themagician

It’s still to early for that as they are still constructing the rides, but once testing begins we will hopefully see planting go in. I don’t mind if there isn’t much theming, as long as if there is a lot of planting of all scales

Trident update

Fountain/pool/garden beds have been built either side of the entrance to the ride

Not sure if Rivals was running two trains yesterday, but it had 3-4 minute dispatch times

Can confirm they are removing the letters. On my visit today, the R was gone

From what I can see, nothing has happened. There is some construction fencing alongside the lift hill, but not sure how long that’s been there The DC Rivals track repaint has also finished for this round of maintenance. They’ve only painted the track beyond the non-inverted loop that’s along the main road

I was thinking the same, and haven’t seen or heard anything. I was probably going to go check it out this week.

Based off the concept art, they show a gondola on the same side as the lettering, so I’d say it faces west towards the highway

But the best part of drop towers, is the view and realisation of how high you actually are. If you enclose it, that takes it away and for an old ride like the GD, probably not worth the investment. They put a tunnel around TOT and that made it worse. Enclosed drop towers, in my opinion, only work if they are like Disney’s TOT. Which is about the story and the ups and down drops.

If I remember correctly, I believe the in station boxes were installed when the ride originally opened, but we’re only used for people with prescriptions glasses. I remember riding with someone who had sunglasses in their pocket they forgot about when entering the queue, remembered it when in the queue and they tried to put them in these boxes and staff refused and told them they were only for prescription glasses. Was very strange, but it wasn’t long after they could be used by anyone

My thoughts: 1 - I can definitely see the appeal and value in doing that. However, rides in Aus have had photo booths at the end of rides before for people to buy and I don’t think people do it that often (from my observations). WWF and Scooby are two of the few rides left with an actual staffed photo store at the end (and in the case of Scooby it’s not often open). Rides like SE, AA, GD, GC and EFM all used to have photo purchasing booths but no longer do. ST in peak periods has a portable printer and POS that they place under the photo viewer at the ride exit. From my perspective, isn’t it better to just buy them all at the end of the days anyways otherwise you have to carry them round all day? 2 - A lot of rides used to have this (but in sign form) at the GC parks, from what I can remember, DW has it on the Claw and GD, but that’s about it because most rides have automated wait times out the front, or A frames. Which is a much more effective way of presenting the time. And for example, it a coaster can operate with one or two trains, the printed wait times become irrelevant. It’s even ineffective on the GD because sometimes they don’t operate both gondolas. Rides like Claw, TailSpin and Shockwave it is effective on however. 3 - I definitely can see why this would be a good idea and efficient, however I find it tacky. MW used to have them at the front gate and I hated them. It was not a good first impression for a park. And the day they got rid of them was great. But putting them on rides wouldn’t be appealing. And I’d imagine staff counting isn’t any less efficient overall. The staff would still need to ask how many are in a group, do the maths of how many have gone through, etc because otherwise parties may get split. 4 - I guess with the loading procedures, the staff start at the front and work their way to the back, so if the first row is the slowest to board, the staff will end up going back and forth to make sure they’ve checked everyone. With a coaster like GL that has 4 seats, and people crossing over each other to get to the loose item storage, it can be difficult to start securing harnesses etc in some situations. There have been times when there’s been no queue and I’ve been allowed to just continue, or harnesses are released and then re-secured because that’s how the system works (apparently). With glasses, while I do agree, it unfortunately won’t ever happen here because of how strict the parks are with loose items. And they have to install netting over some coasters to ensure any glasses that fly off don’t hit people below, and I think netting under coasters is a horrible look.

I’d say the horrible weather we had for a few months didn’t help

Having those letter being lights allows for them to turn them on and change the colour for night events. I can imagine they would make them orange during Halloween for example.