Gazza

Some other closed water park fun..Spotted this place on the Warrego Highway at Haigslea (Decided to visit Toowoomba today, got a whole new state to start checking off towns in) When I first drove past I could have sworn it was the older river rapids slide from WnW, but closer inspection proved it wasn't. Anyone ever visit? All I can find on the net is this article about its closure: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0...5010760,00.html

Ah well, whenever I head down to SW to get another update I'll pop into guest relations and play the confused guest ("hey, why did you turn off the fire before the big drop? That was the best bit!") At the very least I could get some semblance of a reason as to why its gone...Its a reasonable question to ask right?

Something I started mapping out mentally (Ironic I should do it on a day I was there with other people) is the possibility of Single Rider Queues being introduced on the parks main rides. I think on some of the attractions, it would actually be a pretty simple and cheap process, and could potentially be marketed as something innovative (even if was only on myfun and via the newsletter) if it were done across the board. Batwing: There is actually a direct path link from the main path to the grouping area that is currently roped off and used for a holding area if the ride breaks down, so run the SRQ through here. Scooby Doo: The vestibule once you enter the castle has a very convenient feature....two doors. The door on the right would lead into the main queue, but the door on the left would lead into a queue that runs along the wall of the main queue hall (so really it's a reverse C shape viewed in plan), it would lead into the narrow tunnel, which would have its queue rail shifted to the centre, to keep the two queues separated, and it would run through to the grouper position in the station. Wild West Falls: Near the start of the queue, you walk past a timber screen next to the station from memory, so simply cut some of it out to provide direct access to the station. Lethal Weapon: Exit ramp would be divided, and signage at the ride entrance would direct riders to go through the shop to reach it. Superman Escape: Given this ride employs a grouper there isn't a real need for an SRQ.

Ok, lets just say "Hydrocarbon Prices" that way everyone is right

Is there a specific reason for this? Safety? Natural Gas Prices? Real shame though, it was a fantastic climax.

Another one to add to the list..got E stopped on Batwing. We had lifted off and it was doing the countdown, when it got to zero we were just lowered gently to the ground, turns out the person sitting next to me had forgotten to take his glasses off, and the op noticed at the last sec. Has to rank up there as one of the most boring events, you just have to sit around for a good 5 minutes while the pressure in the cylinders drops before the ops can safely enter the area to relock your restraints and try again.

And I have the 3 park mega pass one, so I'm one better than you because I'm not stuck with an annual pass to a crap park

It definitely wasn't the mist, because the haze/smoke/fog/talcum coming from the maintenance platform was 'white' and not behaving like a mist of water would. The water mist was on elsewhere however...at the 'big' drop, you couldn't actually see it, but you could feel it.

No worries. One thing I forgot to add is that there is a scene where water is running down some stairs (I guess you'd use a waterfall in RCT3) and it is located on the left side of the track, just past where the junction for the maintenance track is.

Dunno why you'd bother with such a pointless name change in the first place.

Wait, so if his account is saying *Guest does that mean it has been deleted? Good joke BTW Swanny.

No it was some other company that saved huss from bankruptcy. I can however make things more complicated. Huss and Arrow did have a corporate relationship way back, then they split, Arrow was fine for many years, but they went bust after the fisaco with X at SFMM, and it was Arrow who were bought out by S&S. For those of you who aren't long time readers and didn't get DjRappas joke, it is this guy who would be a bit upset right now.

You could have just approached a staff member. Anyway, IMO if you are going to a theme park you should actually already know basic info about it beforehand, websites are usually good for this. It can be quite important for instance with parks that aren't open every day of the year, or have different hours of operation throughout the season. You've sort of missed what I was referring to.

Some parks do it. I remember at Disneyland the gates are opened early, but at the central hub they have ropes up at all the portals to the different lands, and when the official opening time rolls around the ropes are dropped and the rides open. So at MW It really doesn't matter anyway because the opening time is advertised as 10am, and that's when the rides open so you aren't being misled or whatever. The way they do it is a good idea, because wandering around the park before start the time is more fun then crowding around a front gate. You can get a locker, wander around and get your bearings, see the opening festivities, and get a spot near the ride you want to start on. So back to the topic. Yesterday I was actually at the park with a few friends from uni (We'd been talking about heading to MW, finally got around to it now) and it does end up taking all day (Though we probably wasted some time with Superman waiting for a breakdown to be fixed) though had the stunt show been open it would have evened out) We did all the main attractions once, except for Superman (Twice) and Scooby (Thrice), so if your in a group, and not a familiar visitor then it can take up more of the day, even more so if you spent time shopping. However, I would agree with most of the points raised, the park does need more attractions to flesh it out. DW does take up all day because it has a few more filler attractions, the queues are slower, and there are extensive animal exhibits. SW takes all day because it has 4 major shows, a water park, plus exhibits you can spend a while at. MW does have a few high quality rides which obviously is more preferable to me (and many others on here by the sounds of it) so I guess there is a bit of a factor where you'd actually want to ride them a few times to be satisfied with your day. But there are only 2 (well, 1 presently) major shows, and nothing in the way of exhibits (and it is here where they can fill the gap of not having behind the scenes movie stuff). The fact the park often becomes very empty by the end of the day is pretty clear evidence, that, for the majority of visitors there needs to more on offer. This is the major downfall of their strategy of removing one attraction for another (It's happening again with police academy) I think by next year it will be high time for the next major ride, but I'd like them to look at a few low cost additions to help fill out the park a bit more. Get a proper show (ie have it scripted/designed externally like AOS) to make use of the Show Stage...that right there is an underutilised feature. Open a movie making exhibit. Another thing could be to have a second well themed family ride area where the blazing saddles/boot hill area is, but with an older age focus (An idea I had were those less 'kiddy' 3D animated characters..Shrek, Kung Fu Panda etc) and more energetic rides that suit this (Eg Zamperla Disko, Premier Shoot, Tilt, Drop Tower etc) Things like this would be nowhere near the investment of a major ride (and ideally would open in the years between them) but would do quite a bit to enhance the park. However, my biggest issue is that Movie World tickets are now up to $69, which makes it (along with SW) the most expensive park on the Gold Coast, and in fact at a price comparable with some of the worlds biggest parks. Granted a lot of people would be using myfun offers, and not paying full price, I do think the recent price hike was unjustified given stuntdriver isn't open yet, and, as people have said, it isn't really a full day park.

