joz

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.

As for extended hours, check out Wet 'n' Wild on a Saturday. There are 'Dive in Movies' played outside where the wavepool. Generally speaking, the movies start at dusk, and the park's slides close at the end of the movie. This is a great way to avoid crowds, as the slides are mostly very crowded during the day, and a walk on at night. Plus riding Terror Canyon at night is an unreal experience, and one definitely worth checking out. Extended hours for the others will most likely commence on Boxing Day. All of the Warner Village Theme Parks sell churros at a cost of $3. Movieworld sell thier's mostly through their vendors, and Sea World at the Top Terrace, Bakery, Donut Shop and through mobile vendors. There's also a special at the moment at Sea World's Donut shop, which is selling 2 for $5. Shark Bay is a Walk Through. Wander through and check it all out at your own pace, same with Polar Bear Shores. There are snorkel and SCUBA tours available at Shark Bay for an extra cost, which from all accounts are really worth the extra cost.

Seems many forum users have been overseas, well I want to know what everyone's favorite parks are. This should be interesting since there aren't any home park fanboys. Also don't count Disney parks, since as we all know, Disney is the best, and daylight is second. I'll go with Alton Towers as my pick of the overseas parks. Great rides, atmosphere, gardens and the like.

I reckon Dr Teeth & Gazza are on the money here, and simply reprogramming the winches would be a good start with GD. I like the wait at the top, but you could probably lop 20 or so seconds or so off without to much detriment to ride experience, particularly on the east side. Having the winch not only lift, but also descend quicker would also help with capacity (as an operator said, often the cars are loaded, waiting for the winch to come back down). Still, I bet there'd be some issue with changing the winch speed (rope wear & tear, the cable separators and the differing weight of the cars) but I can't think of anything that can't really be overcome.

Having got my hands on last years one, I can confidently say that it exceeded my expectations. The pictures are well done, the variety of pictures is great, and its an all round good product. I'd certainty recommend it, and will hopefully get this years.

Since when were you going over there? Anyways, keep us posted on what you get up too.

I know the ride your talking about Gazza, there's one going into Cypress Gardens as well. It was quite a shock to see such a ride exists outside of Roller Coaster Tycoon. As fun as the ride style looks, I don't think it make all that good an addition to Dreamworld. Besides being relatively tacky, and with a questionable capacity, apparently if the rubber dinghies crash, they explode!

At the time of writing, no major rides are scheduled to be down during December, so you should be ok there. As for crowds, weekends are noticeably busier at all the parks, though crowds are, generally speaking, bearable. If your going to go to the parks during the week to avoid crowds, your probably better off making Dreamworld the midweek trip, since that's where you'll notice the difference in crowds the most. With two days at Movieworld, you'll have more then enough time to check everything out, and more then once. At Seaworld, there's many different ways to plan your day and you should be able to fit everything in. Let me know if you'd like a pre-made game plan. The only real tip is to try and watch the afternoon Dolphin and Seal shows rather then the morning shows, since the shows are busier in the morning, and hence there are less people on the rides and in the exhibits at this time. In food & Beverage at Warner Village, there is most certainty a refill deal. Buy a large souvenir drink for $4.50, and keep the cup and you can refill it for $2.95, anywhere around Seaworld, Movieworld or Wet 'n' Wild, with popcorn, soft drink, or frozen coke. I'm told (though I can't confirm) that if you take it to Dreamworld, they'll fill the cups for $2.90. If there's anything else I can help you with, feel free to ask, and enjoy the holiday!

Goboi, on that Zodiac looks quite good, though I love the "Interesting Facts" section on that page. The information on there lists simply: "Once had a serious accident." Thankfully they didn't bore us with all the minor, negligible details, like what happened? Or if it was due to rider misconduct or ride failure.

..... and since we don't care about people who go on Carnie rides, all is good

Or how about not. The difference is minimal, at best.

The sad thing that all this talk about SFMM being crap is compelling me to want to go. Keep us posted good sir, makes for good reading.

Nice update Rob. Really makes me want to take the trip to Tokyo, since everyone else whose been really seems to like it. Glad you had fun out there man.

Which is quite allright in this case, because we all agree that Bush Beast, if it doesn't re-open on its current site (which it won't) then it should be torn down.

Thing is our one isn't nearly as painful, allows more freedom, better views and quicker loading times (higher capacity). Also did I mention our one doesn't set out to destroy people's rib cages?

Superman themed ride, yes. As a tribute to Christopher Reeve, no. Maybe something a bit more tasteful, like a tribute somewhere in the queue, but beyond that it runs the huge risk of being tacky. Besides that, where do you draw the line? I mean, why don't we make Rick's Cafe into a huge tribute to Humphrey Bogart?

Nice idea there...... No. Not Bounty. Not ever. Move along please