired The Happy Sideshow over Summer - that was genuinely interesting, unique and amazing. I find it amazing that a group that toured with Machine Gun Fellatio, who themselves would have to be the Australian music scene's biggest freaks (and are 10x more insane live), find themselves performing for an audience whose average age would be all of 10 years old.

If I were following everyone else with regards to my opinion on DCA, I probably wouldn't have set aside three days for the Disneyland Resort - that's going to work out to being at least a day at DCA. It is a very nice looking park, and I am looking forward to it. And, you must admit, Disney's California Adventure's number of attractions is low. As I always say, I'm all for seeing shows or general non-ride attractions at parks, and I'm well aware that they are an integral part of a park, however this site is Total Thrills - I'm here for thrills, just as I'm at parks for thrills. If I can fill an entire day just riding rides, then I'm having fun. It's when you start looking for the shows etc. to fill in some time that you know the park is a bit short. And every other Disney park to date could be considered to have opened with the "full package" - with more than enough entertainment for at least a day (or the case of Walt Disney World, a week or two). And you need not look any further than Islands of Adventure (whose budget wasn't terribly much more than DCA's) to see that a park can be built from scratch into a thrill ride paradise, of which I haven't heard a single complaint ever. I don't see any need to defend a park. If there are problems, (and certainly in your post you by no means consider the park perfect ) I know I'll come out and say what they are. I know I've kicked up some fuss here because of my frankness about some of our parks. I'll also gladly say what I think is good about a given park. For any Australian park, I could give you a genuine good thing I like about it, as well as a genuine bad point.

There's such a small difference in price between different types of coasters. Of course you'll pay a little less for say an Intamin coaster over a B&M, but that's not what a park looks at really. If Dreamworld adds a coaster, they'll look at the types of coasters they can add within their budget - not the manufacturers. The removal of Thunderbolt potentially frees up a lot more land than just the ride's footprint. Depending on how much Dreamworld wants to maximise the plot's potential, they could really fit in several large rides. Most parks well and truly know that coasters are the real ticket sellers. Flat rides do their part, but they certainly aren't as universally liked as coasters, and their novelty really does wear off for most. Now, I really could see a B&M floorless headed Dreamworld's way, keep it towards the back of Thunderbolt's area, and use land out to the East, up behind Tiger Island, and you'll still have 80% of the land to use for crowd management and other rides or attractions. Next Christmas is starting to look very promising.

You're probably right there - I'll be honest and say, although it looks like an interesting park, which certainly does have a lot of potential, it's got a while to go. California Screamin' - Lethal Weapon Mulholland Madness - Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster Grizzly River Rapids - Wild Wild West Maliboomer - ?? Soarin' Over California - Batman the "Ride" Naturally, you've experienced both, so anything I say may well be a little one-sided to you (or anyone), but to me it seems that most of their major attractions are in most ways better than ours. From the pictures I've seen, the theming is better quality and better executed, their rides seem to at least attempt to add some atmosphere. Maybe you got the park done in 90 minutes because their staff are so efficient and the rides are high capacity for a change, so it was an easier park to "complete". Granted, the park certainly does appear to lack a lot - certainly when Universal have proven that it is very possible to mix thrills with theming and atmosphere. Let's hope that Tower of Terror kickstarts the park's true potential (and let's also hope that they finish that ride a few months ahead of schedule, and it is open when I'm out that way). Also, good to hear from you and that everything's all good. It's been very quiet around here lately.

Looking over my summer Melbourne trip, on which a majority of the site's galleries were taken, I've certainly come to realise that the quality of the shots just isn't quite there, it's more so with the "post-production" I do, rather than the actual shots - the cropping, colour balancing, watermarking etc. When those galleries were added, I was fairly busy - I was working full time, so I didn't really get to put the time or dedication into it that I'd have liked to. Now that I've got a bit more free time (don't ask me where it's coming from - I should be busy...), I'm re-releasing the photos taken on that trip. So you all know, there's not going to be any additional photos, no new comments, nothing overly special - just better quality pictures at a slightly higher resolution. I'll just be putting up the new photos whenever I have the spare time - maybe once every week or two. No song and dance to be made about it.

