DaptoFunlandGuy

I would like to know from operators out there, past and present, any park whatsoever, what attraction was the worst, or best, most interesting, difficult or easy to operate, absolutely any ride goes... tell your story of your favourite ride to op... regale us with your tales...

what about the holding lakes for SRR? honestly in the discussion of rides being relocated, i don't know anything about sunway's pricings on it, but i dont htink many will be bought knowing what sunway's opinion on money is... i would like to see Bounty moved to seaworld, replacing their pirate ship, or perhaps partnering with it... choose your adrenalin level... regular or extra crispy... lol. just a few new restraints... (insert comments from Joz here), and perhaps endeavour moving to SW as well... it was a crap ride to operate, because it's controls couldn't stage the entrances precisely. i was never a ride op, but i have operated endeavour, and staging that thing was an absolute Biatch. for those who don't know... basically the ride had a couple of controls. it had an automatic despatch button, which would commence spinning, then tip up, do a couple revolutions, then bring it level and slow down. it would spin with its own momentum until it stopped. it didn't know where the entrance and exit were so it didnt necessarily stop at the bridge. there was a bridge up, and bridge down button (obviously) and a spin button. the op that was with me when i operated it taught me that you basically wait until the hydraulic drops the ship to level, then you hit the spin button until a certain point on the ship lines up with the station on the opposite side, release it, and it would have enough speed to turn until the entrance came up to the bridge. if you brought the bridge up and the turntable was in the wrong spot, the bridge would jam. so on another note... im going to create a new thread in general thrills... and i would like to know from operators out there, past and present, any park whatsoever, what attraction was the worst, or best, most interesting, difficult or easy to operate, absolutely any ride goes...

as far as the SDA membership crazee, it is for you and a maximum of 3 others. 4 people per card only.

that is actually a BRILLIANT idea paul. that sounds exactly the kind of thing they should do... a Christopher Reeve tribute to Superman... the B&M Superman Flyer. a lot of people on here can't shut up about them. I would pay WBMW to build one, just to shut them all up... also so WBMW would get the "first in australia" record, and shut up all the DW supporters too. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway

or they could just buy some more wood, bolts, nails, brakes and controls, along with the new rolling stock in general, and built a much more stable, newer, softer riding woodie, that isnt made out of half rotted southern yellow pine that was milled in 1980. personally, im all for preserving bush beast. i am however against relocation. not worth it, and not a fitting end to its life..

This might be completely aside from the possible new ride coming into WBMW or it may not..., but in my recent travels to MW, i noticed that behind all of the sound stages, there was a lot of concrete footings, cranes etc around. this was most easily seen from the queueline of Mountain River and Mountain Falls of WnW. can anyone shed any light as to what is going on in this area behind the soundstages? does it have anything to do with a new attraction? is it something being done for filming a showmovie? whats going on down there?

"infiltration has been confirmed as coming from deep space. the ether tranmission signal which caused the infiltration, was an alien virus like organism of unknown origin. Seven-Net reporter Adam Walters is at the space probe 7 earth station...." lol. I mixed up some of that for Utopia one year... still have it here somewhere... lol.

which version bus? Channel 7 Version? or screwed up Sunway Version? i think the 7 Version was the better one, recognisable news reporters and stuff like that gave the "pre show" a bit more realism than some doped up actor with too much makeup.

