joz

I've been to Infinity, and thought it was quite worth while. The effects weren't quite impressive as I'd hoped, but they were still quite cool. The room with the strobe lighting and the balls was probably the best. The other impression I got was that the experience was just to short. Even walking through it slowly you still find yourself ejected into the real world just a touch to quick. On topic: The company that operates Infinity have recently opened a second attraction in Surfers, Space Walker. I had the pleasure of experiencing Space Walker, a couple of days ago, and thought I'd leave you with a trip report. After walking out of the Blazing, hot sun, we were standing at the ticket desk, with what I'm guessing was a rather stupid look on our face. "Would you two like to go into space?" we were asked by a young girl, who was sporting the sort of uniform you'd expect to see at a Trekkie convention. This was quite a sight, since you don't normally see girls in these sort of clothes. Plus she was attractive, and wearing a strange Silver wig. "Umm, yeah, me and him" I motioned to a friend of mine, who was still adjusting to the cool air, and was semi-transfixed by her wig. "Ok, now the whole experience is 2 hours, so do you need to go to the tolilet? Because there are no tolilets in space". We chuckled, paid the entrance price, and were asked to proceed to the teleporter (normal people call it an elevator, but this isn't that sort of place). We emerged at a Space Station, surrendered our mobile phones (apparently there's no reception in space either) and headed over to the transport pod. The next shuttle wasn't leaving for another 5mins, so we stood at the door, looking at all the 3D pictures of space. After 6 or 7 mins, we were admitted to the transport pod. It was basicly a theater, with seats that were somewhere between church benches, and full recliner chairs. So began our "Journey". Now, I really want to enjoy this place, but this is where it kinda started going pear shaped. The movie that followed went for about 20mins (I'm guessing, since I didn't have my mobile to keep time, good idea that) and basicly consisted of traveling from somewhere in the universe, to somewhere else in the universe (I think we were meant to be traveling to Earth, but I can't be sure). While we were traveling, an alien (looked like a Jellyfish, and I suspect is actual footage of a Jellyfish) was talking to us, educating us about the Solar System. Or at least that was the intention, but the narrative was kinda hard to hear at best. One thing we did get though was that once our pod "docked" we were to disembark and select one of two ways to get into space. Both options appeared quite cool, so we spent a good couple of mins trying to think of which way to go. Once we disembarked, we had to go through Cosmic Customs, which involved standing in what looked like a metal detector, but was in actual fact an "On ride photo". Clever. We were still debating which path we would take into space. One was kinda like what the whole of infinity is, and the other was one of those spinning tunnels. Since there was no one else there, we experimented and did both. The Spinning Tunnel was probably the best way to go. Thus it was, that we were at the main attraction, Space Walk. Its basicly a path in the dark, with a mock up of the Solar System and universe around you with educational videos along the way. It was kinda cool, but was shocking to discover this was the main attraction. This was what we'd paid to come in to see. Naturally, we watched all the videos, which it must be said, were genrally quite well done. Within about 20 mins/half an hour, we had meandered to the end of the 30 or so meter walk, and entered the "Black hole" (travelator with lighting effects) which took us back to the start. When we exited, we both had very similar thoughts on the attraction, and a basic summary is follows: 1. The staff were fantastic. They didn't break from they're character, and stayed true to the feel of the place. Anyone who can call an elevator a teleporter without blushing deserves a pat on the back up in my book. 2. The film was too long, not interesting enough, and at times very hard to understand. I know it would have been expensive, but I really wish they'd made this section a simulator, and not so educational. 3. Making people choose one way or another was in my mind a mistake. It means you miss half of the special effects. The return journey (blackhole) will soon be accompained by another second option, the Stargate. Maybe this is in the hope that people will feel compelled to come again to experience the other entry and exit. 4. The actual walk itself was very well done, but just not all that spectacular. It would make an excellant queue in a theme park, but as a stand alone attraction I'm not sure. It is a better walk-through then Harry Potter and Matrix though. Again, I really wanted to like this attraction, but overall it seems to be lacking something. Really, what I think its missing is its not infinity. Thats its biggest problem. What we were really hoping for a kind of "Infinity 2", not an educational expereince. When the staff told us it was educational, we figured it'd be like infinity but with educational stuff. Not even close, this is completly different, and I think thats the attractions biggest problem. If your on holiday, check it out. Even if your a local, check it out once. Its worth a look at, but its sadly not worth it a second time. Maybe the bar they're adding will enhance the experience, and the Stargate ending might get me back a second time, but overall this is one of those "Looked really cool on the drawing board" ideas, but doesn't quite work. I'd give it a 6 out of 10 overall.

