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Back visiting NZ and visited Rainbows End today for the first time since I was a kid and honestly not much has changed but I wanted to give some thoughts anyway. atmosphere and operations: Surprisingly good wait times, they have capped numbers to the park and it was never overly busy in any one area. Ride OPs did not muck about and checked harnesses very hastily, which made operations run well and some of the bigger rides feel a little more ominous. The park was severely lacking in performers and entertainers and the general theming around the park is tidy but pretty uninspiring. Rides: Some family favourites still hold up, like the Log Flume, they have put a lot of energy into this ride to keep it fresh and added animatronics to more sections of the ride making it more unique and enjoyable, its actually one of the better flume rides if you discount how uninspiring the final drop is. Gold Rush is also a fun little mine train ride that has aged well and just as enjoyable as I remember it as a kid. The corkscrew was actually running very well, miles better than Viper was in its final years at SW and for an old arrow Corkscrew it is running much better than expected. Outside of this they have a small drop tower (about 205ft), a Zamperla power surge, and a 360 pendulum disc similar to SX360 at Aussie World. The area I think Rainbows End really shines in is the kids area, which I rate better than all the kids areas at the GC Parks. They had upgraded the old screen ride with a new 4D dark ride which was pretty underwhelming but not bad for little old NZ. And of course Rainbows End has some unique family favourites like Bumper Boats which is a reason in itself to visit the park, with a very healthy run time of about 10 minutes. All in all a great little park and I was happy to see they are still attempting to keep things fresh despite having virtually no competition in NZ. Would really love to see them get one flagship ride to take the park to the next level but its pretty landlocked and good for what it is.

I feel like you're implying that they should have used water dummies on the morning cycle that valleyed in the first place, but surely you see what an unnecessary waste of time and effort that would be for a regular morning cycle? It would actually be counter-intuitive for the exact reason demonstrated by this valley. There's no point in the operating team knowing that a full train will safely make the circuit if an empty one potentially won't.

Probably to connect the winch to the chassis so they could pull it up the loop.

From an ex operator POV. Superman is actually very reliable 99% of the time. West was also very reliable too but this was all prior to the refurbs. As far as Scooby goes, 90% of the time the faults causing a ride stop were not due to the lift. It was often either the turntable or a delay in the load or unload station causing a backup in the ride which would then cause a cascade stop. If a cascade is starting you will see a "must send" light start flashing on the load panel, and it's often why you may suddenly see staff send several empty cars around before loading guests again to try and clear the backlog before the ride has a meltdown. 9 out of 10 times a cascade is recoverable if operators act fast enough... otherwise it becomes leg day for the operators haha.

Credit to u/ClassyDaedra for the footage

Don’t worry about the weight restriction itself. They don’t weigh you, and it’s only a relatively new thing.

DC Rivals is under going testing. Hopefully soon she will be back open.

Credit: benher_signs Promotional boards look to be being sent to the park, here we can see first concept arts for the two new coasters. My only criticism with these rides is the themes, the rides are next to eachother, but have completely opposite themes that also don’t match the area of the park they are in (unless a new area is opening alongside the new rides) however, besides this they both look like great additions.

Pretty sure I said the screens should be working. 99% of the time someone posts actual factual info here it’s going to come from a source that can’t be disclosed, that’s the nature of real inside information. Gatekeeping would be posting “I know something and won’t tell you” which is a far cry from posting actual insights that may be of interest to people, to the extent they can be shared. There are several members on these board who are actively working in/with the parks or have close contacts with people that are. Often they will try to share whatever information they can get away with to contribute to the discussion and for the interest of other members who may actually be interested in reading. Your options are to have information without always the full path back to the source, or to have nothing. I know which I’d prefer. I don’t however have some agenda of wanting to post pure speculation as fact for the purpose of making myself feel good, if I did, perhaps I’d sooner no real info is shared. Whenever I make a guess about something or speculate, I always make a point of stating that I’m doing so. Therefore it stands to reason that if I’m saying something is fact, it probably is I can’t/won’t speak for others, but that’s my story. Sorry if it upsets you to be corrected when your speculation is inaccurate. Glad to hear you are busy, the last few years have not been good to many AV Experts out there.

I'm no engineer, but can't they just get Superman to push it around the rest of the track? He does it all the time with the other coaster.