Cactus_Matt

WAT?

Yawn.

Unless it's an RMC or B&M I don't care.

I hate to be a proverbial 'Debbie Downer' but this thread gives me a big ol' case of the "who cares", like apart from 'Rivals' all those years ago when was the last time any Aussie park has done anything worth getting legitimately excited over? Maybe for the local guest who is looking for something more exciting than a McDonalds playground to keep the young-uns entertained this is a plus, but other than that this feels like nothing but a big wet fart. I don't doubt that these will be ~good~ additions to the park, but it seems like we are far from offering anything an enthusiast gives a damn about. When I was a kid it felt like the Aussie parks were a contender to the lads Stateside but it's been a goddamn near two decades since I've felt that way. But what do I know, I don't have kids of my own, and I don't care about IP so this might as well be a slam dunk in sheep's clothing. Whatever the case, it's been over 6 years since I've gone back home to the Gold Coast and neither this, nor what Dreamworld is working on has caused me to jump a plane and see what's on offer. Guess I'll be travelling up North for funerals rather than fun at this point...

It'll be on a soundstage somewhere, with no actual physical house. Modern audiences don't care about the idea of remoteness or being isolated like they did when Big Brother AU first aired. I remember as a kid when the first season of Big Brother aired the idea of it being in the woods behind Dreamworld made it feel kind of mystical, kind of forbidden and other-worldly. Those helicopter shots of the house and the winding road between it and the live stage were cool. Every eviction show felt like an event. And then visiting the live stage and seeing the windows into the 'studio room' where all the live feed monitors of the house was a proper 'through-the-looking-glass' moment. I even got a signed photo with Gordon (RIP) as he was the most recent evictee and for whatever reason my adolescent brain thought it was cool to get a photo with someone from the TV. Nowadays nobody cares about the spectacle or the illusion of such an otherwise mediocre television show and even less care enough to visit a back-area of a theme park to see 'how the sausage is made' so to speak. The best this "new season" of Big Brother can hope for is to remain relevant for its run by delivering outlandish moments, sexual escapades and a bit of controversy. I'll applaud them if they capture at least a smidgen of the zeitgeist that the original did, it'll be at the least a mild diversion but more than likely it's just going to sink into the quagmire of the modern reality television swamp.

Do IAPPA announcements regularly make the Gold Coast news even when they're relevant to a Gold Coast park? And even if they do does a 2-minute air filler puff-piece really stick in the mind of your average Aussie Joe Public for longer than a day before their busy trying to find their next hit of ice to take the edge off the fact that they live on the Gold Coast. Snark aside, this thread feels really "oh my god nothing happens in Australian theme park news so let's grasp at straws to fill the void before we fade into irrelevance". To the topic at hand though; Intamin is a company that meant little to me as a kid and teenager as theme park enthusiast because I was way more excited about B&M and what they were doing (I mean sure Kingda Ka was impressive by the numbers but ultimately looked pretty ordinary), as an adult RMC took the position as most interesting because of their conversions and wild elements. Now, with rides like VelociCoaster and Panthenon not to mention whatever ridiculousness is Falcon's Flight in Qiddiya, I'm pretty interested if we actually get something record breaking again because it's happened before - obviously not height or speed or drop since the aforementioned is under construction. So what am I saying? 'King Claw', yeah that's probably a thing and maybe that'll be it for us, because maybe this 25-minute presentation is EVERYTHING Intamin is doing for the next year not just in Australia, and 'King Claw' will be like a couple minutes of that whole presentation. I'd be happy to be proven wrong because every announcement every Australian park has done since Rivals has left me entirely uninterested from an enthusiast point of view.

If they want some good 'flash' apparel, maybe they could sell a long trenchcoat.

Yawn

When I rode Splash Mountain at Tokyo Disneyland I was like, "yeah, such a great water ride!" But did I care about the theme, or the animatronics, or what the overall overarching story was through the queue and the slow sections of the ride was? No. Not a single bit, I didn't know that this was some old-school apparently racist live-action/cartoon hybrid adaptation, I didn't care about the supposed "stakes" of these rigid animatronics was throughout the so-called 'story', all I cared about was that I could look at something amusing and polished and entertaining while sitting down after having queued up for hours and get a 'rush and splash' at the end. I don't care about the IP, I don't have nostalgia for Disney brands (or Marvel or Star Wars brands for that matter) I just want something that looks good, sounds good and is fun.

I'Il be in Japan on June 7th for 23 days. It'll be our 4th trip to Japan, we've done a lot of parks plenty of times (Disney, Universal, etc) but have yet to visit to Fuji Q or Nagashima Spa Land, any tips for visiting both with regards to public transport? I'm good with trains but when it comes to buses I've never attempted to take one and it's something of a source of anxiety which is why we skipped Fuji Q on our previous 3 trips. This'll be our first time in Nagoya so Nagashima is pretty much locked in, even if we have to taxi to the park, but is Legoland Nagoya worth a visit too? Not from an 'enthusiast' point of view just from something that's fun to do?

I've lived in Melbourne for 14 years now and I've yet to visit any of these places. This trip report didn't change anything.

I lived in Frankston for 12 years; I can assure you it is actually one of the Unhappiest Places On Earth* *excluding active war zones, prisons and sites of terrorism and natural disasters.

