Jobe

Hehehehe..pros and cons!! Sydney DOES have the better harbour, Luna Park AND bridge............... And the hipster apocalypse is upon us........god help us all!!!

Only a week to go before Volare is unleashed to the public!! Who is going to be there on opening day? Social media is ramping up!!

*sigh* ok..I will bite.....Source? Or it doesnt happen?

Um..wow. I would live in Melbourne before Sydney any day of the week, but hey- its your opinion!! Not sure that it is cool to dis a whole city on their feelings towards themeing though............mass generalisation much?

Yeah thanks for that. I am aware. It was a picture of a wooden coaster, it achieved the purpose i desired.

I think you may be reading to much into this. I am pretty sure its not meant to represent any of the new rides that are planned for LPS

Deliberate choice of words perhaps?? 😋

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t actually a Wild Mouse coaster but a Galaxi/SDC coaster. It was added to SeaWorld in 1982 and is now travelling the show circuit as Taipan. This has been mentioned in the forums many times. But yeah Wild Mouse coaster are far different and an example has never been to SeaWorld 😊👍

Sorry guys I should have been clearer- I was only talking about Newcastle to the Gold Coast which is 7 hours 51 min currently. Although they do say that when the Pacific Highway is finally fully completed , there will be a total of 2.5 hours of travel time reduction. I cannot wait to have THAT trip all the way on a dual carriage way highway travelling comfortably at 110km all the way.

Yeah I dont think that it will be overly affected to be honest. Coffs Harbour is a destination in itself and situated perfectly halfway to the Gold Coast. Its the perfect place to stay for travellers from Sydney or Newcastle. I think that you plan to stay in Coffs no matter what and a bypass isnt going to affect this decision overly much. If you are just passing through and doing the 8 hour run in one go, the bypass will be most welcome.

I knew I had some shots of the teaser promos for Hairaiser- these ones were used in October of 2013. As for Volare, this will not be the first Wave Swinger to call LPS home- there was an installation of one in the 1982 incarnation of the park and it resided about halfway down the midway. It was later sold to a travelling showman and is still touring the circuits I believe. @HussRainbow87 will be able to help out with the showman who owns it....Is it March's? And of course where the Volare has been installed was the location of the parks former and much lamented rare Huss UFO, named Flying Saucer, which was scrapped due to difficulty in obtaining parts for this scarce Huss creation. A great loss. Of course like many LPS rides,the name for the Huss UFO, Flying Saucer , was a throwback to another classic ride also named the Flying Saucer. This is an extremely rare type of ride, the only type of its type in existence to have come to Australia and there is only one surviving example of it in the world. This resides in England in Dingles Fairground Heritage Centre, a living museum for rare and old heritage rides. Please follow the link to learn more about this ride; https://www.fairground-heritage.org.uk/collections/shaws-moonrocket/ Below are a couple of video blogs from trips to Dingles Heritage Centre and in them both you can see the Flying Saucer or Moon Rockets in action. If you love rare and heritage rides like me, then you will find this place a fascinating view. I would love to visit here one day. Enjoy.

Yeah that's the conundrum. It begs the question though- they are usually marketed as one ride but when it comes time to count slides in the park, they suddenly count as 4 or 6?? I am of the opinion that it should count as one attraction and one slide. True, waterslide installations are more prolific, but one or two slides at your local pool does not make a water park. The installations that are being invested into Funfields, Gumbaya World and Adventure Park go a little beyond these sort of one off slides, both in scope and cost. Also, they are mostly being added to existing slide structures to enhance their offering and to expand their footprint, to build a "true" water/theme park, far greater in scale to your local council pool offering. Yeah you are 100% right about how Gumbuya World is growing and needing to grow more. However, I was referring more to the Victorian parks as a collective being a more attractive proposition than one single entity. Gumbaya World in its present form is a little attraction lite and the new additions will certainly bring it closer to parity with the other 2 parks. This is the reason i never included Gumbuya World on my itinerary on our recent Victorian trip. However, once these additions are built ,( plus the newly added Rebel Yell) it certainly looks a much more attractive proposition and I will certainly be putting it on the to visit list once these are constructed. Both Funfields and Adventure Park are a little more mature in this aspect and have far more adult offerings to attract teens and above. You are absolutely right that none of these parks by themselves are anywhere a match for MovieWorld and its offerings, however, together they offer a far better proposition. Whilst even together, none can match the coaster offerings of Movieworld, the Victorian Parks offer enough thrills for the locals to enjoy at home and perhaps divert them from the GC to an overseas destination instead? Just a thought. Absolutely- great point. For mine its a great representation of where competition breeds activity and investment. We saw this in recent years when Dreamworld was on the ascent and added Whitewater World and other attractions and the various responses for the Village parks There are other examples- Wet N Wild Sydney opened and Jamberoo responded with installing The Funnel Web and the Perfect Storm. We already know that both Adventure Park and FunFields have plans for new slide installations and you can bet your bottom dollar that they will already be planning new attractions for after this. The Victorian parks have stepped up their investment because firstly of this competition and secondly, because of strong attendance. Gumbuya World had a huge summer attendance-wise and is the impetus for this new investment announcement. Both Funfields and Adventure Park have also seen very impressive attendance figures for this summer. This indicates strong, local support , which means that more and more Victorian's may not have visited the GC theme parks. The newfound strength of these parks as legitimate options must have some sort of effect on local numbers from Victoria ( not international tourists) heading north.

