Gav

That goat isn't disturbing, it's pleasant! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasant_Goat_and_Big_Big_Wolf

^^ The water park at Wonderland was pretty pathetic and was attached to a failing park. This should do much better.

I found a bit out there: http://www.coasterfriends.de/forum/attachments/weltweite-news-asien-und-mehr/132826d1349130990-wild-wadi-ersetzt-jumeirah-sceirah-wildwadi0.jpg http://www.thenational.ae/deployedfiles/Assets/Richmedia/Image2/WEB-na05se-wild-wadi.jpg http://www.hoteliermiddleeast.com/pictures/gallery/Leisure%20facilities/newjumeirahsceirah.jpg http://www.thenational.ae/deployedfiles/Assets/Richmedia/Image/SaxoPress/AD20120905893801-The_new_Jumeira.jpg Also, an opening media event gallery of the slide from the parks FB page;

Actual lol I'm personally wondering if it will reach a point where the ride becomes so weathered that it will have to be retracked (Or would that be "retroughed"?) before opening to the public.

I find that very difficult to believe: -Low spec car navigation units have had spoken voice commands for years. We've owned a satnav of some form since 2004. -Yet you say an iPhone (Even the first model ever released), which is capable of video streaming, media playback, 3D gamres etc would suddenly become "laggy" and glitchy when tasked with playing a simple little soundbite like "Turn left in 200m" at the right time? -Siri was available as a standalone app before Apple acquired it, and it could run on older models anyway. -Similarly, 3rd party navigation apps have been available for a while with spoken commands, and previous models could handle them fine. ...The only reason spoken navigation wasn't included previously was because it's omission in earlier models becomes a means of getting people to upgrade to newer ones, or because they simply couldn't be bothered, simple as that.

Sally have released their own POV onto their channel with high quality audio:

Village only bought it out and renamed it in 2008.

^Google Transit is one part of the maps app that I'd really miss too. Was using it when I was in Perth earlier this year and worked amazingly well for getting around the city.

