iwerks

Big fan of the Azzura Greens Resort - it's a bit closer to the parks as well.

Theme parks for fun is covering Rainbow's End, this morning, with some live streaming. Interesting to see what the park looks like: https://m.facebook.com/Themeparksforfun/

^Or Looney Tunes characters and activities? I think this is definitely a cool way to engage the public and fill in the free time that people might have at the park. The footage from the last couple of days has been amazing. Where's the international coverage of this?

Believe so. Hopefully, they'll resurrect the San Miguel Express too . The page you're looking for is this one (third post down): https://www.facebook.com/creativeworks.com.au/?hc_ref=SEARCH

Wouldn't it be cool if they made interactive statues and games all over the park?

Is 100% of the train currently getting the VR experience? Will that go down when you have to pay a $5 fee? And more importantly, @Theme Park Girl, what happens if you spend too long in a treatment room?

It's enough to give them a few clues not to climb all over it. Interesting bit of cleared area behind it too. Just a tad suspicious. Obviously a crane would have had to carry the boat, but there were rocks and other things moved about. Mi3 location - who knows?

Nooo, Bounty is safely fenced off.

There's literally no sign of where Bounty used to be, except where the new grass has been laid down. The boat rests up by Kraken. I think Creativeworks has done a superb job on theming the park and restoring so many signs back to their former glory (be sure to check them out on Facebook). It would have been nice if there had been a plaque to commemorate the ride, but having the ship wrapped in tentacles was a superb idea. Interesting side note, the tentacle from the bottom of the Buccaneer Battle pool has disappeared (now that it has done its job?). Season Pass holders enter by the main gate or the new gate up by the second car park area, which still did resemble a paddock. I think it's a clever move breaking up the crowds on entry.

Just a quick trip report from this morning. Headed to AW around 9am this morning with new season passes in hand. First and only problem of the day was that the member's car park was still locked. Headed to the new general car park and was handed a member's card/sticker to be displayed in the car by a helpful team member. The car park looks pretty good, although it doesn't appear that the lights have been hooked up yet. Walked all the way around the front to the new member's entry gate. It looks pretty good, with a queue area that funnels you into the park. Passed the new cabanas in Dragon's Kingdom. Rail Rider has had a bit of paint work done. The new lockers have been finished off nicely. This leaves the new grass area more open and free from the lockers and showbags' stall. The old lake grass area is such an improvement. I really appreciated how the castle island peddle boat station has been left in place, including an instructional sign and turnstile. Most people won't notice that Bounty's Revenge was ever there at the front of the park. The boat now resides between the Grand Prix and Kraken. It looks good - a fitting tribute. Buccaneer Battle has a new sign and some cartoony trees. The Grand Prix now has blue, yellow and black karts. Going up the hill, Inferno appears to be a much improved version of Freefall. There are intermittent smoke fx, appropriately sinister music and new theming, although there's currently no cover to the queue area. Whilst it would have been cool to give the ride a new paint job, the colours aren't far off what you would ideally like anyway. The ride program remains the same at three shots and one drop. Abyss was testing early on, with the trains stopping on the mid-run brake. I saw a large group of Japanese people who were quite excited when the ride was being put through its paces. The area underneath the ride was looking a little overgrown again. Funniest commentary of the day has to come from the genius Black Widow ride operator who said that there have been no fatalities this season on the ride. It was about 12 degrees Celsius when I arrived at the park and there weren't a lot of people swimming. Water Mountain looks great, with western themed music and clever uses of timber. They've stripped back the paint of the hut and it now looks like it did in the earliest days of the park. The train and water jets on the Rocky Mountain Rapids were an excellent addition. Around the back of the park, the junkyard appears to have been pushed further behind the wildlife area, with a greenhouse and plants taking its place. There's lots of smoke pouring out of the top of the Kahuna Falls volcano, but it didn't seem to be synced with the bucket pouring. I really liked the redesign of the Kahuna Cafe. It makes a lot more sense now. The same could be said for the rest of the park - a bit of thought has been placed into so many things. It was awesome to find all of these little 'Easter eggs'. Food-wise, the cafe really hits the spot. So many healthy choices and good quality coffee. Had a breakfast muffin early on and Mark's favourite Chicken Caesar Salad for lunch. A lot of the staff appear to be learning, but everyone was friendly and welcoming. Saw Mark and Ross a couple of times too.

Source?

I love the fact that they apologised. Did the people at guest services know who you are? It's not like you haven't got any evidence of who did it.

Today was Physics' day at Adventure World. It was fine to start with, then it poured down. I'll be going to check things out on the weekend.

^As long as you don't forget to get your early bird season pass. ?

Indeed it does. Hope you keep up writing the articles too. Besides, if we share your stories you're still going to get overseas coverage.

^There's also the fence view from behind skull rock.

Will just have a whip around. ? You could always get a local TAFE to develop you a virtual panic room. Here's some of their previous work: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/rift/1088041961291257/

^That's a bit rich, were they offering you good money? Were they going to let you post them on your own page? Did they want exclusive use of your photos or just the ones you submitted?

Looks great, although it might be difficult to get a good shot of it as you'd have to take your camera past the queue area. Will be interesting to see how this affects the rapids experience. With all this talk of VR, @Mark Shaw, any thoughts about turning Yarli's Safari into a ghost train for Fright Nights?

It would have been nice if you'd come down to visit, plus Singapore's fantastic. I saw you went to USS, did you get to all the zoos and gardens as well?

That's pretty exciting. They're obviously priced right for the market, despite what some Facebook whingers might think. I'm looking forward to working out when to use my Fastpasses and cabana discount. The platinum season pass card is probably the best park card I've ever seen. It reminds me of George Clooney in Up in the Air when he's talking about the graphite American Airlines concierge key.

Great article as always. Have you guys been in Singapore lately?

Whilst it's nice to give The Great Escape its own thread, we've kinda covered a lot of this, starting from here: It sucks that we've had to wait for the development of The Maze. Whilst I first thought they were just trying to save money by stalling their plans to develop, it does seem like they've really been up against it with the few neighbours they do have there complaining bitterly about the noise and the concern about the fact that the park actually crosses over the Dampier to Bunbury gas pipeline.

Was doing some research on possible Mi-3s, today, and here were some of my favourites (I know they don't match all the criteria). Intamin simulator, which combines a tower and a simulator ride. Intamin parachute tower, which looks like fun. Intamin Giant Drop and Super Gyro Observation Tower. http://www.intaminworldwide.com/

Did anyone catch Ash's interview with the guys from Sally Corp at the end of ParkChat, tonight? They're obviously aware of Star Tour and the fact that you get to see JL up close.