DaptoFunlandGuy

The "bumpiness" of a woodie is part of it's charm, however they shouldn't be backbreakers either. Having said that one of the best coasters I have been on was Colossus in SFMM, and I found it remarkably smooth, especially given its age. Stef I am getting the impression that you, like a lot of people (and this isn't a bad thing) haven't experienced a lot of woodies, and might only be limited in your experiences to coasters such as Bush Beast or Beastie, which, while a pretty standard PTC coaster, was never the best of their work, worldwide. Woodies are in their nature meant to feel a little out of control, but the rides i've had overseas on some woodies are smoother than a lot of steel coasters i've ridden. On your other point, woodies can invert, so lets leave it at that. Cadboy, I've decided since you keep asking the question, I will answer you as well - Yes I do, Yes it does, yep, yep, yep & Yep. hope this satisfies your queries.

That just makes me feel old - we used to play spot the bush beast - when coming down Wallgrove road (before the widened it that is, of course then - the trees were much lower, and bush beast really was the highest thing in the park) Someone already has. I can't bother searching at the moment, but you can search the forums for "facebook article" or else i'm sure someone helpful who can be bothered (i'm looking at you Gazza) will probably link it up when they read this. Otherwise the facebook group is called "can we get 100,000 people who want a themepark in western sydney" or something ridiculously impossible like that.

An expedient education in proper english.

I don't need to speculate - what did they say when they announced V8 redline was going in ocean parade? they said they were putting it in the same place as all the other standalones so that it was easy to open "a section" of the park at night for functions etc. Add in the laser tag, consider a bowling alley.... expand your on-license liquor abilities, and you're suddenly in a position to offer nighttime entertainment to compete with AOS... No speculation required paul, they've been talking that way for a while.

Also - the episode is a three part episode - so he covers three different "really big things". Kingda Ka is first, then they cover the giant hadron collider, and then its off to a massive waterpark somewhere in the US.... (didn't catch the name, but it looked good)

Does that mean Klassen is doc brown - or Don? ROFL

Not sure if this is a new one, or just one that i've missed in the past. Really Big Things with Matt Rogers. Foxtel Digital Channel 610 - Discovery. 3:30am Thursday 5th March. Kingda Ka. I couldn't be bothered getting synopsis or checking if it repeats again, but i just caught half of it about an hour ago - worth the watch, especially those who don't know the intricate workings of the hydraulic launched accelerators. A lot of other cool details about Kingda Ka are also shown.

No - not slowed down - but you know those people who drive at 80 in the far right-hand lane on the motorway.... same thing. They revel in things that don't go fast enough.

Honestly I think the Q150 passes might not make too much of a difference to overal budgetary figures, unless they cut back on everything - such as dive in movies and the like. The reason is that while they have generated some short term income that they might not have gotten otherwise, it is at a massive discount. I was just about to buy an annual pass to all three parks, so by offering this to me, they've actually missed out on some money this financial year. In theory, guests will buy food and beverage, and merchandise, propping up income streams. In practise, repeated visits to the park mean that less purchases will be made per capita, as each person coming through is more likely to have "been there, done that" and with a Q150 pass, there is nothing to stop you leaving the park for food \ carpark picnic before coming back in. In these economic times, guests might buy the Q150 where it works out cheap entertainment for 4 months, but in reality, the additional spend is unlikely to be high. No efforts are being made by WVTP to cater for the additional guests in the park. Attractions are closed for maintenance as per their usual schedule, so there are less rides open, and the rides that are operating are running on off peak scheduling, meaning those with multiple operator and multiple train options are not being utilised where possible - eg: SE, Lethal, JR etc. The most recent visits i've made to SW and MW have disappointed me - with queues impossibly long (ok - so not boxing day long, but still long), and yet the staffing and capacity of the attractions is not increased to cope with the demand. This is beneficial to the park, as with more guests in the park, and less overheads on staff wages, and attraction maintenance (as opposed to the costs of operating when there are two trains instead of one), the park is running on off-peak staffing, and attracting on-peak guest levels, so therefore technically saving money. The reality of this will result in an overall negative opinion of the parks by the park-goers. They are not going to remember that they got a solid 120+ days worth of entry into all 3 parks for the cost of a single day entry... they will only remember how long the queues are, how long they waited, and how poorly managed the day was.

I think don's point in posting was that there was already a thread somewhere that had discussed this already.... not sure if it was a specific thread created for the purpose though, or if it was one of the random \ chit chat threads.

Perhaps a better answer would be that the claw used to exit via that operator booth on the other side. I can't seem to recall a booth on the other side of the track at tower though.... or are you talking about GD? in which case it would be if one side isn't operating, the despatcher can sit on the side that IS operating. A lot of attractions are out there that are designed for two op booths, one for entry and one for exit. Entry is normally the main control, and exit would have either duplicate controls, or at worst case, an e-stop button. Usually you will find rides are constructed with these booths because they are the most efficient method of operation, getting maximum people on and off as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, most parks (such as dreamworld) opt to only use the one gate after the "debut peak" is over, and you exit through the same gate that you entered (or at least right next to it). This reduces the number of staff required, and therefore the cost of running the ride.

I would think the rotation would stay with WWF also, I wouldn't presume it would rotate with other attractions, given the custom uniform...

Pretty sure I did say that.... Yep, I did.... SO are you running them high availability \ load balancing? or is the data based on each different and separate from the other.

