franky
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Posts
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Posts posted by franky
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14 minutes ago, aaronm said:
Load op was also grouping, and it was taking longer to group people than actually seat them and check restraints
Honest question, is the op not allowed to leave their place in the station while the ride is in motion?
My view would be after the ride dispatches they could go organise the next batch of riders, but it seemed like they waited for the train to park back in loading before they went to organise the next group.
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45 minutes ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:
I think the original point I was trying to make is that Superman would never hit those dispatch numbers. Ops that fast in an Australian park? laughable.
If they were Intamin's published riders per hour, then based on what I've seen from the Problematic Roller Coaster series, they're not right in any park.
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11 minutes ago, Slick said:
I'm also placing some bets that the "TOWER OF TERROR" letters will be painted over - pretty sure they're welded in place from the factory.
I'm with you, but I'd imagine the lettering would only be tack welded on, so nothing an angle grinder wouldn't fix. All a matter of time and effort though.
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Zoom in on the image, it's right at the extent of the curve between the two supports. You can see where the wear marks on the surface of the track have been covered.
Its also a slightly more purple shade of purple (as opposed to pink).
I hope if this is the colour their using that they DO paint it all, it's clearly a different shade to me, and it'll be patchy as hell of they don't paint over the existing colour, or, get the repaint colour right.
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Just on the subject of ticket sales and expected attendance, they really don't have a guaranteed way of knowing this based only on ticket sales alone. When I bought tickets, I was not expected to tell them what day(s) I was planning on attending, I just had 12 months to use them.
My tickets were originally purchased as a Christmas gift for 2021. We ended up getting a credit and re-buying them shortly before our Easter trip. Now, we would be on the 'expected attendance' list with our purchase, but there would have been a cohort of people with passes purchased sometime in the last 12 months that were waiting for their right time to attend, along with people like me that bought them just before, or at the gate.
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3 minutes ago, Rivals said:
With Super Ripper, i’ve heard normally everyone flies around the course, maybe it’s just not like that for everyone or perhaps the water pressure isn’t as high (not a waterslide expert so just guessing that could be why)
Super ripper is the purple slide yeah?
While standing on the tower waiting for Kaboom we noticed a few flying down the slide, and some just crawling. Maybe clothing is a factor?
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1 hour ago, Dom said:
I completely get your side of things and I appreciate your insight into that side of the argument. I guess I see it as a 'Guns don't kill people; people kill people.' sort of argument, but then again I may be comparing apples to oranges with that sort of argument.
No I agree with you, there is still a human (humans?) factor to be considered in all of this, but at the end of the investigation, was any person(s) in particular held responsible? Or was it the business as a whole? When looking at WHS/Financial responsibilities, there's always a personal liability under your role, as well as a business responsibility - both have the potential to cop a fine/penalty if a breach is made. In the US families of the Sandy Hook victims recently settled with Remington... so in a way, I guess guns do kill people
1 hour ago, joz said:Never knew that was an actual thing. Anecdotally I've heard of the 'Grandad's old axe, it's only had 2 new heads and 4 new handles'. Legally though, the business entity of Dreamworld still exists as it did no matter how many bodies have come and gone since 2016.
6 minutes ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:then it stands to reason that it deserves the perception to change.
The park DID kill people. the park IS responsible for the incident and the conditions that lead to it, but THAT park is not the park that it is today.
I completely agree, but I'm talking about public perception, and not that of enthusiasts that understand the changes that have been made. See also, ride stoppage 'news' where people were 'frightened for their lives' while stuck on a lift hill. Here we all know that there is no danger to them, but people that don't know any better don't.
I remember the news video with Greg still in the COO role announcing the closure of TOT2, specifically talking about how there's nothing unsafe about TOT2, it's just time for it to be retired. Along with what happened, I don't necessarily blame anyone for questioning *why* a lot of long standing attractions at Dreamworld are suddenly being removed... was it a result of them being unsafe? (Note that question was rhetorical, we all know this not to be the case, again, public perception).
13 minutes ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:All these rides are 'understandable' in context. The only issue is they happened all at once, but better to wipe the board clean and start fresh with a new team than to continue trying to band-aid things to keep them running and avoid the major capital expenditure the park desperately needs.
Understandable to those with an understanding of theme park ride life cycles
While standing in both DC Rivals and Superman escape lines I heard people asking what that grey coaster was. I mentioned to one that it used to be Arkham Asylum/Lethal Weapon but it's been decommissioned, to which they replied 'Oh, it seems unusual that they'd decommission a ride', to which I though, yeah, but really no.
23 minutes ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:All said and done, if Ardent were to sell to a new owner, even if the shareholders and management stayed much the same, it'd probably be an enormous step in convincing people things had "changed" even though they have already.
I personally think that ship has sailed. The opportunity for a ownership change / rebrand to save face has well and truly passed, and they've instead decided to double down fixing their reputation, invoking nostalgia of pre 2016 times, moving past the post 2016 ride removals while also acknowledging their history, embracing it and moving forward.
