MickeyD

^ I like this idea because it links one end of the park to the front (would help with crowd flow) Unfortunately, this whole area is Back Of House for Administration, the Costume shop and Wardrobe, Tech Services, Administration and Staff eating areas. It is a crucial 'nerve centre' to Park operations so I don't think it would be feasable to build a foot walk through the middle of it. There are so many other areas of land being explored for redevelopment at the moment and this is not one of them, well at least not for now anyway. I would expect to see the Lethal Weapon area to the western area linked up behind scooby as the next big "expansion" of the Park's footwalk areas

I too agree that The Tune ride should stay. Looney Tunes characters are classic in every sense of the word - Bugs Bunny is "Mickey Mouse" to a WB's Theme Park and there should always be a place to celebrate them at MW. I think it's really cool seeing little one's relating to the like's of Tweety etc even today. Looney Tunes are an institution and IMO, amongst WBMW's GREATEST ASSETS! As for the Tune ride itself, I think it is most important the ride is 'freshened' to move with the times. If this means a need for updates and improvements then so be it.. Personally, I would like to see new scenes and new WoW! factor added - Perhaps reconsider the whole front area so simply a Queue tells the story with Animations playing on a loop as people line up at the earth drill - I think MW moved away from Show presented Rides years ago. They could even look at adding a new thrill suprise in the middle such as Boats being sucked into a vortex from Marvin The Martian's radar where the Boat twirls around or change/improve the finale! This ride has so much potential. Even if they did nothing but update and spruce it up, I'd be happy! I believe a refresh of the Tunes area is on the Cards this year anyway so let's hope they've got exciting plans for the Tune ride too!

Update on Ozcoaster! Looken good

Cool great news! It's certainly eye catching, hehehe BTW the Big wheel going in (one day) in Melbourne will be called "The Southern Star"

Hey that's good to know!! Lucky those ppl who have DW season passes hey?

Hard to tell - I'm hoping it'll be done properly. When the Looney Tunes Village Kiddie area was originally built, it pretty much went up over night and still looked good. As with that area, I hope much of the work has been planned off site so it can be just installed with the usual landscaping. I hear things are moving VERY quickly now so we should see some decent progress leading up to opening day. Does anyone have any new pics?

It's nice to see they are now advertising it on their website. Dec 26th is now looking like the opening date as predicted

I guess the area is Mermaid Beach - but more specifically it is stil known as Nobby's Beach - about 1km south of Pacific Fair down the Gold Coast Highway. I just found this photo taken back in 1963: www.flickr.com/photos/41188800@N00/164019931/ Before it was Magic Mountain in the early 80's, it was known as Magic Castle. The Park was basically a Chair lift ride that took you to the top of the "Mountain" and had a Magic show and restaurant at the top. In the 1970's it featured Waterslides that ran from the very top to the bottom as well as other attractions like the Magic show & the chairlift (pictured) For about 4 years the Park closed down and re-opened in the early 80's as "Magic Mountain" It featured more modern attractions (for the time) such as the Paratower (Wonderland Skyhawk) Wave swinger (classic chair swing ride) double decker carousel, a shuttle bus from top to bottom, Dodgem Cars, little kids rides, a Magic Show, Giant climbing nets, the Chair lift and just before it closed down again -and for the last time- waterslides. Magic Mountain was loved by Children under 12 and clearly at the time, that was it's target audience. Unfortunately the park was built on the Nobby's peninsula and walking up and down all of those steps proved exhausting to many parents & grand parents who would take them there! It was also limited by land for it develop on. As I said, a REAL SHAME! The Park looked absolutely beautiful at night from the highway and those memories of 'swinging' over the cliffs were amongst the scariest & most fun in a Theme Park I have ever had!

