joz

I don't think it depends on the number of coasters, but more about 'is it a full day?' SW and DW when they had 1 or 2 coasters were still full days out with all the other things they had. MW was kind of an all day thing if you went on everything twice. I mean neck WnW does quite well for itself with one coaster.

That's one of the hazards of running a park year round, you don't get a big off season to work on this stuff.

Storm is somehow less than the sum of its parts. The coaster portion is intimidating, but actually quite weak. The boat ride element doesn't play into things at all really, the splash down is hidden, and the dark ride happens after the point where people care. It's not a bad ride, it just doesn't live up to it's own potential. The themeing is effective, but it's themed to somewhere unpleasant to be. I don't think it deserves hate as such, but it's hard to bestow much love on it either.

Pretty much all the coasters in the major parks are unique? Even those that aren't like GL or ST have something unique or different about them. The only straight up off the shelf coasters are the kiddie coasters.

This just made me feel very old

What's that reaction all about? It's not even open yet

Custom stuff can be awesome, but it can also be a miss. I mean MDMC verses a standard Vekoma Motorbike coaster? Say no more. I think that the ride is obscure enough that it's 'As good as' a custom ride in Australia, and frankly if I were DW I'd want something I knew damn well was going to be a hit, not something that you couldn't verify until after it opened. I'd probably also ask MACk about turning the unused block brake into an airtime hill or two but what do I know.

I think with something like an upgrade it's not as simple as 'Do it in winter'. If the boats aren't available, you can't do it till later. Not saying that's why the timing is what it is, but just that there's more than meets the eye. The Storm closure has always been silly though, fingers crossed that does change this year. Having your most popular water ride closed in summer is no good.

I mean true, but that also isn't a sign that it's currently in decline either. SW seems to have leveled off somewhat, and you'd think when the new rides eventually reopen you'll be looking at a park that has improved since say 2018.

I think its based on which is your favorite

I think the hot racer is by far the better move, despite the fact it will probably be a shorter ride (lifthills and all). Disclaimer that I haven't ridden one, but nearly all of them have a large part of the population that find them uncomfortable to ride, where I just don't think Intamin will have that problem.

I made myself sad typing that too

What's that?

Theres a real difference in quality between a travelling ronald busink wheel and a legit permanent install observation wheel

Some custom Vekoma sit down thing maybe?

This is pretty much my thoughts right here.

I wonder if construction costs aside, was it running at a profit? If so you'd have to think someone might get a deal on it and continue to operate it? And yeah Southbank in Brissy would make a great home for it. Hard to see a world where that would happen. On the GC Broadwater Parkland would also be awesome. Seems like far too legit of a wheel to be a Theme park ride, but if SW got it putting it right on the Broadwater between the Main monorail station and the Seal theatre would be all kinds of amazing.

I think it would have been way more preferable. Question, what's something all those immersive areas have in common? Controlled sight lines. You can't do that where they're building Atlantis. I've got an idea for how you would do it in Corkscrew's old Footprint, and again low key designed the first step of that in the fan fiction back in the day. I don't think it needs to be immersive, it just needs to be quality and unified. Related to that thought, of course the Pink Topspin looks like crap, it's not unified, nor does it look like it's quality. If it was decked out to be like a siege weapon or torture device with a higher back wall then you might have something. That type of ride doesn't 'Fit' with the fairy tale castle theme though, nor does it look like an it belongs with that theme.

I agree whole heatedly, and I don't think either of these things make the park feel complete. I heard something once that always stuck with me, when you talk to a guest, assume that this is the only visit they'll ever make to a theme park in their life. Today is it. That's why a park feeling 'complete' is such a fundamental idea to me. A guest should not have to take the broader context of the park into account, aside where needed like annual maintenance. Parks should feel like they were specifically built for the day. No temporary barriers, no A Frame signage, no SBNO attractions. Today is a stand alone day in a park's history to a guest and that's how it should feel. When I say 'complete', I don't mean 'finished', I mean 'whole'. When you go into the park it should feel like this is the park as it was intended.

