joz

Plus you've seen how small a footprint Superman has, making it faster would take up more room, which is there really isn't much of in that little area. The layout of Superman is really quite clever, hopefully just how clever will become more apparent in later years. **Public service announcement: Rant coming** As for the whole staffing thing, well, Superman's station is about as a poor efficiency station as you can have (even Cyclone makes up for its station by doing everything from the same station). It takes 4 people to run the ride (which is a great number as far as doing breaks is concerned, as with 5 people you need someone extra to do a break) with one train, and for most of the time, the unloader and loader on the far side of the platform do nothing. Now one thing I just want to make clear; you really shouldn't get rid of the person out the front of a ride like Superman, since the minimum height requirement is so high, and people have problems with the lockers. A person out the front is a must, so people don't line up (for 5 mins or 45mins), get to the front of the line and become disappointed that they can't ride. One thing about 2 train operation is you need an extra 2 people, one for loading, and one for the front. I'm not convinced that you NEED the extras. One person can operate Cyclone, Corkscrew, and effectively Lethal Weapon, so I think 4 would be pretty able to cover two-train op. Its purely a matter of how much it costs to check each train in the morning and keep up with normal wear and tear, and while more expensive then one would think, it doesn't cost that much. During peak times, go nuts put an extra 4 people around on the ride, sure you could justify it pretty easy, but for non-peak times it doesn’t need that many staff even with 2 trains. If a train needs to go down for maintenance, well that’s fair enough, its the nature of a year round park that you'll have to close off rides from the public so you can check them out and make sure they're all running as they should be. Though consider that Corkscrew and Cyclone's trains each have about a week or two of downtime a year, so unless Intamin have some really dodgy trains you would expect Superman's trains to be available for 11 out of 12 months. Ok, its cheaper to not have to replace parts on the ride constantly rather then having it sitting there, but why spend so much money on a train that your hardly going to use? Maybe in a year or three when the crowds have dropped down and the park isn't so packed drop it to one train, but for a brand spanking new ride like Superman one would think the higher capacity the better.

Ah, $6 to open the locker, which is hard when your wallets inside... I don't think a rotating system is the answer for Superman. The area for it is too way too small to work. Really, with the design of the station, the only functional way "fix" the problem is to make it free locker hire for an hour (with something that stops the locker counting time when the ride is down), then $7 after that. Still, I'm not privy to the logs from Guest Relations, and there not be much of a backlash on the ground.

Ok, then if there are heaps of kebab shops, then why not open a burger shop? The point isn't what type of food (coaster) thats being sold, but that doing something different makes your product stand out, and helps sell more. IMHO, DW would be better off marketing Australia's first standup/flyer etc, rather then Australia's third invert.

*Bangs head against wall*

Woodie, Standup, flying, whatever. The point is why do something thats already been done? If there's a heap of burger joints in town, why not open a Kebab shop instead? You get what I mean.

I really don't get why you'd want Dreamworld to get an inverted coaster to go after Lethal's market? I mean, why have the second (or third depending on if you wanna count Rugrats or not) inverted when you can have the first wooden coaster? Same as Movieworld not adding a looper to go against Cyclone, but rather an airtime based ride.

That'll be your answer right there. Adventure World seems to do stuff like this every year, it seems like a really good way to keep the park relevant. Hope it works again for them.

I've really got no idea on this one. I was there the other week and someone pointed out that the two twister slides were slightly different colours, and asked the same question. I had no idea then, and through lack of any research still don't know.

I've reset the poll, since it was asking two different questions. Personally, I think if its still safe, its not too old.

They were? I thought the Birch Carrol and Coyal promo before the movie was the best part of Final Destination 1 (followed closely by the first bus).

A bit off topic, but basicly the costs involved with opening rides late for functions are so high, that you need well over 100 people for it to be cheap enough to make it even slightly attractive, but even then that still wouldn't be half-price on a normal entry ticket, and would include all of one hour "ERT", on a one ride, with nothing else included. So far 25th Febuary Weekend, and March 18 Weekend are out in front, but keep the votes coming.

Name me a more thrilling four person raft slides in the southern hemisphere. Then consider that it says "One of the most thrilling" rather then "the most thrilling", then consider it was moved from Wet "N" Wild for a bunch of stuff that didn't include ride experience, and I think you'll find the answer is a resounding "Yes". It was moved to provide a space for another high capacity "River" attraction off the "Mammoth" tower, as Plunge didn't handle as many people as the river did. It was relocated to SW since the old slides were old, and needed replacing, and the tower was (amazingly) the same height, and the ride fit in perfectly at SW. It really is that simple.

