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DaptoFunlandGuy

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Everything posted by DaptoFunlandGuy

  1. If WWW is to gain popularity - it needs to offer more than a single burger joint at the front gate - with some more variety too.... Having something straddle both parks would make an outlet like that more viable, and reduce the strain on the burger joint at the front.
  2. to be clear, I'm not necessarily suggesting someone will get fried from playing an electronic game while wet. My thoughts are more towards the longevity of the machines as control surfaces corrode quicker from exposure to chlorinated water. I think the idea - to utilise existing staff to man the gate between the parks - is a good one. But do you put the gate on the WWW side or the DW side? Staff would have to be present at the gate - so what if a machine has a fault that has to be checked by the arcade staff? are people likely to wait at the gate to be let in happily, angrily, or start jumping the fence if noone is there? Does the gate at whichever end you have it prevent the other park guests from visiting the arcade without buzzing in (which would be a pain not worth it - passing up sales if staff aren't at the gate) I think they'd do well to have a dockside style food outlet there - and food counter staff are more likely to be at their register and able to buzz people through than arcade staff (or you can have the gate in the middle with counter service, register and seating on both sides). Plus it gives WWW another food outlet in peak times - because off peak it's closed anyway. Stick some nice brews on tap and you've got a similar opportunity to the bar WnW had next to the wave pool... and you're more likely to make some extra coin off people at that end of the waterpark through food sales than you are taking a tween's pocket money for some basketball.
  3. It's a dry park. Splash pad play isn't the core activity for the area so dealing with a handful of parents with toddlers in swimmers and asking them to change is a lot different to having literally every person in the park soaking wet. I've visited plenty of water parks and can't say arcades have featured highly in any of them.
  4. I'm not sure we want kids in wet swimmers playing with electronic games - but even if that was ok, I don't really want to sit down in a wet seat for a car race either. Arcades do not belong in waterparks.
  5. If they go with a lazy river, that increases capacity immensely. They've already got 4 of their slides SBNO for entire seasons, so anything to increase capacity would be great. The best thing is something like a lazy river is going to be quite disruptive to park overall, but as they're seasonally closed, they can build freely without needing to work around guest accessible areas.
  6. Let's be honest, the AW bounty was a HUSS yawn... installed a year after Wonderland put in a starship of the same name. But if AW puts in a looping starship to replace the old Huss Pirate, i'm booking flights.
  7. Just in case anyone missed the entire site plan posted back in October Both entry and exit pathways are ramped up from street level, while the RideExpress lane does have a short set of stairs up to the grouping area.
  8. Isn't the model T on that rubbery play flooring stuff too? so not quite as hard as blacktop?
  9. I totally get this, and used to film experiences like this frequently until one day I took a step back and realised I rarely watched my own recordings - sure, I might open up the hard drive and trawl back through old stuff every so often - I still like to re-experience them every now and then, and believe me I wish more people had recorded rides we've since lost to history, like at Wonderland, or even LTRR, Bermuda, etc....but online POVs on YouTube now do a much better job, and with much better equipment than I have, so i've stopped holding the camera up so much, and just try to take it all in outside the confines of a tiny screen. I really enjoy the time and experience (and the look on the little guy's face) much more that way - i'd encourage you to put the phone down and just enjoy it - someone else has definitely already done a POV that captures it much better than we ever could!
  10. Yeah no, IMO the first impression is standing quite a bit further back from that. But that's just it - you can't even see the temple for all the jungle that comes before it. The climate changes before you even enter the temple as you delve deeper underneath the jungle canopy. This is a photo opportunity, not a temple. It just feels artificial. And despite DisneySea having a great respect for sight lines, the temple is visible well outside the delta. Just my opinion
  11. I mean, Tokyo is 6 years newer than Anaheim, and OLC do tend to throw way more money into upkeep. Plus they had 6 years to learn their mistakes before building it. I saw Anaheim's version in the first 12 months of opening so i've also seen it working at it's best. Maybe it's just the purist in me preferring the original over the copy - but it's really hard for me to explain the differences (I don't go through cataloguing "oh, snake effect #4 isn't working properly today" and I couldn't tell you scene for scene what the differences are in each either) so it's a certain je ne sais quoi feel between the two - despite having 25 years to 'grow in' - DisneySea's location for the ride just felt artificial. The immersion wasn't there, Whereas walking into adventureland, passing the jungle cruise, walking down the outside queue with boats passing by the lush jungle... the atmosphere before you even enter the interior queue just felt 'different'. The ride being in english helps a lot too.