i don't believe i have fallen into any trap. i listed 4 or 5 realistic solutions, or part solutions to the problem. loose items etc, while it can take time, is generally minimal in the scheme of things. How much time does an operator waste walking between station and head of queue on cyclone? how much on ToT? i hear some groans coming already... but a better queueing system for a multi-seated ride is how wonderland ran bush beast, or demon. the last 5 metres or so before the train was divided into a queue for each pair of seats... if you wanted the front, and were prepared to wait, so be it... longer queue... therefore the people who want to rush through it, get a ride and dont care where they sit... get through the middle much faster. loose items is minimal. most people put most of this into their bag, and toss their bag onto the other side of the platform as they step into the ride.safety checks take place only after most people have sat down because the loaders are seeking "single riders" to fill a spot, closing the gates etc. (im speaking in general terms, not one specific ride). if you guys really want me to be specific i will post another thread, and go through each ride one at a time with exactly what could or should be done IMHO to improve capacity. honestly.... dreamworlds easiest solution is to build a show or two. WBMW, SW and also Wonderland demonstrated that it was so easy to clear out a high percentage of their attendance by running shows. at wonderland, going back a few years, there was Milennium Magic, which ran 2, sometimes 3 and in peak 4 times a day. MM was a MUST SEE at wonderland. then there was action man, generally once a day, goldrush theatre ran a HB show once or twice, AWP had blinky bill, and countless animal talks. character appearances, not just drive by's on suped up golf carts stopped more crowd to look, shake hands, take a photo or two and generally ease up on the queue lines. thsi is dreamworlds problem. a bandaid fix seems to be the numerous sideshow style attractions that have sprung up... how long have these been here guys? overall dreamworld needs to: increase staffing over peak periods.. .to assist with "loose articles", locating that "single rider" or "group of three" you hear so often, clearing out the last cycle of guests, etc add real, staged, purpose built shows. im talking a proper stadium style theatrette, with a high capacity. the little stage in nick central that looks like it would seat 30 kids is nowhere near big enough, im talking your dolphin coves, your police academies, and the show needs to be big enough, long enough, interesting enough and marketable enough that it will attract a LARGE crowd... and even if you've seen it before, you won't mind seeing it again. redesigning the queuelines for some attractions. i would get rid of the gap between the station and queue head at cyclone, and install a system like demon bushbeast. i have plenty more ideas i guarantee. but there are plenty of ideas i can think of, and too many to put here now. if anyone would like a new thread with my concepts, say so. i am preparing a letter to DW at the moment, as after my trip i have LOTS of letters to write, i am getting there slowly. ill post the content of the letter, as well as update youwith the responses from DW... cheers, Alex.

""""Funland is situated just up from Ulladulla Harbour. There is a great variety of activities for all the family including Dodgem cars, Sizzler (Cha Cha) ride, Air hickey, Slot cars, video games and many ticket redemption games. Tea, coffee, soft drinks and a wide range of souvenirs are available. """" i wonder what AIR HICKEY is like.... maybe synthetic hickeys produced by vacuum cleaners??? lol.

its a bit late i suppose, but there are a number of different memberships that will get you a discount... certain unions, including the shops, distributive and allied workers union (SDA) theres the presidential card www.presidentialcard.com.au theres the ambassador card www.ambassadorcard.com.au heaps of different ones. i have all three... also take a stroll through surfers... heaps of org's are trying to offer discounts and claim to be the cheapest... as i said its probably too late now, but do your shopping around and you can sometimes get lucky..