Actually LPS initiated a teaser campaign on social media similar to the way Volare is now being marketed. I reckon both campaigns are following a similar course, and of course, with Volare being the first ride of the planned $20 million investment, I would not be surprised if we saw a TVC for it in the near future. Given that Hair Raiser was heavily promoted through all media streams as shown, this goes against the notion that they were quietly avoiding attention until the ride was completed. The media and teaser campaign started strongly and the TVC's appeared AFTER the ride was completed. The issues with the ride not being DA permitted did not happen until well after the ride had opened, well into the media campaign for it. LPS simply saw their interpretation of the planning document and ran with it, thinking that they were well within their rights.

More social media images.....

So any expansion plans?

That slide went to a small waterpark in Canberra called Big Splash,. The former Speed Slide from WNWGC also wound up here as well Yeah you are right- its definitely a bit misleading. You would think of that as one slide not 4 replicated slides. I think this is the first racer slide of this type in Victoria with the enclosed looping elements....hardly anything to write home about. Absolutely its great to see the confidence in Victoria's parks translate into this type of investment. Mark my words, this could have an impact on Victorians travelling to the Gold Coast for theme park experiences if Victorian's have 3 strong and growing options on their doorstep. Didnt Gumbaya World also purchase the Plunge slide that was in the Seaworld Park ( and before that at WNWGC)? Can anyone confirm that rumour? Great find also on the ausleisure site- this shows clearly that they are calling the racers "4" slides.

If you have never been to Vietnam, then here is a short video showing off some of the attractions that they have to offer. Some of this looks extremely spectacular and if Vietnam wasnt on your list of countries to visit as an alternative, then this video may just be the gamechanger. Incidentally, these are the parks that Brad Loxley from Luna Park Sydney has now gone to manage. I am thinking he has his work cut out for him!!

What a great photo!! Luna Park are gearing themselves up for a Volare announcement!! Its definitely building towards official!! Most excellent!

Gumbaya World has updated their Facebook page and have revealed their new expansion plans. In summary, the park will add Victoria's most impressive Wave Pool 6 brand new slides including: 2 new "monster Twister slides Four lane racer slides. Gumbaya World has certainly arrived with this announcement. This is fantastic and exactly what the park needs. How good is the theme park industry in Victoria going with 3 excellent medium sized parks to choose from? Why cannot NSW replicate this sort of success and investment in this state?? Its mind boggling.......

Just a quick update that as we all know, Volare is virtually complete and should begin testing by the end of the week. There is also an orchestral accompaniment that is set to feature with every ride cycle. This should bring an excellent atmosphere to the ride and will be unique for a Waveswinger in this country. I get that Zierer are Waver Swingers of choice in the industry, but from the surface, it appears that Preston and Barbieri have done an excellent job on this particular unit. This will be a most welcome addition to LPS's ride lineup and I predict that it will be a firm family favourite. Below are some pics courtesy of Brad Loxley that he kindly sent me. This ride has certainly had a long genesis and it has been a long time coming but I think it will have an enormous impact on LPS as a whole. Hahaha. Yep we all evolve eventually AlexB!!! 😆

Hahahaha...16 years ago!! Wow! Nice find! That's from before the site was even called Parkz!!! Very cool!! Its good to see things are rapidly taking shape. The ride will come together quite quickly now. Great work and lets hope this is just the tip of the iceberg for changes to LPS over the next couple of years.

Wow. This is disturbing news. Is this the beginning of the end??? Pray it isnt so....some one send out an SOS to a decent international theme park operator immediately!!

Pretty sure that we ascertained that Dreamworld's "Adventure River" was going to be merely a Lazy river with animal displays. Nothing really adventurous about it. And now even that is off the table.

Actually there was a very similar Octopus that came to Luna Park in the late 70's- please see this fabulous home video on Youtube from 1978. It shows the ride in the park at this time. This was a 3 armed version and in the video looks fairly ordinary compared to the unit that arrived with the 1980's incarnation. ( fabulous photo by the way @19Michael96!!) Here is a pic of the ride when it nestled in the cradle of the Big Dipper lift hill , turnaround and first drop from 1995 until 2001. @Wil_i_am_not yeah you are right- its definitely not an Eyerly Aircraft Company unit. You are right in it probably being an Italian model- the plans for this ride have been shared and licensed many times over by different companies. Commonly called a Polyp, they were first made by Schwarzkopf, then have been made under licence by manufacturers such as Sartori, SDC, Soriani and Moser , Gerslauter and finally Anton Schwarzkopf's son's company , Wieland Schwarzkopf. I am unsure what the manufacturer of LPS's unit was, however. LPS's unit was then sold to Aussie World as has been stated, where it stayed until it suffered an incident believed to have been where one of the cars collapsed with riders in it. Aussie World was allegedly slugged a $25,000 fine for this mess!. The ride was then decommissioned with unverified accounts that the park sold the ride to a broker who then sold it to a park in Asia somewhere. Interesting- I have never heard this!! What source did you hear this from? Not that I dont believe you, but the park could have easily have fit this ride in the 2004 opening- there was plenty of room in Maloney's Corner for it or it could even possibly have fit in next to Tumblebug. If that was the official reason then I am calling bullshit on that.

Dropped by LPS on Monday afternoon to check on the progress of Volare. Took these pics from the elevated green area on top of the carpark directly next to the Helter Skelter Cafe. Not a lot has changed , although you can see the framework for the rides base being built underneath. This is certainly going to be the best position for this ride in the park and having it elevated like this will certainly make for an great experience. The recently installed Light House is looking excellent and blends in well with the minarets of Coney Island in the back of the park. Nice. As nice as this area on top of the carpark currently is, I still maintain that it is an underutilised part of the park. If there was a way to connect this are to the midway below ( via a stairwell or rampway) then this area could be used in a far more utilitarian way. Given the weight of soil, turf and plant equipment that this site currently holds, I dont think weight would necessarily be an overiding issue, depending of course on what you wanted to place on the site! Looking forward to seeing the Volare construction continue apace!!! Keep those pics and updates coming!!