Richard

VRTP have built nothing but good rides for the past decade... the idea that paying customers should consider themselves blessed or lucky to be paying for a good product is a bit like saying that I should be thankful that David Jones have my pant size in stock. They've all been good attractions... the main issue is that they're consistently late. Working out bugs should happen before press releases announcing it open are sent out to the media. Before they invite news crews along to hype it. I don't see any mention of "technical rehearsals" on their website, nor were there any asterisks in the press release saying it's open but not really open. Soft openings are standard practice at major parks around the world... and with a September opening they should have been ramping this up throughout August. No, there's probably never been a ride -- certainly not as technical as Justice League -- that has opened glitch free with or without a soft opening, but at the opposite end of the spectrum when you're training staff less than 24 hours before it officially opens while paint dries then of course you're simply asking for issues.

The complaints do wear thin, but an attraction that was announced months and months ago for September, that was used extensively in annual pass renewal campaigns should not be in "technical rehearsals" still in October. That should have been happening in August.

Yep, that's pretty much the most logical solution. For one there's simply no way that they can just "undo" the $99 pass because they've conditioned the market to expect them now. The $99 pass deal was always fine to me -- the issue was when they removed the blackout dates. If they're going to give the gate away like that there absolutely needs to be restrictions. Maybe even going along the lines of what Wyncenuros suggested Australia Zoo do and have weekends blacked out for the cheapest. Probably not every weekend, but one weekend (or even just a day) a month where it's Gold/Platinums and day tickets only.

Yep nothing says fun family day out like security shaking guests down for $8 with threats of ejection and revoking of passes. The original poster already said that they embellished the story for effect and weren't actually rude so I think we're jumping to extremes for what seems to be an isolated incident... The fact remains that upon hiring a locker there is no binding agreement regarding penalty fees and as such no legal grounds to extract $8 from customers. It's a good scary threat to keep people from abusing the system, but not actually one that they have legal grounds for enforcing.

Trying to extract an $8 late fee that is buried in fine print somewhere is both bad customer service and probably not entirely legal. My phone is how I tell the time, as most probably do these days. If my phone is locked in a locker then so is my ability to reasonably judge how much time has passed -- particularly if in a slow moving queue listening to the audio loop again and again. As a customer I'd expect a good 30-60 minutes leeway on the locker hire. Hell, as someone that believes that theme parks are in the business of customer satisfaction I'd say pay-per-use rather than time limits makes much more sense if you really must charge at all.

kujotess, you're welcome to join in on the discussions here and post your thoughts, but I don't see what purpose it serves you to spend your own free time posting unnecessarily agressive posts without adding anything of value. No one here really cares if you agree or disagree with their views, but most would prefer to read coherent posts that actually add something and are worth responding to.

Removing the link to a development site at their request is one thing, but I don't think we should need to censor an entire topic because of their mistake. Enough people have said that the prices mentioned are likely not accurate.

Movie World requested that we remove a link to their non-public development site. Though they shouldn't have had it indexed in Google and probably should have had a password on it, I think it was a fair request and so we complied.

Does anyone think that an object falling out of a pocket has ever caused any notable injury or damage ever, anywhere, in the history of theme parks?

Just a quick post to say that today marks the 10th anniversary of these forums. Back then it was www.totalthrills.com, and we were talking about Dreamworld's addition of Cyclone and the soon-to-be-opened Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster. Thanks to everyone who's stuck around since then! And of course to everyone that's joined in since. I remember back then thinking it'd be good to have 100 members on the site...

Haha... looks about right.

Good to hear... it was a bit of a gamble at first as to what -- if any -- difference it made, but I think it was definitely the right move to make. There is still a bit more to do to optimise it, but it's been a good start and a welcome relief of the strain that the site sometimes feels. And I am around... don't post as much as I'd like to but try to keep up with the forums and say something whenever I get a chance!

It's Sally Corp. They have an affiliation with Italy's Ermes Technology, which is probably the easiest explanation for that comment.

The great thing about Sally is that they are as much a theming company as they are a ride system manufacturer. It's not too unreasonable to expect an end product that'll be the best themed attraction in the park -- or Australia. The capacity looks to be around 1,000 pph with 20 cars running. Would love to see it around 1,500-2,000 though; an attraction that soaks up crowds and offers a great family experience and repeat value with minimal queues is something our parks need more than anything.

