Richard

Walt Disney's vision for the monorail system at Disneyland was to showcase the most revolutionary transport system available. It was intended as an ever-evolving system - the fact that these are the seventh design of monorail train that Disney have introduced indicated that. When you think about the cost that would be associated with developing this technology, I think it's safe to say that it wasn't a decision made to cut costs but rather to advance the technology. The trains will I'm sure still have attendants onboard. This is great news. Though the Disneyland Monorail is a fantastic attraction, it pales incredibly compared with Walt Disney World's amazing system. Though unlike WDW's, Disneyland's was never intended as a transport system so much as just a showcase, the current generation of trains are going on 20 years old and they're certainly showing signs of aging. It'll be great to see airconditioning finally! All they need to do now is extend the WDW network to include all the parks and Disney's monorail systems will be perfect.

Interesting, Google have only added this region in the past week or so.

I don't believe the climate down there can sustain a major theme park. Seasonal operation of major parks in Australia hasn't proven itself in the past; our economy and population aren't strong enough to be able to have a park sit closed and running at a loss for six months of the year. Water parks on the other hand are different. as I mentioned above they're cheaper and more profitable so the fact that they don't operate six or more months of the year isn't nearly as much of a hurdle as it is for a major theme park, which will cost easily five or ten times as much for something of similar standard.

I think there is enormous potential for Victoria in particular to invest in water parks easily the size of our Gold Coast parks. Victoria, NSW and SA are no less hot in summer than Queensland. Two of the hottest days I experienced over last summer were in Melbourne and Adelaide. Up here in Queensland so many people have pools compared with down south. If we want to cool off we go out to the backyard pool. When I was in Melbourne we either had to take a tram out to St Kilda or drive to the aquatic centre. Right there the huge potential can be seen. It goes without saying that they'd need to be seasonal, but for six months of the year they'd be undeniably packed. Water parks are so completely different from conventional parks, and operators are only just catching onto this now. They are cheaper to build, cheaper to maintain and far easier to get repeat customers because people aren't attracted to the biggest and best new ride, but rather just the idea of having some cool fun on a stinking hot day. It's such a shame that it isn't until now that we see companies like ProSlide making appearances down here. They should have been marketing their recent innovations like crazy in Australian trade publications for the past five years, because if our operators realised the potential and saw that water parks had evolved to be more than just boring old body slides, we could have seen today's resurgence years ago.

It sounds more to me like they're just digging some holes and fixing some things with the tiger display area, hence they can't have the tigers out while they're doing it. It's only two days so it's not going to be anything major.

Let's try and get things back on topic here. I think this has deviated enough for now.

Summer theme park choices increase competition Tuesday 17 October 2006 Sources have revealed an early idea of pricing for Dreamworld and WhiteWater World's two day "World Pass" tickets. With the pricing for Warner Village Theme Parks' newest ticket options also recently revealed, WVTP will be leading the price wars for the upcoming summer with their more varied and economical ticketing options. Read On...

The latest article on the Roller-Coaster.com.au main page sums up the situation at hand with some new information made available recently. http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/article.php?aid=124

I thought I'd clear up that a Half Pipe is around AUD$5.5 million for the larger (30m) model. It's a simple U-shaped track which the train rocks back and forth on, nothing complicated, and certainly not $15-20 million.

I'm in definite agreement that the ideal ride for Sea World is one of Maurer Sohne's spinning coasters. They have a perfect balance of thrills while being very presentable to a family audience. Sea World's certainly overdue for a major attraction. Their past patterns (roughly three years between) suggest this, as does the significant dive attendance has taken this year. It'll take more than say a Half Pipe to get things back on track. As far as competing with themselves goes, this is why it's crucial that they differentiate themselves completely from WnW and WBMW. They'll always be known as a theme park with rides, so it makes sense that they do introduce new rides, but executed in such a way that it doesn't cut into WBMW's market. The main draw however will always be the marine focus.

Back on the topic of car parks, the benefit of Australian Outback Spectacular being so close is to have its carpark be used during the day for Wet'n'Wild guests.

I don't think there'd be too many other ways for the park to get water. I wouldn't imagine they have mains access all the way out there. Given they treat their own sewage etc., I'd say there's not too many alternative choices they have when it comes to getting water. As for these parks, it's not looking like there's anything out there at all about it. Given the size and nature of these things, there would be more information out there if it were going ahead through local council approval processes, Government assisstance etc. The Goulburn project was said to be funded by foreign investors. The way this job advertisement was worded suggested it is backed by Australian investors who intend to later expand internationally. I'd lean towards these perhaps not being the same projects.

