Spotty

Sky Voyager running 2 out of the 6 cars isn't the end of the world. Often when it's off peak they will only run the lower level instead of the top level. One of the perks I guess of the ride gondola's being independent is that if one of them faults (depending on the fault) the rest of the ride can still operate. Either way hopefully it's fixed soon

Yikes... the whole watch breaking thing seems like total BS that it happened. If that had been me as the staff member I would have been more than happy to put it in the basket that glasses etc go in. A watch is normally worn on a wrist, so the fact that it broke is NOT the guests fault at all. Sadly seems like the operator was either on a power trip or having a very bad day. Sadly it's becoming more and more frequent from what I have heard from friends who have visited the properties in the last few months. I really do hope management reads these sort of things and takes a long hard look about what its doing to their brand before it's too late...

Ah yes... Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster, Next, Next Gen. As trashy as it was for a while, I kinda did like "Shed: The ride" as something a little bit different lol

In before Jungle Rush opens first...

I was taking about the original mirrors... not the train wreck that next gen was. There was only ONE good thing that came out of next gen, and that was the upgrade to the laser show but other than that... yeah no.

Before Atlantis opened I would have said yes to this but Movie World -really- needs the capacity boost (even if it's a small boost) right now. I think Sea World actually has one of the more rounded attractions lists for the Gold Coast parks right now. That's assuming that Trident is actually open...

Thing is... the Mirrors actually work well, as it causes the lights to bounce off it and fill the room up more. Scooby opened with just a simple green and red laser set up, smoke machines and mirrors and it worked incredibly well.

I don't think it will be a simulator, purely because running a ride like that requires lots of staff... and that is something that Village really doesn't like spending money on. As far as timelines go, I'd say they will keep Doomsday till 2026 which is when it comes up to its 10 year strip down. If they decide to keep it after that, they are honestly incredibly stupid. As much as a Gyro Swing would be a good fit (size wise) for the area, I really hope they don't go down that route however another flat ride is really needed purely for the capacity and for something that isn't a roller coaster. I don't think Wild West Fall's days are numbered just yet as someone mentioned, but maybe when it's time for the next 10 year rebuild they may decide to go with something new in that space. Really, I think what Movie World needs to round out the park is another 2-3 flat rides, a decent family high capacity ride (Potentially a replacement for JL in 5-10 years), an overhaul of the kids rides and another thrill coaster to replace Green Lantern when the time comes. For coasters they have most of the categories filled (Thrill: DC Rivals, Superman, Green Lantern and Flash. Family: Scooby, Wizard of Oz coasters, Kids: Road Runner).

They wouldn't build another ride themed to a ride they just replaced. That would just be silly

I'd say Doomsday is on its last legs, given it can not operate the way it's meant to without being even more of a problem than it is. I'd say Green Lantern's days are numbered as well, but not to the extent of Doomsday. I'd say once Scooby, WOO and Flash opens, they will look at a replacement for Doomsday that will take up that space and the space that the Showcase takes up as that will be able to connect the western area to the Wizard of Oz / Superman area quite nicely. Once that is done, I'd say Green Lantern or maybe Superman will be the next ride to go. I only say Superman because the Hydraulic Launch coasters are harder to get parts. Really I'd say Doomsday has 2 - 3 years tops (maybe even less) and Green Lantern has 3-5 years left in her.

Doubt it very much so, S+S really left a sour taste in the park's mouth. I doubt Dreamworld will touch them either given that the current management team were at Movie World when those rides were brought.

I will also tell you right now Village will not work with S+S again after all the issues they have had with Green Lantern. Even Batwing had lots of issues when it first opened up. As much as I'd love a free spin and I think it would be a great replacement, I don't see it happening. The only way it "might" happen would be S+S giving them a very big discount due to all the issues it's had but I doubt it.

That would work in theory... if Intamin still supported the model. They basically don't really want anything to do with the Hydraulic launches anymore, as seen with TTD2 and the one going to Playland in Canada. It's a shame as the smaller ones are actually fairly reliable, with Superman not really having any major downtime issues in its lifetime. I don't see Village wanting to spend any major money on the ride system in its current incarnation. I'd say in the next 5-10 years (once it hits 20 years, like Scooby, West and Road Runner) if they decide to keep Superman around it may get a similar LSM conversion like the other Hydraulic's are having. it's one of the older hydraulic launches too, with only Xcelerator, Storm Runner, Rita, Kannoen (now in the US) and Kingda Ka being older than it. I'd say Superman likely would only have a few more years before Village has to decide what to do with it. I'd say after Wizard of Oz and Scooby re-open's, Superman will be the next ride they really look into its future with. Unless they finally decide to put Doomsday or GL out of its misery. At least Green Lantern is a good ride, when it works.

