Gav

For me the bag checks aren't really for security anway, In most cases they seem more interested in stopping people bringing food in Moniab is right anyway, whenever they do a security check they only take a quick peek inside...They never check the side pockets, or deeper inside underneath the top layer of stuff, so its pretty weak anyway. I guess in Singapore the risk of an incident is considered low enough that it doesn't warrant them spending money on wages for security personnel on a daily basis. Was that going to get changed back eventually? The joke was funny back then, but now the word switch is a pain, and frequently having to explain the joke to newer members is as annoying as the SF policy complainers IMO. ...."I like small boys in tights" will never get old though

^But there are plenty of ways to promote a ride like this as more of an 'adventure' (Look at the way Disney promotes similar rides) rather than this "psychologically disturbing, only for over 16s, pay 1 pound for health insurance" thing they have made it out to be.

Really? What about hyper coasters, large wooden coasters etc? They use lap bars and aren't boring...

To be fair, that stupid Scooby Doo ride is probably the best coaster in Australia. It's really cool IMHO, and as you know I don't tend to be particularly exuberant with my praise... Agreed, Scooby is not stupid. From what I have seen so far it looks reasonably decent...I imagine it will look a bit better once all the theming is properly finished. As for the worlds first...Well, it has 'hairtime' which looks a lot of fun, but I wish they had perhaps used the drop track for a Tower Of Terror style cycle with multiple ups and downs....They went to all that expense for the drop track, for it to only be used once for a matter of seconds.

Getting a bit off topic here, but I've not been able to rent a car here because of my age, and because the traffic here is a bit daunting (And being on the 'wrong' side of the road makes things worse). Even when I do become older, the age surcharges still make renting prohibitively expensive for the next few years. Admittedly I'm speaking for myself here, but I honestly would mind a 1.5 hr trip, that is painfully slow, and there are significantly faster alternatives available (Twice as fast, and still much cheaper than car rental). The main reason for posting my little getting to SFMM guide earlier is because it is a question that has come up a few times, but it also seems to be asked by Australian/European visitors, and they'd likey be after the most practical way, rather than the dirt cheapest .If you wanted to do the latter, there are already multiple ways to get to parks, just be prepared to go home early, and spend hours traveling. (Getting around Japan poses similar choices...you could muck around taking slow local trains and making multiple changes to get from A to B, but chances are you'd just pay more and take the Shinkansen since its faster and easier) I've already had a bit of trial and error on my trips to LA, but I think I've finally found what would work for a visitor.

LOL! That's awesome! Did you get a picture for your trip report? YES!!! I won't be doing a full trip report though since I summed up my thoughts of my visit on an earlier page, and everyone has seen the same photos before. I will attach a pic of one thing that did amuse me in the Tatsu queue area... I cant imagine Metrolink or Amtrak being any better than each other reliability wise because neither run on dedicated tracks. Before I traveled here I looked into both services. The problem with Metrolink is that it simply doesn't run late enough. For Orange county services, the last one from Anaheim to LA Union leaves at 5:32pm. If you are traveling back to Anaheim from Union, the last one leaves at 6:30pm.....I dunno how anybody could describe a service with such abysmal operating hours as the "best way" of traveling. At least with Amtrak there are a few night/late night services so you don't have to leave theme parks too early (Remember, this is the fundamental problem visitors to LA without a car encounter when trying to do parks), and on the plus side Amtrak runs express from Anaheim to Union, making only one stop at Fullerton, so its faster. I had a quick look into the 460 bus, but at around 1.5 hours one way, it's just too slow. The TPR clubhouse.... The very place where the Tatsu theming budget ran out.