Well, I maintain that there is no logical way that this ride can even be loosely classed as "suspended" or "semi-suspended". I don't think there was any doubt that the cars probably do rock/swing, but suspended refers to the position of the track in relation to riders - which in this case is definitely not suspended. Early mice coasters, such as Aussie World's use a loose upstop system to allow the cars to rock or tilt around turns, and I don't think anyone would call them "semi-suspended" coasters. As always, I'm happy to discuss/debate further this (or anything else), but let's keep it to the correct forums. In this case, it should be in the General Thrills forum - either as a new topic, or brough up within the existing Orphan Rocker thread.

There used to be a ride similar to that at the Ekka until about 10 years ago. I presume it also did the other major shows around Australia - pretty rotten memories from that ride though, but it was a very fun ride.

The shark was released as a result of a decision made by the park in light of the shark's condition. There has been a fairly unnecessary media outburst about this, but this a separate situation that was not as a result of the press attention. You'll find that the shark they released was quite badly injured when it was caught, and was taken to Sea World to be given another chance by the fisherman who caught it. The shark was nicely recovering, but some physiological changes over the past week prompted the park to release here, before her situation got any worse, figuring that she'll have a much greater chance of survival out in the ocean. The media are playing their little games, but it's certainly nothing that they've not had before. As has been suggested in the other thread about Shark Bay, there was a lot of uproar about introducing polar bears into the Gold Coast, but they seem to be doing very well (certainly better than they were in their previous respective zoos).

Some were taken outside the park, some from the carpark, some inside. They're really nothing I'm terribly proud of, I suppose in terms of rides, this would be a "filler" attraction. I'll get back to Wonderland some time in the future and take some real photos (looking at early next year, perhaps around Easter - between two USA trips).

I'd suggest bringing this up in its own topic in the Chit-Chat forum - there are many members here who have a range of digital cameras, we'd be able to help you with this matter over there, if you're in the market for one.

Free time seems to have gotten the better of me once again. The Scenic World gallery has been updated to include some more shots of the Orphan Rocker, including some great shots of the train were given to me by a mate, Kevin Einstein. http://oldsite.totalthrills.com/scwgallery.php It's going to get harder and harder to find more updates to keep the site fresh for the rest of the year, there'll be probably some Sea World and Movie World pictures, and maybe some more Wet'n'Wild ones by the end of the year. At the moment I'm essentially digging through old directories and albums for pictures that are worth putting up. I'll liken it to Woody Allen's latest few films, that were all concepts that he's had lying around for years, which he's just making now to satisfy his contract... but that sounds a bit nerdy.

Those particular pictures were taken with two different cameras - both of which I don't use any more. The 2002 photos were taken with a Kodak DC3400, a nice 2 megapixel digital camera that was about a year old at the time. The 2003 ones were taken with a Canon EOS1000 SLR, a 35MM camera, using a 28-80mm lense. My current camera, which I chose solely because of its size and high regard, is a Canon IXUS V3. It's got great low battery consumption, a decent 3mp resolution and it's small enough to fit in any pocket, so I don't need to take a backpack everywhere I take my camera anymore (which can be a nuissance on rides). I'm going to buy a waterproof housing for it in a few weeks time (when I buy the digital video camera for my trip), which will mean I can take it to all sorts of places, and onto all sorts of rides.

Yeah, I don't think it takes much more than a look at Disney's latest efforts, in the form of Disney's California Adventure. I'm by no means suggesting it's bad - heck, it beats every park in Australia for quality, and it's one of the most anticipated parks of my trip (Busch Gardens Tampa is also very high). The theming is great, but it's certainly not to the extent that DisneySea appears. I like your point about the Japanese ownership. I'm pretty sure this is also the case with the two mainland Asia parks that are planned or under construction. Straying off for a second, this is also why there's no Disney here - Disney aren't in a position to build new parks, and I doubt there's many companies in Australia that could cough up the sorts of money we're talking about, for something that's not overly lucrative. The USA Disney parks are certainly realising that some real effort needs to go into the future rides, and with Tower of Terror at DCA coming, and many seriously awesome looking rides planned for the next five years or so, you can see that they're back into their original ways. I've not read Imagineers, and I'll indeed look for a copy when I'm in that part of the world. I've read another book, which is a more general look at Walt Disney's life, with only a chapter on the theme parks, but it is amazing the vision he showed, and his amazing perfectionist attitude. If you've read anywhere about his plans for Walt Disney World, you'll know that what currently exists is almost insulting (compared to what he had planned), and only a fraction of what his mind concieved. It was so fantastic yet fully achievable (with the right amounts of money). One thing I really regret about my forthcoming trip is not being able to afford to stay at a Disney resort in Florida (unless they've opened a new resort that's $40/night for a double ) - the infrastructure really does have to be experienced from 'within' to be truly appreciated. We're getting further and further from the original topic, but this is just getting more and more interesting.