^And Universal Hollywood is worth it for Transformers too Personally, I've done several trips to the US, starting when I was 18, without ever renting a car. I'm still not 25 myself, so the cost has been prohibitive to rent a car, forcing me to be a bit more resourceful. For me navigating around is all part of the travel experience, and a really good skill to have. All Orlando parks and LA parks can be done without a car, but what it requires is good pre planning, this means printing PDFs of the bus routes, comparing/co-ordinating between the timetables, and just typing up and printing a few notes of what you need do for each journey (I also typed up a backup set of directions in case i missed a bus). Checking out the places you'll be getting on and off buses on streetview is helpful too. Sometime, you might have to walk some distance (5km or so) or just take a short taxi ride. In Orlando, a lot of the Brit tourists seem to use the public ''Lynx" buses, so it's not actually to uncommon. LA So for LA If you want to avoid the limitations of tour buses to parks, you can adopt a strategy of just shifting hotels. In LA, you could first find a place to stay in Anaheim, and do Disney and get to knotts by Taxi, which is an 11km trip (Split it and you'll be fine) The buses in the area seem to be a nice neat grid layout: http://www.octa.net/bus-system-map.aspx So you could just catch one across from Disney, then up to Knotts. (Or up, then across) Then for the rest of your time, shift to a Hotel near Universal (And you can see Hollywood etc too) The shift between the two would require taking a Metrolink Train, or an Amtrak Pacific Surfliner Train from Anaheim Station, to LA Union station, and then from LA Union taking the Metro Red Line Subway to Universal City (Which is right at Universal Studios) Getting to SFMM can be done from here as well. Take the Red Line subway one stop north, to the terminus at North Hollywood Station. From there, you can use the $2.50 NoHo Express bus to get from North Hollywood to Santa Clarita. 45 min trip up the freeway. See http://www.santaclaritatransit.com/routes-schedules/commuter-express/noho-express/ (Timetable: http://www.santaclaritatransit.com/files/2012/08/Route-757-Aug-2012.pdf ) This bus dumps you at this bus interchange in Santa Clarita called the "McBean Regional Transit Center" http://goo.gl/maps/bZz4t From there its a nice 5km walk to the park (Done it a few times myself) If you don't want to walk, you could call a cab. There are buses from the interchange to the park too (Route 3 and Route 7), but combined they only seem to run every 45 minutes. See http://www.santaclaritatransit.com/files/2012/08/Route-3-7-Aug-2012.pdf Using the NoHo bus option + whatever in Santa Clarita, you should be able to stay at the park till 7pm or so. With a flashpass, you'll get it all done in a day. Orlando -For Busch Gardens Tampa, your ticket includes free transport on the Shuttle. You do need to book though http://seaworldparks.com/en/buschgardens-tampa/Park-Info/Know-Before-You-Go The shuttle leaves from a bunch of places around Orlando, including the bus stops at Universal: http://goo.gl/maps/CjtRv Confirm the exact departure location when booking! Orlando, I've tended to adopt a strategy of staying somewhere near the top of International Drive, http://goo.gl/maps/CiN9l so I could walk across the freeway bridge to Universal and Wet n Wild, with a short bus trip to Sea World and Aquatica. You can get up and down International Drive using the I Ride Trolley, it does suck though because it seems like it has a billion stops. http://www.iridetrolley.com/maps.asp Goes to SW and Aquatica Though. For getting to Disney, a couple of options. 1) Shift hotels after you've done Universal, and stay on property at Disney. Since you're splitting costs amongst friends, I'd highly recommend this. Disney has great buses linking all the parks, and the resorts. 2) Use the city buses to and from Disney. I've done this every time, and it's somewhat bearable. http://www.golynx.com/plan-trip/maps-schedules.stml The key buses you'll use are: -Link #8. Runs up and down International Drive, right to SeaWorld. This is actually better than the I-Ride trolley IMO, Weekdays it runs every 15 mins, from 5am till after midnight. But Weekends it only runs half hourly in the middle of the day and finishes around 10pm Sat and 7pm Sun. -Link #50 -This starts in Downtown Orlando, goes via SeaWorld, via Downtown Disney Superstop, then finishes up at the Disney Ticket & Transport center, where you can get the Monorail to Epcot and Magic Kingdom, and buses to the Studios and Animal Kingdom. It simply runs 5am-Midnight, 7 days a week, half hourly. So to get to Disney, you take #8 to Sea World, then change and take #50 to Disney. PS, for getting to and from the Airport, the Lynx Bus in that case was pretty poor, since it made too many stops and seemed indirect. Just take a damn taxi to and from the airport! Cedar Point and the Rest Haven't attempted this, or any of the Northeast, because it would be too hard without a car IMO, the parks aren't in nice clusters like Orlando and LA. As a young enthusiast not old enough to rent a car, the LA and Orlando parks are a really good start, and will give you a wide variety of coasters. In the interim, till you are 25, why not consider parks in the UK, Europe, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan? These countries are geared to getting around without a car, so you can do a lot until you are 25. And of course, jumping on a TPR tour is an option depending on when the tour is. C I dunno. For a lot of Aussie enthusiasts, the LA parks are the first ones basically everyone ends up seeing on their first US trip, simply because LA is the closest place to fly into (San Fran being the next best option). A matter of convenience, if anything....If you're going to be arriving in the city, might as well see the parks! Doing Orlando + LA, I think the main things you miss out on are big airtime coasters, and good woodies (Though Apocalypse at SFMM is decent). There is a hilarious phenomena that exists as a result, where Australians tend to rate Ghostrider highly because its the first big woodie everyone rides, and it's just so hillariously rough and insane that people love it and have little to compare too. Though for the overall "Theme park" experience (Not just coasters) I think Orlando and LA is pretty satisfying. But otherwhise, I think SFMM is a great "big" park to kick off a US trip on because it gives you a chance to try an example of almost every major type of coaster you've seen or read about, (or built in Roller Coaster Tycoon ) And Disneyland/DCA are great parks too. Knotts is OK, but still is worth doing.

I guess the other concern I have is inertia to even provide it again the first place, even if the money is there. Will streetview be one of those many standard features that just gets omitted for long periods?

To me, it's hard to see Apple Maps ever being as good as Googles offering. The big thing for me is Streetview, which Google can afford to justify on the basis of a huge userbase on desktop, as well as a variety of other platforms. On the other hand, I could never see Apple going out with it's own fleet of camera cars to get their own set of streetview data, just woudn't be economical considering the proportionally smaller userbase.

One place I swear by now is Mos Burger, it's a Japanese chain that also has outlets in Singapore, Taiwan, HK etc, but they've opened up in Australia. Always fresh, inexpensive, it's the only place I know where the burger looks like the picture every time, and their basic "Mos Cheeseburger" and "Beef Teriyaki" burger are awesome (Quite often I'll order those two and forego chips) And I'd go to McDonalds more often if they'd just leave a burger with egg and beetroot on the permanent menu. Limited time only? Fuuuuuuuu!