Painful you say? Size for Size and Op for Op, I reckon Wonderland had it over Dreamworld in that area, and they managed rotational staffing quite easily. It's quite simple - you group your like-skilled rides together, and when a new guy starts, he trains up on all of those.... say 3 rides. Do your time and move up to a higher rotational. You don't get skilled in ONE ride, you get skilled in 3 at a time, and spend morning on one, midday rush on the next, and afternoon shift on the last one. One person to do breaks for all three. Now before I get my head bitten off about how you can't learn more than one at a time, you can, you simply don't "fly solo" on the more technical ones for a few weeks, and you "buddy" with an experienced op until you can be confident, and competent in them to go your own. Rotational staffing is above all else a safety thing. A staff member doing the same thing all day is going to get bored, lose interest, and stop paying attention. Particularly on amusement rides, that is a dangerous mix. On some of the bigger rides I know that where multi-staffing was in play, each staff member would rotate through the positions, loader, unloader, despatcher, etc, and on the smaller rides, would rotate through the rides. It doesn't matter how you try and justify it, Dreamworld running the same Op on the same ride all day is dangerous, unsafe, and a fatality waiting to happen.

I love the (presumably) google search bar in the top right - "do to take a screenshot". CTRL-SHIFT-PRINT SCREEN (or PRT SC) then paste into paint (or other imaging program). Must admit, one of them was me. I originally messaged Michael (pin) but got no response, then about 5 minutes after I found out what was going on, Michael messaged me asking me what was happening... Its funny to see how many people suffered withdrawals during the downtime. I came online all full of inspiration to write my views on HWSD and JR now that I had experienced both, and couldn't, and now i've lost the inspiration. Richard, when you say "co-located", does this mean you're now running two servers at different data centres hosting the same stuff? or did I read that wrong?

Well, If you take a look at Penrith Whitewater (the site of the Sydney 2000 Olympics kayak and slalom events), the start of the course is higher than the finish - the same as Snowy River Rampage. Of course, the height is nowhere near that which could be gained through a mountain, but all the better - more drops, thrills, spills... just need some darn good pumps for it... RCT3 allows the construction of very high rapids, with multiple drops. I can't think of it whether it's Magic mountain or knotts, but there is one rapid ride i recall in the states that ended with a MASSIVE drop that absolutely saturated a bridge that went over the top of it - it also featured in numerous 1980's sitcoms... and from memory, while not a "mountain" it meandered over a lot of up-and-down terrain. Theres obvious benefits - hiding the WWF side that is unthemed, providing readily accessible water supplies for both rides, as well as irrigation water in times of severe restriction (I noticed in my visits to both sea world and movie world that the standing water levels on many attractions - flume, bermuda, WWF, all were at least 12 inches lower than the "bedded in" water marks. is this an attempt at water saving, or is it just evaporation that hasn't been topped up? Rapids rides are also extremely popular in high temperatures, and would swallow a large number of guests for very little manpower (I think snowy ran on 2 staff at one stage, although it was originally planned for about 12. WWF runs on 3 staff, and look how big that is?). Construction cost is cheap, in terms of concrete channels, and for every metre length of concrete channel, you're adding time to the ride, which allows you to add more gondolas, which allows more people, which alleviates pressure on the rest of the park's attractions, particularly in hot weather.

good to know... i'll make sure i'm well informed for when it happens....

Well, if you want to ride everything, I would recommend a Q4U might be in order - so that $70 just went up

It is certainly possible for a forum membership to be "IP Banned". It's not because we're "too nice" but simply because most people work on dynamic IP addresses. THe IP changes everytime the connection is reset, so it would be impossible to IP Ban someone unless they had a static IP... unless of course you ban an entire range, meaning there would be numerous people who use the same ISP that would also be unable to use the forums. Of course I am speaking only from my own knowledge, and while I say "we're", I of course do not intend to speak on behalf of the site's leadership... personally, they're all a bunch of........ Just joking guys.

Then you are in a very similar situation to me Bussy. I fail to see why those who have posted on here, as well as messaging me in private cannot understand the concept of non disclosure - crikey - a WVTP staff member says "I can't say anymore" and we leave it at that, but god forbid if it is a violation of privacy laws, national privacy principles or regulations, and suddenly its a big deal I why I won't say. Bussy, plain and simple, while the acts do not specify Wonderland (obviously) the sections of the act preventing me from disclosing are in themselves very specific as to the nature of them. This in itself would be enough for anyone with half a brain to work out what the reasons were, and therefore, I cannot say.

Or for less than double that, get into all 3 WVTP parks as many times as you want before 30/6! I'm not saying anything against you Rival, but isn't it funny how dreamworld always seem to come up with something that WVTP have already done, only, not done as well, and not as good a value?

You make a pretty good point Bussy, but unfortunately, if I got any more specific as to which of the NPP's, privacy regulations or sections of the act itself were involved, it would kind of give it away.

Guys, seriously, we all know that with some careful planning over the last 5 years, Doc Brown has been hiding among us, even since the days of total thrills..... It's time to unmask him for who he truly is... Doc Brown is ...... GAZZA - it's just something about the way he comments on most topics, and always has something to say. He disguises his own flaws by pointing out those of people around him.... but I have to say it is incredibly genius to think that Doc Brown went back in time 5 years, just to create Gazza, including all those well thought out drawings, and more posts than anyone... just to fool us into thinking that Gazza was a real separate person, instead of another account created by the same guy. Boy were we fooled.....

This is the reason why I cannot discuss it

Well as a person "living" in QLD, who will never be a "Queenslander", and formerly from NSW, I know what you mean. I will say that while the information that has been thrown around in the last 4 years is certainly compelling, the reasons - ALL the reasons given by everyone and anyone as to the closure of Wonderland are completely false. There was another reason for it's closure which I cannot disclose, but do not believe everything you hear.