themagician

Just came across this video from Mitty Theme Parks showing the land has already been demolished to make way for the lazy river and dodgems. I believe the park is now closed for the cooler season, so we probably want see anything until the area is complete when the park reopens.

No issue with the stairs at all because they’re expected on any coaster. And I don’t have an issue with the platform, was just surprised that they needed one and how much it stands out when in the park And on Tweetstryd at Wildlands (the only other location this coaster is located at) they have the stairs on the inside, so I wonder why they’ve had to change it for this one

@Ogrelatest video shows they’ve installed the evacuation stairs on the Kansas Twister lift hills, but unfortunately they’ve also installed a platform connecting the two Which can be clearly seen from the parks entry and Superman plaza. I can understand why they may need to have it, but it’s definitely not the best look to have.

The park have shared this behind the scenes video of the installation of the train. And credit where credits due, this video is awesome. Well done to MWs marketing time https://www.facebook.com/share/v/BDbzBaAM4J1dse3c/?mibextid=WC7FNe

It’s great to finally see Village marketing actually doing updates like this. It’s like they’ve released how much hype it creates for the competition down the road and want to get in on the action. But you’re right @DaptoFunlandGuy if this is a taste of what’s to come for WoO, that’s very exciting. Hopefully they were switched on quick enough so they were able to capture content of the coasters installations.

Great to hear of those changes and improvements since your last visit. We were sceptical of visiting again purely because of whether negative things we’d heard about the park and because there was less to do than the last two visits. Have you ever done the domes at night? If you (or anyone else on here hasn’t) I highly recommend you do. I’d actually say doing it at night is better than in the day because the crowds are lighter and it just makes it even better (especially at 8pm when the misters come on) This has improved so much since my last visit. Last time it was almost falling apart, but since the developments to the east of the gardens have begun they’ve invested in this area How incredible was this! An attraction within itself. If you are ever just passing through Singapore, it is absolutely worth just heading to terminal 1 to purely see this

Thankfully for us, this was actually the only disruption the effected our plans. I think other rides did go down throughout the day, but because of the order we did thinks we didn’t feel the effect.

We were planning on riding it for that reason, but it when down temporarily and by the time it had reopened we had to go.

I forgot to mention that. Yes it was and its scale caught me by surprise. Its movements weren’t amazing, but to see an animatronic of that scale up close was cool.

You’re 100% right on this and the one scary/intimidating aspect they included in the area (the doomsday statue that used to roar and have red glowing eyes) they have facing the wrong way and goes very unnoticed.

