joz

Matt Shirvington the lunch box Like I said and everyone else has, Mini Wonderland wouldn't work because there is no future expansion, re-hashed attractions of limited appeal, is in a now crummy area, and is missing some of the most important things that kept Wonderland ticking over. If Wonderland was to be re-opened, it would have to be the whole park, and then some.

Fair point about all that Richard, though I still think that Fastpass system would work well at DW MW and SW. Your right about it being more or less useless for most of the year, but at the 3 theme parks I'd suggest that they'd be of use for not only a couple of months in summer, but also for the other holiday periods. There's allot of infrastructure in parks to deal with busy holiday periods, and I can't see how this is any different.

Well, unless someone on here can write an exceptional business plan, I doubt anyone else will. If someone on here can, then best of luck, though I'd be more interested in buying a decent sized block and starting from scratch. The only thing left at Wonderland is the limited appeal of the Wonderland name and some fragments of park infrastructure. As a water park it may work (even with BB & SRR), though sadly, Sunway has destroyed the area. Its an industrial park now, and the surrounds are horrible. Plus with little or no room to expand the project may well be doomed right from day one.

Too bad about being sick dude. I had the same thing happen to me when I went to LA which lost me 3 days (but I made up for it with a 1day DLR hopper pass). Interesting to hear about Xscream being a waste of money, it looks like an insane ride. What was it about it that made it a rip off? Hope you start feeling better, keep us posted!

$13 mill Shark Bay, & $20 mill (roughly) Outback Experience. Add to that the acquisition and relocation costs (admittedly minor at best, since all they really bought was a few licences, animal stock and a brand name) of Paradise Country, park rehabs (Roxy theatre is currently covered in scaffolding), this years addition (I doubt this is of any interest to people hear) to WnW aimed at giving it better capacity, and your looking somewhere around the $40 mill in capital expenditure in the space of three or so years. Thats a huge amount to be spending on cap ex. Richard: Warner Brother's top executive came to the parks recently, so even if Village Roadshow is up the creek, there's always Warner Brothers, and now they've been reminded that they STILL own theme parks they may just be inspired to invest in them.

Nah, at least with that you can understand why that rumour would have existed. Manager to Ride Op: We're spending $1million on the beach to refurb it up. Ride Op to Forums member: Management are spending heaps of money on the beach Forum member to everyone else: Heaps of money = New Slide for the beach! Ian's sources on the other hand, are higher up then that Gazza: The station isn't so much a Y, but more of a --<===>--- (Keep in mind that - is a piece of track ). Think of how DW and SW's log ride stations operate, and you've pretty well got it. The only difference is that the queue splits just outside the station and you load from the outside of the station. In the middle of the station are the exit stairs and storage lockers (which are accessible from both stations). These are closed and locked when the train leaves the station, and have the number of the train on them, because in two station mode, you arrive back onto the other platform. AIRs restraints are excellent. Those who whinge about them are just crazy. You load exactly like a normal inverted coaster. The restraints (as far as anyone sitting down is concerned) is little more then an OTSR. When you close it, the things holding your feet in place close. The thing holding your feet is in such a position, that your feet are just in the right spot and you don't have to think about it.

Having a flyer for me would be an excellent addition. A park like Movieworld could do a themed superman flyer really well (unlike the hardly themed SF coasters), and having been on AIR, I can attest to them being great rides. The sensation is excellent, and because all the forces seem to be exaggerated, you wouldn't have to build a tall obnoxious track. I don't know how far back the parks land extends back, but there's a lovely spot behind Looney Tunes and Police Academy that seem built for this style of ride. One can dream, though I dare say it ain't happening. I'd be less surprised if MW built a Superman simulator, like what was done for Batman.

If anyones interested, Shark Bay will be on Getaway tonight.

You make a good point, but I've never had a similar problem at WnW with lockers, nor have I seen a problem at SW or MW with our stuff which has a deposit. You would expect to need more staff, but I can't see it being a huge problem. I still like Disney's way of handing out the tickets as you enter, and making it free most (though I'm yet to try any other version). I'm just thinking (relativly) realisticly.

