Richard

But you're saying that suggesting that Operations Department have no input into the design of queue or loading systems. Nonetheless, you said that they have to find the best possible way to cater for guests. That's precisely right. Why then does Cyclone operate at about a quarter of its attainable capacity (at the best of times)? Or Giant Drop at close to a tenth of the capacity they claim it can operate at? I can assure you right now that these two issues have absolutely nothing to do with queue design.

Well, that was Warner Bros. Movie World for the first four or so years of its life. It survived though that period of a serious lack of attractions and is what it is today. Had Fox Studios investors given the place perhaps a few years of capital, I have some no doubts that it would probably still be around today. Hey, Zord, I guarantee you now that I'll be at the front of the queue outside the front gate on opening day when it opens. That's when it opens.

Well, we're just trying to be realistic. Just like the bank managers were when Walt approached them - you know how that turned out. The only thing I'll add is that I think you'll need a little more than the inability to let go of the fragmented remains of a not-so-great theme park.

Okay, around four weeks during the summer, a week at easter, two weeks in both June and September. That's nine weeks. That's about two thirds of the USA summer vacation period. Then the UK holiday times play a huge role in the Orlando parks attendance (to the extent where the parks are jam packed with no one but Brittish holidayers). Spring Break, Christmas, absolutely enormous "three day weekends" (Memorial Day and whatnot), and you're probably looking at around at the very least three times the length of peak periods. Let's get back to the basics. Disney presumably installed the system because they were getting complaints that the parks were too difficult to "complete" within a given holiday period. A family will spend three days at Disneyland alone and likely only barely get everything ridden, FastPasses left, right and centre. Meanwhile, how often do you hear people saying during the peak season they didn't get everything done at one of the Gold Coast parks? And of them, how many do you think weren't because five year old son loved Road Runner so much he had to ride it 40 times in the day? I'm guessing very few.

A few more should be released over the weekend.

Shipping costs are unfortunately a bit steep. It'll work out to around $10 for a single item, then about $5.50 for each further item. Delivery will take probably a week. They say 10-14 days for international, but even 10 days is a bit of an overestimate based on my experience.

But do you really think that the Operations Department are anything but heavily involved in the design process for new attractions? I mean, you're trying to suggest that the rides are built with absolutely no input from the Operations Department, that bad designs are just thrust upon them to be sorted out? I think not. Cyclone's queue isn't great, but that ride can operate absolutely seamlessly at the highest possible capacity dictated by the ride's design given three operators who are out to do a decent job. I've witnessed it only once ever - around September of 2002 - and boy was I impressed.

I'm sure you've all checked out the Roller-Coaster.com.au store. If not, you can find it at the link listed below. http://www.cafeshops.com/rollercoasterau/ The store features a wide variety of clothing items and accessories, stickers, toys and more. Don't forget to check out the high quality posters that are available. They range in size from 11x17 up to 23x35, and come with a variety of different designs, including Australian and international parks and rides. Posters start at USD$7.00 (roughly AUD$10.00). If the quality and uniqueness of the products isn't enough for you, how about one more incentive? Order any two or more products from the store and receive a FREE Total Thrills Wonderland Farewell t-shirt, ABSOLUTELY FREE! If you buy two Bumper Stickers (or any other products), you'll receive a free t-shirt (sizes M,X,XL). Buy any four or more products, and receive a free shirt, plus a free 2004 Total Thrills Calendar (there's still six months to go, plus of course you're getting 13 high quality photographs of Australia's best Roller-Coasters). These deals will only last until June 15 and while stocks last (calendar and shirt supplies are strictly limited!), so don't hesitate! Support Roller-Coaster.com.au, and your passion for theme parks with the Roller-Coaster.com.au online store! Happy Shopping!

