Gazza

Stop skipping leg day? I think Joz is pretty much on the money there...There are a few coasters that genuinely do need their theming to be good, namey stuff like Scooby and Revenge of the Mummy. Something like Superman doesn't really need the theming. People would still say its the #1 ride here even if it had none. What I tend to find with the highly themed coasters is that it's really just a means to an end. Often you'll find with indoor themed coasters that they've had to make the ride so compact that all the theming does is just compensate for that to bring the overall package to an acceptable/impressive level. This can even apply to full sized outdoor coasters. Black mamba has amazing theming, but it's a bit of a middle of the road coaster when you strip that away...Still, works beautifully as a package: http://rcdb.com/3117.htm?p=16663 I am one for themed queue lines and stations, as for the ride itself, I think nice landscaping and maybe some carefully placed theming objects to provide near misses can do well; check out what they did with Raptor at Gardaland for example: http://cache.rcdb.com/ahl92tg0066rsip3mr458m.jpg http://rcdb.com/9309.htm?p=34123 As for what I like in a ride in general. -I do like good theming, or at least some sort of effort that you can spot things to smile to yourself about...Don't need to spend a lot of money to do this necessarily. -Rapid fire pacing, should feel like the ride never really lets up from start to finish. Transformers did this fantasically, you were just tossed from one perilous situation to the next. -Good forces, I do like airtime, but any ride that mixes things up and does interesting stuff the whole time is fine by me. -Should make you want to ride again. The B&M dive machines are good for this. You just feel like riding them again and again because they are so fun. -Should be comfortable to ride.

^No, jet rescue is better...The turns are tighter and the banking from turn to turn is more sudden so you get this really good "slalom" type feeling. The second launch section halfway through keeps the speed up, whereas Motocoaster kinda limps towards the finish line having lost all its speed. As for my thoughts on the ride...The whole gimmick is based around sitting in a motorbike shaped car...but it does that uncomfortably, so what are you left with? Something that just does a fairly pedestrian figure 8 type layout. If you cast your mind back to the ride and had to pick out "your favourite bit" what would you say? That's the thing, the ride doesn't have any highlights. The launch perhaps? But there's better launch rides out there on the coast aren't there? A good coaster has to have at least something memorable about it...It might be launching backwards out of a tunnel filled with lights, or it might be plunging down a huge drop into a fog filled trench, or it might be hanging upside down 50m in the air with only a lap bar holding you in. What does Motocoaster have?

I only ever got to play that Simpsons arcade game once....Glad I wandered in there to have a go though!

I don't really see how a month of access to two theme parks for $99 is 'unfair'. I mean, it's more the situation that the cheap annual passes have basically been giving away the gate very cheaply. People seem to have forgotten the days when a 3 park superpass was $150 or so, and a 3 park annual pass was $299.

Aren't they just animatronics or preserved specimens, suspended from wires from the ceiling, with moody lighting etc to make it feel like you are at the bottom of the ocean with stuff around you?

If someone is a season pass holder it is likely they have had a few goes at at it.

I'm with gary86 and haven't really found all day lockers to be much of an advantage. I've just never found my backpack to be enough of a brick to warrant an all day locker and the "hassle" people make it out to be. You put the bag on your back and just walk around like normal.....Problem? I'm going to have my sunglasses, phone and wallet with me at all times for obvious reasons, and paying say a maximum of $4 for ride lockers (A round of riding superman, and then maybe some re-rides later on) is cheaper than paying $10 and walking the length of the park to put them away/get them again. Are you sure? If there was a two sided storage unit at Jet Rescue wouldn't one side be facing onto the pit between the two stations where the transfer track is? http://rcdb.com/4293.htm?p=22717

I don't really see what it would add to the park. I think Buzzsaw does the park just fine in terms of shuttle coasters (And it's better than a Boomerang anyway).

The only exception seems to be Jet Rescue and Superman, because they have separate load/unload areas, and Storm Coaster because large bags can't be taken with you and it wouldn't be practical to have storage boxes on something which runs so many boats.

Or Escape from Madagascar.

Looks like the base of one of those dead fig trees that formed part of the theming.

