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DaptoFunlandGuy last won the day on March 21
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About DaptoFunlandGuy
- Birthday June 24
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Male
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Brisbane South
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Resident grouch.
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Space Mountain
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This Ride Ruined Movie World.
DaptoFunlandGuy replied to Dean Barnett's topic in Theme Park Discussion
Yeah at this point with the number of and degree of explanations and imagery provided, i'm going to go out on a limb and say @oofy is a troll being deliberately obtuse and should just be ignored in all future discussion -
This one came out in 2023. Probably just came out of the new release overnight hires and into the weekly shelves - apparently Africa was the first in a 12-part series for the flying theatre, so I look forward to seeing them all come out eventually Brogent takes IAAPA to Africa in their new Flying Theatre movie – DRdb Hopefully we get the full ten minutes and they don't skimp on the lemon dishwashing scent.
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those bamboo style fence panels have been there since before the ride opened. I'm pretty sure the rock wall pieces were too and may just be waiting for them to finalise the other water feature elements prior to install.
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yep - 0% market research on new \ returning attractions and 100% 'what can we post that people will like / comment / share / subscribe to'
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This Ride Ruined Movie World.
DaptoFunlandGuy replied to Dean Barnett's topic in Theme Park Discussion
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. -
This Ride Ruined Movie World.
DaptoFunlandGuy replied to Dean Barnett's topic in Theme Park Discussion
Nobody mentions how easily it could have been MW who killed 4 people. Oh I know. It was all S&S' fault right? 🤐 I don't think Village is suffering an image problem stemming from TRRR. They went gangbusters post-TRRR and pre-covid. Village's image problem is down to their contempt for guests, and their disregard for the guest experience. It has long ago been about making money, not memories. THAT is the fucking image problem at village. -
Just be warned - as far as your 'credits' are concerned - their maintenance schedules aren't easily identified - we had several places we planned to visit based on certain attractions we wanted to do and ended up discovering several were closed for maintenance. The japanese websites sometimes had the info, but the english mirror sites weren't always updated. Some places didn't really advertise the closure - I can remember two places we went to where we literally arrived at the queue entrance to discover a no entry \ closed sign, and nowhere else could we find this info. For one of those, the website was still allowing people to purchase tickets for that date (so i'm really glad we didn't pre-pay!). This may not impact you but do keep in mind this can happen.
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Didn't they entirely reprofile the bowls? is there maybe some compliance issue with the new profiles?
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You should probably cut back.
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Sea World Maintenance Schedule 2025
DaptoFunlandGuy replied to themagician's topic in Theme Park Discussion
Might not be uncommon, but there's something pretty common in all of your examples... -
Big Thunder and Splash both get significant waits. Rope dropping Splash is probably the way to go as it's all the way at the back of the park. When you come out you'll probably see a few fantasyland walk-ons (we got Peter Pan walk-on immediately after rope dropping splash). If you do this, while walking to Splash you can be trying to get a 40th anniversary pass for Big Thunder, and you've knocked 2/3 on the head in less than an hour. The gadget coaster will be a solid wait all day, but it moves quickly. We hit that after big thunder and waited about 45 minutes. How our day went down: Splash (rope drop) Peter Pan (standby - walkon) Big Thunder (40th) Pinocchio (standby - 10 mins) Gadget Coaster (Standby - 45 mins) Roger Rabbit (standby - 30 mins) Space Mountain (40th) - now closed Haunted Mansion (40th) Haunted Mansion (40th) we lucked out and picked up a second pass while in the queue so figured it was worth it for the AC Carousel (standby - 10 mins) Snow White (Standby - 25 mins) Small World (standby - 20 mins) Pooh (standby - 30 mins - during parade) B&TB (DPA) Star Tours (40th) Western Railroad (Standby - 15 minutes) Tiki Room (Standby - 5 minutes) Jungle Cruise (Standby - 20 minutes) Pirates (Standby - 30 minutes) Big Thunder (40th - night ride) Splash (Standby - 15 mins) (Happy 15 early entry got us the first two, and probably really helped with the first BT 40th pass - the 15 minutes doesn't let you ride anything though, so it only ensures you're front of the line when rides commence operations)
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Since you're arriving early on the 25th, you might consider the USJ "1.5 day pass". You get a half day in the park on the first day, so you could head in in the afternoon to 'get the lay of the land' and knock some things on the head to clear up your full day. USJ can be done in a day but the extra afternoon gives you a bit more time to pace yourself. We did it last year in June and i'd recommend it if you've got nothing else to do that afternoon and you aren't staying far from Universal City. Then you get your 7 ride pass for the second day, and you've already sussed out the lay of the land and how things work. Your plan to hit everything else in the morning is good if you've got SNW locked in already. Just remember the Japanese don't really have weekends like a lot of western countries do - their work ethic is typically a 6 day work week (or more) so the low days aren't always going to be midweek. Thrill Data's crowd calendar shows the back end of September is likely to be 'average crowds' every day. Disney still offers the free 40th anniversary pass on their app, though they do disappear quickly. The best advice is to research what are your 'must-do' attractions and target them first by either rope dropping them or prioritising them in the app if they're available on the 40th pass. On our last day in TDL we managed to do 21 attractions in a single day (Disney considers 8 to be a 'satisfying day' in most parks). We had happy entry and 3 pre-booked fastpasses, but everything else was just working the app and strategically planning our route, plus constant refreshing of the app. The biggest tip is if you see a fastpass popup for something you're keen on, don't wait, don't ask your party if they want to do it, just book it as it will disappear in the time you have that conversation. Have your tickets pre-loaded into the app prior to arrival, and have your credit card info loaded in and\or handy to add in for online ordered food and premium access upgrades - Premier Access is an option pay for play, and is probably the best way to experience Beauty and the Beast or Soarin' - a shame you aren't planning Disney Sea by the sounds of your family members, as Sea is probably the prettiest park in the world. TDRExplorer has done many videos on how to use the apps, and cool tips not just for TDR but also for USJ so if you haven't already - go and watch his channel. Gone are the days where you could rock up to the front gate, buy a ticket and have a good day. Disney Parks - but especially Tokyo require intense pre-planning and constant app-monitoring to fit the most in. If you just want to see the castle and consider that a good day you could get away with doing nothing in advance but if you want to experience more than a couple of attractions, you need to do your research.
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It's a controversial topic at present - and no matter which side of the fence you're on, you're going to have one group or another take issue with your position on it, so the smarter option in these is to not engage in the debate at all - but of course then you'll have people who will take issue with you not taking a position at all - so it's lose-lose.
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DaptoFunlandGuy replied to themagician's topic in Theme Park Discussion