Gazza

When you think about it though, Mach V is really just replacing what the park has had in the past (Eg speed slide and river rapids). Black hole should be good (But as for the naming, it seems every park with a dark waterslide calls it the black hole). However, i dont really consider it that extreme, it just seems like a longer version of a slide found at an aquatic centre. Tornado will provide some great thrills and i am looking foward to it, but IMO they should have tried to place it where it could have been seen easily since a ride like that is the sort of one that would generate interest from passers by. If at all possible i would have built it over a section of carpark near mammoth falls (since it is a similar style of ride and would be visible from the freeway) IMO basicallly the whole place is pretty cool and it will add more capacity (according to the park 50% more) which is great, but the whole area is not really ground breaking attractions (apart from tornado), and apart from the freefall and speed slides, its not that extreme. In the future i would like to see the extreme h20 zone have a pair of toilet bowl slides added and a couple of steep, enclosed slides similar to these added. Since these rides are more worthy of being called Extreme.

But Basically, its an awesome ride from anywhere, be sure to get a ride or 3 at the front seat, but if your into re- riding lots of times just do what i did and be a single rider, in many situations i had just joined the line and they called for a single rider so i was able to bypass the line many times, at one point i was doing a ride every 5 minutes ( i only sustained that for half and hour or so before i had to meet mum).

The front seat, you get great views, and when you go over the top hat you get airtime at the top of the hill before the train slows down. You dont get the same in the back seat because by the time you reach the peak the train has slowed too much.

Yes, it does, i had a couple of rain delays when i was there.

Well heres my review/description. SPOILERS You first walk into the ride area, which is nicely landscaped with marquees, benches and grass to sit on and gives great views of the ride, there is another part near the helix that IMO would be safe for people to be in but it is locked up by gates. Hopefully in the future some metropolis theming will go into this area. The whole area is nice, but a little too simplistic. You then walk down a long walkway towards 3 entrances, one for the shop, lockers and queue. The queue area is also a little bland towards the start, but this paticular part never had anyone waiting there so it would only be filled on very busy days. The main part of the queue has an art deco look to it, with a big MRT sign and posters up on the wall for cruise lines, network maps, daily planet articles etc. There are also slight cracks painted on the walls hinting of events to come The queue zigzags up with lcd screens with a person telling you how to board the train, put on restraints etc. There are also P.A announcments saying that tremors have been detected in the city but not to worry. At the top of the queue are 5 doors which lead through to the station. Door 5 is the best as it leads to front. When the doors open you board the train, the restraints are quite comfy and are really just lap bars with a soft ostr tacked on, not at all restricting. When the ops are done you are off. Another PA announcement warns you to move the train to the next station (metropolis square) You move off around the corner and down the tunnel, lights flash, the walls are cracked and gas mains burst, spilling smoke everywhere. As you round another bend the train slows to stop at metropolis square but at that moment the walls colapse in sequence and lockers and posters in the station start shaking. A PA announcment warns you not to stop so the train accelerates a little and continues on, you are then warned the underground pumping station is about to blow, and with that water rushes down very close to the track. You then round the final bend, and on the inside are a cop car and a taxi crashed into each other from the road above, you can hear their respective radios, the cops callling for backup and the taxi warning others to keep away. You then approach the launch and stop, suddenly a laser projection of superman flies in and someone exclaims "Its Superman!", superman then says that there is only one way out of this mess and to keep your head back. The brake fins drop and smokes is blasted over the tunnel exit. Then you are launched. The acceleration is powerful and smooth, moreso that the TOT, but not jarring, it is like you are thrown. You hurtle down, burst though the fog and are lifted up over the tophat, you get a nice bit of air on the first part but you are back in your seat as you crawl over the peak, you get a great view and can see everyone staring up at you, you then get a nice bit of hang time before dropping down the other side. The drop is fantasic staring straight down, you then twist around into the turn, firmly glued to your seat, you then curve skywards, and are pushed firmly out of your seat at the peak for some serious airtime before speeding down the other side of the drop. You punch through some smoke into darkness before being back out in daylight. You get a good head chopper, but you can safley put your arms up, but it is very close. You then head up the next hill for another great moment of airtime and a cool head chopper from the track above. You then drop again down into the reverse overbank where your onride photo is taken from the right. You will be grinning from ear to ear my now so you can be assured you will get a good shot. You arch up to the brake run and come to a very smooth and quiet stop and eveyone exclaims "Best ride ever". The ops yell out to undo your seatbelts before you get into the station. You then stop where it another pa announcment says "Thanks to superman you have all survived, exit to the lrigh quickly and have a great day" You then find yourself in a shop full of some pretty good superman merchandise. Onride photos are $15 but they are good quality. So in short Australias best ride, great re-rideablity, and definitley something to come and ride as soon as you can. It may not be as big as some of the other rockets, but it still is very good, i mean, have intamin built a bad accelerator yet?

