joz

Australian designed from the same people who brought you Orphan Rocker! I agree with the consensus though, an actual ride manufacture would probably have been the way to go, but whatever, I'm sure it'll come up tops. Plus for the most part Australian designs have come out pretty good without a real ride company invovled, (Eureka, Bermuda, Vikings and Looney Tunes come to mind) so there is hope there. Good luck to them, they've been something of a staple of the Gold Coast for a while now, so its good to see them expanding.

Wow, both nights sold out and talk of more events next year. Hope the guest feedback is positive, because this sounds like a great success, and you'd think possibly the start of something huge.

Hard to tell, $10 would probably cover it, or at least damm close to covering it.

You know what, I've been wondering the same thing myself. The thing is I know the entire spit has a 3 story height restriction, and considering the height was alleged to have been one of the reasons the water park tower wasn't demolished a couple of years back (and that's from people who supposedly 'know') I got no idea. Maybe the Gold Coast City Council realise all of a sudden how much the parks do for the area, or because its temporary it doesn't count? I dunno, but I don't care, its too good a ride.

Well, last summer I went to the park on a couple of days, and for each day I was told the attendance was around 7000 (probably higher because of the way the ticketing was working last summer), and the only line in the park longer then 15-20min was 1 hour each for Scooby and Wild West. Having said that, I think 6000 might prove to be a bit oversold, particularly if Wild West doesn't open. Still the crowd of 6000 is easily enough to justify a second train on Superman, Road Runner and Lethal (3500 is the number the park normally goes by), so as long as the trains aren't sitting out the back in pieces then those rides should be operating well. Plus the scare zone in China Town should take a chunk of the crowds out the rest of the park (though surprised Blazin' Saddles isn't being used, that area seems prime for a scare zone to me, for crowd distribution as much as anything else. That whole area just seems wasted) IMHO). Hopefully though the guests will love it and the 6000 plus another possible 6000 will be enough to bring back the event bigger and better next year. The mind boggles with ways an entertainment savvy park like Movieworld could do Halloween. How about some scary shows in the Maverick building or Police Academy stadium? How about making Wild West Falls into a scare zone in itself. Or how about closing Matrix, turning it into a haunted maze, and never opening Matrix again?

Then the other 3 cables would hold the car. How anti-climatic.

Play a game of "wait and see' with regards to how long its there for. Supposedly the decision on whether to keep it permanently hasn't been made, and it depends on the popularity of the ride. Still, if its going to succeed in any park its Seaworld, since its the only Gold Coast park with any real views to show off. Good move, its the right ride for the right park. Plus the 1000 or so people per hour capacity will be very welcome given the high number of yearly passes floating around at the moment.

Well isn't it? It is a roller-coaster, that scares the snot out of many. Just because its themed doesn't mean its not a thrill ride. If that gets classed as a family ride before it gets classed as a coaster then I'm not on this planet. I mean come on, since when has a backward drop not been thrilling? Or am I missing something here?

Forgive me for being lazy and not looking this up myself (hey normally I do it for everyone else), but "Turbo Tunnel"?

Hey, there has been controversy around every major addition to SW since Dolphin Cove, so I guess public outcry has just been worked into the marketing campaign.

The great thing about that is the restraints are completely redundant. There isn't a snowflakes chance in hell in falling out of that ride even with no restraints. Having said that, they aren't completely without merit; they stops people from jumping out of the ride when they shouldn't be, which has happened on Splash Mountain, and more recently on the flume ride at Liesberg.

Because the likelihood of a shoe flying off and hitting someone in the head is much more likely, (and more damaging) then stepping on a splinter on a cherry picker. Same with Claw, GD and pretty much any ride with no floor. Besides that, the guest is also likely to loose said shoes on the rides, requiring a person to retrieve them, wasting time and possibly causing an operational delay.

In trying to find the name of the makers of the buckets, I came across another company that make them a nearly identical product, though seemingly more flexible in design, Koala Play group (as you can imagine with a name like that, the company is based out of the USA :? ). They have a couple interesting concepts, like adding the smaller tipping objects to water slides and lazy rivers. Worth a look for sure.

A super yeah pass would be a pretty good idea, though difficult to price. I mean once you start getting into the $200 range people would probably start turning off the idea, and since the price is around the $150 mark that doesn't leave much to work with. As for when the new tickets come in, well as someone who has no idea, I'd like to put a hefty sum of money on December 1st being the date all the changes take place. It'll be interesting to see what happens to the price of the Super Pass, as the way it currently stands 2 weeks unlimited entry costs about $11 a day, which is a steal really. Plus I'll be keen to see if the if there's an option to add-on AOS, Paradise Country or helicopter flights to the ticket line-up.

