Gazza

As of last night the half barrel roll before the half loop was complete, and work has begun on the electrical room for the ride (Steel stud construction, under the lifthill) so they're going gangbusters. And that half barrel roll looks awesome...Its hung off the side of the main structure with squares of supports and cross braces you go through, so a lot of near misses. Didn't get a pic, but it reminded me of this: http://www.rcdb.com/9309.htm?p=34110

On the other hand, the audio on rides like Blue Fire barely rate a mention (I mean, I never even knew it had it till very recently)

Thanks mate, yes did enjoy myself, plenty more to come though... Starting with part 1 of Aquatica Overall, its an allright park. I think of it as 'nice' version of Whitewater World...That is, with lush tropical gardens rather than drought tolerant ones, and sandy lounge areas. The standard of the slides is much the same as the water parks here, but I'll get into that in a sec. But first things first, the place isn't the fishy paradise the marketing would have you believe. You've got the Commersons Dolphin tank the Dolphin Plunge slide goes through, with an underwater viewing area smaller than the one in Penguin Encounter at our SW, and on the lazy river there's this 4m long cave section which has a glass aquarium on one side....Thats it. Pics onwards from here: http://www.parkz.com.au/parks/US/Orlando/Aquatica/photos/page1.html So how were the slides? Taumata Racer Best slide in the park. I preferred it to the BRO because the start tubs are waist height, so you just lean fowards into it, rather than doing a full leap foward into the slide onto your belly and fearing that you'll clip your head. And of course, the milisecond accurate timing system is great, and still a sorely missing feature on the BRO. The continuous drop gives you some awesome speed, making it very much like the Olympic 100m sprint of water slides (Basically everyone will finish under 10 seconds) I also very much liked this one because I won every race I did, but hey, it when the majority of visitors are from the UK or places where these type of slides are unavailable, it's inevitable. Bottom line is, local experience here in Aus helps, and it's hillarious hitting the finish line when everyone else is just starting to go down the drop. Omaka Rocka Shit. I was looking foward to this one because its a new type of slide for me. But basically, the ride has been horribly neutered with 3 fibreglass speedhumps on the way into each funnel. So instead of sliding around in the funnel like a half-pipe, you kind of just bumble in, hit the water gathered in the bottom, turn left (or right), continue on (possibly spinning backwards if you're lucky) And the non funnel sections were tamer than Screamin Right Handers at WWW! Whanau Way Pretty good I guess, but hey, we've all ridden this type of slide and know what to expect. HooRoo Run Brutal, because it goes so fast, and the raft flipped spontaneously when it it hit the splashdown pool. I was sort going "hey, this is nice and fast.....blerewhgrkerhgrekjrkewrwefdwe cough cough cough". All happened so quicky, and thankful i didn't get injured. Also, like most of these slides, it's limited to 3 riders, so the line moves slowly. Walhalla Wave Well, this one takes 4 passengers, so somewhat of an improvement, but still, nothing on the fast moving line you get when Mammoth Falls runs at full tilt with a grouper. Somewhat of a new slide type for me...I've never been on an enclosed family raft slide. Was "OK", the lighter loading and wide turns meant not a lot of wall riding. But I didn't die on this one, so bonus points for that! Part 2 coming soon!

Someone from TPR spotted this on the concept art: http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=60451&start=40#p1097169

Still consider that a drop.

No...Or else the whole ship would need to be made of that. That white paint they do the rest of the ship in would do.

So they can engineer a floating theme park, but making a reinforced ferris wheel is too hard?

Where does that leave the mouse?

No worse capacity wise than the mouse! And similar rides at other parks, like the Toboggan at Jamberoo and Magic Mountain, are included in the price.

And a ferris wheel has one.

^That's what I was thinking, plus I don't think a supertanker of this scale is going to have too much roll in high seas. As it is, it's not like you hear stories of the water slide towers on newer cruise ships busting apart in rough weather.

It was at the Samford grass ski park ,originally constructed in 1985.

Hence one of these being a safer replacement for the luge.

I think the logo is the most important part, so it should all be clear sailing from here.

Vekoma boomerang cobra rolls don't really splay out like those on B&Ms (and the one on Hydra is known to be a particularly odd shaped example anyway.

In the case of Demon it's physical elements that count, so 3... I mean, where does it put Buzzsaw if you were to go by what the train does? It can double the inversion count depending on the days operations, and even your seating position determines the inversions you get.... People in the back go all the way through the twist backwards and level out on the return trip, people in the front do not. Also, why would Demon ever be considered to have one inversion??? The cobra roll element has you fully head towards the ground, twice.

Bear in mind too that the budget described at the start of the topic couldn't pay for a dark ride anyway....

Yeah, I knew about the Screamin Squirrels (Seqoia Adventure is the better known one, at Gardaland) I think I'd be willing to count those as a special case because the track goes upside down at a full 90 degrees for a sustained period, not kind of just nipping a steep angle for a fraction of a second. In general though, inversions do have inwards curvature. Like anything, I think it's hard to have a one size fits all approach...Perhaps a better solution is to look at the designers intent for an element, what the element is referred to as etc. Eg overbanks aren't really about inverting riders, its more about force reduction, so not an inversion. Steeper than vertical drops are exactly that, about dropping the car, not about inverting riders (And the point of going steeper I think is to provide more airtime) Barrel rolls, well, they are clearly about turning you upside down, aren't they?

Forum limits the number of YT videos in a post..... So, also, I reckon a few Heege rides would be great for the park too, since they are small enough to support them without getting excessive queues. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSrknbfnH8I And, sorry to triple post, but the only way to get around the restriction.....The hillside could host an alpine coaster, which would be a safer alternative to the luge that used to be there.

My thoughts too. It's not like putting an extra upper floor on a suburban house or raising a Queenslander, ride vehicles and track are going to weigh a lot more than the typical static loads on houses or whatever. AlexB has hit the nail on the head though. You could ring up Ranbuild or Bluescope or whoever and get an off the shelf industrial shed to house the ride system, simple slab on the ground and you're good to go. That's gonna be much cheaper than building at an elevated level and the costs associated with renovating an existing building. Also, no to the suggestion of building a Wipeout/Rampage style ride, because I'd rather have more variety, and it makes more sense to build a ride that differentiates from the competition. As for my suggestions for attractions.....Flying Scooters! This is the exact sort of flat that would suit the park. Everyone seems to rave about how much airtime you get when you 'snap' the cables, and I'd love to be able to experience that here. Water rides always seem to be well liked....What about a WhiteWater West Spinning Rapids, a number of smaller parks have these as a cheaper alternative to a full sized rapids:

I consider this a drop.... Inversions have inwards curvature initially.

I reckon the reason it failed is because it had such a paper thin concept behind it...All the rides were just puns on musical phrases. POP, It did have a lot of kids rides to be honest, I think the thing is, the brand itself isn't kid friendly. During construction, all the enthusiasts who were all "Woah a Hard Rock music themed park....AWESOME!" were only saying that to sound cool. It's actually a shit idea overall (Like most 'single concept' parks) A single music themed attraction in a park, like RNRC or HRR is passable however.

CGI = Computer Generated Image, which is something like this: http://www.rcdb.com/10108.htm?p=37263 That one for Aussie World is good old school hand rendering though.

That drop looks like something else doesn't it? Its as if they've gotten the surf rider track layout and titled it 45 degrees as a unit.

Here's the concept art, hand drawn rather than CGI though: http://www.parkz.com.au/photo_update/general/2011/06/0626-1_Water_Shed_Plun_Flume1.JPG Nice to see they avoided the original green colour scheme and repainted!