Yeah, i saw that link a couple of weeks back and got all excited thinking DW had a website up for it. Another step DW could take is making sure the logo looks different from the current DW globe thing.

A way they could avoid the park being seen as 'the waterslide bit', could be to not call it "Dreamworld Water Park", if the DW name wasn't used it could be easier to market it as being a standalone park.

They can be Installed in pairs to improve capacity (600 pph), and anyway, most slides are single rider anyway so its not really any different, i think the throughput would be high because people tend to bomb out very quickly and are washed straight out the side, and there would be many who would opt not to ride, but watch instead. According to the website your average one can put through 300 people per hour and thats not counting all the crowds soaked up by standing around watching, by comparison the krakatoas revenge waterslide at DW can put through 180 people, also a single rider attraction. What are you basing this on when you say "they can be really dangerous", a few posts ago you didnt even know what it was and you make it sound as if you know of several events of people hurting themselves from experience. Remember, the thing is coated in a soft surface so you wouldnt get hurt and the only thing that moves fast is the water, and naturally as with any water ride there would be lifegaurds watching and according to the website there have been no reported saftey incidents.

And Plus tons of waterparks have them, Boomerang Bay, Kalahari Resort, Schlitterbahn, Wild Wadi..... So theres no lazy river, well that puts a stop to my dreams of a modern integrated waterpark.

Roller coasters would be constucted by local compaines contracted to put them up, but there are numerous firms that make ride equipment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roller_coaste...d_Manufacturers

They dont seem in a hurry to finish, i went a few times this week and nothing had seemed to have changed on the site.

I think there is one like it at water world in denver.

You've got the terminology mixed up but yeah i know what you are taking about, the proslide tornado is the one that looks like a giant cone on its side and you go up and down the walls like a halfpipe, except it is enclosed, this paticular slide is going into WnW in september this year. http://www.proslide.com/whatsnew/whatsnew.htm (fourth one down) other slide type is called a Pro bowl, it is the one that looks like a giant toilet bowl, where you slide in and spiral around, dropping out a hole in the middle. http://www.proslide.com/products/bodysliding.htm (scroll down the page) If this ride was put in you would be killing two birds with one stone since you get the drop off when you fall out the hole in the middle into the pool below. (like the slide at amazons) I agree, these two rides would be great additions but im unsure as to wether a tornado would be put in if wnw will already have one.

Obviously not you, but many others do. IMO themeing in an integral part of the ride, Imagine Eureka without themeing, it would be a very plain track winding its way downhill out in the open. Theming also makes the wait more interesting since you have things to look at and just adds to the atmosphere. If there was no themeing the park would virtually just be like a carnival or show, not very interesting at all. But anyway, MW deserves a pat on the back for doing such a good job, they have provided a great new ride in the middle of summer, yet have managed to keep queues to a minimum and all for a fairly modest investment. Other parks need to take notice.

