DaptoFunlandGuy

The original green lasers were class. They had multiple mirrors positioned around the room for the lasers to bounce off to cast beams in multiple directions. A light haze should not be anything to be concerned about safety wise. Obviously a lot has progressed technology wise, so there's probably a bunch of things an experienced designer could come up with that would be just as awesome \ effective (TBH the next gen lighting towards the end was pretty cool too - especially since the scenes changed so you could get a different experience re-riding) so either of those things would be my pick. I don't want props in the disco room - it's not what it's for.

uh.. yes.

Absolutely. When we're overseas and have limited time, we want to make sure we get to ride everything, so our holiday budget normally extends to paying for whatever premium line skip product they have - and that's really where they should be targeting the product. The problem is if it keeps selling out - you're shooting too low.

...which despite the staff's valiant efforts - is never loud enough or focussed enough that the guests not paying attention won't get the message anyway.

We got to ride on December 16th. We made online reservations and arrived first thing on opening. The staff at the ride entrance were unable to accept our online tickets, meaning we had to return to the front ticket desk to exchange our online tickets for 'admit one' style paper tickets. IMO this essentially defeated the purpose of booking online and felt a bit backwards. In the time it took to get the paper tickets, another group had arrived and were admitted first - we joined the cars behind them, but after several attempts at dispatch, we all had to be unloaded and moved behind the gate while they used the gantry to lift one of the cars off the track. Several minutes of troubleshooting later and the crew ironed out the bugs and got the ride working again - these sorts of teething issues are to be expected in early days of a new ride. I asked the operator to leave a larger gap in front of me so I could avoid having to slow down for slower riders in front and they were happy to oblige as there was no queue. They mentioned that each car had a sensor in it to detect a car in front, and the car would automatically brake if it got to within 10 metres of the car in front. The track has two lift hills which move a bit faster than the old toboggan. The unfortunate thing that lets the ride down is just that the hill is so short. The first track section after the first lift is a gentle sloping track, giving a good view of the sparkling pacific ocean, before you turn into a helix and before you know it, you hit trim brakes to slow you back down to a crawl before you reach the second lift. The second lift parallels the toboggan lift track. You get some more speed on this second downhill section but it is again over before you know it. For me - they needed more height for this to be able to give each rider a longer experience. I'd like to have seen some of the trim removed so the slow down occurs later (but harder, to compensate) - the trims are proportionate, but all have a minimum speed, so if you're a cautious rider and hit them moving slowly, you're going to literally crawl through them slower than an airport travelator. Hitting them at maximum speed is the only way. I haven't ridden the Thredbo one yet, but POVs make it seem like a much better option. Big Banana is trying to keep itself relevant here with the looming Pacific Highway bypass progressing and this is another offering that might convince people to detour and I genuinely hope that it pays off for them and convinces them to continue to invest in the park - but for those who have ridden other alpines, or are seeking a high thrill ride - this is a miss, IMO.

I feel whelmed.

Next gen was an abomination - there is no question of that - but from what I'd heard - Didn't the company brought in to do the projection mapping completely fail to deliver, and they were left to cobble together the final product with minimal remaining budget?

I was in Coffs a couple weeks back and some of the staff working there did reference the bunyip being further 'up the back' so it's possible something there still remains...

Yep - the pricing is absolutely horrid, but people keep paying it so - unless they increase the park's capacity - the only way to fix the experience is to keep upping the price until it eventually becomes prohibitive. I've been saying it for years - vote with your wallet if the experience isn't what you want.

depends on if they trained enough crew for opening.

I don't accept that and see it as a cop out. If you can't maintain your standards while doing other new projects that bring in additional revenue, then you shouldn't do other projects. We've had occurrences over the more than two decades that this forum has existed where someone has called out an effect not working and it's very quickly been resolved. Sometimes things have been waiting parts or a qualified tech and it takes longer. And sometimes the park is just poor at maintaining things. It's not ideal for it to have this kind of issue right before peak season, but sometimes things happen and i'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt in the short term - so I agree - hopefully they get back on top of things in the near future - but saying KC and BB are the reason for the rest of the park falling into disrepair should never be seen as an acceptable excuse.

It doesn't surprise me that you'd choose to nitpick that particular phrase... At any rate, I wouldn't call a slide a ride either. You better go tell Village because they refer to slides separately too!

I can't say 'all'. they had some cracker videos pushed out a while back. I know there's some really passionate people up there, but there's also some people who just don't get it. The jokes on them though, really.

They've had literal years to come up with a relaunch campaign and these videos just feel a bit flat. There's no excitement here.

Loving the nice clean feel of the new forum. Thanks for the upgrade Richard. No issues so far but I did find that the multiquote feature doesn't automatically insert a line break between each quote so you can comment after each quoted reply - I found there is an "Enter" arrow at the bottom right of each quote I could use to insert line breaks - Not a bug or issue now I found the solution but posting here so others who encounter the same issue know how to fix.

I don't know about that... Fully 6 has always been deathly slow. Ops have told me the rash shirt is what slows you down - but in today's cancer-aware swim culture - they should be designing slides that don't have this issue. This shits me. If you want to do filming, do it before park open. If you've got influencers who only come during trading hours - they should be given the full 'wait in the line' experience.

The video in the reply above yours shows fast track, and what appears to be general standby. There's no way you'd fit single rider up that corridor - and they're certainly not going to prioritise capacity over making money off queue jump passes. It's been said it's just the beginning of the video, and if that's the case i'm not against it - you can't skip credits on stuff like that - but even if it isn't, i'd be totally ok if they'd worked out a sponsorship deal for it. In my view, watching what I assume is a 'making of' \ 'behind the scenes' video while standing in a queueline, even without HBO branding - isn't quite the embodiment of 'immersion'. If you want immersion in a queue line, check out WOZ or Jungle Rush, because it isn't projector screens playing movie clips.

Like last time i'm sure they'll mysteriously sell out on the day of, while still having plenty of tickets available to sell at the gate.

That's really interesting. So to contextualise these references: Seat 1 faces the queueline Seat 10 faces Tailspin Seat 20 faces shockwave \ dreamland Seat 30 faces main street. I'll have to try facing main street.

Something I forgot to add though is that the ride parks in the exact same spot every time. The numbered seats are always in the same position. As far as I could tell from watching a few cycles, this isn't a jog setting at the end of the cycle - meaning that each seat uniquely differs in its ride experience, while the same seat will generally give the same experience on every ride - for example, seat 1 always seemed to be at the apex of each swing \ seat 20 always seemed to be at the bottom, with 10\30 on the sides. Not a scientific observation by any means, just my own observations - so could be totally wrong - interested if anyone else observes the same...

...and a water ride, and eureka mountain and probably half a dozen other things that were removed without replacement. they're still doing great - but there's still a lot of holes in the lineup.

https://youtu.be/uBhyr4qVWRU?si=J1woqRQ3ZxDlz6pE

Absolutely. Hurts nobody, costs nothing, ambient sounds were already part of the package so chucking it in there as a little nod is perfect. Of course everyone is wired differently - i'm certainly not the yardstick (age does things to your inner ear) but when my son tapped out, it highlighted to me that there may be an issue there.

Yeah the old walls were a foam molded product that didn't meet fire performance standards like the internals of the ride and were removed. The new walls do look mostly 2d flats with the embellishments around the screen and props. Smoke in the fountain was always there, just low performance IRL. The images have either done a long exposure which has exaggerated the fog, or they've improved \ upgraded the device responsible.

This still isn't the Aqualoop.