Spotty

Funny thing about that is, the majority of VRTP staff are actually PPT especially for attractions. But yes, the retraining does take time. Not sure on WnW But I know that at Movie World it was at least 1 day of training (8am - 5pm) for each ride and training is only groups of 2 - 3 people at a time. Some rides did take 2 days of training (Superman, WBK / RoadRunner, Scooby off the top of my head) + 2x extra 4 hour evacuation training sessions for Scooby. So it would take a fair bit of time to re-train multiple groups of people, so you will likely see the same staff on the same rides for a little while until they can all be retrained on multiple rides.

Make sure your 1.5m away, or hug with your elbows!

Unless things have changed since I was there in 2012, any ride operators that have not worked on a ride in 3 months require full re-training on the ride. So if that is still the case, there is a lot of ride operators that need training on all rides again. I'd expect to see the same operators on the same rides for a while as they go through and retrain people. I feel sorry for them, as i'm getting flashbacks of being stuck in WBK for 4 months non stop haha. I will admit I am very curious to see how they manage it all, and I would have hoped that more rides would be open when the parks re-open but what can you do I guess?

As an ex employee of VRTP it's nice to see that there is still some passion from people high up in the business. Some of the best days of my life were spent working at Movie World. Am very curious to see what the next few years hold for the parks, and I will be there to support you guys when things go back to normal a little bit. I'm sure we all wish we had a magic wand to be able to work some wonders on things

Nah... thinking of the Ghetto theme park of my childhood haha. Gosh that place was seriously a dump...Should have been smart and had my birthday at Questacon that year haha.

I did have a stint back in 2006 working at Stars Cafe (before Ben and Jerrys, and the roof) and it was similar. I remember them actually doing 5x Police Academy shows in a day back then. I then went back from 2011 - 2013 and it certainly felt very different for many reasons (some good, some bad). I'd hate to be a visitor at the park with more than 12,000 people... I think that was around when Green Lemon* I mean Lantern first opened and they were trying so hard to run that thing with 6 cars on the track at a time... needless to say, there's a reason it only runs with 4 Same capacity basically, and runs much more reliable now. The amount of times I heard the ride stop spiel playing from that ride from the Batwing booth in those days... good times. Until everyone left the queue and bee-lined to batwing!

From past experience working there, a "normal" weekday attendance for Movie World was about 2,000 - 2,500. On a weekend was about 3,000 - 4,000. Any more than about 5,000 predicted they would be making sure to have 2 trains on rides where possible. Any more than 7,000 you'd be adding a third HSD show. This is back in 2012 days though before Rivals, Doomsday etc. I think the busiest day capacity wise that they had whilst I was there was something insane like 12,000. I was working Batwing and that was an incredibly long shift (8:45am start... 7:15pm finish, and we closed the queue at 6pm). Was certainly a strange day having Batwing run with 2 loaders and the supervisor. Not something that happens often except maybe on a very busy Fright Nights (which capacity I think was 8,000 a night - if i'm not mistaken). So really, a reduced capacity of 1,500 - 2,000 is not going to break the park as many days of the week that's pretty much normal operations.

I thought it was Downunderland!

I'd love to see Dreamworld get a Hopkins / WhiteWater West style "Super Flume" to replace it. The same builder as Wild West Falls at Movie World. Obviously with a different layout though. Has very good capacity, can have different elements and I think it would be a great fit for the park if done right. It doesn't need to be the tallest or highest or full of gimmicks, but it needs to be a quality family attraction but still thrilling enough to appeal to many people and looking at the various manufacturers it stands out to me personally. Operations wise it's fairly simple as well

I think the theme parks will be open by September at the latest (Unless shit really hits the fan) but as far as Fright Nights etc goes, I would say it's unlikely due to the way things are going. Not that it upsets me in any way, but I'm sure there will be people that will complain and demand compensation with their passes because they aren't getting as much "value" because White Christmas etc gets cancelled and it's an inclusion in their pass so it will be interesting to see if Village offers any compensation or something IF that happens. White Christmas I can see as a "maybe" for going ahead this year, but I think the timing etc for Fright Night's just may be a bit off for this year. Happy to be proven wrong, but right now it's capex that they would be having to spend on mazes etc that they probably don't have to spare right now unless they re-use all the old mazes from previous years. I will admit though, I'm glad to see that the parks appear to still be going ahead with their expansion plans (Dreamworld and Sea World) as I really think having these new attractions opening still will really help get people back once things calm down.