im reading the specs on the robocoaster website... it lists each unit as holding 2 persons. looking at the cartoon images on the site, it would seem that each unit takes up a circle of about 10 metres in diameter at least. now lets say its a one minute ride, add at least 15 seconds on each side, for load and unload. so each cycle from the time the guest loads to the time they unload, is 90 seconds. 2 guests per unit, 90 seconds per ride, thats 40 cycles per hour, or 80 guests per hour. they show banks of these units lined up, so the theory would be to have multiple units all working together. to achieve 1000 pax per hour, that would require more than 12 units. not including queue line or pathways, loading areas, control booths, power supplies, safety zones and theming, thats more than 120 square metres just for the ride portion of the attraction... so lets say double that to allow for all the ancilliary parts of the attraction. now because these rides have a high exhilirating, as i read above, 2 G's or more... this will not be a ride for everyone. so you're able to churn through 1000 pax per hour at an expense of 240 square metres worth of land, and you're going to be able to please the 20 percent of your GP that can handle 2 G's. so lets say the park has 10,000 people in it. its not a high number but its not low either. 20% of your GP will ride it, thats 2000... so it means that in a 7 hour day, that 20% could ride it 4 times if they got in in the first hour, and 3 times if they got in in the second. On top of this, and i mean no offence to anyone, but the maximum double occupancy SWL is 200Kgs. now i weigh 105Kgs, im 6 foot flat, and i know a lot of other enthusiasts who would want to ride this sort of thing would be similar dimensions. so suddenly our 2000 pax who WILL ride it is decreased some more simply because of the SWL. the fact that the ride is built from aluminium, and uses brushless electric motors means it doesnt have the guts that some other rides do. its a car building robot thats been retrofitted into a ride to gain a bigger market for the same device. its like using an electric fan motor to power a V8 Supercar. i've just glanced at the site again and lists its width as being 11.2metres.. i assume they are allowing for the safety and load operator area, so the 10 metre diameter is pretty much spot on. now the fact that it runs on a basic PC design using windows, with internet access, soundcard, etc.... this is sounding like your generic home computer thats been retrofitted to do the job. how often do you get a blue screen of death? or a "we're sorry but this program has encountered an error and has to close" message? imagine that happening while you're spinning at 4.9metres per second...? i can see this idea being taken up by a manufacturer who knows what they're doing, building it with the necessary parts to make it robust, with a custom built console designed for the job, rather than a windows computer that is obsolete before they finish designing the software for the hardware... a manufacturer who builds RIDES, not car manufacturing equipment... thats what this concept needs to launch it into the thrill ride market....

Does anyone remember an indoor amusement centre in ulladulla? i think it was called funland or something... had like... a cha cha and a few other rides, as well as a lot of coin-op arcade stuff... does anyone know its name? have pictures or info about what they had have or anything and whether they're still operating... etc etc etc?

well i have read this all twice, and still can't remember half of what was said or asked... ill try to remember as much as I can. Richard... yes i went to Queensland with the expectation of having DW number 1. with the looming opening of the claw during my stay, i structured my whole trip around it, and would have gone on the 18th had it not been my mother's wedding. that said i dont think my opinion of dreamworld is skewed because of that expectation. I do not believe that a bandaid fix can be achieved where capacity is involved. i think it is a number of factors, which as stated separately in different posts, consists of a combination of - More staffing, and EFFICIENT staffing better queue design - cyclone is a perfect example because the distance between the front of the queue and the station gates are so far away. ToT to a lesser extent is the same, and this includes the elevators which were taken out of service because the problem was seen early in its operation. another solution is mentioned above - Warner village manage to draw a large amount of their crowds at SW and WBMW to shows during the day. effectively dividing their park attendance into about 2 or three pieces. at sea world, the suggested itineraries on the map are followed by a lot of people. this means that the morning - half the people on the rides, the other half at the shows, and then vice versa. movie world has three police academy shows, 2 looney tunes shows, about 10 or more movie magic shows and 2 street shows.... how much of the park attendance go to these? this reduces stress on queue lines.... my point here is DW needs more SHOWS to balance out the RIDES... and i mean real, CHOREOGRAPHED shows... not just a talk about tigers etc. and finally recognition from management that there IS a capacity problem, so that they can offer cooperation between management, guests and cast to resolve and rectify the problems as fast and as easily as possible. I can assure you guys that the ride queue times are accurate. I have diary entries of by-the-minute movements of every park we went to on my XDA. i think if a six flags park opened in australia, and was built from the ground up, rather than taking over an existing or defunct park (wonderland for example), i would definitely not complain about it. why? because Six Flags have a great record of park management, at least, in comparison to australian parks... REMEMBER - i detailed everything including the long wait at the ticket gates. we didnt line up from 9am and be the first people into the park so that we could be at the front of the queue for the first ride and to run from that ride to the next as soon as possible before the gates can fully spew forth the masses. im sure its quite possible to get 4 rides in the first hour if everything falls to a specific plan... and if you're trying to do it. but remember that 10am to 11am is only 1 hour in a park that operates for 7 hours. I dont accept a challenge to do 4 rides in the first hour... i put forth a challenge to ride 4 rides in the hour between 12 and 1... and i set the day as being the same as we went... and that is FOUR DAYS AFTER the opening of their newest THRILL RIDE or COASTER. finally... Amanda is not a thrill junkie like we are. she made her opinions public at my request, to satisfy something wonderbus said. please do not direct your criticisms and attacks at her if you dont like what she says... she made a statement based on an opinion of an AVERAGE GUEST in the park... and her feelings are predominantly those of the majority of people who attend those parks. if you don't like what she had to say... direct your complaints to the park management... because they are issues that the GENERAL PUBLIC have with the parks... not junkies like you and i.