  12. I enjoyed B&TB, and paid for DPA to ride it a second time (first included in our package). I think it deserves some of the kudos it gets but it isn't all that and a bag of chips. As for trackless darkrides, I still personally prefer Mystic Manor over B&TB. Now that i've done it, I can't say i'd be willing to line up the 3+ hours it gets. I'm not even sure i'd pay the $20 a second time - unless I was visiting with someone who hadn't been - in which case sure - experience it once, but I think people overhype this attraction *just a tad*. I think the setting at Disneyland, nestled amongst the jungle cruise and treehouse tops it. The ride experience itself isn't much different from California - and it's in English. ^This. total dark horse. We didn't ride it until towards the end of our last day - and wish we'd done so earlier so we had more time to go back and do it again It's a fun little coaster and packs a punch but it isn't anything to write home about. The disney setting is cool, and the view near the top is breathtaking - but the experience itself is rough - you're not missing much (though for a 9yo coaster junkie, it delivers that adrenaline fix in amongst the more experiential rides).
  13. I can see everyone else is trying to explain it but feel like it could be made clearer. During two train operation one train faces each way. On departing the station, each train enters the turntable. each train departs the track on the loop-back that returns it to the turntable. The turntable then drops the train onto the final leg back to the station. Each train returns to the station facing exactly the same direction it left. Train 1: Forward>Backward>Forward Train 2: B>F>B During one train operation only one train is on the track. In order to offer the alternating experience, the train must return to the station facing the opposite way to how it departed. In this course, it leaves the station, enters the turntable, departs onto the loop-back circuit into the turntable again, however in this situation the turntable drops the train back onto the loop-back circuit for a second time, before dropping onto the final leg. As it completed an extra loop back, the train returns to the station the opposite way. In one train operation, due to the extra leg completed, the ride time is longer and you get to see the loop-back section from both directions. Train first dispatch: F>B>F>B Train second dispatch: B>F>B>F I feel like if you experienced one train operation first, I can understand why the two train operation experience feels 'less' because the ride time is shorter. For everyone who rode under two-train ops, getting to ride the one-train circuit feels like a 'bonus'.
  14. Let's just be clear here - modifying rivals is never going to happen. The ride is approaching 8 years old. It is still quite popular. The main reasons rides get retrofitted or upgraded are either a defect on opening, or a refresh to drive ridership to an older ride that is losing popularity. There is no reason to throw any money at it at this point as there is unlikely to be any ROI. It would be nice to see the parks invest in capacity and efficiency in their next attraction - however given WOZ, I don't know that they're interested in that. We may have to wait for a change of management \ ownership before the focus shifts.
  15. Some do it without compromising safety because it's possible to do. Your clear inefficiency? it's not really an efficiency because it isn't improving throughput. You need to identify efficiencies in your busiest days, not your quietest ones. This particular suggestion sounds like you're having a sook about having to re-line up. The trouble here is that it breaks 'normal'. When you start doing things outside of normal, you can forget things because they aren't in muscle memory. Did I properly check his restraint before his next re-ride? Can't remember. Whoops. Additionally for your suggestion on loading flow - it also breaks normal. Why? You said yourself "in many cases it's not a safety issue" but in some cases it is. So ops who run different rides have the added complexity of trying to remember which ride they're running to determine when to open the gates? I think it's a shit system, but because a ride \ some rides require the gates to be held, it is better to hold all the gates because then there is only ONE rule to follow. One of the biggest criticisms of the TRRR accident was the number of administrative controls put into place by the park to manage risks, as the operators weren't capable of maintaining so much oversight of the ride system and better controls (elimination as one example) weren't considered first. Adding complexity to a ride ops job description by giving them different procedures for different rides is a sure-fire way for someone to forget which ride they're on and do the wrong thing. The metal detectors don't change. the x rays don't change. the rides do. and this is why your comparison is shit.
  16. Let's not. A very poor assumption at best It is clear by the math \ logic you're using that you have zero clue how to run a theme park. It was a great concept for the ride but like everything else - another set of moving parts for something to go wrong. If it doesn't get it right every time, it's better to turn it off.
  17. it's ok, they'll save a bit of money by replacing them with a cheapo on sale at officeworks like they did to Justice League. It'll be fine.
