joz

So in answer to the original question here is a rundown of the holiday crowds: The busiest 3 days of the year are the Monday Tuesday and Wednesday after Boxing Day, which this year are the 27th, 28th, and 29th. After that it will be steadily less busy through to the end of the holidays, with weekends being noticeably quieter, and early in the week being busiest. The above is assuming the weather is good. If there are rainy days then all bets are off A few basic tips for each park, I'll try to be brief: Sea World: * Get there early. The morning shows are busier than the afternoon shows, so do rides in the morning and shows and animal attractions in the afternoon. * Since your youngest is of drinking age, Dockside Tavern is a great place for lunch, and is on the second floor next to the Sesame Street beach. There's something very nice to be said for a beer on a veranda over-looking a dolphin pool. Movie World * Again, get there early. And Unless you're first to get to it in the morning, skip Superman for later. It's busiest first thing in the morning, while at the same time the rest of the park is relatively empty. Scooby Doo is a good place to start since it gets busy and stays busy. * Get to Hollywood Stunt Driver shows 30mins early, they get full early Wet 'n' Wild * During your visit, WnW is open late for Dive in Movies. Take advantage of that, it's not overly important to get there early, and many slides stay open during the movie with minimal queues. You can quite happily arrive mid to late afternoon and still have a full day. Mammoth Falls, Tornado Aqualoop and Aquaracer's queues move rather fast, and are perfect rides for during the day when the park is busy, along with Calypso Beach and the Wave Pool. Anything else you do will most likely have a bit of a long queue until late in the day. If there's anything else you want to know, feel free to ask. Be sure to let us know how you get on. Have fun

I must admit, on one hand I'm aware of how much effort goes into typing out the polls for each of these threads. On the other hand though, I'm also aware that a lot of these threads clog up the forum, so I sadly must merge them all into one. I don't knock the idea, but we don't want the forums to be clogged up with these sorts of topics, and frankly it just looks like spam. I hope what you want to achieve can be done within one thread, but we can't have 4 active topics for the same thing.

Check back tomorrow and I'll fill you on the best days to go crowd wise. Sadly I'm a bit too busy to reply in depth now.

^ Fixed!

I guess considering the remaining theme park divisions have about $300million in debt, the $115million could well be going to pay back some of that, or to pay for WnW Sydney, or to fund the big new entertainment area out the front of MW (which I think would make a nifty place for a Lego Discovery Center) or the new parks they want to build in Aisa. In other words, I don't expect to see Village go on a $115million spending spree on the Gold Coast parks.

I happened to catch Skull Rock while overseas. While I don't know if it's got the same appeal as Sponge Bob, I'll say that this is the movie Sea World should have got instead of Happy Feet. It's a computer animated Pirate 3D movie, with plenty of scope for 4D effects. Certainly on the old school side, but a good bit of 4D movie fun. The version I saw wasn't a ride like SpongeBob though, and TBH I have a hard time imagining it really being one. It does seem rather sad to me to see Imax die, so a bog standard 4D theater could go in it's place. Seeing how you don't see Imax anywhere else and 3D is now so common, you'd think Imax would be worth hanging onto.

Hi there! MW have have worked themselves into a corner here by letting VIP in for free without having to pre-register. The upshot is Movieworld is now turning away thousands of people every night, and still having a park bursting at the seams (the lightning closing the rides doesn't help either). Hopefully next year they'll get it right, but this year to be honest is a bit of a mess. My advice to you and anyone else wanting to go is to get there as early as possible. If you've got a VIP pass, why not go in mid afternoon to avoid the stress? It will also make the night easier by getting the rides out of the kids system, so come night you can focus on the extra entertainment without having to worry about rides so much. If you can't make it in during the day, I think to be assured entry you'll want to be arriving by at least 5pm, 5.30 at the absolute latest, as the carpark was being blocked off by 5.50 tonight. If you're going to be arriving later than 5.30 on Saturday, bring the swimmers so if you don't make it in, you can take the kids to Wet 'n' Wild and watch the dive in movie (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) or go on some slides. My final piece of advice is to get yourself a spot for the parade early, probably 30-45mins before it starts. It's a good parade (seen best from the plaza by the big screen) and well worth the wait. Good luck, be sure to let us know how you get on!

