Gazza

No they wouldnt because do that there are two locker sizes, there are those really little $1 ones and there are the $2 ones. The little ones can only fit a few personal things like phone, sunnies, wallet, keys etc, not a whole bag of stuff. These are things you have on your person all day and not things you would keep in a locker or else why would you take them to a park. Usually those with bags are people with a group (eg a family) where one person in the group would hold everything) IMO the rides target audience is teens etc and us teens (esp males but im not being sexist) tend to travel light since it is no fun lugging a bag around and so they would use the smaller ones. But a couple of questions for those who have been overseas or frequent international coaster sites. How do smart lockers such as the ones at IOA work, and do they have a problem with free riders using them as an all day locker? Also, how do they approach item storage on 2 station coasters (TTD springs to mind as its station set up is similar)? Also, they arent necesarily charging $1 to ride, but this is what is happening in effect because not everyone has a non riding friend. Heck, the whole reason you vist an amusement park is to ride stuff, not everyone is a sook who sits out and watches. What about those who are alone, what about those where everyone in the group wants to ride together? Not having free for one hour is like some city carparks not having free for the first hour on the basis that some would return to their car every hour and drive in and out. But also, taken from the smate carte website: http://www.smartecarte.com/lockers/lockersletthemenjoy.html

Well, i wonder if the lockers could be set for a really small value (10c) or be designed to give up a $1 coin so its more like a deposit (kind of like the trollys at Aldi) Also, just one other little idea that popped into my head (but it would be expensive) would be to make the big long straight section of queue from the entrace look like a stationary travelator.

Its more the principle that matters, it should be free. Well, the plot certainly has thickened if that is true, i mean, why would MW sell its soul like that . But back to the topic of theming improvements, here is a rough sketch of how i reckon the queue area should be, i sort of drew in in Sims style with walls ommited if they blocked the view. Also, i am aware that i drew in too few switchbacks on the sloping part of the queue but as i said it was a quick sketch. But i reckon T Bone would be the one to ask about subway theming, hes the train buff around these parts.

Try to just make yourself sound a bit GP and DONT put anything in there about other suggestions for the ride like some 2 page concept for how the theming could be improved because they wouldnt take you seriously if you did that. Just stick to the lockers.

Yeah, but you cant have people being "stung" by a coin, if someone did get hit they would kick up poo about it, no matter how superfical the injury. I but i guess people are being "stung" in a whole different way. But basically, whenever you go to MW just kick up a stink about it, maybe fill out some comment forms about it. In this case it really is a fair criticisim and would cost nothing to implement (except they would stop earning money from it, except for people who use it for too long)

I think they would need to make the unlocking fee relative to the time you run over the limit, say about $2 for 1/2 hr over the limit and then $7 for more than that. You need a decent unlocking fee to deter people from treating it as an all day locker. But you have hit the nail on the head there spotty, its really just a charge to ride the ride.

Couldnt they solve the problem of people being smacked by rafts as people try and get it up the stairs by having a conveyor belt for them instead (like on mammoth)?

I think they need to just be smarter about the staffing. Have only one person on the lockers and nobody inspecting at the front of the queue. Instead have this done as a secondary duty by the ops in the station, they would only check if there is a problem. Also, have only one person working the unload station since they dont do much anyway. Then just have the required numbers of ops in the loading station and the control room. Also, when i asked why they didnt have a pass through item storage system i was told that they decided against it because it would slow thing too much. Its a bit ludicrous that now they are choosing to limit the rides efficency by running one train. IMO, the only times one train should be used is on non holiday weekdays or if its so quiet LW is running one train. But i think a solution could be to have an exit in the loading station (that would come out on the path between superman and chinatown )so they can flush load rather than loading, rolling foward and unloading (which wastes time). The problem with this is riders would exit away from the shop which could limits its sales. But on another note, what is this bull about WWF having 2 hr waits, i joined the line when the entire queue house was pretty full and i waited about 20 mins, even if there were twice the crowds and the lines were out of the building into the wild west area the wait would not reach two hours. Ive told you once, ive told you a million times, dont exaggerate.

Wait, so are you tall with the middle of your hair sort of spiked up? I remember this paticular person giving the crowd a lecture that even a 5c piece is dangerous and if you have one you will be sent to the back. And anyway, the only reason the queue rails are there is so the queue uses the space in the most efficent manner, if they werent there guests would probably just line up down one wall and the queue would end up stretching all the way past the lockers. I dont really think its a saftey issue unless they are hurdling, a simple duck under is ok. So, as an employee, are you able to find out why they decided to charge for the lockers on the ride? also are you in a position to give feedback about the ride to managment (Eg, that they should ditch the fee) One last thing, is it fun working on the ride, and also, how much experience do you need to work on it?