well... the disappearing UFO, a nice trick you can see demonstrated at Ripleys in surfers - it still happens, but the problem is a lot of the strobes on the UFO keep firing when they're not supposed to. its a problem with stroboscopes when they get old. now the mirror effect relies on the UFO remaining dark, but if the strobes keep firing, the UFO doesn't disappear. as far as everything collapsing, if it weren't for the safety rails that hold the pillars in place being completely visible, or the fact that they drop and then stop, apparently suspended in mid-air which is totally unrealistic... apart from that, while the theming was good when it was built, years of use have seen it get dusty and old, with theatre spotlights clearly visible, and that same alien has been standing next to the rocket, pulling the same pc board and wiring apart from the rocket for ten years.... swinging backward and forward.... dont you think these cables are looking a bit rough by now? now expand that look across the entire ride... the captured people inside the glass cases... suspended in time, but apparently not the dust thats in the cases... it just keeps on growing... the lack of "cover up" over the maintenance switchtrack... it all combines to a spectacularly themed ride which just hasn't been kept up like it should have. one thing that australian parks as a whole haven't learnt from their american big brothers is that when you build a ride that is based around a theme, whether it is pre-show, or the ride itself, the ride needs UPKEEP. even the haunted mansion in disney land is tended to regularly, as is small world, and splash mountain. they rip half the ride apart to refurbish and refit the theming... and thats just what it means REFURBISH, not just MAINTENANCE... this poor example of ride theming upkeep is just one of the many ive seen in australia... such as these following examples... Space Probe Pre Show - and this includes the doors that used to open above the cars as you lifted up. management decided against them to increase capacity and reduce ride time. Bermuda Triangle as discussed above Thunder River Rapids Ride - the whole underground theming is very corny and old... needs a facelift Rocky Hollow Log Ride - what little attempt at theming the underground section seems to have become a depository for plastic bottles and rubbish Giant Drop - its pre show theming has been ripped apart by vandals Tower of Terror - the "cavern" queue line area has seen too many people go under the barrier, tread on the walls and floor and have it collapse into a gaping, polystyrene hole. Australian Parks AS A WHOLE need to be taught a few things about theming... the disney way.

there you are Bussy.... Dreamworld and Seaworld now have a TR posted from one of my fellow travellers - her nick is MANDAJK13... feel free to read and compare.

ok where do i start... Joz - we went to Sea World the day after our trip to DreamWorld. in comparison, Sea World's staffing levels were superior. Sea World handled it a lot better than Dreamworld did. Now - above i read the following points - Dreamworld is the profitable park, the one making money. Dreamworld is the one suffering understaffing, and its not the cast's fault that the capacity was too low. If Dreamworld is the profitable one, why is it money-grubbing the profits rather than spending some more money on staff to operate at higher capacity? Queue Guarders? i hardly think that job is worth having in australia. the problem exists with the queue design. too wide, and too far away from any operators in a position to do something about potential violators. onto the next point - captain sturt i didnt count as a ride as i've never seen the damn thing move from the dock. wild thornberrys is a playhouse style attraction isnt it? big nets with heaps of balls inside it? i didnt count it because its not a mechanical attraction. if i've got the names wrong, sorry, but whichever one the big net and ball thing is, i didnt count.

good point bussy... im going to ask one of the guys who went with me to take up your challenge... i should also note that the ratings that i gave in my TR's were a collective score from the 4 in my group. one (me) who is a total enthusiast, two - is still an adrenalin junkie, but has only been to one theme park previous to our trip - and that was wonderland. three - preferring more sedate rides, this person will get on a big coaster, but doesnt really care, and four - suffering from motion sickness, not enjoying the big thrillers at all. all 4 of us had discussions on the scoring before i wrote it down. I will be asking number three to do these reports for us... we shall see.