I thought I might chuck this in this topic because someone might find it useful in the future when it shows up in searches (I've asked this same question in the past), but I've finally worked out a reasonably practical way to get to SFMM on public transport/transit that will get you there in time for opening, and wont force you to leave too early, and wont cost a heap like those organized coach tours. I did this on my Presidents day visit and it worked perfectly. The key is to take ake tthe 757 "Noho Express" commuter bus run by Santa Clarita transit, which departs outside North Hollywood station (on Lankershim Blvd) on the LA metro red line subway (This is one station north of Universal City, which is the station at Universal) It takes about 35 minutes to get up to the Valencia bus station, and costs $2.50 each way. It runs roughly once every hour from early in the morning, and on weekdays the last one from Valencia back down leaves at 8:22pm at the time of writing ( on weekends the last one leaves earlier at 6:33) so you should be able to have a decent amount of time up there. No point linking to the timetable page since these change frequently anyway...Google it. From the Valencia bus station (Called the McBean transfer station) you can. -Take a local bus to SFMM (The connections aren't that good to be honest, plus you don't avoid that leaving early problem) -Take a Taxi -Go on foot. Valencia is a nice place, and the walk up takes about 40 mins (4 km) to get to the park. I was even treated to the sight of the burnt out "TPR clubhouse" on my way there). Plus you can be a proper enthusiast and take photos of X2 from the road in I suppose if you are down in Anaheim then getting to Union station (Southern terminus of the Red Line) might still be annoying (Though I'd recommend using the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner trains instead of Metrolink because they are more frequent) But if you are staying in the Universal area then this should be a fairly simple trip. So to sum up, those visiting LA without a car are best to try SFMM on a weekday, and might find it easier to perhaps spend part of your stay in the city near Universal to make doing SFMM and USH easier.

^For me though, it's not the IP that will 'make' this addition for me, but rather the technology being employed. I mean, I can't say I've ever been interested in the Twilight Zone, or the Incredible Hulk, or Popeye, or Superman for instance, but that didn't stop me from really enjoying the respective attractions themed around these things.

^Dunno, I'd take a Robocoaster dark ride over a mini ferris wheel and a 4D film.

I might as well do a mini TR on how the park was today. In short, I had a great time, lines were quite short so I was able to get all I wanted done (Well, Ninja still remains elusive for me) Front row seats were easy to get, and I was able to do the park at a relaxed pace. X2 x1 Tatsu x6 Terminator x2 Riddler x2 Batman x1 Scream x1 Goliath x1 Sierra Falls x1 Skytower x1 Viper x1 Gold Rusher x1 Superman x1 X2 was great. You can almost forgive the GP for thinking it is a new ride since it looks quite well finished at the moment. Ride experience wise, I thought it was perhaps a bit more comfortable than the original...Still a bit too much leg flapping for my liking though. I didn't really notice the soundtracks when the ride was actually going fast. The flamethrowers were pretty impressive, especially at night when you could see the glow from other parts of the park. Terminator I loved! It felt like everything was in fast forward as it flew through the circuit. Exciting from start to finish, and it had a couple of little airtime pops too. My first 'modern' woodie certainly impressed. I rode early for my first ride, so I was interested in seeing the preshow anyway. By my second ride the line had built up, so the show didn't actually get in the way of getting on sooner. Either way, it was decent effort, I loled a bit at the way the story itself was set in a post apocalyptic SFMM. The soundtrack did just sound like noise though, and I really listened hard, but I somehow missed the 'Take the Tunnel' line. Further rerides were out of the question though....The line managed to reach 1.5 hrs because only one train was in service. The rest of the park was better than I remembered. Ops seemed to be a bit more on the ball, 2 trains were running on pretty much everything, and on rides and stacking tended to only occur when the guests were being slow. I did like the way many of the coasters have been repainted since my last visit. It really helps the overall image of the place if the major things you see are looking shiny...Now they just need to paint Scream etc. The fluffy bunnies caused no problems...I was able to do the park with 3 things in my pockets (Wallet, Phone, Camera), and I had my stuff attatched with a carabiner to one of my belt loops, so it was all secure, with no $1 fees for me. Hmm, that covers all the recursive topics doesn't it? Perhaps my only gripes were. -No F&B outlets selling juice. -No Taxi rank at the park. -Single rider has been taken away from Riddler. This is something they could really work on, since rides like Tatsu tended to have tons of empty seats on every train. -Whilst many part of the park are looking much nicer, that stretch from Cyclone Bay to Collosus County fair still has pretty scrappy looking buildings. That's where I'd be focusing my energy to improve the look of the place. In the morning I walked from the Santa Clarita bus interchange up to the park, and I walked straight past the burnt out 'TPR clubhouse'. Kind of wierd when you see something in the news and then see it in the flesh straight after.

