themagician

That is the shittest response ever. I feel like they are sick of seeing all these comments about how busy the park was and they’ve just had enough and written something like that. If I was in their position, I’d probably be pissed off too seeing so many people complain. But what do they expect, a four hour queue for one ride and minimum. 2 hours for the remaining headline attractions (whether it’s their fault or not) is insane and people are going to complain about it when they’ve spent so much to get in.

Very good points @DaptoFunlandGuy. If Australia was reporting that many incidents the industry would crash or we’ve have every ride have modifications made like we saw on RHLR or shockwave and we know how horrible those changes were. Continuing on the discussion about Rivals, could it also be something relating to the ride manufacturer. Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t the trains for Steel Taipan and Rivals the same? We’ve seen with ST they’ve added this LED light that the ride operator has to scan before the train leave the station. Could it be Mack have updated their standards/practices for their coasters with the older train models, which therefore impact the loading and harness check procedures. Just stating random thoughts I’m having about the situation to try understand the reasoning behind these insane queue times.

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.

From the outside SE didn’t seem like it was operating 2 trains, but that’s good if they are. When I was there at 12pm the entire indoors area for the queue was full and was about to start heading outside. It was a 2 hour queue at that point

Following on from the recent discussions about the crowds over this Easter long weekend, I just visited MW again to see how the crowds/queues were today. The crowds definitely weren’t as intense as on Saturday, but still very busy and the queues were definitely an improvement. It was still the traditional school holiday wait times, but today Rivals was 2 hours. SE, Scooby and WWF were about 1.5 hours. WWF was being operated very efficiently today with boats being dispatched at the fastest I’ve seen them since the new boats were introduced. SE and Rivals still only had 1 train operating but they were sending them out a bit quicker (Surely the second trains are in maintenance and are waiting on parts for them to not be in use). Overall, queues were being managed much better and weren’t flowing onto the paths and blocking access through the park.

Bit of both I think. We’ve see the parks have slow operations for at least the past year (and for a while the Covid, uncertainty card could be played), but they should have been more prepared and have system in place to help organise crowds better (this is mostly for SW). MW had tape on the floor to organise the queues, and they were using all areas of each rides queue to accomodate the crowds. JL had a two hour wait and they were using the full external queue area. To my understanding (while it wasn’t operating when I was there), they are using the full extended queue for WWF that extends to the boat storage area. And for Rivals, the queue extended to the left of the entrance into the viewing/waiting area. But another form of evidence that Rivals operations are so poor right now, I have seen it’s queue extend towards JL before and it’s what was 2-2.5 hours. This queue was much shorter than that, but it’s wait was 4 hours. If they had both trains operating, then they could have almost halved that wait time. But if it’s in maintenance and waiting for parks (or whatever the reason may be), the turnover for the single train should be so much faster. Are they just understaffed, not wanting to pay for extra staff to be on, or have they not noticed this issue.

Sea World was also insanely busy yesterday, with over an hour wait for Storm and JR and about 40 minute for vortex. But again the operations were insanely slow. Vortex was up to 8 minutes between cycles and JR was 5 minutes. But, the worst part was Nickelodeon Land. That has got to be the worst designed area of any theme park when it’s busy. Every queue area is so small that the actual queues weren’t controlled and just went everywhere. Some queues overlapped each other so it make unclear what ride people were supposed to be lining up for.

SW no longer displays character appearance times. It’s all in the app now

Yep, 4 hours. The sign says 3.5 hours, but the app says 4 hours. I asked the attendant which was more accurate and she said the app and that they couldn’t find a 240 minute wait label.

DW is pretty busy today too, carpark is about 80% full. ST has both trains running with fast operations and has a 30 minute wait.

Superman and WWF currently having issues. Rivals has a 4 hour wait. Every other ride has a 2 hour wait GL has a 2 hour wait, but they still dispatch some trains with empty seats. Why MW.

New helipad looks good New briefing room does not

The low wait times, while are partly due to DW never really being as busy as MW, but also because of how good their operations on the ride are. The longest wait I’ve had is 30 minutes, which pretty much went down to the start of the queue, but because of two trains consistently running and the large amount of people they have in the station ready to board, it creates much shorter wait times.

It says that on the website too, but it’s July to September maintenance is still scheduled

According to the parks website, the carousel will remain closed until mid September

Considering WWW closes for the winter next week, I don’t think we will see that gate open until the next season

Can anyone confirm what these enhancements are inside

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It was a very busy day at the park, with WWF having the longest wait of 2 hours

Seems like they will now try and have it ready and open for the next season

The website just refers to it as Native Wildlife and lists the different zones https://www.dreamworld.com.au/rides-attractions/wildlife/native-wildlife/ The directional signage in the park just states native wildlife, but they still have the Corroboree signage at the entrances and within the area

Something I find a bit tacky is the temporary carnival games that got around the park. I’m generally against having them in parks, but I understand it’s a good form of revenue (MW and SW have had them for many many years). If DW are going to keep on having them, maybe they should build permanent ones like they have at the other parks. And if they were too, I’m thinking Ocean Parade would be the best spot. The area between Tailspin and Gold Coaster is such a dead/weird space now and I think installing them here would bring some to life to the area. If they have the burger place open more often, then people might get something to eat and then decide to play a carnival game or two.

I was imagining the ride would be taller than that wall. But looking at the spec of the wheel at DW is just under 5m tall, so that wall probably would be tall enough

I went to the event yesterday, I had the tasting trail that gave me 5 and 2. Great value and everything I had tasted really really good. Portion sizes were great considering it was a ‘sample’. I think I’d they wanted to take to this to the next level, spreading the event out across a greater area of the park and great ‘zones’ of foods like they do in America (in particular Epcot), then that could really lift the event. Adding in a scavenger hunt where you’ve got to find all the Kenny’s with chef hats on through the park could expand the event also. For what it is, I think it’s a great offering. One thing I had some sort of issue with was, because they had all these food trucks and they want people to eat from them, they closed nearly all of the usual food outlets throughout the park. Which I get why, but why couldn’t they be themed too. Just reduce the menu’s and that expands the offering and gets people moving throughout the park.

A Ferris wheel would be good, but the issue with the location you’ve suggested is you’d be able to see over the back wall into the back of house, which won’t be something you’d want to look at. A Ferris wheel would need to go in the middle of the land, so there’s something to look at from every angle