Well, a month behind is pretty good by Senic World standards. Don't know if it would've been quicker to get Phill out there in his tow truck to build the new Skyway. Quite possibly would have been though, god knows how the man loves his cables.

Thanks man. That was worth bringing this thread back from the dead for.

Yes, those B&M trains that fit 24 people would be much better capacity then the Arrow train on Cyclone which carries 24 people :confused: I know what you mean though; B&M make rides that when run properly have a good capacity. Having said that, B&Ms run poorly (Like those at say, Magic Mountain) can have long queues which hardly ever move. Getting one company over another to design a roller coaster isn't going to improve efficiency, that’s something Dreamworld has to do itself. Though it'd help Dreamworld out greatly if they built a ride that has a realistic, high capacity when run properly. Dreamworld was hoping (publicly at least) to have Cyclone doing 500pph when it first opened, which would about 21 laps, or about one dispatch every 2.5 mins. Anyone who has ever been on Cyclone (or pretty much any single train coaster) would know that a cycle time of under 3 mins is near impossible. Even Corkscew takes about 3 and a half/4 mins between cycles, and that’s a shorter ride, with a more efficient set of station brakes and far superior station with 2 staff. Dreamworld had no hope of getting Cyclone to that sort of capacity, they need a ride where its possible to hit the capacity, and B&M supply them.

Quite an interesting article that one. Hard to argue (even if I want to) with most of those points. Interesting that the main area where Movieworld seems to lag behind is not so much in the lack of quality, but keeping stuff in the park updated. Marvin the Martian is a great example of this. The only thing really bad about it is that it’s been there since 1997 and is now dwarfed by better (newer) stuff. The obvious next point though is that the stiff competition is really a driving force for the Universals and Disney parks to change stuff. I mean, Universal is in competition against Disney, and Disney is in a fight for total control of the market. They have to update to stay relevant. Movieworld on the other hand is competing with Dreamworld, and only Dreamworld. Not only that, but it has a couple of buddies that are there to help just in case Dreamworld does something really good. There is next to no real competition on the Gold Coast. At least not the sort that would inspire you to spend a great deal of money changing an attraction that is old, but still popular. Plus when the results are as successful as the Batman Adventure: The ride 2, then you could understand the park not feeling particularly keen on re-doing things. As the old saying goes, you can’t fix what isn’t broke. I agree about the crowd management thing. Even though there's still the problem of the area in front of Daily planet, at least the newer areas of the park (Principally the Wild West section and Looney Tunes Village) seem more able to handle bigger crowds. The Wild West section (is it a themed land or not?) is a pretty sizeable portion of open land, and hopefully even more land will be opened up with next year’s attraction (ideally the land between Batman and Lethal Weapon). Hopefully as well next year’s attraction will take over from Lethal Weapon as chief big thrill ride. Best of luck in getting something better the Twilight Zone: Tower of Terror though.