Hopefully Dreamworld have finished their 'consolidation' phase and can now work toward re-expanding again, in a controlled and calculated way!
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2 hours ago, Dom said:
The park didn't do anything wrong; the negligence came from the people in charge, a vast of majority of which are long gone.
I sound argumentative here but I'm not trying to be. People in positions shouldn't matter, the business as a whole should have policies and procedures in place to govern these matters. Dreamworld as a business is still responsible, regardless of who is in what position at the time.
I actual felt a little bad for Dreamworld on our visit last week, having come from the village parks and seeing how jam packed the were with guests and with multiple hour waits for rides, and then going to Dreamworld where everything was practically a walk on in a busy holiday period. It was good to see some positive reviews however about peoples experiences in Dreamworld compared to the village parks. However reading through some of these comments people are still either worried about safety following the incident, or salty about the number of attractions that have been removed in recent years (screenshots below are from a ST POV video on youtube).
Even with the addition of Steel Taipan the first thing people seem to do is compare it to DC Rivals, so unless they can manage to better VRTP in some aspect, they're always going to be the poor relative.
So, in my opinion, DW still have two main issues to content with currently: the fallout of 2016, and the fallout of them cleaning up their act, which unfortunately has meant the removal of some attractions with no direct replacements announced.
Steel Taipan is definitely a great addition, and I'd have to say its my number 2 coaster in Australia behind DC Rivals. They really need to back it up with something better, but I know this probably won't happen short term as there are other things in the park that need attention sooner.
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1 hour ago, Brad2912 said:
Was disappointed that the old Trolls area was closed so all those food options were gone.
I don't think that area was open for the event. We went on tail spin during our visit and the whole area still had Halloween signage up.
1 hour ago, Brad2912 said:but checked out the area and was impressed with how they’ve tried to tie the surrounding area into the theme
I liked the ST area, feels modern and new. The rock in the garden around the entry/exit seemed to be getting chucked around by the kids waiting for the adults on the ride (rocks were all over the path etc). The whole area smelt like a freshly paved road (tarry smell), not sure where this is coming from as everything looked to be concrete and wood.
The rock structures in the ride area don't look like they've been sealed adequately enough, when you come off the MCBR there's like a calcium deposit all over the rockwork/track which is a shame considering it's only been open for about 5 months.
9 minutes ago, Park Addict 93 said:It’s not that VQ was not working, or that it was consumed.
Have confirmed that it has been turned off during the holidays, bit dodgy considering it’s an advertised inclusion with tickets and One Shot was still available for purchase.
I heard quite a number of people comment on how early the VQ's were 'consumed' when lining up at 9:30 to enter the park. Surprised they don't have the option to remove the VQ setting from the app altogether to avoid confusion.
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There's plenty of Google and Trip Advisor reviews to keep you all entertained if you want
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Doomsday is under maintenance, has been our entire visit. Wild West open with signposted 115m wait. When we lined up at the queue was just near the end of the entrance door.
Overall the park seems much quieter today, still long waits for rides but definitely less crowded.
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Green Lantern down today. A frame out the front says it's not operating but the monitor above the ticket station says it was open
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1 hour ago, Gazza said:
Forgive me for missing if it has been written, but has anyone been on Superman since the upgrade and seen it for themselves?
Yep. Since our visit in 2019 the flood effect is working and the tunnel smoke. Other than that everything else is as I can remember.
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Primary thing they can do easily is stop gatekeeping wait times behind a park entry. Guests can see how busy the park is up front. Other than that restricting numbers or extending hours is all they can do, but I think that will upset an equal number of people being locked out of the park than those that want to go and wait in 3 hour lines.
We hit up wet and wild today. It there was very little wet and quite a bit of wild. Got in a ride on Constrictor and then Kaboom and it was 1:30pm. We gave up, got changed and went back to SeaWorld.
JetRescue was running much faster today! SeaWorld a lot quieter today than Sunday in our experience.
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I haven't made it over to Dreamworld yet, so I can't compare, but I couldn't really fault the ops on Rivals today (compared to Jet Rescue yesterday) They weren't running around, sure, but they had the next train consistently ready and guests loaded straight through.
Props to the grouper running it today, the amount of yelling they did about not touching the belt, I'm surprised they still had a voice left by 5pm.
Got assigned to the back row (but not backwards) seat. I was shook by the drop off the lift.. got flung up in the seat and was NOT prepared for that!
One thing a few people have mentioned here is about the cash grab with FastTrack. From what I witnessed at both SW yesterday and MW today, there hasn't been a long line for fast trackers, and when there is people in the FT queue, they'll only load a couple and backfill the rest from the general queue. I did hear mentioned that due to being busy they weren't running Virtual Queue or single rider lines. So they're selling out of FastTracks, but they're not overselling them (when compared to something like FastPass/Ride Express at Disney / Universal.