Well.. sorry kenny but you have got me started now... i just re-read your post and thought i'd provide some evidence for your comparison: now - in doing this i have not counted any shows, animal attractions or water park attractions... just mechanical RIDES Sea World: 1. CorkScrew 2. Pirate Ship 3. Vikings Revenge Log Flum 4. Bermuda Triangle 5. Sea World Monorail 6. Sea World SkyHigh SkyWay 7. Sea World Train 8. Carousel 9. Airborne Barrel Brigade 10. Air See Rescue 11. Toon Point Lighthouse 12. Woodys Beachtrucks Movie World: 13. Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster 14. Batman 2 15. Lethal Weapon 16. Wild West Falls 17. Road Runner Roller Coaster 18. Looney Tunes River Ride 19. Yosemite Sam Railroad 20. Tweety and Sylvester Carousel 21. Taz's Hollywood Cars 22. Marvin the Martian's Rocket Ride Dreamworld: 1. Cyclone 2. Giant Drop 3. Tower of Terror 4. Wipeout 5. Eureka Mountain Mine Ride 5. The Claw 6. Vortex 7. Reptar 8. Bumper Beach 9. Spooty Spin 10. Rocky Hollow Log Ride 11. Thunder River Rapids 12. Stingray 13. Reef Diver 14. Nick-O-Round 15. Swinger Zinger 16. Blues Skidoo 17. Dora Seaplanes 18. Avis Vintage Cars 19. Kodak Skylink Chairlift 20. Dreamworld Railway So Kenny- now that your theory has been disproven by the fact that Movie World and Seaworld Combined have TWO MORE rides than Dreamworld... please be shut up.

Don't go to Dreamworld during school holidays... now - here are a few comparitive statements: dont go to the beach in the summer time dont go to thredbo in the winter time dont go to sydney during new years eve dont go to athens in august 2004 I have seen Dreamworld in both a peak and off peak time. now... i was impressed with the park during my off peak visit, but its capacity on ToT, GD and Cyclone were STILL CRAP. Yes, the TR might be a bit different in the off peak, im sure it would be... but PEAK SEASON is what a theme park is all about and thats when they make their money... i think being judged based on how a park handles its PEAK performance, shows a lot more about a parks capabilities than being judged on how it copes when the park is dead... and Kenny Koala... dont get me started - DEAL WITH IT?? If a theme park said to its potential guests "we know our queues are long. we know our staff aren't up to theme park standards, we know we have huge problems with unruly behaviour in our park, but we have world record holding rides, so deal with it. you may not be able to ride all of our record holding rides, because our capacity and staffing levels are reduced to save us money, and the ones you do queue up for, bear in mind that half the park will jump the queue ahead of you, but we dont care, we have the best rides in queensland... so deal with it. I would much prefer queue for scooby doo for an hour, or wait 25 minutes for Wild West, queue up halfway down the ramp for corkscrew, or stand for an hour on the side of a hill waiting for a 30 second waterslide than to put up with an attitude such as DEAL WITH IT from a supposedly world class theme park that holds more records than the other three combined. no thanks... Dreamworld says: "Deal With It" Alex says: "Shove it"

An interesting article richard. i'd like ot know more about the robocoaster... anyone got a site that has more info? Its interesting to see Dreamworld rule it out flatly, but it sounds like its not the sort of thing for any australian park in the way it is described to operate...