To update how the ride is looking. -There were definitely a few hazers/smoke machines or whatever working in the main room, you could see about 4 or so lots of smoke drifting down from about where the 3rd turn is, so you could actually clearly see what the lasers doing what they do (at one point I saw the laser doing this sort of cool looking wide flat beam across the whole room instead of the normal multitude of narrow beams) so good on them for actually having this working. -All the rope lights around the main room were working..except for one, and this is the one that ran down the wall in front of the lift...good riddance I say because I thought it looked stupid having one in there, off center and out of place. -The fountains had coloured lights working, and those pond misters were working too, as was all the lighting in the queue. -The final room is a bit of a joke, and this is where their attention needs to be directed. Get a light on the animatronic for starters, no excuse for that not to be working, then see if they can work out how to hide the drop.

Yeah, its just going to be a meet 'n' greet with a few of the characters from speed racer according to the pass holder email.

Scroll down on this page, and you can see pics of how the inside of the ride looks: http://www.fxillusions.com.au/gallery.html As for the track layout: The following photos are a bit low quality (hence never being seen before) but show some parts of the inside of the queue. This is directly opposite the entrance of the queue, right at the very far end. This is looking toward the loading station from the queue, my back was facing the group of posters. One of the posters The group of posters is on the left wall, relative to people walking into the queue area, but again are right down the end. This is how the unloading station looks, and the loading one is in the exact same style.

OK, so I just searched for Wobbies World and found the first topic that came up, this will do. Anyway, if you want to see what the place was like, look no further than these couple of ads. http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=TLtBUS5fUow http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=3RenS7Kxrmg&...feature=related

But why now? Why not 5 years ago?

Hopefully the house will be converted to rubble, and an actual decent attraction built in its place. Knowing DW though I'd bet that they'd do something like leave the house standing as a permanent walk through.

This might have some relevance, but which "Nerang-based steel manufacturer" did work for Superman? I'm just interested because they could potentially be doing work on this.

I don't get it, how does a wallet just come out of your pocket like that? Was it half poking out of your pocket? Did your pants have ultra loose pockets? Dunno, when I sit down everything in my pocket is held in more firmly because of the way the fabric is, and its a struggle to remove anything without standing up.

And subsequently pulling out of the Beijing Olympics

Yeah, see I don't get why they couldn't just do a quick puff just a moment before the car comes around the corner, so by the time you face the drop the smoke would have spread. Another idea I had, but would it be effective to have a small fan (like what a bus driver has) mounted under the track, blowing across the brake fins to stop anything from settling....I'm not sure if this would help though, as you could just end up circulating the same dirty air. Good luck with all this though. And Dj, I don't mean to be a smart alec, but laser, not lazer, since laser is an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.

Well, the fog has been off in the last room for a while, and the misters do very little in the main room, so the lasers that were on were really only visible when they hit a wall, though the rope lights on the walls were on. The queue stuff was working though. It's a real shame the fog has caused such a problem, when I rode it a few times back on my Jan 2006 trip everything was running full on. In the main room was brimming with lasers criss crossing through every cubic meter of space, and the final room had a really cool green watery vortex thing happening that hid the drop perfectly...now it seems as if the last room has nothing but a red light, and the main room has a few lasers randomly working. There are suitable substitutes for some elements...in the final room a fog screen (no residue since it is dry water vapour) could be used, with a gobo (...is that what those lights that project images are called?) showing some vortex like image. No idea what they could do with the main room..perhaps a steam system as used on superman escape? On another note, did they ever consider running the ride as normal with oil based fog, but simply manually cleaning the brakes regularly? I guess the sticking point is that the ride has done its job as an investment, and finding alternatives to the effects that would allow the ride to operate in a safe way would cost a significant amount to implement....they never brought back a good replacement for the effects on WWF, so what hope is there here? Shame really as WVTP are supposed to be the ones that are better at long term maintenance. Your in the company DJ..tell them directly what they need to do to fix it