Richard

Eventually there will be a system to report images etc. with incorrectly tagged photos etc. When there's say a dozen or more photos to be approved, sometimes things do slip by. The system has been updated recently to better highlight potential mistakes, but they still get by occasionally. At any rate I normally try to fix them shortly after uploading but it's not hard to miss something. I can't see that line 331 error anywhere. What's the URL to the page you're using and can you post a screenshot? As far as the new construction box on the main page, the way it finds and orders them is a little complicated to explain. Suffice to say, 99% of the time it will display them in order of most recently updated, but every now and again, based on the methodology, one may appear slightly out of order. Once attractions are listed as 'Operating', or haven't had an update in the past 60 days they drop off the list.

The 26th has traditionally been the opening day for attractions at Gold Coast parks but in recent years they haven't followed this pattern as much, I think largely because it's ridiculous to not have publicity efforts at full bore from the start of the busiest period of the year rather than halfway into it. It's evident that Sea World have made sure to get well underway with plenty of time to spare. Dreamworld were roughly at this stage of construction two months out from opening (which was delayed by a few weeks), so in this case they're evidently playing it safe and anticipating the usual technical and weather delays that are inevitable. I think we'll be seeing a lot more of this style from Intamin. I think they've obviously found ways to reduce their costs by utilising prefabricated components wherever possible, which is where things like the girder supports and disappearance of the welded bolt plates come into it. Seems a shame too because it's only in the last 10 years or so that companies like B&M, Intamin and even (gasp!) Vekoma have been able to really get on top of coaster design in terms of aesthetics. It does seem a bit of a step backward, but I guess it all comes down to cost and functionality.

Hang on, you're saying that the fact that there's a roof that'll be decorated makes this event worth the asking price? $40 for a three hour event is ridiculous. There's no two ways about that. Most US parks include the event with admission (which for most is already significantly less than a day at our parks) and use it as a way to boost attendance during the slow end of the season. Meanwhile they're charging $69 for a day ticket plus $40 for Halloween and people here are saying it's good value? Well... I suppose they've got a roof, a couple of mazes and as a bonus they've even been good enough to open all the rides this year?

John Longhurst? A guy in his late 70s whose theme park 'achievement' was building a cheap Disneyland knockoff and then selling it for a killing? Dreamworld didn't become successful until long after it was out of his hands. Kevin Bradley? "Nice guy" stuff aside, he was as much a part of the problems that have seen Dreamworld become what it is today. What, was he was out of the office the day these decisions people are lambasting Gregg for were made? Stephen Galbraith? This guy lost most of his credibility for running a sound theme park operation when he was put at the helm of Wonderland's systematic destruction. Though undoubtedly acting on the wishes of the park's owners, it's nonetheless a huge blemish on his record. Steve Peet? I think his departure from WVTP is clouded in a bit of mystery and has a lot to do with the addition of new international management who, with the company's overseas expansions, which to me would probably impact Peet's chances of eventually taking over from Menzies. If he stays in the industry it'd have to be a step up, not a step down as going to Dreamworld would be. Tony Braxton-Smith? Going back to Dreamworld would be a step down for him. Also, sound management is one thing, but someone with diverse and long-term theme park industry experience is what's needed. I honestly don't think Stephen Gregg did a bad job of running the park in the short term, but there is no question that there was no foresight; the park is simply not positioned to build on any of these minor successes into the future. Each year seems to be a battle to barely outperform the year prior. In an location that is achieving huge population growth (2.5% per year), a theme park that can barely average this in attendance growth seems to point to something fundamentally wrong on a managerial level. WhiteWater World was a noteable achievement, but to be fair give anyone the financial resources and a Pro Slide catalogue and they could pull it off.

Yeah, I mean it's not like there's such a thing as responsible service of alcohol or other safeguard measures associated with its sale. As soon as alcohol is sold -- no matter where -- the place becomes a drunken biker bar.