On a recent trip to Malaysia, I got the chance to visit Genting SkyWorlds, located in the Genting Highlands, north of Kuala Lumpur. To get to the park we took an hours taxi ride (which was only about $25 each way using ‘Grab’, which is Malaysia’s version of Uber) and then a 10 minute gondola ride. The park is about 1.8km above sea level, so despite it being very hot and humid in Kuala Lumpur, it is much much cooler up at the park (so if you visit definitely take a jumper). Before I took about the park, if you’re planning on visiting the park it’s probably worth staying at one of the many hotels in the Genting Highlands. There is so much to see and do up there on top of the theme park. Its owned/operating by Resorts World, the same company that operate Universal Studios Singapore and many of the other activities at Sentosa Island. We arrived at the park for opening and it’s a very grand entrance. You enter from inside the mall and the first thing you see is the fountain with the parks sign and Mad Ramp Peak in the background, a perfect photo op. The weather was perfect and at this point, the crowd level was very low. We decided to make our way around the park in an anti-clockwise direction, starting with Rio. We’re big fans of Rio, so I was very excited to the film come to life in a theme park land and it did not disappoint. The whole land was very well themed, with Carnivale music played throughout the whole lane and for us it was pure joy. The main attraction for the area is Samba Gliders, a Setpoint Swing Thing suspended coaster, with each gondola seating four people (two facing forward, two facing backwards). The queue was very well themed and provides a great outlook over the land (as the station is on the second level). We went on it twice so we could ride it in both directions and facing forward was a lot more enjoyable. The ride was relatively comfortable as it was lap bar restraints, but I just found see where you were going to be a more enjoyable experience. The land also featured a carousel and a Zamperla Demolition Derby. Next up with ‘Epic’, an animated film based around little people living in your garden. This land featured a Zierer Flying Gondola and the main attraction, an indoor flume ride. A side note to make here for those who don’t know, Genting SkyWorlds is actually constructed over multiple levels. Nearly all of the indoor rides are actually located underground, creating more usable space to fit more attractions. So for this flume ride, it does something rather unconventional. You enter the well themed queue and station on ground level, board your boat and then the main drop is actually first. You then make your way through the flume ride and then the lift hill is at the end, with a very small drop. The rides story is a shortened version of the movie, however it tells the story well and uses a mix between practical sets, animatronics and screens. It’s not at a Disney level, but it’s been executed very well. Next up was Ice Age, the biggest and most popular land in the park. It features a flat ride, stage show, trackless dark ride and mine train style coaster. The trackless dark ride, Ice Age: Expedition Thin Ice, was okay. There was no wait for this one, but this queue was one of the longest queues I’ve ever walked through. It took us about 7 minutes to get the loading area and the ride only last 3-4 minutes. And it was a bit underwhelming. It’s more kid focused, but the story did feel well thought through, there were a couple practical sets, but it was mostly screens. The coaster, Acorn Adventure was manufactured by Beijing Shibaolai Mine Train, making this my first ever coaster by a Chinese manufacturer. The queue was very well done (as all of the rides at this park are), the layout was a lot of fun, with a large helix wrapping around a waterfall. However, this thing was very rough and uncomfortable. It really throws you around, the seats aren’t comfortable and this was my first time riding a coaster with shin guards? Why are they there when it’s a sit down coaster? After this we ate at Bucks Cafe, which has a wide variety of grab n go style food and as its Malaysia, very well priced. The next land was Andromeda Base, which features Seprent Slayer, Batwing Spaceshot and Sky Climb (Sea World throwback). We didn’t go on any of these, but once again, well themed. This land does also feature a Dynamic Attractions SFX Coaster and it does look to be complete, however it’s been listed as ‘under construction/future attraction’ since the park opened. And by the state of the ride from what you can see, if it does ever open, it’s got a lot of work that needs to be done. Since we visited, it’s actually been removed as a future attraction from the parks website and is greyed out on the park maps. So this makes me think we might not ever see this ride come to life, however the parks lineup of attraction needs that one big hero coaster, so I hope they get it going or build something that they can actually get operating. Next is a throwback to the 2005 animated movie Robots. This was the parks smallest land with only two rides, which are actually stacked on top of each other. They were flat rides that didn’t interest us, but they were very well executed. Liberty Lane is their San Francisco land that is more of a themed pathway that connects two large lands, however for me, this land contained the parks standout attraction. Invasion of the Planet of the Apes is a 3D trackless dark ride. The queue was one of the most immersive and well themed queues I’ve ever been in. It was very well detailed and featured a pre-ride show to set up the storyline. The vehicles were similar to the style of transformers/spider-man at universal parks and you went through rooms that featured large practical sets and screens. The story was really well done and I was totally immersed into it. At the end it does feel like it needed one more scene as it felt like the ride abruptly ended, but otherwise I loved it. The final rides we went on were in Central Park, with there being an Aerobat, Independence Day: Defiance (flying theatre) and Night at the Museum: Midnight Mayhem (shooting dark ride). The flying theatre caught me off guard with how much I enjoyed it. The screen covered a lot more area so when riding, you couldn’t actually see the edge, making it much more immersive. The story was pretty good and made good use of the flying theatre aspect of the ride. Definitely worth checking out. And finally, the shooting dark ride had a very well themed queue, really well detailed and felt like you were in a museum. The ride itself however was fine, just a typical dark right with little to no theming between the screens. There is one more land, Eagle Mountain, however this land just contains one attraction, which is also coming soon. ‘Mad Ramp Peak - Full Throttle Racing’ is a Dynamic Attractions Duel Power Coaster that looks like it will be a lot of fun. The attraction is very well themed, with heaps of rock work and waterfalls throughout its layout. This attraction/land can be seen very all corners of the park and will make a massive difference to the park and offer something unique and thrilling. This is said to be opening this year, so hopefully it does because I think it will elevate the park and put it on the map for a lot of people who aren’t sure if it’s worth the visit. In general, the crowd levels were pretty low with a maximum wait of 20 minutes for rides, but most only had a 5-10 minute wait. There were also quite a few other food outlets and stores throughout the park that all offered something different. You can definitely tell the park hasn’t yet got the crowds they were hoping for because all of the merch was on a heavily discounted sale (and it was all of good quality). I definitely recommend visiting this park if you’re in Malaysia, especially once Mad Ramp Peak is open. And as a comparison because I know a few people on here have been to USS (which I’ve been too twice), I preferred this park. For my final score, I’d give Genting SkyWorlds an 8/10.