Ah yes, the old Skyhawk from Wonderland has proven popular with this years school leavers it would seem! Did you know that ride once stood about three quarters of the way up Magic Mountain, Nobby's Beach on the Gold Coast? The ill-faited Themepark simply couldn't stand up to SW & DW and eventually gave way to real estate developers in the late 80's. A real shame considering it was the Gold Coast's FIRST Fun Park - Long before SW. Sorry I can't provide any links. There seems to be practically nothing on the internet on this Park

Well if you compare the capacities of both Parks: Count each slide/attraction of WnW individually, I get 32? WWW has a total of 17. If WNW can handle 6000 - 8000 a day with extended trading then I guess WWW's capacity would be between 3,000 - 4,000 based on similar trading. Given it's relative smaller size as well, I'd say 3,000 would be the cap.

Hey Myk, Rabid said the Tower was at 52 metres Thursday night and last night it was topped off so I guess it depends on when the pic was taken? Mattcrombie also said he thought two or three pieces still needed to be added in his post. 60 metres would make it pretty much twice the height of LW and 20 metres higher than Superman, which judging by the photos looks pretty much to be the case. They still need to go back and finish off the top though and dress it up a little as I'm sure they will.

Ur a bloody Legend mate!! thanks for the pics and keeping everyone updated!! WOW! It sure adds to the Park's skyline. LW looks kinda small in the background and standing next to Superman in all it's glory it's like Big, Bigger, BIGGEST!

I'm hoping that for MW's next big attraction they create a ride from a certain Theme rather than picking a ride and themeing it

Hey welcome aboard! Most Gold Coast Theme Parks handle their crowds quite well but the worse time of the year to avoid crowds is from Boxing day till about the 20th of January. Other times to give a miss are over the Easter period and the week following Easter Monday, from the last week of June to the first week of July and the last week of September to the 1st week of October. All other times are the low season but bare in mind, DW & WNW have so many Annual pass holders nowadays that attendances can swell on any given weekend. Best bet there is to go on week days (unless you want to go to WNW at night, which happens most weekends over summer) Try weekends for every other Park - there is some kind of reverse phsycology going on with a lot of pp visiting MW & SW that think weekends are the busiest. Mind you, with the recent BIG push on annual pass sales for these parks as well, it's HIGHLY possible you will find them just as packed on weekends too!! Hope that helps? Have a great time anyway, I'm sure you will!!

well I guess my friend was right - thanks for the update. WHilt Batride is down for an extended period, expect some pretty big changes to the landscape of the whole area.. CAN'T WAIT! Looking forward to the next update

I'm told by a mate that works at the Park that the Tower is finally going up and the next segment is now in place. Anyone been past to confirm?

^Awesome?!?! Sorry but I tried using my imagination to picture how it would look but there is just still so much work to do! It's not like MW to be leaving things this late but perhaps they are trying some new construction models this time around and doing everything (including facades and features) pre-fabricated off-site? I have to say i'm getting really impatient to see the final product of Batwing! Everything about the project seems all too relaxed. No advertising or marketing programs have kicked off (other than one competition on the MW website) Usually by now we are seeing "teaser" ads on the box, hearing about it in the Paper on the radio etc... Most people out there don't even know MW is opening a new ride at Xmas! My hunch is they are waiting for WWW to open with all it's fan fare and then when the party calms down for the DW Parks, Village will fire it's Marketing cannon but not specifically for MW, I'd say the focus this year for WVTP's is to equally promote ALL PARKS whilst packaging them up with the new multi-park pass system. Sounds like a winning combination to me?

