djmcbell

Yay sweary rants! Or even better, sweaty pants! People are too quick to jump on the blame bandwagon nowadays. Here in the UK, my child's nursery can't even tell me if he's had a tantrum through the day because some parents just don't want to hear it and get insulted. Seriously? He's a toddler! He's going to have tantrums! And if I were in the position of the staff where a kid had lost a ball then I'd probably get a broom or something to try and fish it out. I wouldn't be against going in there but it does depend on if the fountain can hold a person. Has this woman never stood on a chair to replace a lightbulb? I don't think you're supposed to do that, and it isn't the safest of things, but everyone does it. Likewise her standing on the flower bed. It's her own stupid fault, and doubtless now all Movie World staff are going to have to tell people not to stand on the flower beds. But... what about the pavements around that area of Movie World? You've got to take a step up onto them, and they're not as visible as the flower beds. Screw it, let's just take out the road area and make it all level. People can't be trusted with slight deviations in height.

They just LOOK guilty. I mean, look at those damn bricks. They'd kill you and everyone you know and love.

DEATH TO THE FLOWER BED!!! That'll serve 'em right. Those flower beds, coming over here, injuring our womenfolk... In other news, I just drank some bleach. I now hope to sue the manufacturers because they did not put a label on it telling me it does not taste like Coke.

Idiotic.

Be quite interested in the "rides"... Although I do wonder what they'd concoct with a dive coaster going into a tunnel, a la Oblivion at Alton Towers.

I actually found Dubai quite cheap for a few things (mind you, I don't drink). Fast food, IIRC, was cheap (though the fries in Ferrari World were expensive, and seemed to consist entirely of salt).

I still really enjoyed Disneyland Paris when I went back in 2014. There were some closures back then (Captain EO I think, Indiana Jones, Crush's Coaster, and Ratatouille wasn't open by that point) but it was good as it was closer to us than Florida, and I would definitely say Pirates and Big Thunder Mountain were better. Plus I like how you can discover new bits in the park that are out of the way (like the caves around Adventure Isle, the walk-through Aladdin thing, and the dragon under the castle). But yeah, they're doing loads of renovations for a good while now. DLP Guide has loads of info, and if you look around on Theme Park Review you'll find loads of info and some pics of the "Frontier Land" area being refurbished.

I think the exact words were "not progressing with at this time" (this is UK btw). Her final interview was about a month or so ago, and this just came through last week.

Yes, Merlin have apparently behaved pretty well throughout all this by taking full responsibility from the start. It was, I believe, human error on behalf of one of the ride ops / mechanics or someone like that which led to the car being let into the section where the stalled car was, but legally, blame lies with Merlin for (I think) their safety precautions allowing this to occur.

Been all over the news here in the UK today that Merlin have admitted guilt for the Smiler incident, opening them up to "unlimited fines". Which, to be frank, is the right thing to happen. Human error = safety checks that have, in this one occasion, gone amiss = Merlin ultimately at fault. Of course, the majority of the baying public (on the DM at least) believe they should face even bigger fines (bigger than unlimited?), set the victims up for life and close down the park as all their rides, apparently, are about to explode and destroy mankind.

Alas, she didn't get it. Seems Disney have a new system - as opposed to emailing candidates, they have a site which the candidates log onto and see their progress. So rather than letting people know if they haven't got the jobs only a few days after interviews, they just wait until the end and release them in one big batch.

I see what people mean when it comes to superhero theming - it always seems to be "here's an American city" more or less. IoA, Movieworld, even the bits at Six Flags parks seem to be like that. Or backlot theming (which, in my opinion, doesn't count). Basically, it seems Movieworld consists of only 3 bits - a LARGE city area, a western area, and a Looney Tunes area. Whereas other parks (e.g. Disney) have jungles, fantasy, futuristic etc.

Drag racing discriminates against cross-dressers.

Really on the Star Wars front? I watched it and didn't give two hoots that one of the leads was black, and the existence of non-clone Storm Troopers was explained away. In any case, if I'm to assume that this person stood up on the ride, then we have to ask if he is in the right mind. If he has some form of disability, he may not have been. Not his fault if that's the case. In that case, it's the fault of his carer for not supervising him enough. It may also be that DW is at fault for letting him on the ride, but that's another case. If the person WAS in the right mind then they are definitely stupid and at fault. Ultimately it comes down to who can be responsible. I could take my two-year-old son on the ride, and he understands most instructions and normally behaves himself, but he'd probably be quite excited and want to get out or stand up or something. I couldn't trust him, therefore I would be responsible and I would have to ride with him. Similar story for some people with some disabilities - the person in question could not be trusted, so there would have to be a person to take care and responsibility.