I think its called Yunsario Speeding Car or something like that, it is an accelerator at a new park somewhere in China, what you can see is basically the whole layout except for a helix after the loop. Its almost SEs long lost brother, just with a loop instead of an airtime hill, and with the top hat going the other way. I was waiting for someone to mistake it for SE which you could do if you werent observant enough, guess i failed :sarcastic:

Are you the guy who tells people off for duckin under the hand rails?

I wonder why they didnt design the ride to operate as well with one train. If 2 trains are going its well and good because one lot or riders can be unloading as another lot loads, but when the ride is running one train the passengers unload, but then there is a delay as the train rolls foward into the loading area. IMO the ride should have been designed so that during one train operation the ride can be flush loaded rather than using both stations. But its a bit late now because the shop would have needed to be built on the other side so the ride could have been run like this.

Yeah, i sort of guessed that the ride was rushed to opening so much of the energy was put into getting the ride going. A few little things, eg the doors between the stations not working , signs about the locker prices being up on paper in plastic pockets, temporary lighting in the station etc seemed a bit under done . Hopefully they might spruce it up a bit and bring it in line with the rest of the parks standards. Take a look at WWF falls with its plethora of wild west knick knacks and machinery etc or Scooby Doo with its large castle hall and moving suits of amour for examples of how detailed the queue on superman should be.

But a ride like Deja Vu would generate long lines. Id sort of prefer it if they move away from rides where its 'one lot gets on, rides, gets off, repeat' unless the single vehicle holds a lot of people. It should be something with more than one train so the queue moves faster so there is always a train getting loaded. It just gets frustrating on rides like Cyclone, TOT, GD where you have to wait for ages while one lot of people go at a time, or on rides like Eureka and the Log Ride where the cars are so small and intimate the queue crawls along and it is hard to get full loads because not everyone rides in a group of four. WO and the Claw worked well because they take a lot of people in one go and the ride cycle is not excessivley long. Although not at DW, SE and LW should be something they should look at because one lot is loading while the other lot is going, so the queue is continuously moving and thats why Deja Vu could be annoying because it can only run train at a time and nothing can be done while it runs and if DW got their hands on one they would only stuff it up and run it poorly like virtually everything else they own, and you would join the line at 1pm and you would get on at 3pm and it would then break down because its Vekoma.

Obviously its not if you need to do that, and even if you do it still bangs its way around the track, which isnt smooth. Lisalisa A bayern curve is just a helix, really ground breaking stuff so yeah where the onride photo is. I agree, saying the trains travel on the outside of the track is a bit misleading, they do travel on the 'outside' when they go around inversions, but you could equaly say that they are on the 'inside' of the track at points where the track curves at a peak (say at the top of the lift). All coasters tend to travel on the outside of the track anyway if you are refering to being outside the tracks centre of gravity , the only ones that tend to be within it are those togo pipeline coasters and i guess bobsleds are within the track too. Why didnt they go for the obvious wording? riders sit in trains that travel 'beneath' the track. But gee, have a look at what they call 'education' sample activites include drawing the layout of sdsc, drawing a map of how you got to mw, reasoning why your heart rate would be higher after riding lw. They had the chance for some really good physics questions, eg what is the average velocity of LW as it completes the circuit, see how many kids stuff that one up

I spotted this on the MW website in the education section and i just had to laugh. Taken from an activty sheet:

That was a long post??? Well, on my visit i dropped into guest relations and filled out a comments form and said that Superman should have item storage that is free for the first hour. I think all of you should do the same. But basically its not fair to charge because you dont have a choice, everthing else at MW you have a choice wether or not you buy/pay for it, but here you are forced into it. Also, i spoke to the "grouper" at the top of the superman and the reason for not having an item pass through was because of congestion at the shop.

When i was there i was amazed at how many there were, like the walls were just crazy with loads of little dots on them. One thing, how does that wierd laser that is like a vortex by the final drop work, it looked very cool, is it just a cone of light projected onto smoke? Its a very good acheivement for a large building like that to have so many going at once and making the space seem so full.

