DaptoFunlandGuy

My first visit to the park was 1994, and thrillseeker was exactly where it is in this shot. Surprising to me though is that the pirate ship wasn't near Corkscrew but pretty much in the middle of today's plaza. It is interesting how much has remained, and how much else has been replaced, or in the case of the giant lake - reclaimed.

There's a lot of folk out there who bought passes recently who are going to be a bit bitter about that. I know folk who purchased a new pass literally 3 days ago who have now paid about $80 more than they would have if they waited until today. The park is naturally not open to offering refunds (nor should they - QGOV is copping the hit, not the park) but it unfortunately leaves people with a bit of a bad taste of feeling ripped off.

Please explain how the current works are a disappointment?

Actually, I disagree. The loss of animals in a theme park is normally publicly mourned by the park. This was an act of god, so no blame to assign here, and in their recovery phase, announcing the loss of an animal would have helped some of the sentiment from the public too. Dreamworld mourns the loss of oldest tiger | Triple M Sea World polar bear Liya dies on the Gold Coast - ABC News

It's ok, just wait five minutes.

Yeah I imagine if Village was going to cut a hole in the load station wall facing the old Arkham entrance to have unload occur on the same platform as load, they'd probably get intamin in to do some reprogramming of the PLC. So you'd program out that heart attack as if you're going to stop in unload to undo all the seatbelts you're kinda defeating the purpose.

I think the saving grace for PC is that they have decent paddocks for the majority of the animals and most animals won't just stand there while a tree falls on them. smaller enclosures would have a little more luck involved, but they're also further away from the forests too.

On the coaster? I can't imagine during summer peak that they'd be exposed to the sun long enough to warm up between cycles (plus the benefit of air cooling every cycle too) but I agree it would be nice if the station had some form of shelter over top - which would have the added benefit of rain protection too.

Yeah I don't think there's one "best seat" on a coaster because everyone enjoys different things. The front seat is always a prized choice (and typically thats the only row you'll see people waiting for) but it doesn't mean people don't ask for the other rows (its just not normally taken because the front is filled first). At the end of it all - it comes down to personal preference - some people like the whip you get from rear seats, some people like the front row because there's an unobstructed view in front of them of what is coming next. My take on these coasters - Leviathan's backwards seats are pure gimmick and a total waste. The thrill of a woodie is seeing the headchoppers coming at you and facing backwards isn't the same balls to the wall experience you get on DCR. Putting backwards on Levi was an uninspired decision from decision makers who lack vision. They saw the moneymaker on rivals and decided they could profit from leviathan in the same way. Leviathan is our best woodie (no contest, really) but the lack of competition doesn't mean its a poor example - it's a really nicely done coaster, with very shit operations. DCR is balls to the wall insane. The layout has clearly had design input by someone with enthusiasts in mind (Fact). The 'Joker Coaster' is a little polarising, but despite the long transitions between each element, it takes it so quickly right to the end that you barely get a chance to catch your breath. If you're after pure thrill, it is 100% what you're after - nothing but an adrenaline machine - forwards or backwards, it doesn't matter, but each of those experiences are uniquely different from each other. The station was designed well to maximise throughput - but again, operations suck. SE is much more palatable to the family. A great themed section inside the soundstage, and then pure speed and airtime, it's short enough that it doesn't upset those with more fragile sensibilities, but long enough to give an adrenaline junkie their fix. Some people just prefer the launched nature of SE too, as for many people, the worst part of a coaster is the anticipation as they climb the lift hill. I'm sure I don't need to say it, but again, despite separate unload station ops being in the design, the nature of single train operations 97% of the year means it'd be more efficient with the single station. The one saving grace is the locker policy minimises the delays of forgotten loose items almost entirely (there's always that one guy though). ST strikes (pun intended) differently. It's the only coaster that actually has inversions, and for a lot of people "goes upside down" instantly makes it "scarier" than any coaster that doesn't. The blue fire layout has a proven track record - (which I think for some enthusiasts instantly makes them downgrade the ride as clones = bad in their view) but the addition of the swing launch and the spinning seat makes it different enough that it's an essential "Credit" even if you've done every other version of it. Sure, it isn't as balls-to-the-wall insane as DCR, but I think some people honestly prefer that. I think I could lap ST and DCR on quiet days, but I think i'd reach my limit - (the point at which it stopped being enjoyable, and started to cause discomfort) on DCR sooner. I don't like to think of DCR and ST as direct competitors. They each provide something different, and sometimes I want what one provides over the other. That all said, the design of ST's station seems to have learned from SE and DCR - it provides space for 3-4 boarding groups, meaning ops can group a bunch of trains in one go, and then focus on pumping the trains out. They can keep it topped up full enough in the downtime they have before the next train arrives that there is an almost constant flow of guests into the boarding area, and the train is never sitting in the station just waiting for people to line up in front of the airgates. Don't get me wrong, DW still operates it like shit on quiet days with less ops covering more roles, but the ability to group multiple trains if they get a long line - even on quiet days - still means it moves faster than village anyday.