^I'm pretty much in the same boat at the moment, I'd rather have a cheaper one day deal than a 2nd day that is fairly unneeded in the uncrowded off peak. As a side note, Disney are also doing 2 days for 1 at the moment, which is something ill be using

I'll be heading up to the mountain tommorow, quite excited actually since I havent been since 2007, so I'll have X2 to try, but Terminator will be my first "decent" woodie (To date all I have ridden have been fairly old, or mediocre examples) LA weather has indeed been really nice since the last time I was here in winter, Ill be leaving the jumper at home for sure.

Use this link and click on each coaster name to see which ones are currently closed. Ninja and Deja Vu are closed right now. http://www.sixflags.com/magicMountain/rides/ThrillRides.aspx. Cheers mate, wouldn't have thought to do that...I must say though its a bit of a pain having to go through each individual ride...Why not have a page like this http://www.dreamworld.com.au/Rides/Maintenance/ where there is just a simple list with clear start and end dates for each ride closure? I may well do a Saturday and Monday (Sunday is out of the question because the first train to Santa Clarita doesn't get there till after lunch (Public transport fail) One last question, but when they brought in the Lo Q Flashpass system, did they discontinue the individual paper ones?...I sort of can't be bothered forking out $40 to rent the unit if there are only going to be one or two rides with lines long enough to warrant skipping, so if I can still buy the single use ones that would be perfect...

Awesome idea for a topic...Anyway, here is something I saw a while back, what I love about it is that clearly it would be possible to sling shot yourself into the ground if the elastic was pulled in the wrong direction:

Avoid that day then I presume?

I did a fair bit of hunting around, but does the SFMM website have a page for ride closures or maintenance? I'm going to be back in LA from the 12th till the 23rd of Feb, so I'll be hitting the park on one of the Saturdays when I'm there, though I have no idea what will be shut (Hopefuly not Ninja of all things, since I missed that last time around) On a side note, why is the park open specifically on the 15th?...The whole month it's only open weekends except for this one random Monday Special Event? Public Holiday?

^Haha, it reminds me of that Japanese horse riding arcade game...Final Furlong I think it's called?

Computers have little do do with fabrication (Though obviously they are used in the design stage). Slide manufacturers have a catalogue of a few slide segments types. The manufacturer has moulds for each segment type at their plant that get reused each time a park orders a slide. Its not like a coaster manufacturer who has to design and fabricate unique sections from scratch. So the design of the slide is based around combining the segments in a modular manner, based on the limitations of the catalogue. The plus side to all this is that you don't need too many segment types, just a few different curve radiuses, and straight sections of various lengths, plus the special ones like starting tubs and runout troughs ...Very RCTish almost. Because many of the segments are identical, it makes transportation easier since they stack together nicely. This small selection of segment types can be quite versatile, for example if the seam is at the side it makes a curve, if the seam is at the top it makes a drop. The positioning of the seam shouldn't have any impact on comfort issues. For starters the seams that run along the segment are parallel with the direction of travel so you don't feel it...The main concern is the seams between segments, since they are crossways and you run right over them. If its a good slide manufacturer these are filled smoothly, so you don't feel them and water leaks are minimal. Other times....errm, not so great. I recently rode one of Whitewater West's toilet bowl slides, and the word cheese grater came to mind when I was riding it, ouch! As for the topic itself. I'll be interested to see how these translucent slides look in real life. Already there are some slides that are translucent and you can see the silhouette of people riding down, but it would be cool if they can get a bit more see through, so it would be like looking through a piece of coloured cellophane. Identical modular sections make for easy transportation. The same segment can be used vertically to make a drop (red arrow) or horizontally to make a turn (green arrow)

