Spotty

From personally seeing Greg operate DC Rivals and Doomsday, I would be fairly sure he would be. Or at the very least he would have someone supervising him while he operated it (who was trained). At least he had a somewhat hands on approach to operations in the park and it was something I always noticed at Village when working there. Even the park supervisors occasionally did shifts operating the rides to keep their knowledge up on them. Wish I could say the same here...

Rode it today, the ride was running really smooth. I did notice though coming around the corner after the first brake run it did go quite fast compared to normal so maybe the brakes stopping it there were causing it? I did also notice in the heartline loop a lot of what appeared to be rust coloured track. However that's probably from the recent work so maybe that could even be contributing to it. The smell was certainly coming from the back end of the train though (around row 7 onwards)

Not since the Arkham upgrade. It uses eddy brakes (magnets) on the main brake run, and the old clamp style on the transfer brake and the station.

In other random maintenance news, TailSpin has had limiters put on the wings so you can barely even move them now making it next to impossible to actually get the ride flipping. Wipeout will only allow a maximum of 20 riders at a time (which funnily enough is how many they need to even run the ride)

If i'm not mistaken (and this is going back on my old manuals too...) Originally the ride had the following positions *Entry 1 (main entry) *Entry 2 (Backup entry / locker issues) *Sorter *Load 1 (First 5 rows left side) *Load 2 (First 5 rows right side) *Load 3 (Last 5 rows left side) *Load 4 (Last 5 rows right side) *Unload 1 *Unload 2 (Simply to stand on the other side to make sure no one got off on the wrong side) *Control Supervisor *2x break staff. That was back in the glory days, and I remember the queue taking up the first whole half of the building and waiting only 20 mins. However the sorter would stop guests before the ramp up to the load platform. This was changed due to many complaints about even slower load times, and staff complaints too (mostly because guests were getting angry at us) And running 2 trains with no sorter is a fair workout! Kinda miss the days

Physically not possible due to the block systems and controls. It would require a full overhaul of the mechanics to allow this, for minimal gain. When the ride runs 2 trains, the capacity is more than sufficient. If they had a second storage / maintenance bay it would be possible to have a 3rd so they could always have 2 running but it's just not going to happen.

That building has 100% been repainted, it used to be a cream color with a orange / brown color around the posters. I guess it goes with the theme but if they are keeping the outside of the building the same I think the old color scheme looked nicer.

Interesting line up this year...No limit doesn't appear to be going, along with Space Roller. Strange seeing the Hurricane going this year though.

The EKKA had a incredibly poor line up this year too if you ask me. At least the Gold Coast show has some of the classic rides to go with the newer ones too. And trust me, this is a MUCH better line up than it would have been if the Showmens Guild didn't get back in on the show. Give them a few years back there, and I'm sure the ride lineup will get better again like it used to be.

Just from my previous experience as a ride operator (for theme parks and travelling rides), you were required to sign a log book first thing in the morning (and at the end of the night), and if it wasn't signed off by maintenance you couldn't operate the ride until it was. Travelling rides were much the same, checklists needed to be completed each day before operating. Training at Village Roadshow was very thorough, and you would not be signed off until you (and your trainer) felt competent that you could work by yourself. And when working on travelling rides, I was never left alone until I felt that I was comfortable with what I was doing. So a lot of these things, operators and theme parks were already doing anyway.

Sweet Treats doesn't, Deli is often closed by 3pm and Ben and Jerry's always has a massive queue which would turn people away. There's no point having drink stations if they are never open. In fact i'm really surprised they haven't done what a lot of the cruise ships do with the bottles and have a NFC chip that has to be pushed down to activate the soda pumps. I mean they have the tags already at the counter outlets, so why not roll it out to the drink machines as well to stop people refilling without paying.

Well, that just confirms a rumour that I'd been itching to find the answer to for years. Appears that Dreamworld used to have a Paratrooper ride, just looking at those photos I can confirm that the ride is still in QLD operated by Trindall's Amusements.