Yeah, but its only on side. Luckily, its the side that was open all day when I was last there

As much as I loath Big Brother (or any reality TV shows for that matter), it is helping Dreamworld no end in attracting the lucrative 10 - 17 year old female market, which I hear is worth quite a bit to the company. Regretably, it doesn't even look like going away any time soon, so we'll just have to deal with the presense of Big Brother in the park a while longer. So long as you can avoid that area of the park, its not too bad anyway. I reckon Thunder has some pretty good sugestions. Moving the water park could prove to make life easier in connecting the park up with the new Town Center (which one would assume is part of the plan if they're still going to be building a hotel), though there are probably other ways around it. The dark ride idea also appeals to me. The park has been somewhat void of 'Family' attractions in recent years. There's very little that the whole family can do together. So long as it isn't one of those mindless "Shoot 'em up" type things then its all good.

Allright, now if the motors can't cope with the current workload, then they should be replaced. While they're at it, they could put in a program with a quicker cycle. I can't think of any reason why you wouldn't do this. The cost would probably eventually be made up on on-ride photo.

Wow, its only taken 14 months for people to respond to this thread. Thats gotta be some sort of record :-p Yeah, I can't remember anything else about the day, other then a feeling of goodwill towards everyone.

Ok, maybe I've missed something, but why do the motors need to be replaced? Surely there's some sort of program which controls how they operate. Couldn't they just be updated so it doesn't hold the Gondalas up for so long, or doesn't slow down so much at the top and bottom?

Demon going overseas? Oh well, it was an ok ride, but I won't miss it. I wouldn't have minded to see it stay in Australia at one of the smaller parks (Aussie World, Luna Park, Adventure World or even Jamberoo), but having it go overseas is no huge loss.

If the themeing improvement is anything like the recent additions to Thunder River, then I think GD should get the entire themeing budget.

Run 3 sides, which would need 3 ops, plus one grouping guests before the door, and one doing breaks. Thats if you really want to use the extra staff. For the record, I'm for efficient design so you don't need an excessive number of staff, and staff rotation, but saying that it can't be done or is totally unworkable is a bit narrow minded.

I don't think Liam would allow that, even though Richard probably would've.

Well, Gazza's picture is about as accurate as you can make it in RCT. Yes, the car overshot, and fell off the tower. However, it didn't explode, it just slide down the tracks. One guy (Larry Perkins, he's in Gazza's screenshot) died, and another lady (Debbie Jane, also in the screenshot) was seriously injured. Thankfully she didn't really like Larry, so she was still happy, but was still quite outspoken about the whole thing. But yeah, the car slid down the tower, which put pressure on the track where it wasn't designed to handle it (which was made worse by the other side which was operating. If someone ever tells you that it doesn't run two sides, then that's why), and it collapsed. As Gazza said, it fell on the launch track, and got stuck to the magnets. Thankfully it was towards the end of the season, so they had a new tower up in a couple of months.

Yeah, that's why there was little or no down time here, since our tower is (obviously) made out of concrete, there was no risk of getting stuck to the magnets.

I'm sure the heart's in the right place, but the method leaves something to be desired. You can't force people to be happy, and threats of dismissal aren't going to make people cheerful. A system that's designed to be, as you put it, a 'periodical culling' is going to give moral a kick in the guts. A low moral means unhappy staff, poor service and the problem just gets worse. Personally, if I was in management, and my staff were giving bad service, then I'd want to know why. Are people not getting their breaks on time? Is there something about the area their working in that is making them unhappy or annoyed? Once you've found what's wrong, then fix the problem, and if the problem is the individual, then put them somewhere which doesn't require them to deal with guests. The mood or moral of your staff is very important. Anyone whose been treated badly at work by managers knows that you just don't want to be nice. Its hard to face the same thing everyday with a smile if its not a fun environment. Theme parks are the same, and just because its fun for the guests doesn't mean its fun for the staff. Here's an observation for you, the staff who are having fun are the staff who are doing the best job, and delivering the best service. So making the parks a fun, happy place for staff is in a step in making the parks fun for guests. Giving staff an incentive to do a good job is important too. Warner Village for a year or two ran an incentive across its parks, where staff were asked to go and find someone giving good service. The person who that staff member found, was then given 2 free tickets to a different park with $20 spending money, to find someone else doing a good job, and on it went. That system worked really well, until of course the staff at all 3 parks got too know each other. Now that this system has finished, there's now a new incentive program at each of the parks. Also, one thing I feel I must comment on: Rotating staff is important if the staff are bored. If staff are new to an area, or simply enjoy a job certain job, then why rotate them off it? Wonderbuss, DJ was talking about having sufficient staff on each ride to be able to rotate staff on that one ride. Take as example Bermuda, there is someone organising the groups, someone giving the pre-show, and 2 people on the platform, and a spare person to cover breaks. On Bermuda after 11 you rotate every forty five mins or so till all the lunch breaks are done, then every 20 mins till the afternoon breaks are done. Then someone gets to go home early. That's what he means about having sufficient staff to rotate staff