I bet that guy was shivering in his shoes when you told him you weren't impressed. Seriously, the park is running 2 trains on LW and RR, then you can rest assured there's probably a very good reason why the second train was out of service. Trains require maintenance, and even with the best maintenance around unforeseen problems will arise. Thankfully SM has two trains, and a great advantage of having two trains is greater reliability, when one breaks you can still operate the ride. Lucky you, you still got to ride, wouldn't be the same at DW or SW if the one train on one of those coasters went down. I'm not saying its great or ideal that you had to wait (at gunpoint?) in a 45min line (which was advertised as being a 45 min line), but at the same time, sometimes it happens, and you just have to grit your teeth and go along with it, and I certaintly wouldn't say that MW is a joke because of it.

Twas me. I figure the post belongs here, and if nothing else, this topic deserves to be revisited since MW's recent additions have really changed allot from what was in the feature article.

Of course the obvious answer (Mixed with Gazza's use of the CP) is to move Dugong Discovery and HR to somewhere else and use the entire area between Guest Relations and the monorail station as a loading area. Everything else in that area can totally be moved

You know I've just recently starting thinking the exact same thing thing. Those spinning rides are seriously cool, and if you can get one that loads as efficiently as Scooby then there's some pretty serious fun to be had with one of those.

What type of training to be a ride op? Grade 10. Nah j/k. Depending on the ride it can vary from a couple of hours to a few days of training, though generally one full day is all you need to be competent to operate a ride. I'm pretty sure Scooby is one of the more intensive rides and requires a couple of days plus some after hours stuff doing mock e-vacs from the high section.

I'd say SW and MW would each be around the 1.2 / 1.3 mark with WnW around 800,000.

What do you mean by that phrase? It sounds like your against WnW. I do think its a shame that the $20mil that went into WnW in the past 3 years probably won't pay off as well as if was built at pretty much any other time in the past few years. I want to see our parks succeed, WWW included. Besides the bottom paragraph there mentions how (I think) the waterpark will effect DW, so I can't be totally evil about the place.

As far as I understand it from the various releases floating around: MW attendance was up 9% in the second half of the financial year, so post January saw a pretty decent increase you'd say primarily on the back of Superman, given Shrek had only a minimal effect on the first half. I'd think we can probably look forward to another similar increase next year (somewhere between 5-10% seems reasonable) with Batwing, particularly given how new Superman still is and the great word of mouth that ride is getting. Wet 'n' Wild was also up with Buccaneer Bay, though the full effect of H20 Zone probably won't really be felt till next year, which is a shame given its also when WWW will cut into the market. Seaworld was down by a pretty big margin, and the great profitability the park had built up over the past couple of years seems to have have been diminished, so its something of a double whammy. I think there is a perception out there that SW is a bit stale, and the place probably just as much as the place needs the new attractions needs a bit of a refresh(I'm aware of one such change supposedly happening next year which is pretty over due). You'll see the park will have a big attendance number next year, even without any new attractions, as the park has been nothing short of packed this year, but that is on the back the sale of 200,000 half price annual passes, so profitability won't be anywhere near former levels. Paradise Country is still plugging away. Another increase in attendance and profitability, put it down to better marketing and awareness. Put next years increase down to the same thing. DW is up 2.5% on last year, and WWW will probably help attendance again next year as DW will now be able to offer an alternative to the 3PSP, and the novelty of a new water park will probably be more then enough to make the DW alternative very appealing.

Wow - this thread, talk about a blast from the past . If you haven't read over this whole topic I'd highly recommend it, Djrappa at his pre-Aussie Outback best. Beyond that, I have nothing to add since I know absolutely nothing about PLCs

I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say we're glad to help, and trust me when I say if you haven't been to the parks for years, then you and your kids are going to have a ball. How old are the little ones BTW? Be sure to fill us in on how your trip goes Just going to give you a game plan for SeaWorld, since January is going to be VERY busy this year with all the annual pass holders: Get a couple of laps in early Bermuda, Corkscrew and the Flume ride first thing, then check out the shows and animal attractions during the afternoon. As a rough guide, do the rides up till 12, then make your way down to the front of the park for the ski show and lunch, and check out all the other shows and animal exhibats till about 4 in the arvo. At around 4 the queues will/should have died down enough to allow you to get some re-rides in.

Could be another one of those scary walk through attractions like tomb raider.