Spotty

I was gonna say, that was 100% not there in 2012 when I worked at the park and did regular morning track walks of Scooby. So yeah, part of the next gen "upgrade" to tie in with the lift sequence ft. Scrappy Doo.

The majority of the ones in Australia that we have actually run faster than the Chance Rides models as well. I don't really see any showmen in Australia buying a brand new one. They aren't really as marketable as rides like The Beast or The Warrior (speed and height etc). As much as I'd love to see it, I just don't see it sadly. Hopefully one of the other Aussie built ones comes out of retirement like the Bad Ass Zipper recently has.

They are still fairly common in the US. Insurance after the Rapids incident got really expensive which is when a lot of older carnival rides started to disappear. Then covid made it even worse.

After COVID insurance on a lot of rides went up like crazy. As they are older rides they needed a lot of work done to them and a lot of showmen were focusing on newer rides. Also with space at a premium at some of the shows they want the new and "extreme" rides despite the Zipper being one of the most extreme out there. Hopefully we will see more of them come back, but I'd say the 2 that are now travelling will likely be the only ones.

That is the ex Shorts one that was recently sold and extensively refurbished. Fairly sure it's owned by Festival Amusements in QLD. They mostly only do shows in South / Central QLD so not sure if we will see it around too much outside these areas sadly. But glad to see it's back up and running.

Oh... my bad I was thinking it had more to do with turnstiles.

It will stop at the top of the non inverting loop, and there will be sensors at the back of the train to reverse it back if it detects danger... Just like Scooby Doo's fire sensing eyes

And what does the security line at an airport have to do with theme parks?

The one thing I've always found with pretty much all of the Top Spins was the stopping constantly for several seconds before doing another flip. I find it really kills the pacing of the ride in my opinion. It was one thing that Wipeout did well for the most part (Apart from the stop before the final locked flip, which could be argued that it was done for suspense) Sadly it's not just limited to the HUSS variants either, the Moser ones do it as well. Still really gunning for a screaming swing for Movie World.

Ah yes... I can totally agree with your comments about the Male Supervisor (I'll call him JM) haha. Cranky, but also a great bloke. I will admit I have some fond memories of my time there, and some not so fond ones haha. Overall it wasn't bad, but around the time that I left things were really starting to go downhill slowly. Glad I left, but glad I had the experience

As far as I know it was sold by Intamin but built by ABC Engineering. They have built several other flat rides including the Toubillion Model that is also known for having major issues (Cyborg Spin at Six Flags for example)

The Funtime models for the most part have been proven to be very reliable, Sea World cheaped out and brought a lemon much like they did with Doomsday.

The only place that they could really expand (and I'm not sure if they actually can for structural reasons) would be ontop of the carpark. But even then you could maybe fit 1 or 2 flat rides at the most. The only thing I can think of is maybe a repaint of the front half of the park and just giving a general refresh. Not really much could be done given the space they have. But any investment is good investment.

Snowy River Sam here, please keep moving all the way down. Remember 4 to a row, or the boat don't go!

Normally Superman was Feb - April and Batwing would be March - April depending on when the school holidays / easter long weekend were. If the easter long weekend was in March it would go down in February but if it was in April it would go down in March. Would make sense for Flash and Superman to go down at the same time though. If possible I'd try to have Batwing not at the same time anymore because 3 major rides at once is a bit sucky...