franky

Having visited over Easter I know how painful the waits were. It feels like our rides are designed to handle the off-peak season only, load times, checks, dispatches can't handle peak crowds unfortunately. More staffing would help, but only to a degree. Even during the holidays, with two train ops, dispatches were still slow. This isn't only the fault of the parks though; people just don't pay attention to the announcements when they're close to the front of the queue - loose items, doing up seatbelts, pulling down harnesses early etc. It's still pretty on par with my experience in the non-premium parks in the US (Seaworld Orlando, BGT), Ops were slow there too. What I do appreciate is that VRTP don't oversell their Virtual Queue or Fast Tracks, they even had VQ 'off' completely during Easter, but by 'off' it was marked as 'Queue Full' all day which to be honest just served to aggravate people even more.

https://careers.villageroadshow.com.au/vrl/en/job/499235/attraction-attendant-sw SeaWorld advertising for ride attendants. From the looks of it they're wanting availability for commissioning between 5:30pm and 2am... Late nights indeed

We did, just in the old theme parks pics thread

The crane only had a stainless steel bucket attached to it the other day, not the big old rustic scoop as in the video, but I'm pretty sure it was moving

I noticed this the other day too. The old YouTube looks like it had some form of false wooden beam roof too, which was never replaced. All the iron work at the top was black/rusty looking. Kinda fits the theme but I would have thought it would be better to paint it to protect it a little better. I seem to remember from our family trip in the early 2000's (I'm thinking 2001? Mammoth Falls was open but I can't remember Scooby being there) when you went up the first lift hill before the backwards drop, there was a scene where you got blasted out with a shotgun or something to that nature. Sparklers were definitely in there, was a little disappointed when they weren't there on my next visit, but I wasn't aware of the fire at the time.

It was alright in the end. Ended up with two rides on Lantern and Superman, one on Rivals and Batwing and caught the 4pm Roxy Cinema show. Doomsday stayed closed but I did suss out someone standing in the OP booth toward the end of the day while we were checking out the Doomsday area, so hopefully tomorrow. Superman had all effects working (stair water and misters) which was really good to see!

Movieworld feels busy today compared to our visit on Sunday. Rivals back to single train, Doomsday is closed, looks as though Lantern had closed but is retesting. Superman has had one of the two broken seats fixed, but is also a single train. Not hearing any complaints though!

They're definitely still there working despite the rain, what looks like shade cloth in between the arches was getting covered too. The building doesn't really stand out to me. The spectacle is the wooden structure of the ride itself and Trident. There's so many other white things around it just kinda blends into the rest of it. I feel like artificial is going to look 100% better than the real thing in a couple of years, I've never seen a vertical garden looked after. Looks like they're using astro turf on the ground though, that's going to be uncomfortably warm in the heat of summer

The ride sign is up, in stunning 3d too!

Probably to have the new LSM mounts fabricated.. from what I've read elsewhere (so no warranty on this) they're not working with Intamin to complete this change.

Credit to u/ClassyDaedra for the footage

Excellent news!

Gatekeeper has three trains, worst case they could have had one down for rebuild, stripped the 2nd and still had the 3rd to bring the ride back up. CP is seasonal too though, so most maintenance would happen in the off season right? Maybe they had ample staff available on hand just to strip it/rebuild it. MW is already under the pump with rides down, so their maintenance is probably already stretched thin. All just theories of course I'm guessing that a pull through attempt was the faster of the two ways to get the ride operating again, once a crane or two became available.