Showmen's Guild supplied the rides most of the time, there was a few years (2 or 3 I think) when an external company (KayDee promotions) supplied the rides to the show. Fairly sure that all changed when the show was moved to the turf club instead of the parklands.

No post mix machines behind the counter, they were removed when the self service machines were put in at Gotham. What is even crazier is the one at the newsstand they keep closed until around 4pm and then open it up for only a hour... I honestly have no idea what they are thinking that achieves at all but whatever.

It's on at the same time as the Adelaide show, so rides like Space Roller and XXXL will not be there as they will be in Adelaide. I don't have a full ride lineup, but this year the Showmens Guild is providing the rides so it will be a much better lineup than the last few years with independent operators providing the rides. Will also be free entry, so certainly worth heading down and showing your support and having a good ride (or 5)

One thing that I thought was downright pathetic was the Gotham City drinks station being closed in the middle of the day. Want to buy a burger meal with a soft drink, that's all well and good to buy it. But oh wait, you need to go across the road to the bar to fill up your drink cup...Unless it's after 2pm, then you have to go to one of 2 food outlets still open (bakery and newsstand, and wait 20 minutes to be served). Good job guys...

Never stated where this Super Show will be held...

From what I have heard, Space Roller won't be in QLD for a "Super Show". Last i've heard it is heading to Adelaide before the show there.

Heard the same thing from multiple operators, appears the Woodchop arena is taking up a significant area of sideshow alley (near bowen bridge road / RBH). Talk about a lacklustre show...

Yep, looks like about 1/2 of sideshow alley has now been taken up by the woodchop pavilion. Great move RNA, one step closer to killing off the EKKA. It's sad when a regional show like Cairns has a better sideshow lineup than what is meant to be the major show for the whole state. No wonder so many ride operators over the years have bailed, including one of Australia's major operators (Bells) who haven't been back to the RNA since I think 2009. May as well knock the whole RNA showgrounds down and put more apartments in and have the show elsewhere if they are going to keep going the way they do.

Very clearly stated in the terms and conditions that it includes the sipper with free refills... You got ripped off sadly. It's okay, they tried to tell me that when I renewed my pass to a one pass that by choosing the monthly payment option I wasn't entitled to the renewal perks... Ended up speaking to guest services at Movie World, the lady was incredibly polite and checked up on it and promptly fixed it up for me too.

I really hope that's not the full ride list, It's missing major rides like Space Roller, XXXL and a few others... I'll be very disappointed if that is the finalised lineup. By far the worst ride list for a capital show.

See, I was under the impression that they only had one full set as the second one was used alongside the first one to make one complete train. However I could be wrong, I think it was aptly called the "purple" train back in the Lethal Weapon days.

I will admit, I did enjoy some of the perks (15% off instead of the 10% was nice, especially having a few sneaky drinks up at Skypoint, as well as the unlimited soft drink deals) but I guess their time has come now for these passes to be discontinued. Not sure if i'm going to bother switching over to a season pass or not...

Not sure if it's anything to note, but behind Scooby and near the helix on arkham there is a complete second set of wheel bogies for Arkham just sitting there on a rack. Fairly sure it is nothing, but you never know. Also to note, Movie World was insane yesterday, the carpark wasn't even full but every ride had massive queues. West had a full queue house (nearly opened up the outdoor queue), Scooby had a full line as well. Rivals was 3/4 full (running 2 trains thank god). Batwing had a full queue, superman had a 90 minute wait (one train running, for whatever reason I'll never know). Arkham had a 60 min wait with Doomsday full loading all day as well. Great to see the Village Parks doing so well, but still only having Gotham, Main St Deli and Dirty Harry open IMO is pretty poor when the park is clearly needing extra capacity for food with the lines for all 3 spilling out onto main street at 3pm.