I think seeing more 4Ds built will be very dependent on the sucess of the one going in at Fuji-Q, X was a prototype but now they can start out fresh and get it right the first time, if they do then more may be built due to greater confidence, but if they get it wrong a second time i think we may never see another one for a long time. http://www.rcdb.com/id3254.htm

Many people after riding Superman share the feelings that the coaster itself was great, but the theming was underdone, so it would be interesting to hear peoples ideas on how the rides theming could be improved. Here are some of mine: QUEUE: Put in more things to make it feel more like a subway station, such as: -Signs warning of fines for failing to have a valid ticket -Signs warning of fines for those with loose items (Double usage here as it relates to the rides actual rules) -Timetable information -Ticket Machines -Ticket Valdidation gates (the ones where you put the ticket in on one side and it gets sucked through and spat out on the other side, and at the same time the gate opens) 3 of these could be placed across the 3 queues where the subway theming starts. -Signs telling you what station you are at -WAY OUT signs LOADING STATION -Signs on the wall saying what station you are at -Warning signs about the electrified 3rd rail and to stay off the tracks -Warning signs to stand back behind the yellow line when the train is approaching -Suspended from the ceiling TVs with when the next train is due from that platform and where it is going -Clocks -Signs saying this area is under video surivailence -Lockers that look similar to the ones you see in the dark ride section, but undamaged. DARK RIDE SECTION -Better Wall texture -Make Metropolis square seem more like a station, there is little that makes it seem different from the rest of the ride, on my first couple of ride i didnt even realise it was meant to be a station, it seemed like lockers were just sitting in the tunnel from no reason. Brighter lighting and theming that relates to the original loading station would be nice (Eg the TVs telling you about departues would be there, but would be going all haywire, other signs would be fallen down, scratched etc. The colapising wall section would be painted the same way as the one in the loading station (with chevrons and a MRT logo). -where two cars that have crashed from the road above it should be clearer that this is what has happened, this could be done by having a road sign upside down that has fallen down along with the cars, a trash can etc. Another thing that could be done could be on the actual buildings roof. They could remove the white colourbond and replace it with transparent laserlite directly above the cars. This would flood that specific area with natual light to make it seem like daylight is coming in from the hole in the road. -At the start of the launch the blue streak you see should be clearer, i can only assume its meant to be superman but i am unsure, maybe adjust the focus or something. COASTER SECTION -Put up mini imitation skyscrapers in the fenced off area in the middle of all the turns that is currently just sand. Have a look at Euro Mir ( http://www.rcdb.com/ig972.htm?picture=1 ) or Manhattan Express ( http://www.rcdb.com/ig139.htm?picture=14 ) for examples, but if this was done i think a maximum of 3 would be needed and they would be not too big to make it feel like superman is flying you through the city. -The next best alternative could be to extend the viewing area into here and theme it as "Central Metropolis Park" with a central monument, tree lined paths, benches and lawns. UNLOAD STATION -Get the doors working -More detail to make it seem like Superman has put you somewhere safe (Just a note, in the article on the queue line wall it says that Superman sets the train down in a parking lot, so maybe if the unload station was make to look like a parking complex....) While some of these ideas could be expensive, others could be done cheaply but would make a difference to the overall feel. So what are your ideas? Just one thing to note, the roof probably wont evolve to anything more than a lattice of four by twos in the near future since a soild roof would interfere with the buildings fire system (and it will cost too much to put in a new one lower down) Something they could try in the darkride section could be rusted Reinforcing mesh with chunks of concrete attached to it to make it look like the concrete has fallen off of it. This would still enable the fire sprinklers to work) I think that what has happened though is that the ride was rushed to opening, so they managed to get a nice basis for the theme, but many of the final touches that make it look nice have been missed.

I think part of the reason people want to see an Invert could be because aguably they are B&Ms best product, and this can be seen in the number of good reviews and the number of parks choosing them , and even with unique alternatives such as flyers avaliable more inverts are still sold (In the time between B&Ms 2nd last flyer (Superman: Ultimate Flight) and its newest one (Tatsu) 5 Inverts have been built. and By comparison there have been 3 floorlesses, 1 dive machine and no stand ups all of which are 'unique' products) And all up inverts make up over 40% of their sales, they are just a popular product. That said I would like to see a B&M invert, not to go after WBMWs market, but simply because they are a good ride. My next choice would be a floorless coaster.

Because burgers are more popular?

Yeah, i knew the twister was in the same spot, but i had thought a new twister slide had replaced the one that was there.

I dont think they would be too expensive as many parks have them, and not just the big ones so they probably arent prohibitivley expensive. Also the ride is mainly used by body boarders (surfers must sign a waiver before using it (source: flowrider website)) Im no surfer of body boarder but i would definitley have a dip at it and so would many others because it is safer and more controlled than the ocean amd would enable me to try something i cant normally. Not all waterpark attractions serve a wide market so that is not really a reason not to build it, it is like not putting in a freefall slide because it doesnt appeal to young kids, elderly, those with back problems, pregnancy, vertigo etc. IMO it would be well marketable as it is new to Australia.

I dont see why guests couldnt occupy the other seats since the final two would only be in the front car. Did normal guests ever ride with the comp contestants?