Gazza

Arguably though, Super 8, Speedcoaster, Mammoth Falls, Whirlpool aren't exactly themed either, and these were all around well before the H20 Zone was built.

I think the design of the sites looks quite slick, and they've obviously worked to incorporate modern social networking features, but they sort of fall flat when it comes to actual media depicting the rides....There are no videos any more, and most rides only have one or two pictures, and often they've fallen into the trap of only showing close up shots of smiling riders, with very few pictures showing what the ride is actually like. Case points: http://www.dreamworld.com.au/Rides/Thrill-...941400668840000 http://www.dreamworld.com.au/Rides/Thrill-...941400668840000 http://www.whitewaterworld.com.au/Rides/Su...943313048014297

I just had a look at http://myfun.com.au/upload/Document/GiftCards_TC.pdf Condition 2 states: I think the part which say "exceptions apply" might be a catch all that might extend to things like splash cash, plus I think splash cash constitutes a "cash advance".

Out of interest, with that sort of budget would you be aiming to work on the existing structure, or would it be a case of building a new ride in its place? Obviously you've got some challenging terrain to work with, but there are new coasters that have been built in Australia for less than that...Just interested t'sall.

Remember guys, a little while back I did a couple of 1:1000 scaled PDFs with a grid drawn over the park, so you can easily work out what will and wont fit...It can be found here: http://www.parkz.com.au/forums/index.php?s...ost&p=60488

Maybe I could include a poll...What will be finished first? Flying Turns or Orphan Rocker?

Haha, the got the Huss version. Basically, their version of this ride type differs in that the cable that moves the car isn't in a loop attached to the top and bottom, but is only attached to the top. This is fine for hauling the car up during the launch. But in terms of free-falling, it can't really do that since the cables need to be kept in constant tension, so instead the car gets 'lowered' to the ground slightly below free-falling speed.

Yet another bit of minor news, but Rainbows End in Auckland have opened a Disk'O Coaster, called The Invader: http://www.rainbowsend.co.nz/index.php?pg=...on.tpl&id=3

^I'm presuming you just want to roof that large area? A quick way to do it is to just place 5x5 (or however large you want to go) roof pieces, save them as a building, and then just use these bigger pieces to do the large area quickly.

I'm guessing these restraints will work in a similar way to the ones on Superman (No clicks, infinitley variable) Check out this pic, and you can see the cylinders and fluid reservoir: http://www.rcdb.com/897.htm?p=13383

I did see that psychoaster tagline, but I just dismissed it as marketing hot air...Revenge of the Mummy at Universal was supposed to be the "world’s first psychological thrill ride", but it felt pretty much the same as any other coaster, except it had cool theming. Anyhow, Alton long seem to liked playing up the emotional/physical aspect with themes...Look at the sorts of videos they have you watching in the Oblivion queue for instance: Edit: This actually warrants a mention. Merlin do run very good parks, but they tend to overdo it with publicity stunts and ridiculous press releases. With respect to 13, the other bit of news that came out from the park was: I think in the past 12 months, they have put out the following (And a couple have even made it into papers like mX here) -Using Simon Cowells security guard to protect Thirteen so the worlds first element wouldn't be discovered. http://newslite.tv/2009/11/24/simon-cowell...uard-hired.html -Building a Babycoaster at Alton Towers http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1140717.ece -Offering hypnotherapists for parents scared of rides at Chessington. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics...r-coasters.html -Banning speedos, and offering bikini line waxes for men at the Alton Towers water park. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12...ily-resort.html -In summer at Thorpe Park, banning guests from raising their hands on rides, to prevent armpit BO. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics...body-odour.html -Supernatural happenings supposedly caused by employees using an ouija board within SAW the ride, with the park subsequently hiring an exorcist http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/...rd-workers.html -Using coasters at Alton Towers as a means of test driving bras. http://www.viralblog.com/viral-commercials...oller-coasters/

Alton Towers have finally announced the name of their newest coaster; Th13teen. http://www.altontowers.com/2010/ For those of you who haven't been following, the ride had previously been codenamed SW6 (Secret weapon 6)...In the past Alton have given the SW codename to coasters that were groundbreaking...SW3 was Nemesis, SW4 was Oblivion, SW5 was Air. Hopefully this will live up to the previous three. The coaster will comprise of an outdoor section through the woodlands, as well as an indoor section in a castle, which is reported to contain a world first element (And the #1 rumour at the moment is that the train will go onto a section of track that freefalls like a drop tower) The layout was revealed fairly early as part of the planning application, but of course what is going on inside the indoor section remained hidden, other than that the train will come out backwards from it, and be turned around by a track switch. Already, the theming in place looks very well done (Such as this giant tree), and you can see further photos of the track under construction here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/altontowersresort/

^I cant help but think that from the air, the landscaping around the last part of the ride looks like something you'd find in a petri dish.

^I've moved all the posts into the one topic. Well, the visitors pretty much said it's because DW has more to do. This is what sort of bugs me...MW clearly can produce the better attractions, but there simply aren't enough of them. If they were a bit more agressive in bulking up the ride count then they could well and truly get a lock on the market.

Some abode you must have if it costs $7.95 a week.

How is this for timing? An aerial image has captured both the new and old trains in the same shot: http://www.nearmap.com/?ll=-27.956949,153....mp;nmd=20091113

I was in Victoria the past few days, and one of the things I did was take some time out to visit the Casey RACEso I could finally get on one of those Space Bowl slides (So far I've only ever ridden the kind where you ride in a raft, and not the body slide type) So anyway, here's a POV I took:

^I don't get why they can't just be good like WnW, and open the park every night in the height of summer. I mean, WnW wouldn't be opening if there wasn't any money in it, so there's a way to increase revenues right there.

^Ok, point taken, I really do need to start using the youtube tags given Richo went to the effort of installing them.

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for the time being...At this time last year basically none of the tunnel theming had been built for Jet Rescue, it was all just stud frames: http://www.parkz.com.au/photo/AU/Gold_Coas...Jet_Rescue.html Given they are working with an existing station they could potentially stick on a few of these bits and pieces in the space of 24 days....Lets hope they do.

Well, my personal favourite is the music for Hex at Alton...It'd be a great piece in its own right:

^There we go then...perfect example of what they should have casting onto the floor of the station:

^See thats the other thing I was hoping for. The bits where you go close to the ground (Such as the bottom of the drop and the bottoms of the corkscrews) would've been nice with a bit of jet resuce style mist to burst through, and the Flounder coaster at Disneysea is a nice example of how to landscape the area under a ride to give an undersea sort of feel: http://www.rcdb.com/1501.htm?p=10069

They felt similar in speed, but there is an utter lack of airtime anymore. As for Black Hole...with just about every pitch black waterslide park owners tend to put light holes in to make it seem like you are flying through space or whatever. They did it to Broken Headz at WWW too. Personally I like it better when they leave it alone and make it pure darkness, eg like the raft slide at the Beachouse in Adelaide.

Here is a close up shot of how the train will look, they actually made an appearance at the EAS: (Source: http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewt...asc&start=0 ) Yeah, to be honest I was hoping the station would have some stuff done to it. I mean we all know it is the same ride, but they could at least do a few basic things to make it seem a bit different...I'm thinking stuff like atmospheric music and a bit of blue coloured lighting with wavy projection patterns (Can one of the hundreds of members on here with expertise in lighting give me the proper name for what I'm talking about) in the station, sort of to give the feeling of being in the sea vipers lair.