Damn... that truly is quality. I remember photos from a few years ago of DisneySea. I think I'll agree with you in that it's the best themed park in the world - having never been there. As with everything, they always look better in real life than they do in photos, and that's just amazing in the photo. When are your photos, videos and other miscellaneous items from the trip going up? I think I mentioned to you before you left that if you're after some space to set up a little site for all that stuff, I'm happy to give you some (I know that the space you get with your ISP, or from Geocities or whatever is never enough, and always slow loading). Just catch me some time when I'm online if you wanna chat about this. Of course, the reason that parks like DisneySea and others similar don't get as much of a look in as the American parks is the obvious fact that the voters are largely Americans, and certainly westerners. If you want an unskewed poll, check out The Internet Roller Coaster Poll - he uses some nifty mathematics to mean that regardless of how many votes a ride gets, it won't do well unless all the votes on it are positive. It's a lot more complicated than that, but that simplifies it enough.

I think rabid said it all right there. Numbers can prove what they want. It sure shows that the parks and companies have produced rides or attractions that are universally accepted as good, but I don't think it's a good idea to condemn the poll, or be let down by rides based on what a survey said. Hey, my favourite Aussie looper is Sea World's Corkscrew. Eureka Mountain does it better for me than Scooby-Doo. Sea World's water ride duo to me are the best water rides in Australia. Toboggans beat out any other rides for sheer thrill quality for me. Sea World is also my favourite theme park in Australia. I know that there are people out there that will disagree with every point I made there (thunder? :twisted:), but like other people's opinions should matter to you. Thanks for tuning into Total Thrills: Lessons in Life. :bert:

I've added a Wonderland Sydney gallery of some sorts - 8 shots of Bush Beast. Check it out: http://oldsite.totalthrills.com/wlsgallery.php Comments adn thoughts are as always appreciated. Stay tuned for more little updates like this over the coming few months. Things like added photos here and there and other small updates.

I've never really agreed with the placement of Magnum-XL in the past few years. Granted, I've never ridden it (July 2004 - Cedar Point, here I come!), and I'm sure it's a quality ride, but I'm sure the thrills on it really don't come anywhere near those of newer rides. Surely Kennywood's Phantom's Revenge or SFA's Superman: Ride of Steel hold up as better hypercoasters, and deserve placements above it. The results are always pretty uneven and skewed anyway, so it's no big deal. The wooden coasters, from all reports, seem pretty accurate (again, July 2004 - Holiday World, here I come! ). Though the fact that the infamous Mean Streak just creeps in at 49 really is a testament to the somewhat inaccuracy of the system.

Sea World decided last week to release their four metre Tiger Shark. They don't state any reasons in the release, other than that they're doing it. I assume it went ahead - they weren't totally clear on the weather for Friday, when it was scheduled. I'm guessing that they're primarily doing it to keep certain circles happy. It's clearly as a result of the media backlash (who will be there come December, smiling as they read the weather, stating how fabulous Shark Bay is), but I'm doubting that it had much to do with the RSPCA.

Suitcase? I really wish it were that sort of trip! Unfortunately, it's backpacks and Greyhound coaches all the way. There's going to be a lot of walking, fast-food and hostels. There will surely be something for Total Thrills during and after the trip. I've mentioned the site that I'm (hoping) to get up for it, which will include photos and trip reports, but I'll be here as well to talk about it. If I take anything less than 1,500 pictures on this trip, then I'll be disappointed - and you'll all get to see them. At least I'm not the one carrying the video camera.

Try contacting Wonderland (or frontdesk@----URL removed for non-compliance with Community Guidelines----) - I'm sure they're in a position to help you better with your request. Make sure you include the date you're going.