May as well just keep Vortex closed until December now (if they are still building Leviathan) and open the pair of rides up for Xmas holidays together. Double whammy if you ask me. With the park fully closed to guests, it would be easier if you ask me to get a heap of construction done I guess. Here's hoping

Funny thing is, I don't actually think Superman has ever had a cable snap. Back to Scooby though, i've never seen a ride fault so many times (often over the tiniest little things) in a day compared to any other ride when I worked there. It was very hit and miss, and was often a running joke that if Scooby didn't fault at least once a day, it was a good day. However 9 out of 10 times the fault could often be reset or fixed without having to do a full shutdown or evacuation. There was always certain block zones that liked to detect "ghost cars" more than others... but I know shortly after I left there apparently they did some pretty extensive work on the control systems so it's probably a bit more reliable now than it used to be. I still believe it was having a mid-life crisis As far as rides go that NEED to leave, those bloody Speedy Gonzales taxi's! I got so many bruises from that and Taz Cars! In fact... just get rid of the whole kids area basically apart from Road Runner, Pounce and Bounce, Carousel and Driving School and start again would be great I'm sure many ride operators will be thankful.

Funny you should say that about Superman, from having operating it and many of the MW rides it honestly is one of the more reliable rides in the park. It wasn't very common to have ride shutdowns, Scooby and Green Lantern I would say are the 2 least reliable rides in the park (well they were when I worked there) I can't speak too much for Arkham, but when it was Lethal it was a very reliable ride and was very rare to ever see that ride go down. I really hope that whatever is wrong with Arkham is able to be fixed and it has another few years (5) until they can work on what's going to replace it. I'd say the Giant Drop maybe has another few years at the most in it's current incarnation as it's had it's fair share of downtime over the last few years. I would say an upgrade would be more likely though. The Claw would probably have another 10 years in it's lifetime before it would need to look at being replaced. Hot Wheels Sidewinder (or whatever it's going to be called) honestly will likely have a fair amount of time left in it. It's a fairly simple ride as far as mechanics go, and it's not insanely forceful so it wouldn't have too much stress put on it. And for many of it's early years it didn't really operate. I'd say it's got another 10 or so years left in it, and honestly I think it might even outlast the MotoCoaster and not for reliability but because it's a better ride IMO. I even think it MAY outlast BuzzSaw as that thing is a problem child from what I hear. So for Dreamworld, I think the next major rides to go will be: Giant Drop (3-5 years - For a new ride experience) Motocoaster (5-10 years) BuzzSaw (5-10 years) Hot Wheels Sidewinder (10 years or so) Movie World: Arkham Asylum (2-3 years at most, unless they fix all the issues) Scooby Doo (5-10 Years) Superman (10 years - Maybe longer) These are just my predictions, but could be wrong. But I don't think the Sidewinder will be the next Dreamworld ride to go personally, especially if it's getting an overhaul and the way it weaves in with WhiteWater World.

They never listened to me in the past...so not sure if that will change lol

Ride operators (not supervisors) start 15 mins before park opening to do the pre-opening checks. Maintenance does the majority of everything and the ride supervisor starts 45 mins early to make sure everything is okay (For Scooby, one staff member also starts at this time to do a track walk). Obviously things can happen to cause delays, example a fault occurs during these opening checks or whatever. So they won't have cut back the start time on staff. If we really want to talk about village efficiency... all I'm going to say is Superman with no unloader... Running that thing with 3 staff (4 if you include the supervisor) was just a nightmare... Even with crew on their A Game you were lucky to get 10 trains launched in a hour. In the end it didn't save much money cause even on a quiet day we were often there till nearly 5:45pm! Glad they scrapped that horrible procedure, but based on what your saying it could be coming back with a vengeance! May as well cut one of the loaders as well and have the staff member cross the train to check the second half of the harnesses! (In all seriousness, that would never happen thank god...)