I thought it had more to do with the car landing at the base of the tower, cracking the footers, which caused the tower to fall. But, yes, you are correct. The tower got stuck to the magnets when it fell, so it had to be re-built from scratch. Last I heard, they were trying to pull the two peices apart by tieing one peice to the space shuttle, and the other to the ground.... Too far?

Steve$: The tower also fell over several times and had to be rebuilt. Truesies.

Wonderbuss is mostly right, staff don't generally operate the same ride all day. When they do, its on rides with multiple ops, thus meaning the duties performed changes frequently. Wonderbuss, though I tend to agree with you on most topics, I still don't see how wearing costumes is a health and safety hazard. All the parks on the Gold Coast have costumes that aren't (as far as I'm aware) a health and safety hazard. Maybe the old Wonderland costumes were, but I don't see why that makes costumes in general a bad idea.

Here's the thing though, why couldn't you do a Tassie Bush Beast Swap? Or a Snowie Balloons swap? Or a Demon Dragon's Flight swap? See what I'm getting at? Means staff would have to be well trained and the people doing the rosters would have to be competetent. Not too much to ask is it?

Why is themeing uniforms an OH&S, and when should we plan to stop themeing uniforms up here on the Gold Coast? Personally, I'd look at letting the Wildlife Park take over the Little Wonder's Land, and have a kids area behind Demon. I'd remove Action Arena, and add a tracked train (Wonderland Express has gotta be the biggest joke that went around that place. Cheapened the experience IMHO) from Gold Rush to the new kids area. I'd look at building a new coaster in behind Snowy (was there any room behind there?) and either fix the theming on Snowy, or replace it with a new water ride. Bush Beast would have to be re-tracked to stay in the park, though a new coaster to replace it wouldn't be out of the question. As much as I'd hate it as a guest, I'd probably have closed the beach, and built a new water park at the far end of the owned land. This has more to do with perception: The area would appear to be more of a destination with 2 separate attractions, and thus a hotel would be better supported. People from more then a few hours (from what I hear) didn't do the day trip to Wonderland, and they're hardly going to stay two nights in the Western Suburbs of Sydney for Wonderland. The reason Nara works at Seaworld is because the Gold Coast is a destination. Seaworld on its own is a day trip, and probably couldn't support a hotel. Wonderland and a separate gate water park probably could, since the perception would be that it takes 2 days to do what's there. You could also sell 3 or 4 day park pass', to get people staying an extra night. It'd be even tempting to add rides like Bungy Rocket and Sky Coaster to the area to help give people the impression there's allot of stuff there, and its worth spending a few days there, or if not, definatly worth getting the family in the car for a day out. Go on, tear it too shreds, I know you want too

What about Intamin first gen drop rides?

I'm roughly 99% sure tomb raider was an external job from a US company based in New York I think?

Hope it goes better at LP then it did at DW earlier in the year, cause I'd also like to see the idea work, and get a bit more popular down here. BTW, from what I've seen, the best themeing I've seen for Halloween easily goes to Dinseyland Paris. That place looks amazing at the best of times, but the way they dress the park up is really quite breath taking.