This thing cost 8 Million EUR and has just gone up in France, basically a megalite with higher reliability and trains that don't hurt/eject people. http://rcdb.com/11056.htm?p=51076 Wish DW would go for something solid yet cheap like this.

But if the capacity isn't being used then what's the point?

A lot of the exhibit names at Sea World are two pronged with the second word being something geographical....Dolphin Cove, Shark Bay, Seal Harbour, Penguin Point, Polar Bear Shores. Why not call this area something like Wild Delta. A delta is a place where a river/rainforest meets the sea.

My bet is Funfields. In all honesty, I'm not too bothered by this. The park really does need to rationalise and get rid of some of their excess of old, lowly patronised flat rides.

There's actually a 3rd possible plan for wet n wild Sydney you can see here http://www.andrewtremelling.com/gallery/perspectives/ This matches some of the other artwork seen, for example there is a long master blaster that crosses in front of a giant slide complex.

Why not take photos of Wipeout and Coroboree anyway? Nobody else has yet.

I forgot to mention, but basically any splash battle ride will leave you soaked...The little crank operated water guns don't look like much, but a whole ride exposed to them is saturating. Port Aventura is building a 10 minute long version called Angkor Wat (Worlds Longest), Can only imagine how wet and how aching your arms will be by the end.

In Australia it's Storm Coaster for sure. Worldwide, I found the rapids at SFMM are pretty brutal: Honourable mentions to Popyes Bilge Rat Barges and Ripsaw Falls, both at Islands of Adventure.

