Richard

Interestingly, Brisbane's Wivenhoe Dam is one of the major suppliers of water to the Gold Coast. A one-way pipeline from up here was built several years ago to save Hinze Dam from completely drying up. What's more interesting is that Brisbane's dams, though at a significantly lower level than the Gold Coast (23% vs. 80%), with only three times the population of the Gold Coast we have ten times the water stored across our dams. The problem is widespread and the Gold Coast is under the exact same struggles as the rest of SE Queensland.

I'd go one step further and make it an animatronic-based attraction. The moves these penguins make in the film are well beyond the capabilities of a dancer in a penguin costume. I don't think we'd see them remove the Looney Tunes characters because they are the park's mascots, so I'd suggest a long-needed replacement for The Matrix, perhaps as more of a walkthrough than a sitdown musical show. If they hadn't invested so much in Shrek, I think this would make a perfect candidate for a 3D show. Perhaps putting something like this at Sea World isn't as stupid as it might initially seem. Happy Feet, on its most fundamental level, is pretty much just a higher budget feature film version of SOS (an enjoyable song-and-dance based film which aims to educate viewers about environmental issues). The real hurdle I see is the amount that would need to be spent to get the cast back to lend their voices to a new film, which would be an issue with either attraction.

That's awesome to hear. I've seen plenty of photos from Hong Kong Disneyland and what they've all demonstrated is a well built, thoughtfully designed theme park that makes the most of 50 years of acquired knowledge. What I've seen has never matched the kind of criticisms it's received from enthusiasts and media alike. It seems to me that people are too quick to judge what's not there, while ignoring the park's strengths. I definitely must echo Richard's points about the unlikeliness of a Disney park ever being built on our shores. I remember as a kid hearing dozens of recounts from friends and relatives about the wonders of Disneyland. It quite literally is a situation where any family that could afford a decent holiday at any future Australian Disney resort can also afford to make the pilgrimage to California or Florida to visit the parks there. Our population, population density, isolation and exchange rate simply don't support a park of this nature. Considering parks in far more viable markets like Europe and Asia have come close to financial failure in the past, there is simply no chance of a Disney park working well in Australia.

The precise stats on the ride including speed, g-force etc. can all be seen in the Batwing profile on Roller-Coaster.com.au. It's not a fast launch at all. Space Shots aren't about breaking speed records; they're about incredible acceleration and deceleration forces that give some of the best airtime out there. It comes within a few feet of the top. For safety and reliability reasons it's understandable why they can't go to the absolute top. When you're up there it's not like those few feet are going to make any difference to the experience.

Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea are widely regarded as the two best Disney parks on the planet. From all accounts they're well worth the trip (though personally I wouldn't base an international holiday around visiting a park, no matter how good).

The ride most definitely does officially open tomorrow.

The queue for Batwing will be half of the under-utilised Batman Adventure queue, which is heavily shaded by the trees that were planted in the queue as part of the original ride's theming. Other than the ride's equipment and control rooms the area should be fairly open to maximise the impact of the ride.

The reason for separate uniforms in the Nickelodeon Central and Wiggles World areas is due to contractual obligations with Nickelodeon and The Wiggles respectively.

The ad'has been taken out by a reputable agent and their own website confirms the listing (thus hoax is out of the question). They also have a separate listing for the First-Generation Freefall attraction, and it's pretty difficult to every confuse the two, especially considering the listing has correct stats for the ride. Simply put, there's no way Six Flags could get rid of STE for much more because the relocation and reconstruction costs will quickly make it a much less favourable attraction than what today's technology can offer. The most interesting thing is the lack of online buzz about the ride's possible removal. People don't seem to be concerned at all about it, which really goes to show the regard held for this ride. The fact that an identical but overall less impressive ride is one of our signature attractions just shows how much our industry has lagged behind in the past decade or so.

The key to advertising of this nature revolves around opportunity cost. These ads are not trying to sway new customers as you suggested T-Bone. The "Give us a Try, we are just as good as the others" approach would work for a new restaurant or even WWW because it's new. Wet'n'Wild is an established brand. When you're in that position, you're not trying to sell yourself and encourage new consumers. Advertising isn't about direct sales (I'd argue that the "give us a try" method is not going to lead anywhere terribly noteworthy for a business), it is about building up and maintaining brand awareness. In this context, advertising is about reinforcement to keep the knowledge of the product on the mind. It'll actually end up working very well for WnW. If they reinforce that they are the "biggest and best" (n.b. "best" is a term that could easily be proven with some market research in a local shopping centre), it's at the front of the consumer's mind. The interesting thing is when a WWW ad comes on TV, it'll often trigger a WnW response because the viewer is trained to think of WnW as the key water park and without first-hand experience of WWW it's difficult to justify the expense compared with the familiar and consistent WnW. WWW's advertising definitely isn't doing enough to highlight their few advantages. If you look at WnW's ads, you'll see they are actually on the offence, not defence. They emphasise their major strengths - that they are bigger, and they are better (in the consumer's mind - and again this could easily be proven with market research). They're taking the new park on proactively; meanwhile WWW has developed an advertising strategy that evidently didn't take this possible competitive response into account, so their ads really pale in comparison.

Happy Feet is a new Australian CGI film that stars Robin Williams, Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman among others. It's done very well for itself in the USA.

They did up until several years ago. They've been long since removed in the name of cost-cutting.

