webslave

I do recall that one, but figured there must be more of a pattern.

So now I'm curious - where does Huss's negative reputation come from? Are there any particular examples?

Actually, not as different as you may think. Structural integrity being a given for doing so it would not be entirely unexpected in such a circumstance to similarly put up temporary metal fencing and leave it as-is in the interim. Yes, if they hadn't opened people would be pissed about long lines due to two popular rides being down. No question. This is the other side of that. The solution? Don't get in that situation in the first place.

Looks to me like MW shit the bed on DD and ran over time on SDSC's work and were left with the choice to make safe and re-open or to keep it shut (particularly given it's unlikely it would have been getting worked on between Christmas and New Year, so you're not losing work days). I'm thinking if I were a regular punter I wouldn't be feeling too safe travelling through the ride given I'd imagine the quality of finish of the surrounds in areas I can see is one of the cues I'd take as to the overall quality of the park's work in areas I can't see. I understand the argument for running the ride on the basis that it's "technically functional" and you're in your busiest period of the year, but bugger me this is a new one. You wouldn't run a dark ride in a half-burned out building just because the track is clear. You wouldn't run a set of dodgem cars with their shell casings removed just because they still go. It's the wrong message to send your guests about what's important to you, and where you feel your quality standard is set.

The part that makes you consider that it could be permanent is that part you don't see in the photo - the attitude of park management (which at a guess is why Slick said what he did). You could easily take the view of "Well, everything there is pretty easily moved", but at the same time there's got to be a reason it was put there in the first place. Why bother putting something so shitty and easily moved in-place if you were planning on doing the job properly? I'd call it an each way bet.

Did the outdoor course at King Tutt's recently for the first time. I generally found it to be in poor repair. 2/5.

Alex is right. Unlike the old cliche we do in fact put a price on a human life every single day.

Absolutely. Nothing like playing the life-long victim despite causing your own shit.

No-no you guys, serzzz, Dreamworld is failinggg. It's because they are zomg mur-dilly-urdlers, amirite? Anyone? No? *pop*

I was up there a couple of weeks ago with my young son and my wife. We would not have attended Dreamworld had we been up there at the moment instead, purely on the basis that half the park is still shut. Were it open we would be attending in preference to the rest of the VRTP line-up.

It just goes to prove my theory from this post: POP returns under cover of anonymity - no baggage from the old account, and literally within a week everyone hates the new account and has worked out who it is to boot. Still not time to ask "Maybe it's me?" yet, POP?

Ugh. Here's an idea; stop clicking the 'start new topic' button.

I reckon you need to dig out an old copy of RCT or something...

Also sounds like issues that would not have simply become an issue recently, and probably passed an audit/inspection before.

Sadly it's happened before as you would well know. An operator who, albeit well-intentioned, ducks into the envelope to collect a lost personal item, for example. Another real-world example I believe was to cover speakers to protect them from rain. It would be great if we could rely solely upon training for people to do what they are meant to do, but the sad reality as you well know is that we can not.

If they are paying 0.97% on credit card transactions I'd suggest someone wants to look for a new job, given I can get a rate like that at a much lower volume...

Quite right. I had checked those out subsequently and completely understand. I guess I was moreso pointing out that the stuff not running was all very visible/front of park - Aqua Racers included.

I found the constant nickel and diming for surcharges at the parks particularly galling given the prices they demand, and also given the surcharges do not represent the reality of the costs of acceptance to the business.

Yeah, we got that a few times but I expected that. I dunno, it just all seemed very... sparse(?) in the back end.

