Gav

My suggestion is to get a SW/BGA 2 park pass, or a 5 Park Flex Ticket, the shuttle is included in those passes, otherwise you can still use it for $10. See https://secure.mearstransportation.com/MearsExpress/BuschGardens.asp

Well here are my tips: -The flight is long, so just do whatever you feel like to pass the 14 hours, there really is no two ways about it. When I flew from Melbourne to L.A i did not sleep at all but ultimately it doesn't matter much. -For getting to the parks just use buses and trains, its cheap and the services are good, plus all the parks have good connections. -See a game of Australian Rules Football! Its our national sport and is definitely something unique for you to see, For you, the easiest game to get to would be the Essendon Bombers v Brisbane Lions, Saturday 16th of Feb (Night Game) at Gold Coast Stadium in Carrara. It's actually in the pre season tournament, but its still the highest level comp so its worth a look as you cant see it anywhere else. You did say this would be in your last week, but press to see this. -You'll need some sort of step down transformer if you plan to bring electrical equipment over. 240v, 50Hz is what we run at so be careful with that. -As for the parks... Well, basically you will have NO problem getting everything done, especially since you are staying all day so no need to skip stuff. Re rides will be aplenty (I mean on every visit to MW I have had, I have done Superman at least 10 times, it is a very well run ride) With MW, Do Superman first, then head up the back of the park and do Scooby Doo and Wild West Falls, and from there whatever. Shrek 4D is worth it to. The only 'weird policy' is zero tolerance on loose items on Superman, 1 hour lockers are $1 at the ride entrance (elsewhere in the park all day ones are $7) Best places to eat are Dirty Harry's Bar (For the Nachos) or Gotham City Cafe (For the Catwoman chicken burger) With DW, Do Giant Drop first, then Cyclone or Mick Doohans Motocoaster, Then Tower of Terror, then from there whatever else you want to do. Claw and Wipeout never get bad Queues. As for where to eat, the park has pretty poor food anyhow, just get a hot dog or a meat pie or whatever. You'll want to check out the back half of the park, its an area called "The Australian Wildlife Experience" so you can see koalas and kangaroos (the non roadkill version of kangaroos With both parks, just arrive before opening time and the place will be quiet anyway. And of course check the website for what rides are down (parks are open 364 days so no off season) the period you are visiting in is the quietest part of the year. Keep in mind that our parks are a bit different to the parks in the rest of the world, our busiest/worst days are nothing compared to what you get, and there should be no problems in getting all you want done. With Wet n Wild, again arrive early and go straight to the "Extreme H20 Zone" and go on the Halfpipe coaster first, then have a go at the Tornado and then the rest of the slides in the area (The freefall ones are a must do) Things like the Super 8 aqua racer and Mammoth Falls have fast moving lines (even if they are long), so no need to be in a hurry to get on them. Again, get to the Extreme H20 zone first! no matter what anyone else with you says. This park on the other hand does get busy. Its the 3rd most attended water park in the world (Behind the Disney ones) so arriving early is and rushing a bit to get stuff done in the first couple of hours is important. Do give Sea World a visit, it is a nice park for animals and shows, it doesn't have many rides (What Sea World parks do?) Corkscrew is fun just because it is so smooth for an Arrow, guess it is well taken care of, plus it is a very non-busy ride so I guess its not under much stress. There are a couple of water rides, plus a mini water park. A couple of other places worth checking out: White Water World: This is a new water park here and it is next door to Dreamworld (you can get a park hopping ticket for DW/WWW), its only 12 months old, but it has a nice Aussie beach culture theme to it, and a very solid lineup. Not as big as Wet n Wild, but it has all those modern Proslide slides like a Tornado, Cannon Bowls, A Behemoth Bowl, an Octopus Racer, Wave pool (you can get surfing lessons in it before the park opens) one of those Hydromagnetic rocket slides, plus a few other attractions. It doesn't get the crowds of Wet n Wild which is nice. See http://www.whitewaterworld.com.au has info, videos etc Currumbin Sanctuary: Just a nice wildlife park, an hour and a bit south of brisbane, on the Gold Coast. http://www.currumbin-sanctuary.org.au/ Anything you want to know about school life? You have to wear a Uniform (all our schools are like that) and you'll be Lol you put Prawns on the BBQ. Inevitably you will encounter a "Sausage Sizzle" one point, which I guess is a big BBQ culture thing. There is a saying that "There is no Australian public event which cant be made better by a Sausage Sizzle. Also on the topic of food, it is certain that at some point you will be given Vegemite to try. It does have a strong, sharp and salty flavor so be prepared, and lets face it they probably aren't expecting you to like it, so ham it up and have some fun. This pic shows how much to use: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vegemiteontoast_large.jpg Less is more in this case. Some food to try: -Tim Tams (A sort of chocolate coated cookie (called a biscuit here) -Cherry Ripe (Type of Chocolate bar) Just on that, a lot of our unique lollies/candy/chocolate/confectionery is worth trying, try and get some "Party mix lollies" personally i think it is better than what i could get in the US, but meh. -Meat Pie (ground beef and gravy in a savoury pastry, have it with tomato sauce (ketchup)) -Sausage roll (Sausage meat in a savoury pastry, again have it with tomato sauce) -Lamingtons (sponge cake with chocolate and coconut on the outside) -McOz (predictably avaliable at McDonalds, but it is a burger in our style) -Hamburger with the lot (order this at any local/independent take away shop fast food shop, expect to get egg and pineapple on it ) -Pavlova (type of dessert) -Dim Sim (chinese australian food, sort of similar to a dumpling) Give this a quick read to if you are interested as it hits the nail on the head: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etiquette_in_Australia_and_New_Zealand Ill actually be living in Brisbane by that point, might seeya around.