Have already mentioned this -

It can be a (very poor) strategy by management. The old timers leave because they no longer feel appreciated and remember the good times, the new guys never know anything different and accept it as par for the course. The end result is you lose the institutional knowledge - like the 'why' we do things a certain way - which leads to two possible outcomes - people don't change outdated and inefficient processes because they were taught to do it a certain way for a reason that no longer exists - "that's the way we've always done it" - (See the 5 Monkey experiment) people change equipment or procedures to remove something that ensures safety because they don't understand the risk "what could go wrong?" (for example - removing slats on a conveyor belt to reduce the weight on the conveyor motor)

Employee recognition and rewards are a great way to boost staff morale - but it has to be something that people want \ appreciate - and it doesn't fix all the problems if you're running the place like garbage or treating them like shit every other time. Swapping from something you can use whenever you prefer to a free lunch only available on a certain day sounds very much a step backwards.

No, you don't get to wash over that. Own your statement. You said (my emphasis) So in acknowledging that nobody knows with certainty what/how it got through you are admitting that your previous statement that they should've picked it up before that was completely unjustified. Totally judgy and in no way an observation - which as defined would be a statement based on something that you have seen, heard, or noticed. At best, you expressed an opinion, and your opinion was unfounded in fact. You're making broad statements about someone else's job without the knowledge or experience to do that job. And you're wrong to boot. Cannot agree with this more. This is exactly the primary issue at play and what anyone coming into a management role in a theme park needs to read over and over again. My time in a theme park was spent with managers that inspired us to do our best, encouraged us to push for our best to ensure we delivered our best for each and every guest. I left because a new manager entered the space with a background in fast food, and she entirely obliterated the culture, destroyed morale and made it a not fun place to be.

I've observed some ops that are just clearly dead inside. I often wonder whether it's the idiot guests or the draconian management and company culture, but it matters not. it happens. you have to hire the right person to work in a theme park. When you aren't attracting the right people, you're not offering enough, and you end up settling for bums on seats, so to speak. But i've also observed some ops who absolutely bust a gut to deliver the best guest experience they can. they are shining stars in a sea of darkness. A long time ago I stopped offering negative feedback about poor experiences with cast members as I just couldn't be sure I knew what that person was going through that day. Instead, I try to make an effort to identify anyone who is delivering a great experience, and I offer a cast compliment whenever I can to recognise them. Disney makes it easy as you can do it there and then on their app. I try to stop into guest services on the GC on my way out to offer the same sort of feedback, but i'm not sure what they do with it. Hopefully those cast are recognised or rewarded in some way, though clearly it is not enough of an incentive to revive the others back from the dead.

if we're just repeating random things we're hearing, I heard that all the animals at PC were safe. Looking at the nearmap images it's clear that the park had a lot of trees down. these have probably impacted exhibits and facilities, and i'm quite sure the priority would have been on clearing MW and WNW enough to reopen as fast as possible, given they have the most patronage on the Oxenford lot. I haven't heard AOS say anything though, even though several people have asked...

Oh, I don't for a minute begrudge them the additional space potentially required to maintain highly complex attractions. Just not in the middle of the damn park, on the site of a former attraction. This space could be utilised so much better than it is -

Yeah they really should have a bin right beside the greeter for shit like that that you completely forgot about.

They do when the gold coast bulletin posts a hit piece... Honestly the media goes full ham on shit like this so I think it's good that they're getting on the front foot and issuing statements to counteract the sensationalism. I just hope they don't release it on instagram again - they did a video version of the Rivals media statement and it was so cringe.