I recently got back from a trip to Singapore and it looks like construction has been very slow. We didn’t visit USS this visit because of Minions still being under construction, but from outside the park we could see they were only just installing concrete panels. It’s due to open this year, but if anyone’s planned a trip to visit the park this year, I wouldn’t expect it to be open at the very end of the year at the earliest

I recently got to visit both Luna Park Melbourne & Adventure Park Geelong for the first time. Like the other Victoria parks that I visited late last year, I didn't know much about these parks. All I knew was Luna Park had one of the oldest coasters in the world and Adventure Park had some very colourful slides. Luna Park Melbourne Located in St Kilda along the beach, this is defintiley the easiest park in Victoria to get to and is probably why it's one of the more popular parks (particularly for toursits). However (spoiler alert), it’s pretty disappointing. I haven’t been to Luna Park Sydney as a comparison, but Luna Park Melbourne needs a lot of work done and a real vision for what it could really be. I didn’t have high expectations before visiting, but to be honest, it was actually worse than my low expectations. Before going into my issues with the park and how I think it can improve, here’s the positives. There is a lot of history for this park and the entrance is certainly impressive. If you arrive my tram, it’s the first thing you see leading up to the park and with its architectural style and the coaster looping around the park, it’s unlike any other park I’ve been too. Watching the coaster go past over the entrance was very cool to watch, particularly as it’s relatively slow moving along the straights. If you haven’t ever been to Luna Park Melbourne, essentially The Great Scenic Railway surrounds the entire perimeter of the park, with all of the other rides spread throughout the park, with a couple of food options and stores. There’s quite a lot of the park that is heritage listed, so there is a lot of traditional and ‘unique’ buildings within the park. The Luna Palace building is currently undergoing a major refurbishment, so a large portion of the park felt like a construction site. But when complete next year, it will increase the footprint of this area of the land and allow for more rides and event spaces. So the first ride of the day was of course The Great Scenic Railway. This was honestly the main reason for wanting to visit the park and it was genuinely a lot of fun. Because it’s unlike anything else in the country (and really the world because of its age), it is so unique and is definitely something that got to be ridden. The station building is actually beautiful and it looked like it recently received a repaint because the colours were very vibrant. The cars were very tight and did cause a few bruises in a couple of moments throughout the ride, but that’s all part of the fun right? Having a human operating the brakes on board was so strange to witness and I feel like it’s something that won’t be around for much longer. The layout itself provided great views of the Melbourne landscape and it did pick up a bit of speed on the drops (maybe even the smallest bit of airtime), but otherwise it’s a pretty slow ride, but that gives it one of the longest ride times for any coaster in the country. Some of the other rides we did were Supernova (similar to SWs Trident, but it actually operates), the carousel, ghost train and speedy beetle (SBF Visa spinning coaster). All of these were fine, nothing to brag about, and most of the other rides were either something you found at a carnival or something I wasn’t interested in riding. So now onto my issues with this park. There is a lot of concrete. In fact, the entire park was just one big slab of concrete that became pretty hot, considering we visited on a cooler day. There was no landscaping (and if there was, so little that it went unnoticed); it needs some greenery to bring some life to the park. There was almost no shade, very little seating and the park felt old. Yes, it is a very old park, but that doesn’t mean it should feel old and dirty. I mentioned earlier the Scenic Railways station was beautiful (I actually loved looking at it), but it was mostly hidden by food trucks and a couple umbrellas. They should be showcasing this history, not hiding it behind stuff. With the major construction project that’s happening definitely isn’t helping the park, so I’ll have to visit it again when that’s all complete, but the way the park was laid out felt awkward and crowded. I know a lot of the rides aren’t permanently fixed to the ground so they can rearrange things as they feel necessary. But the park feels like it needs a master plan to work out what it’s trying to achieve. There are a few rides I’d say just get ride of (providing they aren’t heritage listed) and that allows for new and more exciting things to take their place. There was a kids train that was driving through the park, but on a busy day it just gets in the way. It’s honking at everyone because people aren’t moving because there’s such little space to move. I can see this park has so much potential and I hope the recently management can turn it around to take advantage of its location, history and what it could be. I wasn’t expecting great rides, but I did hope to feel the charm and history and such an iconic park. And for me I just didn’t feel it. I didn’t expect it to be like the Gold Coast parks, or even Funfields/Gumbuya that I got to visit last year, but I left the park disappointed. Maybe I’m being too critical of Luna Park Melbourne (so I’m interested to hear others thoughts), but