In the bin

Do I need to say this again, there will never be a Disney Park in Australia in our life times, there will never be a Universal theme park in Australia in our lifetime, heck there will never be a Six Flags parks in our lifetimes because apparently Australians are somehow allergic to theme parks based on all the evidence that's come before. Australian sucks THE END.

wow *yawn*...

I mean the answer is pretty obvious, how many kids (or teenagers for that matter) that you know are named Rodney? If the number is zero then the Police Academy Stunt Show was successful in eliminating that wretched name from the gene pool. #justsayin

I didn't want to comment here at all because this post is stupid, the Australian theme park industry is stupid, and Australian's are stupid. The fact we've gone, 20 fucking years since the Australian theme park heyday and we have LESS theme parks and less iconic roller coasters on the whole means theme parks will NEVER be an influential thing in this country. I don't know why; I don't know why America and even Europe and some Asian countries (specifically Japan and China) have great theme park offerings from both the big companies and the small ones while Australia just shrugs them off is the norm. For whatever reason theme parks mean less to Australians on the whole and I stand by this because if they DID mean anything we'd have the populous clamoring for parks in the states where thrill parks have no presence despite millions of population like NSW. I'm a Melbourne guy since 2011, but I grew up in Queensland and I've yet to care for any theme park addition since moving to VIC. Wonderland was genuinely great but does anyone in that state care that all they have is a dinky amusement park by the bay? Doesn't seem like it. I don't know what point I'm ultimately trying to make because I'm drunk right now but whatever all I know is we'll never get a Disney, we'll never get a Universal park, we'll never get a Six Flags park, honestly we'll be lucky if we ever get another theme park that ever even cares to push a boundary beyond a roller coaster that's the first, biggest, roller coaster within the footprint of a another roller coaster that's painted a specific colour.

~who cares~

*dreams wistfully of the Police Academy Stunt Show for the last 20 fucking years*

On whatever topic we are, seems like foreign visitors (specifically in this one case US YouTuber 'AirtimeThrills' ranks Movieworld pretty high, mainly for Rivals, which he ranked as his 13th best coaster of all time, and he's ridden over 600 coasters around the world (for whatever that's worth). Otherwise he was pretty critical of the ride ops, both at Movieworld and especially SeaWorld. But yeah whoever the bean counters are behind the scenes at Village Roadshow need to get shown the door, just sell the parks to Six Flags or Cedar Fair (yes, I know, I know) or whoever has an actual interest in managing a THEME PARK and stop treating on otherwise "good" park as some sort of cash machine for people who think buying stocks in a movie studio-cum-theme park is a sound investment when everyone behind-the-scenes just wants to sell the land to property developers but is resisting the urge out of the desire to be inundated by bad press.

I kind of feel sorry for ANYONE running a social media page for ANY Australian theme park because it's like, what else are you going to talk about?! I looked it up and I haven't posted on this website in EXACTLY a whole year, like literally to the day and nothing has changed in the Australian theme park landscape. This isn't a post defending bad socials, it's a post decrying the sorry state of literally EVERY Australian theme park and their lack of forward progress in any swift or meaningful way, the lack of any additions actually being exciting, newsworthy or even worth mentioning frequently at all. Being a theme park fan SUCKS in this country...

Restaurant confirmed gone? Also big lol at how they drew Gold Coaster.

I've been to Japan three times (planning 4th trip for next year) and while my interests are more anime related than theme parks these days I still visited Tokyo Disneyland/Sea (multiple times) and Universal Studios (once). Even if you say you're not a Disney fan (I'm not, honestly have no interest in anything they make) the parks are an absolute must. Before I visited I thought there would be nothing to excite me about the parks but honestly they are an eye-opening experience, DisneySea especially, theming is unbelievable and a lot of the rides are bucket-list worthy. As for Universal Studios it was ok, honestly I'm still pissed about being denied the ride on the Hollywood Dream roller coaster because my thighs were too chunky to get the lap bars down on the test seat (I was 95kg at the time, down to 83kg now so fingers crossed for next trip). As for your other question regarding 'unsafe places' the only thing you have to worry about is touristy places like Shinjuku, Harajuku, Kabukicho and other areas with bars/clubs. There's a lot of dodgy establishments where they'll try and beckon you in by using English and then rip you off by overcharging for drinks or just plain rob you. It's never happened to me personally, but that's mostly because I'd only go to a place that actually appears on a Google review and not just wander into any random bar, club or restaurant. On our first trip we stayed in a business hotel (like APA) in the financial districts of the city away from all the glitz and nightlife and touristy spaces. It made what could have been an intimidating and overwhelming first trip overseas a lot more relaxed and safe feeling. Plus the public transport (trains) are so good within Tokyo that even if you're staying away from the tourist areas it doesn't take long (or cost much) to get back into it. Also the hotels are a lot cheaper in these districts too.

It's funny, I had to Google 'scooby doo spooky coaster entry' to realise what was wrong with this picture because upon first seeing this picture I was like "wtf have they done to the scooby building". Turns out having a couple trees framing your big ugly white sound stage building does wonders for selling an illusion because honestly this looks like shit.

I've read this thread twice and I still have no idea what you lot are talking about, but then again I am very drunk lol