Spotty

Having worked on the ride in 2011 - 2013 and spending many shifts in the lift room at Turntable 1, I can assure you that sound effect has always been there and audible. The crane at the start of the ride was always moving (when it worked)

By now, I don't expect anything less from him. Just embrace it lol

My bad... I'll keep my mouth shut 🤣

Surprisingly Superman has actually very rarely rolled back. AFAIK it's only had 2 or 3 rollbacks that I'm aware of with guests on board. It's had a few launch abortions though where the brake fins have popped up mid launch however but not many full on rollbacks.

6000 is a lot less than previous years numbers. 2012 for example they would sell 10,000 a night. So that's a much smaller number. I still remember nearly being bowled over at the Supeman entry when we did the walkback from the little archway under the launch to open up Arkham and Superman. 4 staff vs like 1000 guests all desperate to get to the mazes and rides, not a good idea haha. Glad after the 1st one they moved the crowds back to the actual ride entrances.

Feel free to I may not answer all in one go but I will if possible. It's mostly I don't want to get Parkz in trouble as in the past when people have said things about certain behind the scenes things it caused friction, I'd rather not cause those kinds of issues for them haha.

Always happy for questions, and always happy to answer (where possible and not breaking NDA's etc). Feel free to shoot me a PM I guess

Scooby was actually a very easy ride to operate as a cast member. But it was one of the last rides staff learnt due to the complex evacuations. Wild West Falls was the most intensive due to the constant walking up and down the load platform. I was trained on Superman, Scooby, West, Batwing, Lethal Weapon / Arkham, Batman, Tunes Ride and Kids Rides / RoadRunner Roller Coaster before leaving in 2013. At that point I'd say the most reliable major ride was honestly Wild West Falls, Batwing and Superman. Before the Arkham conversion it would have hands down been Lethal Weapon. As far as ease goes I was only an attendant (not the one sitting behind the main control panel) most of the time. So from that POV batwing was very easy (but also incredibly boring), followed by Superman, Scooby and Wild West Falls. As a supervisor they were all very easy honestly until things go wrong, then each of them have their quirks. Scooby is the most full on by far for trying to reset faults to avoid an evacuation. Followed probably by West. If superman decides it's going to fault, generally we just let it do it's thing as it's not as intense to evacuate compared to Scooby / West. Certainly had the most fun IMO working on Lethal and Superman (apart from Tunes and Bat Ride before closure)

Sizzler's closure was planned before COVID was a thing. It was just a convenient excuse. The eventual demise of the brand was planned as far back as 2015 when they started closing stores and announced that they wouldn't be investing further in the brand to focus on other ventures. Collins Food Group also briefly owned Snag stand as well, but within months of owning it entirely shut the entire business down.

From an ex operator POV. Superman is actually very reliable 99% of the time. West was also very reliable too but this was all prior to the refurbs. As far as Scooby goes, 90% of the time the faults causing a ride stop were not due to the lift. It was often either the turntable or a delay in the load or unload station causing a backup in the ride which would then cause a cascade stop. If a cascade is starting you will see a "must send" light start flashing on the load panel, and it's often why you may suddenly see staff send several empty cars around before loading guests again to try and clear the backlog before the ride has a meltdown. 9 out of 10 times a cascade is recoverable if operators act fast enough... otherwise it becomes leg day for the operators haha.

Can confirm it was. And if it's still running as crap as it was when I worked there in 2013... you had to push kick the deck after starting the ride to make it run...

Ah, so it's back up and running after the trailer fire a while back? Good to know. That ride had so much potential as a design, but just fell flat on it's butt.

I was thinking the same thing TBH. I would have thought this would have been more newsworthy lol. But it’s not really, as far as I’m aware the train was empty when this happened anyway.

Managed to snap this tonight. Whoopsie

Also a much higher minimum height restriction, ruling out a lot of riders...

32 riders on the claw vs 40 on a Giant Discovery. Not really double the capacity. Add some turnstiles to the queue and you'll certainly get double or triple the capacity though

I'd much rather something that isn't 10 minutes up the road. If I wanted to have an intense frisbee style ride I'd go the KMG XXL like The Beast. They make park versions of them too, and are by far the most intense Gyro Swing style rides out there. But I think it would be stupid for Movie World to go with something like that.

"DC Rivals Hypercoaster is closed until further notice" I await it lol. Big oof **EDIT: It's already been thrown up on the website lol

Hasn't been sold, just hasn't travelled in a while due to several reasons. Will hopefully be out and about again soon though

That would be because himself, and the operations manager were at Movie World when the Green Lemon debuted... I very much doubt they would work with S+S. And honestly most of their rides are plagued with issues, the only ones that seem to be reliable is the Space Shots and the Screaming Swings. Which Honestly, I wouldn't mind seeing a screaming swing at Sea World TBH. If dreamworld didn't have The Claw it would be a good fit.

Hurricane and Wave Swinger for me haha, spent most of my time on the Cyber Party though Good memories

Sure do, have worked for them in the past too lol

I don't really see many of the parks working with S+S any time soon. Especially with the Green Lantern issues that the ride had. Especially given that many of the high end staff in the operations team were with Village at the time of it opening and saw first hand what a potato it was. Batwing also had a fair few issues early on. I'd say the only reason that Movie World keeps Green Lantern running is because nothing else can fit there and it's keeping them ahead of Dreamworld right now for coasters and thrills until they hopefully catch up again.

Just wish the Zipper's still travelled. It's been so long since I've seen one Keen to get a ride on the Rainbow as soon as it's ready. I know the owners of the ride are very keen to have it running, and proud to have it in their family.