Is it just me, or in this pic: http://www.themeparks.ie/asia/entcity/lightning1.htm Does the train pass through water jets in the trench where the wingover is?

I don't think the fact it is an Inverted coaster changes anything, G forces are G forces no matter what sort of coaster you are riding. As you said Top Gun caused no problems but Batman did. I think it just came down to bad luck that she felt bad after riding Batman. If it had happened on Scream, would you steer clear of Floorless coasters?

Pretty well built ride there, I thought the hold over the first drop was pulled off well, but the layout was too similar to the other dive machines out there, and the final helixes weren't that forceful (less than 2g)

^the only way to get it is to download and pay for it online, and that goes for all countries, except Germany which saw a retail release, it's a nice way to spend $32 Aud or so, great value for the amount you can do with it.

LOL, "hand washing station", I personally wouldn't put my hands near there.

You guys better hope as much as you can that you don't wind up with the Intamin model, the version at Dreamworld really is a stinker, uncomfortable trains and a poor layout. Dont you just love the pacing http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=He3VhK3bUGI

That was one sweet little ride, and it automatically gets two thumbs up from me for the name it has. In terms of improvements, maybe make the stall turns a bit lower so they arent so slow. Also, I think you could look at the station set up, One platform for a ride like this isn't realistic, maybe divide it up a bit so there is a separate load and unload, or maybe re angle the brake run so you can have a longer station with 2 load and 2 unload positions.

I notice a lot of people have been saying about the risk of having a prang given it's his first car. I thought one of the selling points of the Smart was its interchangeable plastic panels. If it was a minor bingle, then the worst you would have to do is get a few replacement panels. The base model costs $11,000 or so and IMO that cheap enough for a first new car (And much cheaper than the cheapest Australian model available) I say go for it, I think a lot of people are going to be sceptical, especially considering the general psyche of American motorists, if it doesn't work out, hey you can always sell it and buy something else.

From memory, the pro version of Sketchup is needed to export files as .3DS unfortunately.

Because SFMM has a 'special effects ride' Who says the two things have to be mutually exclusive, lasers and lights make coasters cool, it all adds to the ride experience, I love rides like Space Mountain and Scooby Doo spooky coaster for this reason. Its sort of necessary they did this, new trains wouldn't have been enough, but they could throw down $1mil more or so and better position themselves to market it as a new attraction.

Just a question, how come its such a tight dip, it looks tighter than what you would see on a wild mouse coaster.

Wow, I didn't really think Wild Wadi in Dubai was going to be bettered by anybody, but here we are. This really is a well considered and beautiful park, I wish more places would go for 'mature' themes like this rather than the stereotypical beach themes and bright colours a lot of water parks have.