Can I vote for the Wild Mouse at Luna Park in Sydney as being up there too? The views of the bridge, the harbour, the opera house and the skyline are fantastic: http://www.themeparkreview.com/parks/pimages/Luna_Park_(Sydney)/Theme_Park_Reviews_Australia_Tour_2011/lunapark_mouse_1.jpg Some more of the context: http://www.nearmap.com/?ll=-33.8547,151.21067&z=15&t=s&nmd=20120426

I've managed to get on this, still having the odd glitch, but it's a great ride! Really high quality theming and animatronics, and the mixture of real targets and 3D game screens is really cool. This is the theming in the Load Area, and the same standard continues through the ride. No cardboard cutouts or blacklight theming along the course, it's all realistic 3d facades...The city scenes kinda reminded me of the ones in MiB or Spidey http://www.parkz.com.au/photo_update/general/2012/09/0921-1_Justice_League_IMG_3913.jpg Spoilers: . . . . . . . . . So you enter into the hall of justice, really glossy and marbled. A few portable generators with satelite poles and TV screens, as well as some safety barricades have been set up inside, playing news broadcasts that Starro Spores (Starfish looking aliens that attach to your face and take control of your mind) are swarming down to earth and infecting cities throughout the earth. Uninfected citizens are advised to go to their nearest Justice League embassy for shelter. From the hall of justice you move into a lab area, but first you pass through a scanner which scans you for infection: "Robot lady voice: scan complete, no infection detected". Theres also a camera and a big projector screen which shows something like a heat scan of the people queueing as they pass through the scanner. The queue leads to the load area, where batman is communicating on a giant screen from the Justice League watchtower space station. He explains the starro spores can be destroyed by a laser blast, and that he has created vehicles for citzens to patrol the streets and destroy starro spores. Your vehicle has a counter for the number of starroes destroyed, which is beamed straight back to Batman (In other words, each car has an LED score display) In this area is a really cool Cyborg animatronic, he uses his laser arm on a tank of trapped starro spores to demonstrate how to destroy them. Overall, the queue and load area is really cool, impressive scale and really feels like a a superhero hideout. So you grab some 3d glasses from the racks, board the vehicles, go through some doors and into the city. The first scene is like an alleyway, with animatronic people hiding in windows and dumpsters with starro spores stuck to their face. Also , there are starro spores stuck to the walls etc, and you pass under an elevated subway rail line. This is a common theme throughout the ride, and there are over 100 starro spores to shoot at. You make a turn, and face the first 3d screen, there are a number of infected citizens, who attempt to hurl starro spores at you...really good use of 3d here and kinda feels like shooting clay pigeons. You can also shoot at the faces of the infected citzens to free them. After another section of alleyway you reach a city street. Lots of infected human animatronics sitting on benches and shop windows. Some notable ones included a tourist with a camera and a hawaiian shirt sitting on a bench, a traffic controller, a pizza boy. Around the next turn is the next 3d screen. Wonderwoman has lassoed a bunch of infected humans, they wriggle a bit, but they are an easy target to shoot at their faces to detach the starro spores. After another turn you pass a huge section of wall covered with starro spores. It's groaning under the weight of them, and colapses towards you, but an animatronic supergirl reaches up and holds it, allowing you to pass by without getting squished. Another turn leads you down another street, past a multideck carpark ('Parking garage' for the Americans on here) and towards the next screen. Starro spores are swarming down, so the Flash runs around in circles really fast, making a tornado that sucks up the starroes, and flings them out towards you so you can zap them. Another turn has you heading towards Starro the Conquerors mothership: Starro the conqueror is the big boss...this guy: So, you enter onto a Tollway/Turnpike, the tollbooth attendant has a starro spore stuck to his face. The boomgate rises, and you pass a funny electronic sign which first says "Caution: Heavy traffic ahead" and then goes haywire and then the message changes to say "JOIN STARRO!" You pass under a big The mothership has landed in the middle of the freeway, crushing a car under the landing gear. Under the other leg the attention to detail is really cool, the road surface is all buckled and ripped up. Green lantern appears on a 3d screen to the side under the mothership, and he uses his power ring to blast open the spaceship doors so you can get inside and really take them on. Inside the spaceship you pass some starro spore breeding tanks (but for some reason it doesn't seem to be a live target) you round another corner and face another 3d screen....Superman is attacking green lantern because he has starro stuck to his face. You shoot to free superman, and once he is free he starts attacking the starro spores floating around him (which you can also shoot at) The track twists and turns a few times, past some walls with starro spores stuck to them. You reach the grand finale scene, another 3d screen, where superman and Starro the conqueror are battling it out. Here you basically just shoot at the conqueror as many times as you can. By this point the mothership is unstable, you turn and travel down a hallway to escape, just as you get out the doors there are some bright yellow flashing lights from behind you, a deep bass rumble, and you feel hot air as the ship explodes behind you. You emerge back onto the streets. The ride photo camera is hidden inside a cracked traffic light..Clever. The final 3D screens has the members of the justice league gathered around, who congratulate you on defeating the starroes. You make a turn, go through some doors and unload. As you head out the exit ramp you see your ride photo, but at this point they weren't displaying scores from the ride. Overall, a really solid attraction that seems quite popular (full queue area!) and a high standard of theming throughout with no "gaps" or anything that looks or feels cheap.