I would have settled for just a preshow that made any sense or was remotely related to the ride experience. Throwing in a spiel about stunt driving didn't justify the agonising three minute clip, nor did it give the ride any meaning. Everyone who queued for the ride knew what they were in for. On their first ride they're too eager for the actual ride to want to sit through a clip like that, and anyone who's already ridden it has seen it already. Same goes with Wild West Falls' preride video, it had absolutely no bearing on the ride. At least it was somewhat watchable and interesting unlike Lethal Weapon's. I suspect the key reason it was removed was it cut out 1-2 of the required staff members. Mickey, the preride you're explaining sounds like it would have been great. Leave out the ride FX because these would be too difficult to integrate properly as you said, but the idea of creating some interaction between the Lethal Weapon storyline and the guests would have been great and actually serve some purpose to improve the ride. Remember the old Special Effects show how each segment featured some notable celebrity (Mel Gibson among others) introducing the segment. Shame they seem to have lost their star-drawing power after the park opened.

I'd think more simply than that. Think of how much cheaper it is to build in an existing area of the park. To go out behind Scooby-Doo will require vast amounts of new infrastructure, and why not fill in underutilised areas first, before expanding into new territory? It doesn't make much sense to have guests walk 200m through an otherwise unused area to get to an attraction. Think of the visuals of having four major rides in such a small area. I see no reason to not include Scooby-Doo as a thrill ride. Come up with any definition you can to describe a thrill ride, and tell me Scooby-Doo doesn't fit it.

As I've suggested for a while now, what good is the "Big 5 Thrill Rides" when the park down the road has six? Of course Batwing brings them now to five.

Turbo Tunnel: http://www.proslide.com/sub.php?mainRideID=7&rideID=15 The great thing about the park continuing to expand is it'll ultimately make the park a better place. We're not going to see attendance skyrocket like it has in the past as a result of WhiteWater World, so future additions will only serve to shorten queues and give guests more to do. It's the obvious card to play by Wet'n'Wild. WhiteWater World is boxed in by the park. Aside from that small parcel of land where Thunderbolt was, there's really nowhere for it to go. Long-term Wet'n'Wild will always have the edge, which is why WhiteWater World was only designed to cut into the market, not take over as market leader.

If you ever stop momentarily on either of the lifts, it's because of the ride's block systems. There are conveyor belt sections at the base of both lifts that will stop you if you are too close to the boat in front (which could happen if your boat is heavier etc.). Sometimes, especially on the final lift, this isn't enough. Because on this lift can have multiple boats on it at once (unlike on coasters, where the lift hill is a single block in itself), they sometimes need to stop you for a few seconds midway up to space the boat ahead.

Haha Daniel... you've been sorely missed around these parts.

Wow, you've brought back a topic that's over three years old, back before Roller-Coaster.com.au even existed. The photos this topic mention aren't even online anymore. That said, the Roller-Coaster.com.au gallery can be found here: http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/gallery.php Our Cyclone gallery is here: http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/gallery.php?gid=1 Try not to bring back super-old threads like this one... it tends to just be more confusing than anything else. Welcome along to Roller-Coaster.com.au though. Feel free to introduce yourself here or catch up on the Community Guidelines here. You're our 1,001st member.

WVTP operate out of the offices at the front of Movie World. Just to the right of the entrance where the security entrance is. There are also offices at each park for the park-specific management such as each park's GM and the heads of departments. WVTP's CEO John Menzies also has an office at Sea World (the park be built after all). Dreamworld management are in a building just in front of The Claw. The sound of Wipeout in the background is a common thing to hear if you're on the phone to Dreamworld management.

I'm sure there are easier ways of sneaking into theme parks than heisting uniforms (probably none as exciting though).

Well, certainly explains why there's absolutely nothing out there regarding the proposal. You'll find any golf course approved today would be subject to very strict water consumption requirements.

There will be combined single/multi-day tickets, however I couldn't guarantee annual pass options at this stage.

I think if a three-park annual pass was priced at say $200 it'd be a very attractive offer to a lot of people. I think a lot of people would go for it because they're already spending $150, what's an extra $50 for three times the amount of entertainment? It'd also cut directly into Dreamworld AP sales (regardless of whether or not they offer a two-park AP) because it's significantly more expensive than the WVTP passes. Call it a Gold Pass or a Platinum Pass as Busch Gardens do so it sounds like you're getting something better. One thing that would be vital is giving guests a decent food and merchandise discount to encourage spending while they're there to discourage the whole "drop the kids off before work with two sandwiches daycare centre" situation. Dreamworld have been onto this for years, yet WVTP seem reluctant to go this way, yet it must be an excellent way to drive in-park spending, which is absolutely vital for annual passes. They have huge margins on the food so it's not like they can't do it. Just think if they made large softdrink refills half price for pass holders. Softdrink costs virtually nothing for them, yet every regular would get one or more during the day if it were only say $2 instead of whatever they charge these days. Initially the 14 day passes were introduced as a test over a holiday period a few years back. It was understandable then why they had keep it so you had to visit all three parks before going back so as to not have to introduce anything new for what was just a trial. Why they kept the policy going when it was made permanent is anyone's guess.

Both the Wet'n'Wild and WhiteWater World ones are built by WhiteWater West. Wet'n'Wild's is the second from the top model while WhiteWater World's is the top of the line. As far as copying off Wet'n'Wild, these attractions have become standard in the water park world. There aren't too many parks out there which haven't got these attractions.