Yeah, it's an identical track profile. The only differences are that STE is a twin-tracked version, juts out off the edge of a hill (so in effect at its tallest point is higher off the ground) and has a lattice structure. TOT was designed with a tubular structure for the later addition of Giant Drop. Every other aspect of the two rides is identical. I think Tower of Terror's days are numbered. Granted we're talking probably 10 or more years down the track, but as it continues to become a more costly ride to maintain and operate and as newer more efficient technology dwarfs it, there'll come a point where it's just a liability to Dreamworld.

They're selling it because it's costly to maintain, costly to operate and long since overshadowed by better technology and better rides. It no longer serves a meaningful purpose at SFMM and the cost of relocation is clearly keeping them from moving it to another Six Flags park as they often do with other rides and coasters. It's going for less than one per cent of its original cost, but you can be guaranteed that a new buyer will need to spend somewhere in the high millions to deconstruct, relocate, assemble (with a redesigned structure to suit the new location's landscape) and get back into an operating state. Then you're faced with a ride that would cost much, much more than USD$125,000 per year to maintain and operate.

The theatre is still able to be utilised for other screenings. Even with all the added effects systems etc. it's still a pretty decent cinema and they'll have most likely kept the projection equipment from the Marvin the Martian days so it's easy to do things like this. The screenings are held before park hours so it's not going to interrupt regular operations of the attraction.

The full listing of the major opening-day attractions can be seen on our Dreamworld profile. Of interest is that all of these attractions are still operating today in some form. All but a few were manufactured in-house or by non-industry companies, including the Rocky Hollow Log Ride, which was Australia's second permanent log flume. In regards to the design of the park, by the time Dreamworld was in design stages, most of the Imagineers responsible for Disneyland were at least into their 70s and many had even passed away. Most Imagineers are fiercely loyal to Disney (in those days most of them had started out in the early days of the company working on Disney's groundbreaking films) and would have never agreed to be involved in what was ultimately a rip-off park. The student document on Dreamworld's website where that information is from is so riddled with typos, mistakes and omissions that I wouldn't be citing it as an accurate source for information that is so subjective.

I made a quick estimate based on a 3D structural rendering of the ride's layout. You could probably give or take a few metres from either of those figures; as I suggested above they're not 100% exact.

End to end, the launch is about 45m long, with a bit over a quarter of it outdoors, at around 12m.

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If anyone's interested in keeping up with the soap opera that is Disney theme parks, I'd definitely recommend reading Miceage regularly. It's hardly all fact, but the ideas presented are often very worth the read. What they reported for DCA over the next few years sounds amazing and will advance the park from good to outstanding if it goes ahead. They also reported extensively on the plans for Tom Sawyer Island. I thought the area was amazing. It's 50 years old so the trees and other vegetation has truly matured, and it's really settled in as an absolutely authentic attraction. It's a style of playground that'd never ever go ahead in today's overly-litigous society, with lots of artificial rocks, tight caves and other naturally-inspired play-things that only the past can deliver. I think it would be sad to see the area go, because it is a key part of Disneyland's history, but that said the pirate-themed area sounds great and you know that Disney would follow through perfectly to bring us a true piece of the Pirates of the Caribbean world and we'd most definitely see authenticity like only Disney can deliver. In this sense I am very eager to see this go ahead just to see how Disney can do it, and the adventurous, romantic vibe of the pirate world would be great to see brought to life. Note that it's actually referring to Disneyland in Anaheim, California, not Magic Kingdom in Florida, despite the article being from an Orlando newspaper.

Great shots as always. I really love the Herron shot. They're amazing birds and you've really captured that in the photo.

You're not quite getting it are you? I'm not saying Movie World should have won the award. Reread this topic. A few members have said they believe Movie World should have received it, and then went ahead and backed up their view with a few well-thought arguments. It seems to me that you're the only one losing sleep over it, not the "sooks" who think Dreamworld shouldn't have won. If you want my opinion on the matter, WVTP winning the Tourism Development Award was the most appropriate acknowledgement of their recent strengths. Even though it only acknowledged the addition of Australian Outback Spectacular, the $65 million they spent on attractions shows a great commitment to developing the industry, especially considering it wasn't invested in a competitive way. I'd tip WhiteWater World to take the development award next year, even though it could to some extent be considered a cannibalistic attraction.

I've merged the two award-related topics together. Did you read the replies in this topic? Most people presented very valid arguments and regardless of whether or not you agree with them you have to accept their opinions. Calling people "Movieworld sooks" (don't let Adam see Movieworld either) because their opinion differs from yours is just plain immature.

I'm sure this was discussed here somewhat recently. A company known as Omni Leisure managed the park from 1999. This company was 40% owned by LeisureWide Property Trust (later renamed to Macquarie Leisure Trust) and also operated attractions like Dreamworld and Antarctic Adventure. Mangement means they oversaw the operation of the park in exchange for a management fee that would most likely be performance-based. LeisureWide had an option to buy the park in their contract, however it was never exercised and the park was purchased by a WA local who lives near the park in 2000. In 2003 Macquarie Leisure Trust bought out the remaining 60% of Omni Leisure, renaming it to Macquarie Leisure Operations and forming the Macquarie Leisure Trust Group, the combination of both the ownership and investment company (MLT) and the operation company (MLO) which leases the properties from MLT. Neither Omni Leisure/Macquarie Leisure Operations nor LeisureWide/Macquarie Leisure Trust have ever owned Adventure World. Macquarie Leisure Operations still manage and operate the park but don't have any ownership of the park and aren't responsible for capital expenditure.

The park is not owned by Macquarie Leisure, it's locally owned. Considering the park is servicing the most remote city in the world, I wouldn't hold my breath for anything on the level of our Gold Coast parks. It's a small park and always will be; there simply isn't the population to support huge multi-million dollar attractions.