See that pisses me off. They've always had maintenance facilities near the front of the park, and while they may be in need of an upgrade, taking out prime, central park real estate for maintenance facilities that can be done elsewhere is just wrong. It's like they just decided the temporary construction offices made that part of the park back of house now so now they're loading it up with BOH shit to save a few hundred metres? plus cold rooms? where did they used to store F&B before they built leviathan? Honestly come up with something better than building an Eat-street style shipping container city in the middle of the damn park. Put a rollercoaster back there like there used to be... this is fucked.

I don't disagree. But you need that to change in their policies. this isn't something cast can choose to do differently without the policy changing. we all hate it, but someone decided it was procedure and to change that needs courage, and most won't have that courage because of the inevitable "what if". this has been debated to death. stop shitting on the ops crew for it they have no control over it. From what I hear, they've been doing that at Rivals this season when they've had the staff to do so. so it does happen, when they're staffed appropriately.

Nearmap update 28 December. Slab is 12m x 38m approx. looks way too big to be bathroom facilities. Just adding - they're building quite the city out here. top stuff looks like a bunch of cold rooms. #weird.

All of the things you point out though can be classified under a banner of safety. It might be overkill, we might disagree with it, but somewhere, some risk analysis has said 'do it this way' and unless you get a brave risk analyst step forward to say 'we don't need to do this step anymore because it will make things more efficient without compromising safety' you're stuck with what you have. Funny thing about risk analysis is that most people are obsessed with eliminating risk instead of mitigating it, so you just end up nanny-stating things more and more with each review. You'll be hard pressed to find an analyst willing to contradict the previous ones to loosen things up - because if anything goes wrong its on their head.

I have a drink bottle with the tallest \ fastest \ longest slogan, a bottle lanyard and a keyring from early on in it's life. I'm sure there was a shirt too, but.... The park used to do some really good polo shirts and now you're lucky if they have one or two. I live in polos and a good polo should be: done in a dri-fit style fabric - viscous blends and wick away, not cotton \ poly - (see the Under Armour tiger woods style shirts, as an example) embroider it. or get it done in dye-sublimation (there are some awesome designs you can do with dye-sub). Don't stick vinyl print on it as it doesn't breathe. be generous with the sizes you stock. I'm an XL fit, but prefer a 2XL to sit a bit loose. Stock a 3 or 4 (or even 5) X size. dad-bods are your biggest polo wearer, and they've got the money to buy a decent quality polo, so offer it in as many sizes as you can without being stupidly overstocked. (if you can buy the size in Big W, you should stock it in your theme park merch). I like these models, but I think a nano of rivals would be too much - the footprint is a Z shape, and you've got massive hills, the NIL and some supports - it'd be fiddly and cumbersome. I do think our parks have undervalued the benefit of the Dynamix product range though, and should offer more of their attractions in the lineup.

I'm back after a few weeks away, and checking in on the latest nearmaps. Just keeping them all to this thread for now as there's quite a bit to go through... Nearmap has a policy usually of doing flyovers only during certain hours, to minimise shadows and deliver the best imagery possible. Many images recently captured of the northern goldcoast (datestamp is 28 December) were done outside of regular flight times to capture as much of the damage as possible - so you will notice that there are many heavy shadows and it does make it difficult to see some things. I've only focussed on areas where damage was clearly visible, but happy to provide further shots later on request if there is something specific you want to see. Wizard of Oz land Note the large tree downed in the lower right edge of the land Front of TopGolf - trees by the road Paradise Country lost a lot of trees. It's no wonder they've been closed the longest. Movie World front entrance - before and after Tiger Island Vintage Cars Murrisippi

Yeah pretty much given the age of the ride and when it last operated, between your one shaky video and AndrewH's old photos, that's about as good as you're going to get. Video cameras back 20 years ago weren't up to what current devices can do without being extremely bulky and oversized, which is also unlikely to be allowed on by a guest. I can offer an alternative simulated experience though. Dark. Loud. Lift Hill. Noisy. Bright light. dark. bright light. dark. pitch black. sudden drop. scream. loud noises. sudden drop. sharp corners. hard laterals. brake run shoves your rib cage through your spine. the end.