I think with smart cars, they pretty much are just a commuter car. I probably would never get one as my primary car, but If I were in a 2 car family they could be a cheap little car to run if all you were using it for was a run to work. The biggest barrier is really the price, they are about $19,000 here which puts it in the range of mid sized cars with far more features. The size of it doesn't really bother me actually, a lot of people say a bigger car is safer, but in a crash there are too many variables, If it's bad enough you're stuffed no matter what you are in. As for the look, I think its fine, nice bit of design work and looks better than the majority of bland cars that are produced.

LOL, absolutley not, Melbourne is right down in the south and Brisbane is further north (about halfway up the continent on the east coast) The distance is about 1700km (1056 miles).But It's worth spending a few days down in Melbourne to see the city, its a 2 hour flight and airline tickets can be gotten cheaply if you fly with Virgin Blue or Jetstar (never really more than $200 AUD) While you are in Melbourne you could pick up a credit on the worlds oldest continually operating coaster at Luna Park. So I take it you'd be hitting the parks in Brisbane anyway? But back to the topic, yeah the edge is pretty cool, Its actually only $12, not $16 as previously stated, in terms of value it pretty much just feels neutral, you get your $12 worth, nothing more. And I guess if you had already experienced the CN tower it really wouldn't be worth it for you as you'd know what to expect.

X360? I think 'screw coaster' is a bad name, or any of those really literal names for that matter, 'the flying coaster' would be another example.

If anyone was interested, there is a review and gallery of the attraction here: http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/article.php?aid=166

^Agreed, It was pretty pointless, It was only built in order to hold onto the most coasters in a park world record. It seems like a pretty weird choice if that were the purpose, I mean they could not have picked a more expensive manufacturer, and they seemed to go to the expense and effort of making it capable of running 3 trains they dont use (coaster trains are expensive), and being a big layout, yet at the same time they obviously cut costs in other areas (leaving the car park intact, a cheaply done station and queue etc) To me thats like buying a $50,000 luxury car, but then saying "oh no, i don't want to pay extra for metallic paint because it costs $500. Another one Ill add to the list is Surfrider at WnW, I mean an Intamin half pipe is just a really weird choice for a new ride at a water park, I mean there are still plenty of other waterslide types they could have gotten that they dont have yet, but they ended up adding what would have been a fairly expensive ride.

^Or even better, 100% contained.

The invisible track idea would be entirely possible on an indoor coaster IMO, as long as all the lighting was set up properly and you painted the track appropriately (use a lighter colour for the track you want to see, and a dark matte colour for the track you want to hide) The key would be to shape the hill for perfect floater air, keep it quiet (for example, sand filling only on the "jump" sections, but leaving the normal track hollow so there is a clear difference in sound), and perhaps having on-board speakers that assist with the illusion, in the lead up to the jump, play tense music reaching a crescendo, but during the jump stop the music, and just have the sound of wind whistling. At the end of the jump, perhaps introduce a deliberate jerk/spot of roughness to really give the feeling of landing on the track. Another entirely different idea for a jump would be just to make a big multi person version of those coin operated Nordic jet rides (from the makers of the butterfly coaster). Just make it like a jet boat, angle the track upward slightly and there you have a somewhat simpler and less risky way of having a jump, if you wanted, just have a coaster section at the start so at least they could say it was a coaster with a jump.

I thought it might have been cut snake, that really gets going towards the end, if you hadn't flipped out at the start that tight final helix would have got you. And Re: Robbs comments, don't just post a pic of the gore, it is clearly avatar material you've got here.

Which slide did you do it on, Was it the Temple of Huey, Or the little rippers? The only thing I have really done on a slide is losing control and spinning around headfirst when I was 5 on the slides at Greenfields in SA (Near Adelaide), but I managed to right myself before I hit the splashdown pool (which are actually very shallow there) Hope you are OK mate, seems like a pretty painful weekend, first this happening, and then having to put up with that awful motocoaster.

I cant believe they got rid of the Indiana Jones type ride That was the thing I was most looking forward to seeing in these updates, apparently the ride quality was up there with Temple of the Crystal Skull.

I don't really like these sorts of drinks, or any sort of sports drink to be honest. They taste weak and like cordial. The nutritional claims are a bit dubious... at the end of the day they still have a high amount of sugar in them, and are quite an expensive way of fulfilling nutritional needs. (Just have a glass of water and eat a piece of fruit) Id rather just get proper juice, tastes better, and the ones you can get here usually are enriched anyway.