  18. The thing is, everyone still goes through the metal detector \ body screening. Everyone still has their baggage put through X-ray. The safety controls are still present. The equipment does most of the work. The workers are there to prevent a person proceeding if the equipment flags an issue, and to investigate further. The efficiencies you are asking for would remove safeguards. You can't do up your own seatbelt because the ride operator has to push-pull the harness to confirm you are restrained by the primary locking system rather than the secondary. We've done this to death, and airport security is not the same thing. I look forward to the next page of this thread being you arguing with everyone who takes the time to thoughtfully explain to you why you are wrong, while you ignore both everything they say to you, and every previous discussion you've had on the same topics all because you saw something you thought tangentially proved your point, when it did nothing of the sort. But hey - you keep approaching life with a "i'm never letting anyone tell me....again" because that's a great approach to the world.
  19. Yeah see i've got sligthly different views on the offerings. Physical passes aren't really needed anymore. Everything is on people's phones and they are rarely without them. I'm more than likely to turn up at the gate and realise i've left my pass at home but i'm unlikely to leave my phone at home. Offer it as an extra for people if they like - or perhaps for kids who don't have phones so they can still visit without needing mum's phone at the gate (at an additional cost of course). I'm also apprehensive about Pins. I've seen the Disney elitism from Magic Key holders, and pin traders, and just all round PassHoles, and giving people status pins to wear are likely to be wasteful for people who don't care about them, but loathesome for those who do - I can see visuals of groups walking through the park with a lanyard full of "X year member" or "Platinum Gold Super Shiny Status" pins and using that as some sort of status symbol that makes them better than the average punter. I don't mind special edition pins to commemorate things - "i rode king claw first" and such, but the pins kind of hit the same way the Wizard of Oz coin did. Except the pins are wearable and will be obnoxiously brandished by the park tragics who collect them for status (and the same thing goes for the proposed 'points' earning system too. ) On the contrary, they've been rock bottom single priced passes for a while now. VIllage moved away from that system a few years ago, and while Dreamworld has been slowly creeping the price up it has still been the 'bargain' cheap priced pass - which it should have been given the poor cousin offering the park has had for so long. The opening of Rivertown signals the change in the offering. It's about time they tiered their offer. The cheaper guests will still buy the basic pass, while those who want a little more can pay more for it - this will let them diversify what they offer which in turn will let them target their future offers based on the tier of membership taken up. It lets them take the price up for the full pass while keeping a cheaper option for those who want less. Eg: I've never been to skypoint, but i've always wanted to. I'll be disappointed if they strip it out of the pass, and i'd be likely to buy the pass that included it just so I could go if I wanted to. When we travel we tend to buy the upcharge fastpass or VIP offering just because we don't want our day to be spent in lines. While we have dreamworld passes, we visit infrequently, so if i'm making the trip to coomera, i'm probably going to invest in whatever makes the day better - i'd like to see them introduce the old Village VIP GOLD offer (that they killed off 3 months into the program without refunding anyone) - to open the park early for shiny members and open 1 or 2 rides those days just for those members. THAT i'd pay for.
  20. spare trains for most full size multi-carriage coasters cost well over $1 Million. While I don't have the exact costs, if we assume even $1M per train, for a coaster like rivals, 3 trains is pretty much 10% of the budget - and the $30-odd million pricetag given for rivals was shocking to most enthusiasts who hadn't seen a park blow such a wad on a ride in a very long time. I can imagine it stretched the budget - especially since the original ride was on a lease arrangement, so money was tight, and blowing another million on a third train that had no place in the ride footprint just seems a little overkill. If you've got the space, the money, the ability to run all three in your busiest times, the extra transfer and storage track to have them all within the footprint - and above all, the attendance and earnings to justify it - then sure. Thats why those big overseas parks run multiple trains - because they have the money to do so.
  21. They're also considering a tiered access pass, which is the logical next step for their pass program
  22. I mean it's not like a major world changing event happened less than 12 months after that that may have seen some organisations cancel future investment plans...
  23. There was a time when I would have said that Bikash's departure from Village would be an opportunity to celebrate. I don't know his reasons or his terms, so unsure how Clark and the rest of the leadership team feel about this - but I don't think Bikash is the only person for whom responsibility for the current state of Village should rest. However he departed, the fact that we find out from his personal statement, and a media article, rather than a statement by the company \ park outlining his legacy and also his replacement only goes further to make me feel all is not well at Village Roadshow.
  24. It doesn't require admission, has its own, separate website, and is outside the park fence. I'm drawing attention to the wishy washy rules. I still stand by my previous statement
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