Pretty much (or again, Duelling Dragons / Dragon Challenge, back when they duelled). One side for humans, the other for aliens. Of course, Movie World would probably paint one side black, one side red, and make "Batman vs Superman: the ride".

Yeah, I'd heard it was originally Lethal Weapon. Doesn't mean it can't be themed again, though I'd prefer it not to be. Brad2912 - most of my ideas were more than a tad tongue-in-cheek. An Independence Day area (with duelling ride) however, was serious, and pretty much the best I could come up with.

I wouldn't really want to take any existing rides from Movie World's lineup and retheme it to anything else. Whilst DC does command the lion's share, it's all packed in pretty densely. The only DC ride I think could make such a leap would be Arkham Asylum, as IIRC it's a bit out of the way compared to the other major ones, but then it's a bit far removed anyway for people to notice. I don't know exactly where this new area will be, but I don't think it's huge. And, to be frank, I don't know what major franchises are upcoming in films and which ones haven't been taken already (see Jurassic World). Hmm... actually, could an Independence Day area work? Amazingly wishful thinking, but if they could get duelling SLCs (like Duelling Dragons / Dragons Challenge used to do)... maybe put in an ExtraTerrorestrial / Stitch thing if you seriously want to traumatise the kids (how many kids do you think will have sworn never to watch Lilo & Stitch ever again because of that?)... and weren't they doing a third Independence Day (Independence Day - Even More Independent Girl In The City)?

That would make it even better. My image of the Mad Max franchise is something like this: EDIT - well I suck at this whole YouTube business, don't I? EDIT - not quite so much.

Not seen any of them, but I don't think it would be much of a stretch to do out the Driving School. Add in a few canyons, bridges, fit the cars with spikes on their wheels and flames coming from the exhaust... ... of course, the location next to the children's Loony Tunes area may have to be rethought.

I guess the obvious one would be to give the Driving School a Mad Max overhaul, or possibly some dodgems...

One of my cousins got through to the final round of interviews for the Disney International Program thingy a few weeks back. I don't think she's heard about whether she's got it yet. I did read a while back that one of the things Disney look out for in the interviews is willingness to work with other people, not compete with them. To work together to solve problems.

Quite understandable that Disney wouldn't be interested in an Australia park in the near future. To be honest, I doubt the country will ever get one - though didn't the guy who's looking at building a park in the Gold Coast say that increasing population levels were making his more viable? To add to the general Disney / trips abroad business, it seems that prices to get places are a lot cheaper from here in the UK than from Australia. We've been able to do a flight to Florida, hire car and villa for about £800 each (for two of us, for two weeks). We did a road trip a few years back, from Chicago to Williamsburg (so Six Flags Great America, Cedar Point, Six Flags Great Adventure, Six Flags America, Busch Gardens Williamsburg) for about £1000 each (which was flights, car hire, hotels). As someone said, we don't really care about the state of the hotel so long as it's clean enough. I've been to three Disney "places" I guess - California years ago with my parents, Florida, and most recently Paris. I really don't understand the flack Paris gets as I thought it was a brilliant park - there's loads of little hidden places to explore (like the caves under the castle, which contains a huge animatronic dragon) which I've not seen in either of the other two parks. Plus the rides, in some cases, are better than the Florida counterparts in my opinion (Big Thunder Mountain, Pirates, Haunted Mansion / Phantom Manor). I guess it's not the "all-singing, all-dancing" place that Florida is, but I think it's still pretty fun.

Yeah, I was disappointed too when I heard that the new area would be DC. I just wanted some more variety really. That said, I can't really talk as I've only been there twice...

Yeah, definitely. Movie World are basing their DC stuff off the comics, and not really the movies it seems. IoA kinda gets away with it, but when Movie World has MOVIE in the name... ... and yes, there is rather a lot of DC stuff. When I went last year, the major theming seemed 60% DC, 30% Warner Bros, and the remaining 10% given to Scooby Doo and the wild west area (which was cunningly hidden somewhere). Mad Max could definitely work, as I think it's mainly done in Australia. One would argue they've already got a western / mountain area, but then they've already given a huge amount of the park over to DC - do they really need ANOTHER area?

Universal Studios featuring stuff like Harry Potter and Jurassic Park - so Universal are becoming "Book World"? Super heroes are one of the "in" things at the moment and I guess Movie World is just trying to cash in on them. Can't really blame them for it, and they are still viable films. However, it would be better to also mix things up, but then I guess Movie World would need to look at: 1 - what films are popular, or are going to be popular, and 2 - what can they actually get the rights to? A lot of them will be taken I guess it probably does smack a little of laziness that they're milking the DC licence for all it's worth...