Attachments are, avatars and other images aren't as yet.

I'm pretty happy to announce that media content on Parkz is now hosted in the cloud. As a bit of a brief background to where we are today, many elements of this site remain essentially unchanged in about 7-8 years, dating back to when Roller-Coaster.com.au launched. In this time both the amount of traffic and the amount of content on the site has grown hugely, and simply put some elements of the site have failed to keep up. Most of you will have probably seen periods of downtime in the past year or two; these were almost exclusively caused by parts of the site simply being overwhelmed. What this move basically means is that media content -- images mostly -- will be delivered to users via a Content Delivery Network that is spread across the globe. Our server here in Brisbane no longer has to work every time someone views an image. This move to the cloud should completely resolve most downtime issues as it'll take the strain off the Brisbane server, particularly at peak times. This change will vastly improve the overall efficiency of the site and result in faster load speeds and also make the site more internationally accessible as content will served to end users from a network closer to them. To that end, I do encourage everyone to go and have a dig around on the site, particularly in the Photos and Database section and post any feedback. Do pages seem to load quicker, are there any bugs etc? This is hopefully the start of many more functionality improvements to come to Parkz over the course of the next few months...

Arrow redesigned their trains in the early 90s and they appeared on a handful of rides including Big Dipper. Check out Canyon Blaster at Adventuredome and Drachen Fire at Busch Gardens Williamsburg. For whatever reason they went back to the original train design immediately after Big Dipper. See Tennessee Tornado at Dollywood.

I've moved your post over here given it's more to do with the issues we've had lately. The post counts is fixed. It was displaying an old post count, but I've just resynchronised it with the actual post count. As said, a lot of avatars were also lost -- just re-upload and you'll be fine. The number in your profile is the number of post likes you've had. If it's gone down since a few days ago then it's because a few likes were lost in the recent issues as well.

Just a quick note to everyone that a database error saw us lose some forum data. We were able to restore most of the content as it was, but a handful of newer members' accounts were lost (not posts though), as well as many avatars. If you lost your account, please feel free to re-register. If you sign up with the same username, simply send me a message after you register and I'll be able to link up your existing posts to your profile. As for avatars and profile photos, regrettably these are gone as our most recent backup didn't cover these files. Of course feel free to upload a new one!

The only thing worse than a bad idea is an unoriginal bad idea. All any of our parks need to do to improve guest flexibility on their day of visit is to invest in and operate their rides at a capacity appropriate for the number of people in the park. Once someone is in the gate, the only time a theme park can make money off them is when they aren't in a queue.

Logical solution would be free locker hire park-wide for all VIP Gold passholders and anyone with an all-day locker. Still limited to one hour for ride lockers. Activated by swiping your pass barcode (giving those stupid lanyards a meaningful purpose!), or a locker wristband. Might actually make those passes worth upgrading to...

I'm a bit unsure about what this app is or what it'll do, but sounds like a solution looking for a problem. An interesting novelty if nothing else... The average park-goer will hop in a queue -- any queue -- because the ride looks fun. If the queue appears too long then they won't join it. Looking at a map of the park online is probably more pre-planning than the vast majority do before visiting a park. Pass-holders or fans will know how long a queue is by looking at it.

Just a few points... Everyone is entitled to their opinions. Please... go nuts. But the flipside to that is that if your opinion is stupid, expect others to respond accordingly with their opinions. If we're talking about the leaders of this site, my concept of leadership is to do by example. Set a tone and those that appreciate that tone will follow. I think this is one of the more intelligent theme park sites out there, and I don't think it's a coincidence that we've unwaveringly been Australia's most popular theme park site.

As far as room between the supports and station track, here's a look at that: http://www.parkz.com.au/photo/AU/Gold_Coast/Warner_Bros_Movie_World/1478-Green_Lantern/0,1,5275-Green_Lantern_construction.html

As you'll notice the forums have been upgraded today and given a completely new look. A few things are still being tidied up but in case we've missed anything if you're having any issues with either the forums or main site then let us know!