There is a flowrider, actually.

You can see the quad master blaster from 1:05 to 1:14 Anyway, the breakdown of attractions: 0:23 Double Wave Pool, Double Skycoaster 0:26 Dark Tornado , Tantrum Alley, Tornado Wave. 0:44 Kidz Tantrum, Kidz Racer, Various Childrens Slides 0:58 Kraken Octopus Racer, Aqualoops 1:06 Quad Master Blaster, Family Rattler, Boomerango, Raft Slides 1:11 Flowrider 1:16 Constrictor (Dark Green, on right) 1:18 Lazy River 1:20 Bowling Alley, two cloverleaf slides

Isn't that putting the cart before the horse a bit? Why not just run buses more frequently to make the more convenient and provide more passenger capacity? There's no real need to worry about streetcars in an area until the hourly capacity on the route warrants it....Once a particular route has an articulated bus running every 5-7 minutes all day long, and those buses have standing passengers then that is roughly the tipping point for when it becomes more efficient to run a streetcar service. But I doubt they are anywhere near that point....

Someone get the guy some Crisco!!!

I doubt it is 100 km/h. That would make it as fast as Superman at WBMW, which has a much larger top hat... If Senzafiato was launched at that speed over that small top hat I can't imagine it being tolerable for riders.

lol? How else would you categorise this ride type? It is free running vehicles, running in a curved trough. That's a bobsled. I'd like to know how it would feel significantly different, other than the sound of wheels on wood rather than wheels on steel. Also, RCBD tags it as a bobsled: http://www.rcdb.com/3458.htm

I'm not even 100% convinced on that TBH...Will the ride be that amazing and popular in the long term to warrant the effort. It would give them something unique. No doubting that....But there are a few rides out there that are unique, but still a bit rubbish at the end of the day. I think bobsleds are 'okay' at best TBH.

I'm not even 100% convinced on that TBH...Will the ride be that amazing and popular in the long term to warrant the effort.

Tower of Terror/Giant Drop do that...It's an awesome feeling when the whole tower shakes as the TOT car shoots up. They won't be....Not like a spaceshot etc. At Dreamworld they often just run one side of the tower in off peak periods.

I want to know why it has to be a choice between a Supersplash and a Reverse Boat Ride, yet apparently there will be both a Revolution 32 and a Giant Frisbee

There isn't any mechanic training needed! At Grona Lund, the ops would just come over and turn the car like it was a steering wheel. It's made to rotate. The ops at Linnanmaki were doing the same thing. I even rotated the car myself a bit when I was mounting the camera. The idea that this cannot be done by a ride op, and requires a maintenance person makes no sense to me! --Robb "The ride should have never been built in America." Alvey I guess what I'm wanting to know is though, does Grona Lund/Linnanmaki do that in day to day, non ERT operations? Agreed that it seems dumb to call mechanics over when its so simple to correct the problem by spinning it manually, but I'm not sure if a park would want to have to deal with having to do that on heaps of cycles....would kind of defeat the purpose of the straightening system if a human is constantly having to run over and manually intervene. To be honest, I reckon the best idea would be for Intamin to redesign the system so it can straighten a car from any angle easily. Though, I still think rider comfort and safety would be the main reason for them to avoid greatly unbalanced cars, and hence the memos on the GL employee whiteboard. From most normal pov's and offrides of these rides I have seen (both the small and large version) only normally do one inversion per cycle, always on the tight U-turn at the end. Quick search of Insane offrides seems to confirm the above: One inversion, One inversion, One inversion on each cycle (2 shown) The examples of it doing flips at other points in the ride, spinning upside down at the bottom of drops causing high G forces on the head and so forth I don't think are 'natural', and would probably be outside manufacturers recommendations, since the only way to get it to do it is to unbalance the cars. Whereas on the other hand all parks with these rides have a standard policy of balancing the cars and not having empty seats. (When I rode GL I was a single rider on my side, so the ride I got did about 4 inversions, including on the MCBR)