Ok so heres the final wrap up... Warner Bros Movie World - impeccable service, highest quality of rides, if not a little disappointing with the patch up job on WWF. SDSC is still probably my favourite ride in QLD for thrills and theming (combination of both). with the exception of the matrix exhibit, WBMW on a whole ranks our number 1. Sea World - its always nice no matter how old or young you are to check out some really cool animals.the shows, while starting to stale a bit, are still imaginative and allow the trainers to show off the animal's natural abilities. I didnt include it in the TR, but when we snorkelled with the sharks in shark bay it was amazing, and this only enhanced our feelings of sea world as a whole. I think the only problem with SW is their lack of space, and the bottle neck once you head down towards shark bay and dolphin cove... one pathway from quest for the golden seal to dolphin cove is a bit hard to navigate when the park is operating in peak seasons. staff at sea world were superb, no complaints whatsoever. Wet N Wild - capacity and staff attitudes are my only problems with WNW. its a good concept park that is just a little too big for its britches IMHO. not much else to say... they have some great stuff there but its just not possible to do it all in one day. DreamWorld - a disappointment to say the least, queue jumpers, cast with bad attitudes, poor capacity, poor queue design, poor attempt at raising more money with sideshows... poor choices when it comes to food...poor poor poor. 2 separate rides broke down at least during our visit at DW, one of them broke down twice... the other was their BRAND NEW ATTRACTION LESS THAN A WEEK INTO SERVICE! and while its completely understandable, Nick Central was designated smoke free. i know this only affects us smokers, but i had just lit one after getting off the claw, and had seen no signage to the contrary. now here in sydney, they try to say all train stations are non-smoking, but if you can look straight up and you can't see roof, the smoke free environment act can't touch you... so heres nick central, a completely roofless world... and its non smoking... and i was so looking forward to riding reptar too. all in all we didnt go on half the rides at dreamworld as a result of queue times, capacity, ride cycle times, operator levels and attitudes... it just wasn't worth getting up at 8 in the morning for... THE END (on ride videos within a week, photos in a month or so)

in regards to the scoring, i was ranking them together. compared to Movie World, Dreamworld was a 4.... it was a combination of everything. they all started as a 10. good stuff did nothing to the score, but bad stuff brought it down... simple...

