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Showing content with the highest reputation on 26/03/25 in all areas
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Hi, clickbait YouTuber in question here. I don't normally respond to much on this forum, as I find it gets a little heated a lot of the time - as you correctly pointed out, I prefer to block that sort of thing out and allow commenters to enjoy their own echo chamber, since my channel is a hobby and I do it for happiness and a creative outlet, and I often find people tend to go for the jugular which leaves me feeling defeated and demotivated. I'm a roller coaster channel, not a platform for free speech, and I'm not obligated to give anyone's insults, or even rudely-phrased criticisms, any oxygen. But you've successfully baited me with this statement. I thank everyone for their feedback on my content. I genuinely enjoy taking on board feedback from those who do like my videos and those who don't. I appreciate that there are plenty of people who will disagree very strongly with my opinions on the current state of Movie World, or the way I approach video essays, or the way I run my channel in general. I've enjoyed reading your own takes on Movie World's current situation, and I actually agree with some of you. You've made some interesting points. I see no ill-intent in any of your feedback, and while I stand by my statements and my approach towards criticizing Movie World after my latest visit, I respect you all for voicing your own thoughts on it. I'm not sure when my next Movie World-related video will be, but I have genuine hopes that it will be a more positive one, and I hope some of you may even give the channel a second chance and enjoy it This statement right here, though, is why some commenters in particular are removed from my comments sections. This is not the first time that particular people have crossed the line from criticizing my content into drawing my personal issues into it and insulting me, and failing to see how there's a difference. Yes, I came home from my initial attempt at Coaster Odyssey due to health issues. I have a chronic illness. I spoke candidly on my channel about how it left me in hospital on the other side of the world, which was a terrifying experience, and also led me down a very dark path in terms of my mental health. I openly discussed how I spiraled into a depression badly during that time. I worked my backside off in casual jobs to save to start that journey, and I was still working casual jobs overseas to keep the journey a reality. Even putting YouTube aside, it was a dream of mine for a long time to travel and work long-term, and to pursue theme parks around the world. It hurt to have to come to the decision that I needed to go home so soon. And I've since been working my butt off yet again to make sure I'm recovering, getting the medical help I need, and will be continuing the series in July. I appreciate and respect that you have your objections to my content, and that's fine. But belittling my health issues and mockingly saying that I had my "tail between my legs" during what was objectively one of the most rattling, scary, painful and gut-wrenching experiences of my life is a stretch too far. Again, I was in a hospital, on the other side of the world from everyone I know and love, in a significant amount of pain, unsure what my insurance would cover and if I could even afford the healthcare, let alone the flight home that I eventually painfully realized I needed to book. And once I did get those airfares paid, I spent every night lying awake, still in pain, feeling like everything I'd worked so hard for over the past 2 years had gone up in smoke. I am so, so lucky that I have a wonderful support network because frankly, that trip was my reason to get out of bed a lot of days. So thanks for your input Jobe, but kindly leave my health issues out of your criticisms, please and thank you. We all have our struggles to cope with and I'd appreciate it if you could have the decency to separate your critiques of the content I create as a hobby from direct attacks on my health and suggestions that I'm cowardly for being forced to make decisions for my own health. Cheers mate.2 points
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It's been answered already but just want to make sure it's clear - no ride safety features prevented this incident from being worse than it was. It was pure dumb luck - nothing more. Yeah, nah. The ride vehicle could have ended up in the creek had the failure occurred at a different point in the track. The fact that the car was leaning inwards towards the failed bogey is the biggest factor. Buddy it's very clear from your knowledge of the ride and it's operation that you don't know the full details. Had there been a death on GL and a coroner's report released, there would be plenty of information out there to support the statements being made. I don't often like to 'pull rank' but take a look at the history of the people who are saying GL could have been a lot worse. Consider the possibility that there is more to it than you currently see. You see, the problem with making this argument is that Village used to operate another Flume ride, and in 1993\94 it closed and was refurbished \ rethemed into probably the greatest themed attraction we've ever had on the gold coast. Even Disney Imagineers were gobsmacked over how much they'd done on such a little budget. (For those who don't know, Bermuda triangle was a retheme \ refurb of the old Lassiter's lost mine.) This proves that it can be done - it's having the vision to do it, rather than cave and just buy an off the shelf product, slap a logo on it and call it a day. Universal manages to work this with their Hollywood Backlot. I know we're on different scales here, but the studios could be negotiated around. Granted, USH recently tore out their animal and SFX stages to build a rollercoaster, so there's merit in what you're saying - but it doesn't mean they have to move away completely (I could see showstage easily showing some sort of SFX show the likes of what USH previously had) Sorry - no. 8 rides in a day is a metric used by the biggest in the business and plenty of research has shown that guests who have achieved that number of attractions in a day will leave a park feeling satisfied... As