I do hope post this major development of Luna Palace, the park begins to transform into what it could be. Adventure Park Geelong Located just over an hour south of Melbourne (20 minutes east from Geelong), I also didn’t know much about Adventure Park Geelong and its offerings. All I knew about were the colourful tornado style slides that opened in recent years. This park has a good range of both water slides and dry rides spread across the park, but what makes this place special is the massive lake in the middle that has endless boardwalks and green spaces surrounding it. For the most part, it is a very pretty park (I’ll get into this more later). At the front of the park are all the dry rides (and a couple old slides) and then across the lake is all the newer water slides with the pro-slides, lazy river, racer and kids play/splash zones. Our group had a treetop cabana during our visit, which provided a good view of the pro-slide attractions and was a good location to store all our belongings. As there’s no wave pool, there’s no ‘central’ location to keep your stuff like you would at a normal water park. There are some loungers and grass areas around the lazy river, but if you’re visiting a cabana might be a good idea on a busier day. We started with the Tornado and Tsunami. These are comparable to Green Room and Triole Vortex at WhiteWater World… but better. The Tornado (while a smaller model compared to the GC versions) has a great build up to the drop and certainly has a great pace. And Tsunami is a lot better than Triple Vortex (I just used it as a comparison because it has three funnels), as you ride in the standard clover rafts and the slide gets some really good speed and you actually drop into each of the funnels. The last funnel is fully enclosed and does slow you down, but it picks up speed again into the final splashdown. On the left side of the park is the other area of the water park, which features a large lazy river, with the kids zones and aqua racer in the middle. The Aqua Racer is a clone of the one that used to be at WnW, so it gives quite a bit of airtime on the last few drops. The lazy river has one main entry/exit point and something WnW should take note of, a queue line. To the side of the entrance is a queue line that is used on the parks busier days to help organise the chaos of waiting for a raft. There is also a wave machine at one point of the river, but unfortunately it was not operating during our visit (Gumbuya World had one operating and it makes the lazy river become river rapids, which is always good fun). There are some cabanas behind the river and they actually have their own private access to the river, seperate from the main entrance point. And the final water attractions are at the front of the park, which are two more traditional double raft slides that are (almost) pitch black and throw you around and get some good speed towards the end. The parks food offerings are for the most part your standard theme park items, but they were surprisingly cheap compared to most other parks I’ve been too. Burgers were around $12 and then a regular combo was $8, which included chips and a drink. And it was good quality too! Now it was time for the dry rides and there’s quite a good selection of them too. There was most of your normal expected flat rides, but there was also a wave swinger, large Ferris wheel, traditional carousel and SBF Visa spinning coaster. All of these were well presented and they were laid out very well across the front of the park. They also had two mini golf courses and paddle boats (on the lake) that were included with your general admission ticket. Overall the park was very clean, looked after, nicely presented and had a solid variety of attractions that easily fills your day. All of the staff were great and reasonably efficient. However there were a couple of negatives/areas to improve. Firstly, the entrance was very underwhelming. There was a large lawn area, with some shade sails and then the ticket booths. There was no big park sign and nothing to welcome you. It was very strange to not see a park sign at the entrance to the park. Secondly, the park has a massive winter night event and Christmas night event that apparently pulls massive crowds for both events. However, they don’t take any of the decorations down when the events aren’t on. That means, throughout the entire park are mesh animals, Christmas decorations and Christmas lights. And I mean everywhere. From every point in the park, you could these decorations and a lot of them aren’t in good condition either. I’d imagine this event has run for a few years now because a lot of it was looking pretty tired (probably because it’s left out all year round). It’s a shame they don’t pack it all away when the events aren’t running because I can see how pretty the park is, but you’ve got all the stuff everywhere. I can appreciate why they wouldn’t because there is so much of it and it would take a long time to remove and setup, but also, they would need a massive shed to store it all as well. Also, this park has a lot of land. There were (essentially) fields of land within the parks fences for so much potential expansion. The park could definitely benefit from even more water slides and maybe even a wave pool. I haven’t checked, but I’d guess you could even fit a DC Rivals on the land they’ve got (they wouldn’t have the budget for it, but just to put it in perspective). This park is already very solid and definitely worth a visit and I’m keen to see what they do in the future. Final Score My final score based off my first visit to both parks would be a 3/10 for Luna Park Melbourne and a 7/10 for Adventure Park Geelong.

