themeparkgc

^The original set of slides were blue and known as White Water Mountain (and all open IIRC). They replaced them with green ones (2 open + 2 enclosed) in 2007, when the name change took place. Since they only replaced them in 2007, I doubt we'd see them replaced anytime soon. However, a high-capacity master blaster attraction (by way of multiple slides, or large rafts) would be on my wish list for things at WNW in the near future.

Dreamworld previously removed their set of go karts. According to the database, "lack of popularity or safety concerns are two likely reasons for its closure". I doubt we'd see them make a return. On the wider topic, I'm with the others here; I highly doubt we'd see them remove the rapids.

^That POV went along with this story in the Gold Coast Bulletin: http://www.goldcoastbulletin.com.au/entertainment/shaya-laughlin-tries-out-sea-worlds-newest-attraction-the-storm-coaster/story-fnj94hgr-1226776594542

Sorry to bring this topic back from the dead but an article looking back at Grundy's Entertainment Centre and Magic Mountain has recently been published in the Gold Coast Bulletin. Although there was no mention of Sea World in the article's text, these two photos were included. The first photo appears to be of a pirate-themed dolphin show. Does anyone have any more information about this?

Sorry to bring this topic back from the dead but the two articles I scanned from the Gold Coast Sun have been republished in the Gold Coast Bulletin. Even though we knew the chairlift ended up at Dreamworld, one new fact in the article was that the chairlift was relocated to Dreamworld in the same year that it closed at Magic Mountain (1987). Here are two photos from the new article:

Sorry to bring this topic back from the dead but the two articles I scanned from the Gold Coast Sun have been republished in the Gold Coast Bulletin. I thought I would include the photos from the new article here as they are better quality than the ones I scanned:

Yep. Other firms that make drop towers of different varieties are Larson, Moser, ABC, Fabbri, S&S, and Zierer.

http://www.villageroadshow.com.au/upload/Document/Phoenix%20Hawaii%20water%20park%20sale%20201113.pdf Although not mentioned in the release, Village had actually sold off Wet'n'Wild Hawaii to CNL just one year after they bought it. They held the lease to operate the park up until this year. It seems the investment in the completely new park at Las Vegas this year has worked (instead of buying and renovating smaller parks). The park sold out of season passes and obviously can weather the "mature" water park market in the US. The other interesting thing in the release was the ownership of the Wet'n'Wild brand in the US now lies with CNL. Provided CNL sticks with it long term, I guess this allows Village to remain with some sort of representation in the US. I'm thinking the recently acquired Soak City in Palm Springs (which is in need of a new name next year) will become the third Wet'n'Wild branded park owned by CNL. So with the international focus shifting to Asia, I wonder where outside of the Hainan parks we might see Village explore?

^ Yep,

My interpretation of this statement is: "The mine ride is not coming back. The cost involved in demolishing the old ride makes a replacement infeasible at this stage, but if we need the land and have the money further down the track, we might do something about it."

The annual IAAPA Trade Show is currently on in Orlando, so I thought I'd update this thread with some of the developments. Here's two: Polercoaster This was originally announced by S&S and US Thrill Rides at last year's show. It essentially consists of an observation tower with an El Loco roller coaster wrapping around it. In the last week two installations have been confirmed, a third has been rumoured for a few months now. Anyway, a 525ft/160m tall installation was announced for Florida last night, and is set to: be the tallest roller coaster in the world have the highest inversion on any roller coaster in the world (once at the top, the ride will invert at around 500ft/150m and begin its descent) be one of the longest roller coasters in the world with a track of about 8000ft/2.4km Alan Schilke (the man responsible for the design of Arrow/S&S's 4D coaster, the El Locos, and all of Rocky Mountain's steel and inverting-wooden roller coasters) will design the roller coaster, so I'm sure it will be great. Below is a concept video released last year. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPCZy-3n4x0 Great Coasters International GCI have proposed the "Switchback Reversing" wooden roller coaster, with tilting switch tracks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtnyUlelnvA

I think the point was with an S&S space shot you have: The compressed air launch Seating all around the tower, projecting rider's screams in all directions While a standalone Intamin drop tower you could have:A winch system Seating on one side of the tower, projecting rider's screams in that direction

http://www.parkz.com.au/TV/episode-1/Hollywood_Stunt_Driver_preview_footage.html Since they have the ramps, and have used them in the arena, I doubt either of those two reasons mentioned above would be the case. Maybe higher maintenance on the cars, safety, or the fact that ramps just don't fit in the setting could be the reason?

Just if anyone is interested, this was the official statement from the park in 2009, two years after plans for the rides were lodged: As others have said, expansion is what the park needs, and without this it probably won't see too much growth. With the sort of mindset shown above, that is "if our business grows, we will expand", the park won't get anywhere. At the complete opposite end of the scale you have a company like Universal's new owners Comcast. They recently announced that they would inject over $1 billion in capital expenditure annually to the NBCUniversal division, double what was originally expected. Obviously, the company is a lot bigger than Ardent, but that still is a lot of money. The reasoning behind this decision is additions such as Harry Potter at IOA caused attendance at their parks jump by 40%. Regardless of the park, without capex on good drawcard attractions, if there are any gains, they are going to be minimal. Nope, Thunderbolt and Cyclone coexisted. In response to Santa07, WWW has used some of the Thunderbolt's footprint, but yes, there is more room available.

While this style of upgrade has been done before (converting a ProSlide racer to an octopus racer), I can't see it happening here as it would either require the slide tower to be demolished and a new one built further back, or the demolition of the entire slide to start from scratch. Personally I'd rather the park get something new, like a set of master blasters.

In the last couple of days it has surfaced that all the rides from Hard Rock/Freestyle Music Park are for sale on Ital International. Unfortunately there are no prices up, so irrespective of shipping, we don't know if Led Zeppelin/Time Machine is even in the ballpark of one of our parks.

It would have to use a block monitoring system of some sort. To achieve the theoretical capacity of 500pph, you would have to dispatch around three rafts a minute. Given the ride time is about 30 seconds then it would have to cater for 2 rafts on the slide at any one time, and thus have a mid-course block(s). Of course I don't think 500pph would ever be achievable under the current operations. It is very rare for the ride to have the two operators it is designed for during non-peak times. Most of the time when one operator is running it, they get a raft off the conveyor, load the raft, send it to the second section, dispatch it, and then repeat. By the time the operator has switched control panels and started loading next raft, the previous raft is more than likely already in the splashdown pool. With two operators, once a raft has been moved to the second section of the station you can immediately begin loading another group. IIRC they even had a grouper on the park's media day to make this process run even smoother.

Here's a POV provided by Adventure World: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCfoMj4gdZE

They do upload some, but the one mentioned above isn't uploaded.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/technology/intelligent-interaction-the-latest-park-theme/story-e6frganx-1226753035874

http://www.parkz.com.au/parks/AU/Gold_Coast/Sea_World/rides/1521-Storm-Coaster.html

The new train is operating under the name Dreamworld Express. I wasn't really surprised to see it is still closed on weekdays for "maintenance". http://www.dreamworld.com.au/Rides/Family-Rides/Family---Lightboxes/Dreamworld-Express.aspx

I found this on Dreamworld's website. Doesn't give much more info than the logo. http://www.dreamworld.com.au/Attractions/Corroboree

Cub College? I take it this might be the name for the "conditioning program". http://www.dreamworld.com.au/Attractions/Cub-College/

I have seen the older ad on TV recently, but this appears to be the new one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDUo54ZwtUo There's also a new website up: http://www.themeparkcapital.com.au/