for wait times, worldwide, the longest wait times consistently reflect Tokyo Disneyland, Tokyo DisneySea and Movie World. (I'll give you a hint though - one of those parks is not like the others!) Now, I can't quote attendance figures for MW, but I know that collectively TDR handles more than 27 Million guests per year. They routinely have 2-3 hour queues for their most popular attractions, including soarin' and Beauty and the Beast. While they do queues better, there are still plenty of 'outdoor' relatively plain queue areas in these rides too. But you can also see cast members working hard to get people through quickly. The wait time isn't 3 hours because it takes 7 minutes to dispatch a rollercoaster - the wait time is 3 hours because there's 6,000 people in the queue. However, as i've recently shared in another thread - we still achieved 20 attractions in a day when we recently visited TDL - and while we had some advantages, I'll guarantee we still got into double digits without those advantages. On the flip side, I can't remember the last time I got 8 attractions in at Movie World. Being obtuse as usual, but you are technically correct on the back of what Gazza said. I think the issue is Disney sees those 1-2 hours waits on the big headliner e-ticket attractions, but there are still plenty of classics with great capacity that round out the day - one can visit Disneyland and ride a bunch of D-and-below ticket attractions (and older e-tickets) and still have a fantastic day. If you go to the park to ride the big shiny thing, you go knowing it will have a longer wait than the rest of the park. When the 20 year old accelerator is also pushing 2 hours, and the family wild mouse, and the space shot, you start running out of other tickets for your guests to go on. MW's problem is they all have shitty wait times, not just the headliners. Sorry - didn't Morgan Ross (vomit) or the assistant come out at the beginning of HWSD in that getup? A director with a bullhorn needs licensing? fair suck of the sav mate, you're reaching. As for WB logos, the group already licenses numerous indicia from the company. I'm sure they could ask? Let's not rule out the possibility of building a studio water tower with the WB logo on it because it would need permission for use? (cough DC Comics cough Wizard of Oz cough Scooby Doo cough Looney Tunes cough) I for one have been quite vocal about supporting the parks increasing their prices - with the caveat that there has to be value in the pricetag - specifically because I would like to see them able to operate with higher prices and lower attendance numbers. Unfortunately they've gone with higher prices and higher attendance... I watched the video a few days ago and the specific details escape me, and i'm not about to rewatch it to capture the specifics, however I remember thinking during the video some of the suggestions could be easily implemented. Many of the future attraction things would need to be 'as needed' but a couple of cheaper flats could be factored into the budget fairly easily and would boost attendance even if not as much as a big thriller. Doomsday was meant to do that, it was just unfortunate about the chosen ride. But doing things like involving your senior operators in the ride manual, getting suggestions and considering improvements and that sort of thing don't really cost you anything. Case in point: There's some great suggestions in there, and most wouldn't cost too much but would be welcome improvements. There should be no reason for ops crew to have to shout at guests either while grouping or providing safety spiel. Pre-record the big spiel items, or give them a PA system... actually, do both anyway. Two caveats though - I'd heard about there being an issue for mist fans and some concern over legionnaires disease. It leaves me wondering how other businesses get away with it, but if that's the reasoning for it then I can't argue too loudly. Second, Scooby Maintenance - I think they took it away for a while and people were turning up and complaining because the ride (which they knew existed from previous visits) wasn't on the maintenance list so they had assumed it would be open and were disappointed. It needs to be shown how it is now to ensure returning guests are aware it isn't open. And that's the devious mindset that deserves to see them castigated online. The other parks around the world with consistent 2-3 hour wait times you pointed out earlier are also parks that provide water and shade in the queues. The infamous disneyland opening story about a plumbing strike leading to a decision to have water fountains or toilets, and them choosing toilets because people could buy pepsi cola is the tough, but understandable decision you make when faced with a crossroads. But you don't then open the park and go "well, people didn't get water fountains on day one, so they don't need them and we won't bother to do it at all" - you get those fucking water fountains online as soon as you possibly can. If the budget has been crunched - it means one of two things happened - either, you didn't budget properly in the first place (and you're incompetent and should be fired) or you allowed another part of the process to run over budget without allowing for this contingency or requiring the partner that caused the overrun to pay for it while happily making the decision that guest comfort elements which were originally included in the budget because they were deemed necessary are suddenly deemed unnecessary. In which case you're a devious asshole, and you're also incompetent and should be fired. Since Covid? or since BGH? i'm having a hard time separating these two events and their cause and effect.... if it were covid - why aren't other theme park companies suffering the same basic issues? Hint: it isn't "since covid." You're 100% right when you earlier talked about their EBA, pay and conditions are a huge part of attracting and retaining good staff... but pay is only 50% of that equation, and conditions aren't just what's written into the agreement - it's also how staff are treated on the ground. ETA: this was written yesterday but due to the server dropouts it kept failing to post, so apologies if the above has already been put to bed.1 point