WVTP won't have had anything to do with the quote -- it's clear from how it's written that the reporter has gone fishing for more information with a few Google searches after Menzies declined to elaborate. It seems to be an increasingly common practice in journalism -- and not surprisingly, because it's an easy way to quickly get quotes without having to do any of the legwork normally required.

Yeah I'm really not buying all the fanfare about how great this is as an addition to the park. I've compiled all my thoughts on this in an article I may or may not publish on the site down the track (depending my thoughts on the finished product) so I'll keep it brief for now. Make no mistake, this is an addition solely to facilitate events after hours. The simple fact that the area it covers contains only one attraction should make that pretty clear. Of course that's not to say they won't use it as a selling point -- calling Movie World an undercover theme park for instance. This wouldn't be a problem in itself if the roof wasn't so damn ugly and completely ruined any semblance of a cohesive theme this area of the park once had. Simply put there were vastly superior ways they could have gone about this.

Looks like everyone's on the same page here with the track comparisonsn -- I wrote an article last night and by the time I published it today all the same image comparisons had been done. Of the same track pieces no less.

I'd go further as to say it's the best thing to happen to Gold Coast parks in general in a long time. Wet'n'Wild is no longer the cash cow it once was. WVTP have to put some effort in to keep on top. The net result is that now around 1.5 million people are paying to visit GC water parks each year. Two or three years ago we were looking at around half that figure. You're right that as a standalone it's definitely not performed terribly well. Their overall strategy has been pretty weak in that the park they've built is clearly capable of a lot more, but piggybacking off DW was their strategy from the start. It's hardly the stuff entrepreneurial legends are made of, but they're making the money they expected to so I guess ML are happy.

Yeah that's definitely something that's needed. I have a put that feature on the Articles page but still have to do the same for the index page and also places like database pages.

It should be working fine now...

Yeah the photo was chosen because of the Tornado and rocket slide. Who knows what happened to the rocket slide though... would be nice to see the ride given another shot here after the dysmal SuperTubes.

This is a feature I've long wanted on the site -- the ability to seamlessly comment on articles both via the site and forums -- and I'm pleased to announce that the system has been (more or less) perfected and subsequently launched. The Latest News & Updates link seen at the top of the forums is now an active forum where you can read a summary of the latest articles, and comment on them as you please, as well as visit the article in full. In addition, if you are browsing the site and logged in you can comment on the article via a form at the very bottom of the article. You are then redirected back to the article where your comment now appears. Unfortunately the system isn't retroactive; apart from the previous 10 articles or so, the feature will only work on future articles because to get it working for all would require manually going through the 200-odd articles we have. I hope this system brings a new level of interactivity and closes the gap a little more between the site and forums to make them more one in the same. If you encounter any troubles along the way then do let us know -- either in this topic or via PM/email.

I should remind everyone that it is a rule to which all members agree when posting at Parkz, that every effort should be made to write posts that are grammatically correct. This includes capital letters at the start of sentences, full stops at the end and all other necessary punctuation. If you are a typically weak speller then I'd recommend any of the commonly available spell checkers for your browser. We aren't asking for perfection, but we do expect that everyone show other members the decency and respect of making posts easy to read. If you can't do this then don't bother posting. http://www.parkz.com.au/about/FAQ/Communit...idelines.html#5

Haha you'd have to excuse some for not seeing the subtext of such a statement... it wasn't until I re-read it that I caught on. I for one am eager to watch this unfold some more. Schadenfreude is the German term I believe.

To me it's the other way around. Unless klassen24 can prove the existence of a device that exists on no other similar ride in the world then I see no reason for members to be anything but sceptical. I don't think anyone is being rude or accusive; most of the comments so far have been intelligently presented counter-arguments. The plausibility of a motor fitting in an area no more than about 20cm across, being capable of moving a multiple-tonne train and working in unison with the ride's existing PLC/computer systems is implausible to say the least. Then there's issues of getting power to it and of course what exactly it tracks on to provide this propulsion. Then of course the fact that the track is equipped with a perfectly adequate system for moving trains in and out of the transfer track.