Had a chance to check out the event last night. A full update will follow in the coming days, but in the meantime, I thought people may enjoy a dodgy quality video of the turning on the lights:

I love a good jingle, and here is DW's new one in full:

Sorry, missed your post till today... There wasn't an update in November because we all just had a busy month. Between travel, jobs and Uni we just didn't have time (I think I've had 2 days off in the past month). Bit of a shame too, lots of stuff we wanted to cover but unfortunately the real world got in the way. Good news though, as we speak we're planning the next one, hopefully within a week or two we'll have a nice big update published (hooray!). Cheers for the interest, glad to see people noticed

I can't help it, I must comment on Thrillz: It's funny really, there are so many different types of theme park sites, but every Australian site that comes around just rips off what we do, this one probably more than the others. I mean we don't do much in the way of videos, so why not make that the core of your site? We don't focus on traveling rides much, so why not make a site more on that? You could do a site which has in depth reviews of rides. Why then must every Australian theme park site be a fact heavy database with photos? We've seriously got that one covered hey... Richard may have more to say, but in the meantime, just a friendly reminder before we have any issues: Thank you all, have a nice day

Wow, what a great ad!

Rabbit Fire! My ride is named after one of the most famous Looney Tunes shorts of all time, 'Rabbit Fire, which contains the classic "Rabbit Season! Duck Season!' fight between Bugs and Daffy. The queue line theming sets up the basic story: It's rabbit season, and you're hunting with 'Elmer Fudd hunting tours' (with the slogan 'Be very very quiet, we're Hunting rabbits!'). The ride itself is a shooting dark ride, and the targets are small 2D Rabbit and Duck pictures, placed around elaborate 3D sets, inspired from the short. Not far out of the station, Bugs Bunny appears and declares it to be 'Duck Season', and now riders must hit the duck targets. Daffy changes this back to Rabbit season, and on it goes for the rest of the ride. As the battle between the two continues, you travel through other famous WB cartoons: you go into granny's house seeing Tweety and Sylvester, past Foghorn's barn, up the highways into a Road Runner cartoon, into the middle of the wild west, home of Yosemite Sam, and finally to Mars, where Marvin the Martian recognises Daffy as Duck Dodgers, and blasts everyone back to Earth. As with my last entry the particulars aren't overly important, I'm not a storyboard artist or writer. What's important here are the broad details: The ride is a shooting dark ride based on the famous 'Duck season! Rabbit season' exchange. It's the sort of ride system MW should install to fill the need for rides that the family can do together. As it currently stands, there are literally no rides that all members of the family can go on together at Movieworld. For a theme park that targets families, that's extraordinary omission, and one that I think urgently needs rectification. Not only would a shooting dark ride be access able to everyone, but all members of the family would actually WANT to ride it. They also tend to be re-rideable, so the ride would retain it's popularity relatively well despite the fact that the characters are pretty old school these days. So there it is, Rabbit Fire, opening September 2011 at MW