Did i ever say that the system would be used at one of our parks, i simply used DW as an example because it was a park that i could easily remember what the major attractions were. The point of this was more to suggest a concept parks could use as another way of reducing times people spend in queues without the need for major new infastructure.

On the vekoma website, there is info on their newest coaster called the splash party, its fairly similar to the swing thing, but it has been developed in conjunction with White Water West. http://www.vekoma.com/ (Under Family Coasters) This could be a possiblity. Another idea i thought of was a walk through type attraction (like tomb raider) But with water slides. Guests would walk through themed coridoors, with a few waterslides they go down on the way (with special effects) There could be multiple routes people could take and random water effects would spice up the ride.

Yeah, the free for the 1st hour idea would work the best since those electronic lockers could be programmed in any way you wanted and it would not require anything complex, just a person to come out with their laptop and hook it up. Any chance of you passing that on when you are at MW joz?

Just having a look on the news page on the WnW website, it says that on the mach V flume slides you can actually ride in 3 person rafts, wether they are inline or cloverleaf remains to be seen.

So will all of the H20 Zone be closed? From rabids last update (which was 10 days ago, no taking into account the delay of the approval process and loads of slide construction can happen in 10 days) most of mach V looked to be very close to completion so now i would expect that part to be virtually done, would it be possible for them to open the mach V tower while they finish off the black hole tower. I wouldnt mind if only part of it was ready.It could just be the 16th is the date for the whole place to be operational. But its a bit of a bummer because this was my second main reason for coming up this summer (Behind SE), and i cant change my flights or accomadation. Then again, i could get lucky, my last day up there is the 13th, and you never know, it could be ready 3 days ahead.

But you would still have a choice to ride it whenever you want (read the 1st post), its more of a recommendation to help reduce queues rather than something you have to do.

Dammit, i am going to be there a week to early

Well, If people are annoyed about the locker system then they should fill out the comments thing in the "contact" part of the MW website, i did and the next day i was sent a reply with a phone number to ring (They also said they could ring me if i provided my phone number) because they wished to discuss my email. I obliged and rang, where i told them what i thought politely. The reply i got was that the reason they had to charge was to stop people from using them all day, to which i said that there could be a deposit system where you got the dollar back if you came back in the hour, but the normal charge would apply outside this. She actually agreed that the charge was a bad thing, and recognised the fact people would find it difficult to buy stuff at the shop but said the system worked well for the ride, to which i said "it may work well, but people arent happy with it". I suggested the idea of a rotating storage unit in a hole between the two stations, and she said that it was a good idea she would pass that on. I was rather pleased that they were willing to listen and acknowledged my concerns. So if you arent happy with it, just send a polite message outlining your concerns and prehaps we might see a free item storage system installed. At least that way you have a choice and the majority of park guests who only carry the basics (Phone, Wallet, Sunnies, Camera) dont have to rent one.

The point of my idea was not to have seperate queues or anything like that, it would just use the existing one and would really just be a "guide" as to when you should ride. More of a low cost alternative to having to build seperate queues, scanners, turnstiles and printers. It would just be printed on a section of your ticket.

I just had an idea for a way parks could reduce queues: allocated ride times. What would happen is when you get your ticket it would have times for you to ride major attactions, and all guests would be allocated times. Of course you would not be forced to ride at a timeslot though, or even at all, but guests would be encouraged to ride at that timeslot and if they co- operate they can enjoy a better day. My theory is that if the boarding times were spaced out properly there would be a more even distribution of people which would lead to shorter queues and people would only enter the queue at their time so there would not be large groups entering wanting to all ride at the same time, leading to queues. The times would be based around the regular cycle time and passenger capacity. during the first half hour, the final hour and during the lunch period no times would be allocated. For example, if this system was impelmented at DW, times would be given for TOT ,GD, WO, The Claw, Cyclone, Thunder River and The Log Ride and Big Red Car. One problem i am aware of is breakdowns causing delays, but under good circumstances it could work well, what do you think?

As far as i know its still there.