There are now three versions of an all new Islands of Adventure poster. All three are the same design, but they vary in size and price. The shop's been changed slightly from what it was before. The design will probably change soon. And how about a special deal, just to get things rolling. Buy any two products or more, and you'll recieve, absolutely free, your choice of a Total Thrills 2004 calendar, or a "Limited Edition" Total Thrills shirt from the March Wonderland Sydney Farewell meet. Of course, stocks are limited (for the giveaway products, order as much as you like from the store). If you order four or more products, you can receive both. No strings, nothing dodgy, just some free stuff. Even if you buy two bumper stickers at USD$3.50, you'll still receive a free shirt or calendar. No additional shipping costs for the free products (CafePress will charge shipping costs as usual). This deal will only last until June 15, so act fast!

Wonderland did indeed run at the best capacity it could. Even with only one or two Space Probe gondolas operating (as was the case with our March meet), the operators did the best they could and the queue was never unbearable. The same goes for Sea World, where the operators are quite efficient, and Movie World also. There are almost never significant discrepancies in staffing, i.e. it's not as if Dreamworld has a single operator on a ride, and Sea World has four for the same sort of ride. The issue is with the fact that Dreamworld, despite staffing and other things on par with parks nearby, there is significant differences in efficiency. I'm not saying it's the operators at fault - it might well be the Operations Department's set ways of doing things, but I couldn't say. The fact is, there is a problem which is entirely unique to Dreamworld. Dreamworld's profit margins are approximately 30% higher than Cedar Fair's (owners of Cedar Point), of course adjusted for currency exchange and yes, based on specific attendance. Meanwhile Cedar Fair is the strongest amusement park operator listed on the US stock exchange. Therefore, I think I can make a very safe assumption that Macquarie Leisure is not spending appropriate amounts on Dreamworld's operations. Maybe we don't need half a dozen or more employees for rides like they do, but come on, that figure above convinces me the money's not going entirely where it should be.

I've known for some time that these wooden wild mouse coasters aren't a Schwarzkopf design. I'll change it some time, though I'm eager to find out actually whose design it is. They were built under license by Luna Park Sydney's Ted Hopkins many years ago (Source: Ride Extravaganza), but I can't say with absolute certainty who the designer was. Schwarzkopf nearly certainly never designed a wooden mouse (Source: North American Wild Mouse). I've always been leaning towards Mack, but I'm awaiting Mack's official response before making any further changes. The carriages are small. They can really only hold a single adult, an adult or a small child or two children. See here: http://www.totalthrills.com/awgallery.php?...age=wildmouse01. If you squeeze two adults into one, the benefit of course is amazing airtime.

Nah, it's just that you've mentioned that $150,000 figure a number of times so I figured why not include it. You're indeed more or less correct (the way currency exchange is currently, it ranges from AUD$2-3,000 per metre depending on the design), and fibreglass would almost certainly be cheaper, especially because there are several Australian manufacturers, whereas Weigand manufacture in-house in Germany. Sorry if it came out wrong.

Yeah, Dreamworld does have good PR, though I wasn't referring to PR, I'm referring to administration. With Rocky Hollow Log Ride, a few years ago, because the tops of the poles were cracked and consequently a good place for rubbish and plant material to build up, so they actually filled them with concrete. I'm not sure if they've been appropriately fixed since. I'll see if anything's been done since the major rehab they've just come out of.