Texas Chainsaw Massacre - The Ride! My idea is a Halloween makeover for Wild West Falls, to theme it Texas Chainsaw Massacre. On Fright Nights, Wild West Falls sees a lot of it's capacity go to waste. My idea would see the ride get a new lease on life over these nights. Read on for a basic outline of the attraction: The overlay would begin in the queues. The queue TV's would show a news report about the Chainsaw killer being on the move in the northwest of Texas, and be reporting that people in the area of the abandoned Rio Bravo mine (where you are) are being evacuated by boat by police. Sure enough, when you get to the station the ride ops are dressed as Police, and are directing guests down the river to evacuate, warning guests that he may have accomplices and to keep arms legs inside their boats. Out of the station, the town is lit blue, and a Police siren can very faintly be heard in the distance. The erie silence would be abruptly disrupted by an actor playing a victim, who would loudly emerge from a building and die on the banks of the river. At the top of the first lift hill would be your first encounter with the chainsaw massacre man himself. He would stand in front of the boat and taunt riders, before they fall backwards into the pitch black. When they emerge outside guests would find the whole middle portion of the ride dimly lit in an erie blue, but smoke would limit the vision of riders to just a few meters in front of them. Live actors would jump out of the darkness with chainsaws and scare passing boats. The second lift hill would be pitch black. Sounds of chainsaws and screams would be the main feature here. About quarter way up the lift a live actor would scare guests with a loud scream, and be lit up and revealed as a mutilated victim, who would of course warn of the dangers that lurk ahead. At the top, would be the final encounter, before splashing down and ending the ride. Ride ops (dressed as police) would tell you they have him cornered, and that guests are safe to continue their night. Admittedly, the above is incredibly rough, and to be honest is really an outline only. I haven't really gone into sound or lighting in much detail, nor where the actors would be placed, or a further idea that the actors be able to communicate with each other to get the best scares out of each boat. Nor the use of the movie's theme song, which is simply brilliant. In general, I feel there are people within the company who are better placed than me to control the separate elements, and I'd be more than confident leaving these in their capable hands. There however a few major reasons behind why I think this would broadly be a good idea. Firstly New Line Cinema, who produced Texas Chainsaw Massacre is now owned by Warner Brothers, so thematically it's a good fit for the park. In theory at least, this should also mean the rights should be fairly easy to obtain. It's also incredibly cheap. Realistically, it only really requires 5 or 6 actors to achieve everything outlined above, and a permanent lighting install on the ride is something which should happen anyway. The money you spend doing up the ride nice and Erie for Halloween will more than pay itself back over time when you no longer have to hire in an outside company to light it for special events. The other big change is to the ride's AV system, which would present a few challenges, but on the whole I think would be affordable and worth the effort. Wild West Falls is also in my experience, just about deserted over Halloween, and with the park so busy, it seems wasteful to see so much capacity go unused. Having an overlay such as this would drive ridership, and see some of that unused capacity go to good use. The Final reason I believe this would work is because, oddly enough, having actors in and around the ride is doable under existing operations procedures (as far as I'm aware, though this may have changed since my days there. I'm also unsure as to the exact rules regarding the turntables, though the stairs by the lift hill shouldn't be a problem). I would of course suggest that actors are harnessed under their costumes, and are given a lanyard which would prevent them entering the ride envelope, which used to be around 1 meter from the channel. I don't think this would present any problems as far as the ride experience is concerned, because by the time you include props and the element of surprise, that meter is hardly an issue and is 100% safe for staff and guests. So there it is, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the ride! New for Halloween Fright Nights 2011!

I voted for Gazza

The Attraction maintenance pages are all a bit of a mess. Take for instance this at SW; Firstly, Heege Tower is what tech services call the ride, but the name "Bert and Ernie's Big Dive" might be more useful for guests. Secondly, the ride is part of Sesame Street Beach, so why is it listed separately if all the rides are going to be closed anyway? Are the others still open? If the others are open then what does "Sesame Street Beach will be closed" mean? On WnW's page: is the current useful advice. I'd suggest that the info on those pages isn't all that reliable, and "until further notice" probably means "We don't want to commit to a date at this stage", otherwise the word permanently would be used.

Bugger, my idea was going to have been very similar to that, with a couple of tweaks: 1. My ride would have started with a slow ride through a dark mine, slowly, making your way higher through the mountain. Eventually, you would be launched east towards MDMC, pull a tight 270degree turn to the right, drop over the edge of the mountain, and into a vertical loop around the pedestrian bridge. From there you would travel around the SkyLink station and then head back to the mountain. The exact layout I had in mind isn't really important. 2. My ride would have featured single car trains as they look more like mine cars. Probably a sort of launched Euro-fighter though I was hoping to find one with a lower height requirement. When Dreamworld has the Giant Drop with a 120cm restriction, IMHO anything less thrilling should have a lower height restriction. Since yours so wonderfully explains what I was going to do in every other respect, I'm now dedicating my brain power to thing of something different. Stand by for that