With parcels it's more to send to the other side of the country or regional areas. I think it was about $7 to east coast locations but around $13-14 for places like Perth or Alice Springs. Of course I later realised that it could probably just go in a prepaid satchel for around $10 anywhere... It's mostly the same parks you've already added. I hadn't thought of that... definitely a good idea for future database additions.

Done... don't worry about postage (I edited my post to say that just before/after you posted). PM me your address details. Thanks for playing...

I've been cleaning up a but and I really don't collect park memorabilia. I was about to toss out a whole lot of park maps, flyers etc. when I thought maybe someone here would like it. It's mostly maps etc. from US parks from around 2003-04. There's the odd Australian park map in there but all in all there's nothing historic or of value. A lot of duplicates and I expect most is not worth keeping. There's maybe around 40-50 items in total. Whoever wants the lot, it's theirs. I'll cover postage to east coast states.

I love that I can go away for a weekend and everything stays so civil here. Seriously, keep it on topic. If anyone has a problem with another member, take it up with them via PM or ignore them via their profile because I can assure you no one else is in the least bit interested.

OK well I guess the cat is out of the bag. More details on this roller coaster can be read on this top secret page. Please keep it to yourselves because if Dreamworld find out they might change their minds and scrap it.

Stories went around for years about people injuring or killing themselves on various slides at Amazons, as they seem to have done for most suburban water parks around Australia. In reality it closed for purely financial reasons. It did change owners quite a few times before the end, but it generally operated pretty consistently during the summer seasons. There was a year or so when it closed between owners that it didn't operate, which is probably what you're thinking of. I'm sure had they spent a bit upgrading and adding new attractions every few years the park could easily have survived, but in the end selling the land became the most lucrative path for them as the area really took off with other residential and commercial developments around it.

I think anyone visiting on a day with an average crowd would be hard pressed calling the park anything but a half day park. Most of the street performances are very thin at best, so without Police Academy the park is more or less a handful of rides. Queuing for 20-30 minutes each even and you'll still have everything ticked off by early afternoon -- and for much of the year you'll be lucky to queue for 15 minutes for most things. Yeah of course it's quite possible to spend a whole day there, and with Australia's best collection of rides it's certainly not hard, but it's not a park that you need a full day or more to do everything in. Sea World has its wide range of shows and exhibits that easily fill a day. Even Dreamworld in addition to its dreadfully low capacity rides that eat up most of a day has a good range of minor attractions and animal exhibits that make it a full day park. Yeah it's a good park blah blah blah, but at the end of the day (i.e. 3pm) you're short about half a dozen more major and minor rides to really balance out a day, even with a major show in the park.

You would most likely find that the contract was conditional on the show actually continuing and probably a whole host of other conditions. Given how tumultuous the television industry is I can't see there being a contract which would reward either party in regards to the house location if the show is cancelled. Good riddance. Surely this has been a long time coming and perhaps Ten will finally start to be a bit daring in programming and add some variety to the airwaves instead of nine months of the year being dominated by three shows.

Chalk this one up as a failed attempt. One thing that a teaser marketing campaign needs is something to tease about. Parks overseas will commence such a campaign months before anyone anywhere knows what's going on and it becomes a precursor to the actual mainstream marketing efforts, normally they're useful in drumming up annual pass sales for the coming year. The problem here is that they tried to use it as the initial phase of their core advertising efforts, by which stage anyone who would be interested either knew or could figure it out upon seeing the thing staring at them as they walked through the park gate, or through a Google search that'd lead them to a site like this. You've gotta give them points for giving it a shot, but really, anyone with a semblance of marketing experience could have seen this wasn't going to work. As far as dreadful advertising campaigns go, I think the torch has been well and truly passed to Dreamworld for their latest run of Motocoaster ads. Doesn't get much more cringeworthy, and I'd hate to imagine how the 15-16 year old kids they're targetting are responding. Doohan = Doin'... what kid doesn't love that!