I'll concede that my queue estimates for Wet'n'Wild were a little low. Let's take that 45 minutes which some rides are able to get up to in the peak season. Taking the eight major rides (i.e. everything but those things you don't queue for - Wave Pool, Whirlpool/Springs, Calypso Beach), and I'll be generous and assume they get up to 45 minute queues. Given probably half or more of those rides couldn't get queues above 30 minutes even if they tried, I think it's more than fair. In the 11 hours that the park is open in the peak season (i.e. the only time these 45 minute queues would happen), you'd be able to get in every ride once, and still have five hours for eating, rerides and the night's Dive In Movie. The thing with FastPass is it doesn't really start to work to its best until ride queues start getting up around the 90 minute mark. 45 minutes and under and it's almost a joke, because its only real purpose is to get a FastPass, queue and ride once, then use the FastPass to ride again immediately. For the 80% of the year when Wet'n'Wild has 5-15 minute queues max, you have a lot of expensive equipment and infrastructure that's going completely to waste. For that $150,000 or more they invested, Gazza could have gotten you a new slide, which has a much better marketing effect than "New to Wet'n'Wild, a virtual queuing system that's too confusing to bother with!". Really, outside of Dreamworld, how often do our parks get queues greater than 90 minutes? If they ever do, it's for that four or so week period in the middle of summer. A similar period at Disney parks would be getting queues in excess of 2:30, where FastPass is doing its thing to perfection.

The article was sent to Dreamworld's management when the article was published (May 23). No reply, but then I guess they could be considered to be in a state of flux with the change of CEO, but that doesn't work for me.

There've been a few modifications to the Park Database's main page, making it just a little easier to navigate. Coasters and rides are now split up into "Operating", "Under Construction" and "Defunct". This beats having (Defunct) next to every ride's name if they're not operating. There'll be some more photo updates in coming days and weeks.

The sickness came for me between Vegas and Texas. Still not entirely sure what it was. I'm still tossing up between a packet of greasy dodgy tortillas I bought at a roadhouse in Arizona, or a rotten Subway I got in Arlington, Texas. It got me sick for two days solid, but I managed to creep out of bed and walk across the road to SFOT to ride the coasters and Superman:TOP (it's not like me to let a little violent illness get in the way of coasters). Sounds like you're having a good time, even with the unfortunate illness. Did you do the Anaheim to Las Vegas or Downtown LA to Las Vegas Greyhound route? Downtown LA's where all the suss people tend to go from. At the Anaheim stop, you're boarding a bus that's come from San Diego, so the folk are a little better. Good to hear you abandoned the Greyhounds. They tend to be quite a bit nicer on the east coast, with less questionable people, but flying's still the way to go, and it's not significantly more expensive. Good to hear from you. Be sure to keep us posted on how it all goes.

You'll probably be best going through Luna Park directly. See here for numbers. I'd say give Sales Department a ring (02 9033 7540).

That'd be great. The only problem is it'd be a little hard for me to get ahold of such photos. I mean, I'm bad enough trying to keep the plane steady, let alone focusing a camera out the window.

I'm actually looking at adding a third poster type, much larger than the previous two (more or less twice the size of the current Cyclone poster), which will feature whole parks (say, several photographs of the major thrill rides etc.), and not be Australia-specific. The first one will probably be an Orlando or California park.

Intamin track is painted with the white rails, the idea being that this (different) paint will peel off much more smoothly than the regular paint, so the ride will look a little better a season or two down the track. You'll actually see that particular photograph ar RCDB (here), dated 30/1/2003, well before it opened. The previous photo also shows the rope again, and that it's part of the construction.

Use the button to edit your posts.

scott, instead of asking basic questions such as that, try finding the answer for yourself. You could have clicked one simple button - Park Database, up the top - and found out that it's Wild Mouse, hence everyone referring to the thing as "Wild Mouse". Amazing, huh? Good to hear it's operating, especially before I head down that way again soon. As a true testament to the coasters of Australia, these wooden mice have the best airtime we've got.

Just a few things - this poll won't work. A vote is a vote, so it won't base the results on the order you tick the boxes or anything. Furthermore, how does length, speed (do you mean time?) or velocity (which is the same as speed) equate to a good ride? And if they did, wouldn't that mean a ride is good or bad, regardless of people's opinions?

You've got to love Australian papers. A year after the ride opens they publish an article - made up of tidbits and quotes from the press releases, and accompanying photographs also from the park. The outstanding publication that is Queensland's Courier Mail published the same sort of article a few weeks ago.