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They had pretty much all of this and drove the staff actually delivering on these ideals away over the last decade. Few people, unless working within a corporate environment and exposed to the decision making process understand just how much EVERY management decision is influenced by financial considerations. EVERYTHING you do, especially in this climate, comes back to cost. Want better scenery? want more immersive interactive elements? sure. You double the cost of the ride being developed. You also increase the maintenance budget to keep it running. Want an example of what happens when you put money into elements but don't step up the operational budget to keep things running? Look at pretty much every single ride or attraction at village roadshow over the last 20 years. I cannot think of any ride addition over the last 15 years that didn't have its budget amended prior to the build process being completed. Everything that was costed and agreed upon when approval to start the build ends up being reviewed and costs were reduced, usually at the expense of things they can control. Theming, visuals, operational stuff. Basically things they know will have an impact on guest satisfaction but don't rate the result high enough vs the cost savings. It's probably the single biggest reason why a wall doesn't exist, ruining any immersion left. Not because someone didn't raise it, or because it wasn't factored into it during the design or build process, but because someone likely said no. It's ok to see through to back of house or into nearby buildings. Same goes for shade and water. Someone, somewhere has decided it isn't cost effective, and it hasn't been implemented. I can imagine the pivot to this would have been to maximise retail options for people to purchase drinks instead. This is what drives the talented people away more than just wages. A lack of growth, a lack of improvements and basically just reducing everything to a budgetary consideration, results in those people leaving because their job satisfaction has taken a massive hit. Essentially, people just give up on the ideal of the business. Problem is, since covid, village parks have been having problems getting ANY staff, leading to major shortages across pretty much all departments. You can't get rid of people you consider underperformers if you trouble attracting anyone. I can tell you with 100% accuracy, that following the reopening period after COVID, a number of ride closures experienced had absolutely nothing to do with maintenance issues and everything to do with not having enough trained, experienced staff to open attractions. I would not be at all surprised if this is still going on today, operational decisions to reduce ride capacity based on cost reduction or staffing levels, not purely because of maintenance issues.1 point
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People blaming the takeover as the catalyst for change in management styles and the focus of the business really need to look closer at what was going on behind the scenes between John and Robert Kirby, and John Kirby and Graeme Burke too. It started long before talks of potential buy outs, before the sale of assets and the change in management. The accident at Dreamworld and the huge dive experienced by Ardent was just the final straw.1 point
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I agree. For me, Movie World still had some magic left in it in 2019, well after many of the thrill ride additions and the transition away from the behind the scenes “movie magic” theme. I just saw it as a shift in focus, rather than a downfall. MW was still fairly well run and maintained for the most part in my opinion (or at least the public facing side of things were). The park’s decline is a more recent phenomenon and didn’t really start until BGH took over and staff like Greg left. In my view, it was a sudden, sharp decline that really became noticeable in late 2021. Many of the big problems the park faces today started popping up around that time. I do agree with several points made in the video and I too do miss old school Movie World. But to suggest the downfall started all the way back in 2005 is quite ridiculous IMHO. I also wouldn’t say the park is ruined, it’s just going through a rough time at the moment. All the foundations of a good park are still there, it just needs better staff and management to turn it around. It can easily be done with the right people.1 point
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I think the work environment is ruined and has been for a long time, nothing new there. I don't agree with his new ride proposals/revamp of the park nor what he thinks a movie theme park is, but I do support the work environment changes, it starts from the top. I feel the same about this, for a while it was just day after day of clickbait titles. Superman escape aligns with the movie theme, it puts us into the story immersively. Batwing worked with Wayne manor beside it as it was an immersive mini land prior to the addition of GL & DC Rivals. Wild West Falls is timeless, despite it being the largest ride in the park and eventually the time will come to replace it. WB Kids worked with the looney tunes ride, but now its showing its age. Green Lantern is essentially a Six Flags ride, DC rivals is similar but the ride experience makes up for it. We've come full circle now Movie World doesn't have any space left without removing existing attractions. This is very true. I don't think Movie World understands the value of their annual pass holders as much as Dreamworld does. We visit the parks off peak and deal with the BS maintenance closures, we spend our money there, we are the backbone of the park during this time. The least they could do is give us some useful perks to show their appreciation. A discount on food/beverages and upchange experiences would be appreciated even if limited to eg, 4 uses per month. Similar to the Dreamworld events, give us after dark events that may come at a small cost on top of the ones already included in our passes. Movie World having extended hours in winter would be perfect. Park doesn't have to be open that late for everyone to get night rides. Renewing my pass is entirely dependent on when Scooby opens & the if the wait was worth it. I have no issues with taking my business up the road.1 point
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