@Gobbledok the photo TPSN posted and the one I shared on GCTP were older photos. The counterweights are definitely gone, as confirmed by @Ogre in their latest video

Probably to making accessing the mechanics of the ride easier. The seats and harnesses are big and bulky and would get in the way and they aren’t essential to testing the ride

Nothing. I don’t think we’ll see it return as an exhibit anymore and it will return to being used for fright nights and maybe a future daily stage show

In case you fall over from shock of how amazing the theming in the tunnel is?

But if they did that they wouldn’t be able to charge guests a ridiculous amount to play carnival games. For now there is also the Batman Legacy exhibit, but apparently that’s closing soon too.

The ad for the churros stand has been removed, but DGY shared this photo And the ad for the PC trams is still up

@Gobbledok that's it running with counterweights. I don't think the ride can operate without them.

I’ve heard that the counterweights were removed before this photo was even taken

There was a lot of ground works to do for this site and that’s usually the part that always takes the longest. Once these slabs are done, it will come together quickly. We’ll soon start to see track install begin, then the indoor building and so on. And the vintage cars is a pretty simple thing to do and most of the theming for the land is being built off site. MW have been working on the Wizard site for over a year and we’ve only just see the track go up in the last month, but they’ve still got a lot to build to make it look like Oz. So in terms of their constructions timelines, I’d say DW is slightly behind on where MWs at, but they’ll be on track to open at the same time. But it will certainly be a race to see who can open it first.

Someone at Village heard your cries

I wouldn’t mind if they showed Wizard of Oz 4D a limited time movie as a celebration of the land opening. Maybe it could be shown during Horray for Hollywood as that now runs during the summer holidays. And a nice tie in as the event is supposed to be all about nostalgia. But otherwise I think the DC Super League Pets or another Looney Tunes movie would be a good fit. The Roadrunner movie they showed has been my favourite one they’ve done since Shrek