The ride can, as long as the seatbelts are undone as the ride detects if the seatbelts are open or not. If the train comes into the load platform with a seatbelt done up the seat can not be used as the system basically has a heart attack if it's opened up again. No idea why it does this, but yeah... really annoying if the unloader forgets to undo a empty seat and it comes into the load station locked... especially if the group is already sorted.

It wasn't too bad at Wet n Wild. It was just closed for half the year because the whole park was pretty much dead... although having water blasting at it constantly in its earlier years probably didn't help it too much. The SurfRider models in general don't seem to have many reliability issues, and anything's better than Doomsday.

Not sure if they still do it, but back in the 2000's Village Roadshow had what was called a "Shining star" program. If good feedback was received about a staff member, or a supervisor noticed something out of the ordinary you would be given one. You could accrue them over the year towards prizes and whoever got the most in a year actually got a pretty decent prize. One of the years the winner got a 7 night cruise for 2 people. One of the really good ones I received was a guest provided feedback about me on an attraction to guest services. A few days later I got the feedback in writing from the attractions supervisor as well as a thank you note from John Menzies (CEO at the time) as well as 2 of these "shining stars" and a $50 voucher for lunch in the staff cafe (meals were about $3.00 back then, so that was a decent amount of lunches). Little things like that really did boost morale, but I'm not sure if this is still done. Dreamworld used to have a similar thing called "dream dollars" which would randomly be given to guests coming into the park. They were encouraged to hand them to staff members who went above and beyond. Similar thing, you collect them to trade in for prizes.

If I had $1 for each time someone tried to do that when I worked at MW... I'd be rich. And if I got $1 for each time I spotted someone trying to do it... and then made them leave the line and put it in a locker and then re-join the line... I'd be even richer lol. Especially if I was at Superman entry and they tried to tell me they had nothing in their pockets... and then I got switched to load / sort and after they waited an hour and they ended up with something in their pockets... you can bet I wasn't letting them come back to the front of the line once they had given it to a non rider or in a locker. "I told you so..."

I can confirm there are procedures in place for sensitive topics such as this. For rides with an entry host, the entry host would generally explain to them the rules for each ride. Otherwise the operator would. The general rule of thumb is that it needs to be tucked in if non removable (hijab etc). However if it is unable to be tucked in and is deemed too long or too much of a risk they will be declined the option to ride. It's very uncommon for an operator to reject a rider for this, and I only personally had to do it twice as it was an exceptionally long one and the guest refused to even tuck it in or secure it in a way that wasn't a risk. The operators will do what they can to ensure guest comfort as well as safety is ensured but sometimes it's just not possible. If it's anything around the neck it's a no go, but for the most part Hijabs, turbans and burka's tend to be okay as they are around the head mores and less likely to get lodged in a wheel assembly. A scarf 100% shouldn't have been permitted on the ride though, but without actually knowing exactly what kind of scarf it was or the full circumstances it's hard to really say what happened. But at the end of the day, the operators are only human and sometimes things do get missed. At least in the end it was handled well and no one was hurt.

I can tell you right now 10 years ago a 2 hour line for Superman Escape during peak time was pretty much un-heard of. Unless the ride was running 1 train for whatever reason. When I was working there the line would maybe max out at 75 mins with a full queue building. However staffing was much better back then (2 loaders, 1 unloader, entry host and a sorter). It also helped having decent supervisors and staff to work with that actually encouraged and rewarded staff to increase efficiency (gift vouchers for the crew that could get the most numbers through a ride in a day, as well as other challenges). Oh how the times seem to have changed. I still remember I think the record that we got on Superman when I was working was on a fright nights with 2 trains was 32 dispatches in a hour and each train was fully loaded which is 640 a hour. You'd probably be lucky to get 20 - 25 dispatches a hour with 2 trains these days now. The rides are more than capable of the capacity, it's just the staff / management don't seem to have any sense of urgency. Ride reliability would play a -small- party in dispatch times but not much. I'm not even going think about the numbers that Wild West Falls could pump through with a good crew before the ride was butchered. (approx 800 a hour with 13 boats and a sorter). Scooby was similar too. I really hope that management wake up and realise how bad things are getting and do something about it sooner than later.

Some of the fairground models are alright (like the Zamperla one that is often seen at the major shows). The biggest issue was they went with SBF Visa... not exactly the best manufacturer around.

Given this was from 2019... fairly sure a lot of this stuff was actually cancelled.

That's really strange that there was no entry host at the entrance. They are meant to have one at all times unless they were behind the bench where the CCTV monitor was. Very odd.

Entry host didn't do their job then lol. Only thing that's meant to go through the unload station is mobility aids etc. Anything too big to sit in the car shouldn't be let past the entry host at all.

It didn't really reach the full 160kph much after the mid 2000's. It certainly was not going the full height for pretty much its whole life as Tower of Terror 2. It only ever really made it the full way up the tower if the car was only half filled, but even then it was very uncommon.

Damn it haha. Guess my time as a ride op made me too powerful lol