I spent some time at WNW this week having not visited in a few years, and my observations were (and I know I'll be repeating others); - If you're there on your own there's a lot you're going to struggle to be able to do. Quite restrictive. - The river rapids body slides are badly needed (seriously, what's with going to a water park and spending all of your time out of the water?), but some of those section joins need some work. - Hauling rafts to the top of most of these slides, frankly, sucks. - It felt like quite a few bits of the park appeared to be SBNO - the skycoaster, flow rider, what I assume are ziplines, all of Mammoth Falls - pretty visible stuff. I'm sure there's really good reasons - but I'm just telling it like it looks. - The tubes at Calypso need some love. Many are under-inflated, or just in very poor visual condition. - The Whirlpool Springs thing needs to be torn up - it looks bloody awful. All of the grout and tiles are badly discoloured, the surface around the spas is badly chipped and missing in many places which leads me to believe it's not been run in the non-spa configuration in some time, and entrance and exit to it is a pain in the arse, and there is no shade. Depressing stuff. - If you assume you're a single rider and you're at the Aqualoop you will need to walk across very hot and rough brick path to Mach 5, or to the Surfrider, or to Calypso in order to find something you can participate in. It was bloody awful. - The surfrider is a good ride for what it is, but badly misses the water effects. It also seems particularly temperamental. - There's bugger-all choice of lunch options at this park. - The Tornado looks pretty filthy, although I'm sure it's just weathering. - The kids area was okay, and I thought the miniature slides were a nice touch, until I realised that parents can't take their kids on any of the body slides, and the raft slides have a not-inconsiderable height requirement to them. The water play structure is almost identical (with slightly less options added) to the one at Paradise Resort in Surfers. - The wrist-band system for lockers is a pain in the arse if you're sharing a locker with anyone, for example your spouse. Maybe I've outgrown WNW in my later years? All I know is I don't remember ever being as dry at a water park as I was on this visit. There didn't feel like there was a lot for me to do for the day, and by midday I was too sore in the feet to want to walk around any more.

Something that interested me this week was watching the TX3 bus still going by, and more than that - seeing people on it. Online says it won't stop at Dreamworld, but will stop at MW and WNW? Seems strange.

Rode this on Monday. The peppers ghost at the first turntable seemed significantly improved, but the rest of it was pretty meh. The ghost town was pretty depressing - looked like not much was working there. I thought I remembered a video clip at the top of the final drop but must have been mistaken.

Just on that, I recall reading somewhere on the internet an in-depth post about the operation and condition of the pumps at WS, particularly the issues with the pump casings becoming porous throughout their life span and allowing the windings on the pumps to become wet. As I recall from the post this required a pump maintainer to come and crane the pumps out of their casings to dry out. If I remember correctly it also detailed how due to the parlous state of the pumps they frequently ran one pump down and had techs had been sent into the channel to board up the sides of the guide channel to direct more of the flow through there, and remove obstruction elements on the bottom of the channel to cope with the lower flow. Would anyone know whether this post still exists? It was an interesting read.

I also tend to agree, which is why I found the immediate appearance of the AWU rep in the media to be a bit on-the-nose. I think if anyone believes we will find a singular cause for this incident they are dreaming. It's rare for a single cause to lead to something like this, instead you'll find a combination of unlikely factors creates a highly unlikely outcome. Singular cause a pump failure? No, because the pump will have failed before without incident. Singular cause a sensor failure? It would be highly irresponsible to design a ride system that could not account for a single sensor failure. Staff member failing to correctly discharge their duties? For the most part ride systems are designed to account for an operator becoming incapacitated. That of course says nothing for situations that have never been conceived before, but there are some elements that I can only assume have been. For example, I'd have said; Likelihood of risk to life in the event of a pump failure; I'd have said this one was highly unlikely. Likelihood of risk of fatal drowning in the event of immersion in water channel; high. Likelihood of risk of fatal injury in the event of patron separation from raft on conveyor lift; high. Likelihood of risk of raft roll-over in the event of collision with another raft; low. Likelihood of risk of raft roll-over in the event of collision with object fouling water channel; moderate. Now, start to combine a couple of those lower risks and you have some scenarios that perhaps you wouldn't ordinarily consider. For example; what if you had a pump failure, which caused a collision with another raft causing a roll-over in the vicinity of the conveyor lift? All of a sudden your highly unlikely risk is combined with a low risk and a high risk. That's not to say you couldn't manage most or all of these risks to a level that you're comfortable with (since it's not practical to completely remove them in many cases).

The facts in isolation are true, but I get the feeling you think they suggest a conclusion that they don't.