So, I was at WnW Sydney last Thursday, and being a school day, overcast and slighty cool meant the park was quiet. I arrived 10:30 and had done all rides by 1 or so (But the Whitewater West tube slide complex opened at 12pm) Started with H2Go Racers. The timing system gives both your place, and your time which was nice. I could manage about 16 seconds or so. The actual finish line is slightly further down the runout, and not just at the bottom of the hill like super 8, so to win/get a good time you actually need to carry your momentum a bit more. The start tub is better designed than the BRO/Super 8, since it is at waist height, and you can comfortably tip forward, rather than doing a big leap onto your belly. The start lights also have an audible sound....Beep, beep, beep, beeeeeeep....Quite cool. As for the slide, the twists at the start let you pick up some decent speeds for the helix. From there on it becomes darker, barring the section of "rainbow tunnel". Next I did bombora. Feels like a shortened tornado, and at the bottom it can be a bit rough, so hold on! But really cool and out of control feeling. Another highlight was the 540 degree helix...The raft banks right up, and since cloverleafs have you sitting up high, it feels pretty cool. Next was Tantrum, another solid one. This slide feels like it goes on for ages, which was satisfying. Quite long "in between" sections, really good speed pick up on each helix, and each tantrum funnel rocks you heaps of times. One thing that was kinda freaky was the way each spiral drop into each funnel felt like it was coming in "the wrong way" (so the raft would be banking towards the narrow end of the funnel on entry, if that makes sense), so there was this slight fear you would flip out. Unlike the other one of these ive ridden in Melbourne, this one controls the speed more at the end of each funnel. The raft comes to a near stop due to the amount of water being pumped in. You soon pick up speed again, and truth be told, it would probably be dangerous if your speed wasnt trimmed like this. Next was T5....Excellent, like most tornados. This one started off a bit sluggish, but the spiralling drop makes up for it. Unlike the Tornados at WnW or WWW, you dont bump into water (back to this in a sec) upon entry into the funnel, so the first couple of oscillations are really high. The final helix tops off a great ride. Now, this ride is slightly in my bad books ( ) due to me unintentionally falling out on my first ride...I guess i wasn't gripping hard enough due to a blister on my palm. No harm done, i was able to just hold on to the raft and stay with it till the end...Anyway, what tends to happen on this slide is that the first couple of turns are slow, so water dams up behind the raft. When you drop into the tornado you leave that mass of water behind, and it doesnt quite catch up till the 3rd oscilation or so, which means you get a bit of a wallop when you don't expect it, and that was enough to own me, Next was double bowsleye. This one was better than i thought it would be (Going by videos and other reviews)...Equally as fun as say mammoth falls, and suitable for a family audience. The actual bowls are pretty cruisy, but the enclosed helices were decently fast, which was nice. After that was Riptide...Another excellent slide. The first few turns in the dark really pick up some speed, and the double drop is cool due to the headchopper under the camera and under curler. Curler was alright. Reasonably gentle though. I thought Double Bowlseye was better to be honest. 12pm still hadn't rolled around, so i did 360 rush. The main differences to the GC version is that the trap door is see through, which improved things, and the chamber you stand in has a motorised door, so all the op has to do is stay in one place and people just step in themselves. The slide also felt like it had less water in your face than the GC version, so overall, I give the Sydney version a slight edge. Once the 2 man slide tower opened I headed over, starting off with Typhoon. This one was a pleasant surprise. Videos of others seemed to make each of the "barrels" in the slide look pretty tame compared to a tantrum, but it was really cool. You just glided really smoothly up and down a few times in each, and it just felt really well done. The first chamber has a quirk of turning every raft backwards for the remainder of the slide. This happens so reliably in fact that the onride photo points backwards to account for this. Aquatube is very fast, so fast in fact a bit of water is pumped in halfway through to slow you down a bit, so you get a bit soaked by that. It literally felt like you blitzed through in 15 seconds flat. Next was Halfpipe...Decent, and you got really high, but I found it pretty similar to the feeling of kamikaze. I preferred its bigger brother, Bombora actually. The spin/drift you get over the small bunny hill is cool though. Tropical Cyclone was a suprise. I didnt realise this one was also pitch black inside (was expecting translucent like Constrictor on the GC). Again, really fast and dizzying. Imagine something like broken headz at WWW, but a bit more juice. Finally I did two of the breakers. I didnt realise both were slighty different. The inside lanes have a single big drop at the end, whilst the outside lanes have a double dip. The single big drop one was better. You can also do these as a single rider, sitting in the back of a double tube. Starts off promising, with a powerful uphill boost. The water coming off the blaster section hits you in the back/ ends up hitting the back wall of the first enclosed turn, which is kinda comical. You lose a bit of speed as you approach the final drop, accellerate down, but then stop fairly quickly (The runout feels like its about 4 times longer than it needs to be, and the exit to the runout is right at the end, so a bit of a walk lol. The stairwells up to the top have been partitioned into 3 lanes...Tropical Cyclone/Aquatube share 1, Breakers all use one, and then halfpipe/tropical cyclone use the other one. The lanes are very narrow, only a person wide, so the only way to carry your raft up is to hold it sideways, in front of you like a novelty blow up hammer. I didn't do surf deck, nor skycoaster. I was a little chilly for the wave pool most of the day, one interesting thing though was the padded floor. The sandy beach was nice and warm though. Boomerang Bay should look good in a couple of years, owing to the fact it has immature bamboo around it. That stuff grows like anything. Only one half of the lazy river was open, but when i was in there in the arvo after it had warmed up a little, it felt like only 10 or so people were in there. The side waterfall was off, but there was one section that was a bit like spa jets that you bobbed through. I stuck around for a little while longer and did a couple more rides on anything. Unfortunatley , i didnt reapply sunscreen, so got a bit burnt, so i was a bit sore the next day, and not really up for the friday night session with the light show...next time.

So the fact the pic of Sea Viper was "JUST LEAKED" and the supposed name was "The never before seen experience (we swear)" didn't clue you in?

Dude it was a photoshopped picture of sea viper posted as a joke....How would you get confused? :/

To speak for myself, the main reason I favour MW over DW is for two reason. -I like themed attractions. -I like good roller coasters. My favourite parks are places like Universal Singapore, Islands of Adventure, Alton Towers etc because that's what they provide a mixture of. Bringing that here to Australia, you'd say that MW definitely provides that, but DW doesn't really. I don't also don't care much for spinning rides, and I think DW has put too many of them in recent times.

+1 To orlando...4 Disney parks (With the Avatar area coming), 2 Universal parks (With the 2nd stage of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter; Diagon Alley opening this year), Busch Gardens an hour or so away, SeaWorld, 4 major water parks, Legoland, plus the small "Fun Spot" park (Which has a wooden coaster)...You could easily fill a fortnight doing all the parks.

http://wetnwildsydney.com.au/plan-my-day.aspx#! Park has extended to 10-8pm in first half of feb, with 11pm closing on friday and sat...Boo-ya!