^^^With all due respect Djsupersleuth, my comment wasn't absurd. The fact that parks DO NOT necessarily have spare chains for the lifts is absurd and in my experience of working 10 years in Theme Park Operations, this was always the case. If the chain breaks, then generally it needs to be FULLY replaced. This is an indication that the entire chain is fatigued and patching it up would lead to further problems. Large Coaster chains are HUGE and weigh TONNES! Imagine say LW's chain is what 200 metres long and each link ways about 15kg. Not an easy job to fix! I recall speaking with Fitters on several occasions as to why the Park didn't carry a spare, no one seem to be able to give a clear answer. Anyway, I was merely suggesting that a Chain Breakage could be a possible reason why the ride is down. Side note; I enjoy sharing interesting and informative stories from my experiences in the Industry. Afterall, there aren't too many places where Theme Park freaks can go to be with their rare kind!! No offence Djsupersleuth but I didn't appreciate the tone of your response. It's not appropriate to downput other member's views especially without adequate background information to support your argument. Please maintain an example and be respectful toward others using the boards

I agree. Perhaps MW should have won but hey, they can't win it EVERY YEAR and they have won a lot of times before. It's a nice award for the Theme parks to imbelish their product but really at the end of the day, the real winners are the park's shattering attendance records and constantly building world class new rides and attractions. Not to say that DW isn't doing this but...

It doesn't suprise me to hear the Mine Ride is down. Eureka has had a number of unexpected closures in the past. This time, it wouldn't suprise me if the issue was a Lift Chain breakage - something that often happens to coasters once every ten years or so due to Metal fatigue. When it does occur, a new lift chain needs to be ordered, leaving a ride down indefinantly as VERY RARELY do theme parks have spares *just in case* Now here's a story that I guess shows my age: I recall visiting Gold Rush Country at DW when it first opened and had a great time. This coincided with the opening of "Lassiters Lost Mine ride" at SW (which of course later became Bermuda) It was a world class addition when it opened and the the attractions were far more impressive than they are today. The Thunder River Rapids ride had better animations and lighting as well as some "Mountain Goats" atop the ledge under the mine ride as the last scene and the Mine ride itself had a completely different Coaster configuration. Back then, passsengers sat one behind the other with two in each car (like Matterhorn bobsleds) The ride WAS EXTREMELY ROUGH!! The cars also "tipped" slightly as they turned in and out of the Mountain. It was also a considerably longer ride too. With far too many complaints to mention (not to mention poor capacity) the ride closed and reopened some time later with new four seater oar cars and an almost totally revised track. The new track offered a more "subdued" ride however still had a vicous ending of "helter-skelter" style dodges in the track causing whip lash and unhappy patrons. Again, around the mid 90's the ride went down again to straighten out the final "Bad bend". Eureka has always been a bit of a wild ride and to this day, remains as one of my DW favourites. I also think it is one of the few rides there that has much potential to be improved upon in the future. Lets hope one of the reasons why it is currently down indefinantly is to do just that!

^Actually rabid has added a new Spaceshot update - you can see the structure has been painted black and work seems to be speeding along now to get it ready on time. As for confusion on how the queue will be set up for the ride, I wonder if it's possible, the ride's queue may be toward the back as opposed to the front where the Batride is? Either way it will be VERY clear which ride is which and which queue is which I'm sure. With Batride down for an extended period of time, I am getting a feeling we will be seeing quite a change to the landscape of the whole area when it opens but we'll have to wait and see..

cool!! I'm going WOOHOO

I've ridden plenty of woodies over the years and hands down, I have to say Steel is the only way for DW to go. I don't believe DW would maintain a woody as good as it needs to be kept up. Wood coasters are lots of fun but are limited by what they can achieve. With steel coasters, the sky really is the limit!! I would like to think that this time around DW will raise the bar providing a true white knuckle experience that is Crazy high & Mad fast. Sadly, a woody would be no competition to what MW's next move would be - another good reason why they simply won't do it.

She really is a beauty and in my opinion, belongs in SeaWorld for good. I hope this fabulous new addition to the Park does well enough to tell WVTP's they really need to keep this ride (or at least develop somthing similar of their own)

I'm thinking the same myself. Is there more than just one section in place now? According to staff who have seen the artwork, the Theming looks pretty extensive. Now that it is what 6 weeks away from opening, it's time for them to get a wriggle on