In other words, the dinosaurs we can see are two abreast, the wording is correct. So far in that pic we can see the first 7 cars (so 14 passengers). What they are saying is that the last 3 (6 more passengers to make the 20) cars will just be regular sit down seats. There is a similar set up to this on Mick Doohans Motocoaster at Dreamworld, the train has 14 bikes, but on the last two cars they have put a sitdown sidecar in lieu of where a bike could have gone (see here) So to sum up, the article has said that the dinosaur seats will be more interesting than the sit down ones, in a very roundabout way.

Although I probably wouldn't be going on a TPR Australian trip I might as well give some feedback. (Hopefully a bash gets thrown at one of our parks...we just don't have the critical mass of local enthusiasts to run any sort of event of our own) Whitewater world is probably worth putting on the itinerary....It's got one of those proslide Hydromagnetics plus a bunch of other cool stuff, plus it just wouldn't be a trip to Australia without spending a good amount of time in your swimmers. I don't mean to sound harsh, but I'm surprised Adventure World is on the itinerary. I know there are probably people out there who want to get the Zamperla Kiddy credit and see the park, but it is a bit like running something similar to a west coast trip, but then randomly flying over to Orlando, and then only visiting one park of the standard of Cypress Gardens (If that) and doing not much else....Make it an mini addon perhaps? However I can imagine the Australian trip being good for those who like 'Culture' credits...Places like Luna Park don't take long so there is plenty of time to enjoy Sydney/Melbourne (Ps, whilst in Melbourne, head out to Funfieldsand ride the Wiegand toboggan) My only other word of warning is that Mid Feburary is when major rides often go down for Maintenance (The school year begins at the end of January, so the parks are empty and parks shut stuff accordingly. You've probably thought about dates for stuff already, but a safe option could be to push it back to Easter. Everything will be open, you'll be able to hit the Sydney Royal Easter Show. It might be busy (But this is in relative terms...DjRappa, Joz, Noxegon and I visited WBMW on the busiest day in it's history, and the longest queue was 1 hour, and superman was only 20 minutes or so. That said, best of Japan (Why is FujiQ on there ) has definitley caught my eye It's something I could potentially do in that year anyway (Japan is the next country on my 'hit list')...I'd be pretty keen to do the Tokyo Disney addon. Probably enough out of me.

I'd been meaning to post about this on here... It was in the Local papers about a little while back: http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2009/12/30/174191_gold-coast-news.html The smaller aqua loop sounds kind of wierd, but regardless I think this will do wonders for the park. I like the fact four of them are going in, that means around 500pph which is pretty good for a water park attraction. Interesting too to look back at the photo Robb took at IAPPA. When Robb posted that the hidden bit of the poster said "Village Roadshow" I had guessed the "4 x" had meant they had ordered 4 of them, with two going to WnW on the Gold Coast , one to Hawaii and one to Phoenix. Never would've I imagined all four coming to the Gold Coast:

Counting fail:

Looks like the Mason, Ohio GWL drew the short straw when it came to layouts.

You're right, it is a different concept. The 'cannonball' is not actually being built at the Water Cube.....Themeparkman25 just decided to bring it up for some reason. The Ridehouse at the Water Cube will indeed be using a "High Volume, High Speed WaterDump that will soak everyone in its path" , so it is just the same thing as Whitewater West uses, except is is a sphere instead of a bucket shape. Confusion over.

Am I crazy, or have they come up with a body slide version of the Tantrum Tornado for this? I can imagine a slide like that feeling totally out of control.