I don't think Wipeout's system is right for Superman, the wall between load and unload simply isn't long enough for such a system, don't forget that you would also need storage space for 3 groups of people, not 2 like Wipeout (two groups that are on the ride, and the one that is behind the gates at the station). It would also clog up the unload station with people grabbing their stuff, slowing things down again. I think the ultimate, workable, solution would be: . I'm not sure if the lockers can be programmed in such a way, but I think that should be investigated.

If your so sick of hearing about it, then why did you bring it up here?

There must be some merit to the idea, since some parks do use such a system (Cedar Point comes to mind). Personally I don't think we have the capacity on our rides to make a system like that work well. Realistically, you’re going to need more staff to operate a system that inconveniences half the guests in the park. Another thing is from 4.30 or 5 onwards the queues are pretty minimal anyway. I'd say a gimmick of allocating/recommending a ride time of 4.45 with the promise of a shorter wait, would be more useful then doing a real system.

There aren't really any true indoor theme parks in Oz. I guess Funtasia on the Gold Coast could probably just barely be counted, purely because its got a bumper cars and mini golf but even that's a bit dodgy (I don't really buy the arcade being an indoor theme park thing). Snow World is a possibility, since it is indoors and has a consistent theme, and an Ice slide, but again seems a bit dodgy. There was a proper indoor park proposed for Surfers (Named Fantasea if memory serves correctly), which was a sea themed park over 4 or 5 levels. Basically as you went further down the further down the sea you'd go, and on the bottom level there was a Deep Sea sub ride, and the top level was themed to be over the surface and basically be restaurants and the like.

I read all that and just use the word "magic" to sum it all up Good read that one, though allot of the first half flew pretty high over my head. I really should learn how it works beyond a sleigh attaches itself to the train and then goes really really fast.

Your rant, besides being really stupid, was badly worded and punctuated poorly. Fix it in future.

Haha yeah true, but you've got to admit WVTPs (Movieworld in particular) don't really do many "Off the shelf" standard designs, and the few off the shelf’s there are get pretty well themed. Not quite the same as story telling, but still get what he's on about.

Put it this way, talk about Paradise Country & Outback Spectacular started in about 1997. Just because they've announced that they want to build a Sunny Coast Wet 'n' Wild doesn't mean its going to happen this year/decade. Even though the timeline suggested finalising the design by now with construction due to start soon for a 2007/8 opening, don't expect anything to be happening quickly. I seem to recall plans for a Singapore Seaworld which is still on the drawing boards too.

I deleted two, but two that were whinning about deleted posts, not anything from the "real" convo.

Figured this would be of interest to someone here, but Scooby Doo's layout is now listed on MACK's website as Example #1.

Chaos, of course, that was the only time I've ever been on a Chaos, can't beleive I forgot it Like I say though, there weren't any queues for the extra rides (maybe one cycle, though they were getting pretty close to being full when loaded). As a guest I thought it was really neat, and really, it fit in with DW quite well (Remember this was next to Country Fair with an arcade, Enterprise, Gravatron, Zumer, Bumper cars, and the carni games nearby), and even with the Ocean Parade themeing it would probably still fit in. I don't know how the attendance went for that holiday period (or what the 5 extra rides were competiting against) but evidently it didn't provide enough of a boost, which I think is a shame since I really liked it and would have loved to see it work. I know I'm going against popular opinion here, but as a guest I reckon an extra ride or two would be good over Xmas. Would it make money? Who knows, 5 temp. rides obviously doesn't make money (or they'd do it again), but one or two? I'd love to see them give it a crack.

Dreamworld did have more rides in one year, with the Extended Play promotion. They had if memory serves correctly, Ali Baba, Scorpion, Hang Over, Some dodgy Simulator, and possibly one more that escapes memory (or maybe it was just 4?). All of the rides were placed together, and strangely, in the middle of summer these rides were pretty much walk on compared to huge lines for all the normal rides. I think it was a pretty cool idea, and one that I was sad to see die after the first year. Evidently cost more then it was worth, but I liked it.

Eh, I knew it was 3 or 4, and knew that no matter what I said, I'd probably be corrected . The spirit of the post remains though, you can't fully fill a tube on Plunge, but you can on River, hence why replacing Punge with another River is an increase in capacity.