My opinions on this are rather complex, so I'll do my best to put it into some kind of order. For start off, for the sake of this post, I think there are 3 types of Theme Park guests. You've got people who post on here or who lurk here. The Hyper nerds. The people who are into theme parks probably a bit more than is sensible. For reference I reckon collectively we make up about 0.05% of theme park attendance on a given day, (and 0.01% of revenue). Next you've got your casual fan. This is a group that has grown massively since cheap passes and facebook has been a thing. I think they always existed, but it's exploded recently. These are the people that are engaged on facebook about new additions to the park and ticketing options. These are the people who look at the concept art. Next is everyone else, the standard guest, the people who give zero fucks about theme parks, but take their kids there because it's a fun day out. They don't read the press releases, they don't know the names of the rides that have been added since they visited, nor do they care about marketing words. What they expect, is a good fun, quality full day out with their kids. Some of them may have passes too these days, but many still don't. My hunch is that your standard guest just won't care about words like 'Immersive' or 'Precinct'. They don't compare what they're experiencing at the park to concept art. Are they having fun? Are the kids having fun? Is it a cool place to be? That's all. They may compare to other parks and go 'This is a bit shit' but mostly they take it for what it is. Related to that, if you're on here, you should be able to look at a concept art, read a press release, (and in the case of New Atlantis, look at a model) and say 'Clearly this is not a fully immersive themed land despite what marketing are saying. Also there's huge differences between the model and the concept art, probably nothing is set in stone yet'. I don't expect a casual to do this however, and I fully agree that over promising and under delivering is a real problem. Having said that though, not everything needs to be an immersive themed land. It just needs to be good. I've said it before that I honestly think the weakest parts of New Atlantis, is the 'New Atlantis' concept. 'Modern theme less Sea World done in a quality way' would have been absolutely been enough. There's a reason why when I did a video years ago about what I think SW should do with the New Atlantis land, there was no immersive themed land. It was generic with a unifying idea. I don't think that's shifting the goal posts, and I don't think saying not everything has to be an immersive themed land is why the parks are lowering the quality. Hell I don't think anyone has made a genuine attempt at an immersive themed land in years. To sum up, I think the marketing messaging is wrong, I think it uses words that don't resonate with normal people, and are incorrect to people who are casual fans. I think for a hyper fan, you should have been able to work this out and set your expectations accordingly.

Again, respectfully disagree. The push needs to be 'Why you should visit NOW', not 'In a few years it'll be good'. The trend of announcing things years in advance needs to die in a fire. If you can't buy a pass to ride it now, why are you telling me about it? Again, the park needs to feel complete now, and endlessly banging on about stuff that hasn't opened doesn't make it feel complete. If you want to have a moment where you relaunch the park and you want to build optimism, say 'We just spent $30million, this is only the start and we're here to say, we'll be opening a new family ride in 2022 and a new thrill ride in 2023' (or whatever). That's all it needs to be for now. At the moment though, ST needs a chance to breathe and be the story of the reborn park. There are times when announcing a long way out makes sense, in my mind this is not one of those times.

They said themed and fully immersive precinct. TBH I don't think those words have any meaning in Australia. You can't have a fully immersive land on the land they're using, with the rides they've chosen, so I think if you read this forum and you were expecting that, you don't know what those words mean either. It's a message for the general public, and I think the public have better things to do than think about if an area is immersively themed or well presented. What I'm expecting is 3 rides all neatly presented in a unified style with some vauge Atlantis decorations scattered about, maybe a small bit of rock work. That's kind of all I've ever been expecting. I've said it before and I'll say it again.

The concept art also has the default station from No Limits 2. I don't know why people thought it was even remotely realistic

Leviathan has that unmistakable 'Extended delay in opening' whiff about it. When's Trident meant to open?

I don't think they need to say what the plane are, just that they have plans, and that opening day for ST is the parks new 'Day Zero'. If you were to say there'll be another new thrill ride opening in 12 months, that would be fine, but I think ST needs to be allowed to breathe and stand on its own, at least for the first couple of school holidays Apart from that small point, I also agree with what everyone has said, and it's probably that knowledge ST on it's own won't be enough that makes me ask the question of what else they need to do to give it the best chance. As small as the ride lineup will be, I think there MUST be a feeling of completeness. There will be fewer rides, but parks of that size have done fine in the past. I really think a big problem now, is you can see when you walk around how much they're just limping through. Everything is a mess, and you really get the feeling that the park is held together by gaff tape and zipties. I think if they can change that to a feeling of 'It's a small park, but this is the park as we intended' and that's the feeling guests get when they go there, then they've got a chance.