What's to say the other train isn't already stripped to pieces for a rebuild? If that's happening in the maintenance bay at the moment it would make it impossible to reassemble the valleyed train in there. Fastest/easiest way to get it running again if this is/was the case would be to attempt the pull through

Well people were already speculating as to whether it was getting demolished or not. Just in the last month or two there were comments along the line of (and I paraphrase) "Launch cables are being removed, TTD demolition confirmed!" before CP even made their announcement We still don't know just how changed the new ride is going to be

Interesting. I think our collective points need to be how the block zones are configured. Full thottle has a bunch of trims on the final hill leading into a tire drive section (https://youtu.be/XnFS_-nmI4Y?t=56) then there's about 5 tires to move the train back to the station, realistically these would be capable of stopping a roll back when combined with the LSM stopping force I would imagine. I think you could be onto something though, it would be roughly the same length between station and launch on TTD, so it might end up being tire drive and LSM only as the roll back prevention... time will ultimately tell!

Now you've had me questioning my entire being! Older rides such as Cheeta Hunt have brake fins (https://twitter.com/bioreconstruct/status/1031294166205169664, even the newer ones (eg Velocicoaster) have them (eg https://youtu.be/hoh3kR-5BsA?t=808). Had to search for some photos/video. It doesn't look like there are as many as is on a hydraulic launch, so I guess that the LSM's do indeed provide some breaking force, even in the event of a power outage. They do look like completely different fins to me (VC ones look brass/copper) when comparing to my memory of Supermans' fins for example.

They're going to need brake fins on the launch regardless of what technology they choose. Risk of roll back = brake fins needed. I'm going to go ahead and guess that removing the existing fins is just part of the deconstruction process - they can be re purposed/sold to other parks (like SFGA/KBF etc) to recoup costs. New track pieces would be needed to accommodate for the LSM's and brake fins occupying the same space in the launch track section. Just on those two points, what would GP care about more though? That is a less powerful launch when it's only open 40% of the time, or that it's a crap shoot as to whether the ride is open when they visit. Sure, if they've ridden before they'll notice the difference, but the ride being open more and less of a maintenance headache will surely win out over a more forceful launch.

Feels like they're really trying to push for a school holidays opening. I live in Newcastle and they're running tv ads for the parks and advertising Leviathan (Opening Soon) Now obviously opening soon means no guarantees, but it feels optimistic!

Is the roughness a result of the launch or just the ride/track itself though? Has the tech changed between Red Force and their newer launches such as Velocicoaster/Pantheon, perhaps there's improvements that have been made in speed/forces etc.

My money is on them converting it to a LIM/LSM launch. Curious to know however: Will they need to reduce the height of the ride? Will it still be a shuttle launch (Like Rock'n'Roller Coaster at DLHS)? Surely they'd also need new (lighter) trains Bummed I didn't get there to experience it before hand, apparently although shorter it was still the better ride when compared to Kingda Ka due to lap bars and not OTSR's

Don't want it spontaneously completing the course when they're not expecting it

Having recently been to Florida and did the parks around that area (inc BGT), I rate Rivals lower than Velocicoaster but higher than Iron Gwazi. A lot of the yanks are staying that VC/IG are/is the best coaster at the moment. Rivals/Taipan has better restraints than Velocicoaster, but only slightly; Velocicoaster doesn't have the seatbelts, but the seats and trains are a little more narrow/cramped than the Mack trains. I feel like a lot of the ride experience for me was lost on Gwazi due to the restraints (belt under a T-bar which I got stapled under). DCR/ST/VC you're only restrained at your waist, so when you're going through -ve G's your upper body and legs etc are floating, whereas on Gwazi your lower body is kinda just stuck in the same place. I'm hoping to convince the wife to go to Cedar Point so that I can try out SteVe, but if the restraints are like IG then I'm not all that hopeful.

I agree, but only to a point. Scheduled maintenance, yes. Unscheduled maintenance, well that's where I'm torn. I read a comment on one of the MW FB posts from a person that just travelled from Sydney the day before Rival's went down. I can't help but feel sorry for them in this instance. To say 'oh well just go back when it's fixed' doesn't really work when you're not a local. I'm not an engineer, but our rides do appear to go down for unscheduled maintenance a lot, is there more that needs to be done during the scheduled maintenance period to reduce unexpected downtime?

Interesting! Maybe I'll get over there one day and ride them, and make up for me chickening out as a kid!