17 minutes ago, themagician said:Has anyone ridden rivals recently and noticed anything different with their load/unload procedures. Do they check harnesses differently or something? Surely there is a reason for why it’s such a long gap between trains arriving and leaving the station.
I can't comment on slow days, but here's how it was working today:
1. Harnesses would release on current train but ops would need to assist releasing some of these harnesses
2. Give guests a couple of seconds to dismount and get their stuff.
3. Open gates and let guests sit down. Guests told to lower their own harness but not touch the belt.
4. Ops lower remaining harnesses and secure belt / tighten etc. They would do each row at the same time. (If one side was taking longer the other would wait).
5. Brief speal to backward facing riders ( didn't manage to hear it but they always stopped to explain something specific to them).
6. Thumbs up and button press at back of the train and dispatch.
The ops certainly weren't rushing, but the impression I've gotten from ALL ride ops so far on my trip is to take as much time as required to do the job correctly with no mistakes.
Some of these rides would be very demanding physically in an op. I'd be interested to know if they have many manual handling injuries at theme parks purely as a result of loading coasters.
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SE looked to me like it had two trains, they were a bit slow at dispatching though. Just had another look at the app and it looks like SE is closed...
The line was almost around the corner toward the Arkham entrance when we got off. Edit: just saw a SE train going so it's still operating
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We were at SeaWorld today. We arrived at about 1pm (we went to Paradise Country early). Park was busy but we managed to get 2 rides on Jet Rescue and 2 on Storm (Storm rides were right before close).
Operations on Jet Rescue are frustratingly slow. When the ride finishes, the passengers dismount but they never move the train to reload until every single passenger walks 25m to the photo room and closes the gate. Only then do they move the train up to loading.
Now that the train is now in loading, it's time to start assigning people to rows, why can't someone be doing this while the ride is running so they can load straight in?
I get it that the unload procedure is a safety thing, but why not rework the unload station so the gate is much closer to the train? Everyone was dawdling to the gate and it just prolonged the cycle time.
On what everyone is saying is one of the busiest weekends, why only one train? (does JR even have two?), Why not have another loader/grouper?
In saying all of the above, riders were just as to blame for delays but could have been helped by another loader/grouper. People were locked in and had to be unlocked as they still had hats/glasses etc on.
Storm was great but only appeared to have 3 boats, not sure if this is normal or not. Two seemed to sit in the station while one was on the course, they'd dispatch one as the previous one was rounding the corner to unload.
This is our first trip to the GC in 3 long years and the first trip really since I've been paying attention to how rides operate. I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed
fingers crossed the crowds get a little better after tomorrow.
Bonus image of our park today, we were in the overflow of the overflow carpark
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5 hours ago, Cactus_Matt said:
Hopefully Dreamworld can invest in becoming the theme park on the Gold Coast again, it needs to spend big money on doing so though
It does but it also needs to be careful in doing so. It doesn't sound like they have any other fall back options now if it doesn't work out.
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Assuming these are three full days where you can enter at park open and leave at park close, Dreamworld, Movieworld, Seaworld in no particular order, I'd just consider ride closures and work around these if there's any ability to do so.
If the ticket I happened to purchase for VRTP allowed for park hopping, I'd probably enter Seaworld at park open, do the rides, look at the attractions/shows etc and head over to Movieworld in the afternoon.
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5 minutes ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:
I see this as 'we need a fence, and for now it needs to be cheap and functional.' This is exactly what they built.
I'd argue that this is already a step above cheap. It's painted black. Cheapest I'd expect to see is plain galvanised metal.
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There is a lot of white around Sea World, mainly roofs etc, but there is a lot of shade structures that are also white or quite light in colour (beige/cream)
It's been a few years since my last visit so I'm working with Street View here, but I don't think it would look as out of place as some of you are making it sound, especially once some planting takes place. Most of the sheds are going to be facing back of house are they not?
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2 hours ago, themagician said:
April 2019 I believe
I don't know a lot about our parks, but we were in the GC November 2019 and Surfrider was running. It went down a lot during the day we were there, but it was running.
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5 hours ago, Cactus_Matt said:
but how can individual seats be out of commission on so many trains on so many different rides?
Could be as simple as a limit switch/sensor is malfunctioning and needs replacing, and they don't have the parts/staff to do it.
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3 minutes ago, Brad2912 said:
because some people are morons unfortunately. We live in a world where people think the person who manages the social media posts for a business is the CEO and sole decision maker and therefore they expect corporate level transparency
I think its more about bullying a company into submission through fear of viral negative backlash / boycotting when said bully doesn't get their way.
The Decline Of Movie World
in Theme Park Discussion
Posted
Rivals was $20 last holidays, Tailwhip was $25. Prices will stay / go up so long as people keep paying.
The line was practically empty for back seat during our Easter visit.