ok so after a couple of days off we decided to head out for dreamworld on tuesday the 21st. We got there about 10am, and joined the queue for tickets. DW appeared to have ticket booths in the front building, however they were using these tacky porta-structures laid out next to the carpark. with a queue that was at least 300 metres long, we weren't going anywhere for a while. ( we bought at the gate because we had membership discounts that we could only get at the gate) so about 10:45 we made it inside, grabbed a bite to eat at the bakery and decided to jump on the train for a bit of the tour. on our way down to rivertown station, we checked out the Claw and it was definitely impressive. (DW's maps are already updated with the claw, i have a map but at the moment no scanner). While we were waiting at the station I was telling my group a bit about ToT. it was running about once every minute, and then all of a sudden it stopped. As we waited, a number of cast who appeared to be supervisors headed off with a rather quick walk towards ToT. 15 minutes later ToT sent out a riderless test run and was back in action almost immediately. the train arrived and we headed off. We got off at Rocky Hollow, and jumped onto the log ride. the queue was reasonable, even with one operator and 10 minutes later we were enjoying a fairly mediocre flume ride. we headed back towards ocean parade, and stopped off at the river rapids. we had probably a 25 minute queue line, before experiencing an enjoyable rapids ride, at least with a little more theming than snowy river at wonderland. the theming was a little old, but the ride was enjoyable none the less. the photo was a little disappointing as they have stopped doing the "image overlay" of the palm trees and stuff, so it just looks like a photo taken at the station. no biggie. We bypassed the mine train, as the queue was huge, all the way out into the pathway. We headed over to ocean parade, and i was very surprised to see that DW has installed some "side shows" since I was last there. they looked like a very tacky way to try and make more money. The claw's queue line was empty, with a few people queued up outside the gates in the overflow section. all three ride ops were out the front, and 3 techs were up on the top working on something.... yep... the claw had broken down. we grabbed a bite to eat, and jumped into the Cyclone queue. we were in for a long wait. I estimated about 45 minutes for us to get to the top of the queue, but as we waited, people ran up the other pathway past us. the first group of three, i didn't say anything, the second group of 4, we and the people around us grumbled a bit between ourselves. when the last group of 5 walked on past us, i decided it was time to say something... so i did... i said to them "how about next time you try queueing up like everyone else?" to which they replied "we're not going on the ride"... so ok, that was fine, until they walked into the ride entrance and we saw them get off the train as we were about to get on. i wasn't very happy... 1 hour 10 minutes for one ride... So we made it onto the Cyclone, caught our video from the back car only and decided it wasn't worth another lineup. disappointing to note that the theming for cyclone has deteriorated severely... the "cyclone tunnel" doesn't do much at all... the turbine doesnt spin, theres no wind coming out the top, and with the amount of garbage, paper planes made of park maps, food scraps etc chucked all over the place, it just didnt really look any good. The ride itself was enjoyable, but because everytime im at dreamworld, Cyclones queue is wayyyyy too big, i only ever ride it once at a time. Chalk up on big red X on dreamworld's check sheet. SO we head for vortex, decided against it, and jump on a no-queue reef diver. then one of the guys wanted to ride wipeout. the queue looked big but with wipeout's capacity, it was bound to move pretty quickly.wipeout's queue was reasonable, the behaviour of the staff was not, lacking the pizazz and the "disneyesque" one expects from themepark cast, i'd describe them more like "country fair ride ops" than anything else. It was time... the claw was operating again and it was time to ride. we hopped into the queue and by this time it was about 3:30. 5 minutes into the queue line, a girl in front of us started screaming out to a friend down by wipeout. this was right in my ear and I told her to shut up. i was about to be mega-annoyed, as it turned out the friend she was screaming at was invited to join the ride... along with her 7 friends.... well i had had enough... and i made it known... loudly... that i wasn't impressed. there was now 11 in their group and they were all carrying on like 6 year olds at a mc donalds birthday party. she asked me what my problem was, i told her i'd been putting up with idiots and queuejumpers like her all day. her response? if you dont like it don't come to a theme park... yeah ok... so a few of them decided they had forgotten something, and headed back out of the queue... well i wasn't letting them back in and stood firmly across the queue line. i didn't pay $50 to get into a park to put up with teeny-bopper brats who've been brought up like absolute turds. Ok so its ten minutes later and we're on the claw. excitement and adrenalin was all i could feel. i cannot begin to describe the ride so needless to say, it has been worth the wait, and was an unbelieveable experience. RIDE IT NOW We got off and worked out what we still wanted to do... the other guys wanted to go to the big brother house, we decided we still had an hour and ten minutes to do rides... so we headed for ToT. the queue was moving reasonably fast until we got up to the corner just before the stairs and the lifts.... and there we stopped. it was 4:10pm. 5 minutes later an operator made an announcement that they were experiencing an "operational failure" that should be rectified shortly. hmm... now to me - operational failure = broken ride... not a good start. So an operator came walking down the queue line to see how long exactly it was. On his way back I asked him whether they would endeavour to clear their queue lines and continue to operate, even after 5... he assured me that if we were in the queue before 5, we would be admitted... so now the race was on... to get through ToT and over to GD queue line before 5... and at 4:40 we got a break..... ToT was back up and running again and we were on almost straight away. at 157kPh it was worth it. we went down the lifts and at 4:50 we bolted across to GD.... made it just in time to get a ride on the western side. a reasonably short queueline on GD made sure we were only 5 minutes late for the bus ride back to surfers. i did notice however that the western tower does indeed rise slower at the top, and doesnt go as high as the eastern tower. the consensus on the bus ride home (yet another ride - we got a flat tyre) was unanimous in regards to which one we liked best and how we ranked them. Dreamworld definitely came in last. So how did Dreamworld fare? Quality of Rides, Shows and Attractions: 7/10 Quantity of Rides, Shows and Attractions: 7/10 Cast Service: 4/10 Capacity and Staffing Levels: 0/10 Overall: 4/10 Comments: I got nothing more to say about dreamworld.... a complete disappointment in my books. it won't be on my "must do" list of queensland until they seriously improve their service, capacity, and overall just their level of professionalism. i apologise if you work there, but please realise that I am commenting on the park as a whole experience and not your individual effort. i felt the same at wonderland, because i made such an effort to get into it and a lot of others did not... Cheers, Alex.