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AllegroCrab

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Posts posted by AllegroCrab

  1. I can't say I was surprised by this news, and out of all the parks of course it was Thorpe.

    The deep cultural issues in this country have gone too far. I can at least somewhat empathise with the idea of carrying a knife walking in the streets, especially when people exist who take a knife to Surrey on their day out to an amusement park. Violent criminals just won't heed the warnings will they? And now there's such a breakdown of trust in society that it naturally breeds more knife carrying.

    Insane that now we will again be subject to such stringent searches just to enter a blokdy park for a family friendly day out.

  2. It will be underwhelming compared to Rivals, but this is the proper, lengthy, full circuit coaster I've been dreaming of Dreamworld getting (and spamming about on these forums) since I was a child just learning about roller coasters playing RCT3. If they'd had done this 5 years ago the ride would have completely blown everyone away, but they've missed the boat on that one.

    I'm willing to ignore that it's a clone of one of Mack's older rides because it's a step in the right direction towards revitalising the park. Who knows? It could even be run faster than the original and be a more intense experience. We need more of this in the coming years though, we'll grow used to this ride very quickly and we'll be asking for more.

  3. 9 hours ago, joz said:

     When I talk about the evils of installing technology for technology's sake, this is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about.

    I can't help but echo these sentiments. In terms of how well they have utilized the mediums, the 'next gen' screens and animations stand out as poorer quality than the original 3D set pieces and animatronics. The drop down monster actually gave me a jump scare as it has been so long since riding with effects that I forgot it was there, but that pitiful attempt at a scare at the end was just pathetic and out of place, I doubt it'd even scare small children that much.

    If you don't have the budget to get the new tech done properly, you could have better spent your money improving the original effects. I can imagine with the money wasted on the screens they could have added extra lighting to spice up the original set pieces and scares in the haunted house section. They could have improved the smoke and lasers in the wild mouse section, maybe even still adding the cool lighting effects that we now have in that section. I think going for a 'next generation' approach when in reality you only have the money for a bit of a refurbishment was a bad idea.

    It's not just smartarse enthusiasts who pick up on this stuff either. Most of the GP have an understanding of what makes good and bad animation quality through movies and video games. They also know a lot less about the challenges involved in making theme park attractions and won't take it into account when they evaluate their enjoyment of the experience. A friend of mine can attest to that, he was more disappointed with the screens than I was.

    • Like 4
  4. Pretty big fan of making it more expensive on busy days. The value of the pass goes up when the queues are longer so you'll just see more people buying fast tracks, and this will make the queues even longer as fast trackers are cutting in front. You need to balance it out somehow so that you don't piss off the regular ticketholder too much.

  5. The wait for Superman and Rivals is more likely to be a bit shorter at the night events because they're more likely to run 2 trains. Last Wednesday Superman was walk on all night as it wasnt that packed, but Rivals was only running 1 train so was still a 30-40 minute wait. Green Lantern was walk on every day I went last week.

  6. I'm guessing they estimate how many people will redeem their free tickets for each night, and how many who go during the day will get tickets to extend their day into the night, then set the 'sold out' level accordingly. You don't want to piss off your passholders by not allowing them their free entry.

  7. 19 hours ago, pushbutton said:

    I think there's plenty of Wildlife already. What's needed ate more new and much better quality rides and walk through attractions, and maybe a couple of good restaurants.

    I agree but I really don't think I want the current Dreamworld to be building rides. The park's upper management and culture needs to be entirely changed and refreshed. Could this happen under Ardent? Probably not. Not sure if I'll ever visit the park until it happens.

  8. 6 hours ago, iwerks said:

    MW doesn’t have to charge the highest amount. They can cap it lower and create a bit of goodwill with its regular customers. I don’t see why they should reward mediocre operations with an expensive fast pass system.

    But if you make it cheaper, you'll be rewarding the mediocre operations even more as fastpasses will sell like mad. You'll be sitting there in the regular queue watching entire trains of fastpassers go in front of you because the fastpass line keeps refilling, and they can't let it overflow. This makes a feedback loop where the regular queue becomes even longer, thus selling more fastpasses.

    Exact issue was happening at Alton Towers for my visit. The 'Bronze' is ~$35 AUD, Silver ~$70, and Gold ~$105. And this is in a park with 10 operating roller coasters, and a bunch of other rides, almost all are very high quality attractions. The park is basically relying on their fast tracks to sell, and they were selling, and it skyrocketed the queue times even more than they were already high. Couple that with the park's abysmally short opening hours and you're in for a stressful day as a credit whore.

    towersFastTrack.thumb.JPG.5ac72631db89cdbb62d6ba62423a9e10.JPG

    I actually ended up getting one for the Smiler (They had individual fasttracks as well) because it was the only way I was going to get a second ride on it in the two days I had for the park, and ultimately, it was a good value decision based on how long the queue was for that ride. I didn't ride anything more than twice, and most things I only rode once.

    I actually asked an op on Rita about why they were letting the shorter queue go through so much, and he was very honest with me, saying that they had been scolded for fast track queues getting too long, so they were letting almost entire trains of fastpassers through with only 2-4 people from the nearly 2 hour long main queue (signposted 70 minutes). I'm not completely against the concept of fastpass, but when your passes are so cheap that more people on each train are fastpass holders than not, you really need to up those prices for the sake of the park experience for normal ticketholders.

    tl;dr, Cheap fastpasses won't do anything to 'create a bit of goodwill' with your regular customers. You might sell a lot of fastpasses to customers who are sick of the queue times created by the cheap fastpass system, and you might make a lot of money from it, but ultimately I'd rather fastpasses were priced for only the biggest spenders to indulge.

  9. You can see Intamin have been inspired by all the stuff other manufacturers have been doing recently. It's amazing to see. There's hints of RMC's insanity, DC Rivals, even stuff we've never seen before. I bet the designers for these layouts are ecstatic they've finally been able to let all their best ideas out thanks to these projects. That multi launch is just ridiculous! The launches being in between bunny hills, and the craziest switch track placement we've ever seen. Not been the biggest fan of off axis hills I've ridden, but that one on the coaster for Belgium looks like it'll actually work really well and be death defying and disorientating. Imagine it in the back row!

    I'm sure I'll be able to ride both pretty close to their opening dates, if not ON their opening days. Exciting times ahead!

    • Like 2
  10. Had a walk through LPS for the first time in years last weekend. The place has hardly changed from my memory of it as a 12 year old. I thought it had a good amount of life to it, they had performers down the main street and music playing which gave the place an uplifting feel. There seemed to be a decent amount of guests in the park as well, mostly families with young kids. I think the Maurer spinner would be a fitting addition to the park, and a potential compact Eurofighter out the back end would probably seal the park's prosperity for quite some time. I've got a positive feeling about the future for LPS.

    • Like 3
  11. On 29/10/2018 at 12:48 PM, pushbutton said:

    Well if that goes ahead it's bye bye to any potential there might have been for Sea World to return to its glory days.

    Why not? The main issue here seems to be encroachment on Sea World's parking. I fail to see how development on the spit will do anything but draw more attention towards Sea World as people visit the area for other activities.

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