Ah good, we all get a week and a half start on Gazza, should come in handy

I'd say do all the parks, you'll only regret not doing one when you get back. As for where to stay, I'll give you my opinion; When I went to Florida, I split up my holiday into 2 parts, 'Disney' and 'everything else'. When I was doing Disney stuff, I played the Disney game and stayed in one of their 'value' resorts. I won't go into specifics, but it was great, and I say when you do Disney in Florida, stay at Disney. Don't even entertain the notion of staying elsewhere, they really are that good. The only downside is they don't make it easy to go somewhere else, so I stayed on property at Universal to do the 'everything else' part. Again without going into specifics, while the Universal hotel I stayed at was quite nice, on property at Universal is a waste of money, and I'd say if the Hotel 6 is across the road then that would be significantly better use of your money. Citywalk is a good spot, so close to Universal is definitely the place to stay, and there are reasonable public transport options (not great thought, at both SW and BG the bus left well before closing grr.) to get to the other parks from that area. Hope that helps, anything more specific you want to know feel free to ask

I also went along tonight and I must say I was quite impressed. It's the exact same event as last year, but this year it has polish. Everything from the entrance, to the mazes, to the overall look and feel of the park is such a step up from last years effort. Probably the most glaring example of how much better this year has been done is the mazes; Unlike last year the mazes are well themed. I won't go into spoilers but suffice to say the Freddie and Saw mazes look amazing, and even the psycho 3D maze, which isn't much more than a plywood switchback, was very well done, and looked great inside. The other big improvement in the mazes is the actors. This year there were lots of them, and even on their first night were getting lots of screams. They'll only get better and better as the days roll on and they get into a groove, but on opening night they were all great! The only downside is just how crowded the park is. Hopefully next year they can add an extra maze or turn Lethal Alley into a scare zone to take some of the pressure off. I think they need to work out something for the attraction closing times as well. Sadly, the queues for almost everything closed well before their advertised closing time. I think they could do well by advertising when queues will close in advance, to avoid having angry guests, as it seems to have been really upsetting a few people. Even though the close time was listed as 11pm, most queues were shut off by 10 - 10.30pm. One other piece of advice I'll give to anyone checking out the park for Fright Nights, I strongly recommend getting there as early as you can, and checking out the Saw maze first, and then the Freddie maze straight after. The earlier you get to the mazes the shorter you'll wait, the queues don't go down as the night goes on. Get those 2 mazes done first then the rest will be plain sailing. Crowd issues (and weather) aside, I had a really good night out, and can't wait to see how they top it next year!

Thing is, if they had it at Tiger Island, the reality is that no one outside the company would have found out about it. Oddly enough, I think refusing them may have been a great business decision. Whether it was intended or not (and I'm prepared to say it was not) the press they are getting has been nothing but positive. The public clearly see a big company appearing to have some moral conscience, and that is worth way more than the revenue from one function. Even me, with my jadedness was rather impressed, and I totally support Dreamworld in their decision.

I think the 4D effects (seats, wind, water) really save this. The film itself is nothing to get excited about, but the way they've done the in theater effects turn it into a good solid attraction. It's more scary than Sherek, and I think that does count against it, but for what it's worth I like the change, and hope the rumours of the film changing again in the not too distent future hold true.

While there's not much to be seen in the park, word on the street is to expect vast improvement on last year. Scooby is pretty much the only thing in park that you'll notice at this time.

I pretty much agree with what has been said here, I just woulk like to add a small thought: The money it would cost to bring Bermuda up to scratch would be huge, I'd say running into the millions (it's not just the effects which need a rebuild), and I honestly don't think that would be money well spent. I do think an overhaul to make it better than it was when it was new, with new themeing added inside, and a reworked loading/unloading area outside, would be a great use of capital. Don't fix the boat audio, throw the boxes out and get new technology, fix the fire and the UFO, and 'plus' the rest, and all of a sudden you can put 'Bermuda Triangle has had a $5million upgrade' in the advertising. Perhaps that way you could get some return, because to get the ride back to normal would be so expensive it wouldn't be worth it. While they think about this, I don't mind if they fix the lights on the UFO and relativly easy things like that