DJ is right, queues can reach 45mins on certain rides during the day. I don't think any park on the Gold Coast wouldn't benefit from virtual queuing, although DW may struggle with the low capacity of the rides (ToT and Wipeout being obvious exceptions). SW would only need it on Bermuda and Corkscrew and maybe Vikings. Movieworld on Wild West, Batman, Lethal, Scooby and Looney Tunes River Ride (which can get quite a queue going on a busy day). More shows to compensate for the extra people on the street (use the stage show, update the special effects show to increase interest, updated 3D movie?) and you've got a winner. Also those LED screens with the ride wait times around the park at convenient locations would be nice as well. They seem to work wonders in spreading guests evenly in the park, and filling up quiet areas. I also think what would work: Rather then making it upcharge, offer it free but with a deposit for the thing with the barcode on it. If the card costs $0.50 then make it a $5 deposit and it'll eventually pay itself off. Its effictifly still free, except for guests who don't return the card and keep it for themselves.

Well a simple soloution would be to make it 100% electronic, and you scan your splash cash card and it just flashes up the return time. If you forget, re-scan your card and it'll re display the time. When the time comes you scan your card infront of who ever controls the merge point. Just an idea, and I think it'd work on rides like terror canyon and speed coaster. They're the ones where the queue tends to be the longest. Add in other rides like Mammoth and Twister and you've got pretty full selection of attractions.

Disney's fastpass is a system where guests enter their entry ticket into machines located outside major rides. The machine spits out a return time when guests can return to a minimal queue. I agree with DJs idea. A similar strategy is used at Alton Towers (ie, only using it when you need it) so its most definitely workable. SW & MW could begin to give out the tickets with barcodes on them at the gate, and WnW use a returnable card (like the one you get with your locker) or a refundably deposit system and work it that way.

I came up with this original thread idea, what do we think of having virtual queuing on the Gold Coast? I can see this working well at all the WVTPs, where the capacity accommodates it. What do you think?

I would like to respond to that post in two parts as well. Yeah, you read my mind on that one. You'd be giving out all of 100 'fastpass' on a ride like Cyclone an hour, and they'd still be queuing. Wouldn't help except on the quietest days when you wouldn't really need it.

I had the chance to check out Wild West today. The ride is still very different at the top of the hill. Its now themed to look like a gold mine, with open mine shafts and barrels. There are flashing lights signage and whatnot. The same soundtrack plays ("Once the spark hits the powder..... all the sound effects are still the same, but there is no smoke and no wind. There is a more obvious flash of lights as the explosion sound effect goes off though. Its not the parks best themeing job, and reminds me of the job DW did themeing Cyclone. Having said that, in the time frame they had to do the job, it all looks pretty good. We'll see what happens when annual maintenance time comes around.

That Chernobyl thing is really interesting. Creepy doesn't even go close to describing that stuff. I think I'd go mad in a silent town like that after 15mins too. It seems like the scene for a movie. Some of you may also enjoy (if that's the right word. Transfixed describes it better for me) this site about the Centralia coal fires, which have been burning out of control since 1961. I'll give you one snippet of information from the page: On Febuary 14, 1981, the ground collapsed under Todd Domboski. A hole about 4 feet in diameter and roughly 150 feet deep had opened under him. He clung to exposed tree roots and was pulled to safety by his cousin. The heat or the carbon monoxide in the breach would have been sufficient to kill him instantly if he had gone just a little deeper. This incident provoked the first national media attention.

Last I heard Police Academy was 1,200, but not 100% sure. I think my point was more that we couldn't expect the park to be nearly as good as a park which is acclaimed for its excellent capacity, but like I say, how far behind DW is does show how poor the park rates in this department. Also Richard, if you have enough time, let me know how it compares against the 47th most efficient park in the world.

Take it one step further: CPs hourly capacity sits at 16300 and based on Cedar Fairs estimates, has 17096 guests in the park. This means CP supplies enough rides for all but 796 people to do one ride an hour. DW has an hourly capacity of 1700 with an average attendance of 2967. This means DW capacity neglects some 1267 per hour people with its hourly operating capacity. This is a multi pronged problem at Dreamworld. Consider that CPs figures use only the roller coasters, and DW's use all the major rides in the park. Straight away this sways the figures in DWs FAVOUR. CP's ride capacity per hour caters solely for the Roller Coaster riding demographic, where as at DW these are the figures for all the people in the park. During a day, not everyone wants to go on a roller coaster. That's why you don't wait an hour for every ride at CP, or an hour and a half for every ride at DW. What happens if you do get a day where the 3000 odd people in the park want to go mostly on thrill rides and nothing else? See Fright Night for your answer. The other side of this is that this doesn't even touch the surface of CP's capacity and even fails to cover 6 of the parks coasters. MF, TTD, Raptor, Woodstock's Express, Wildcat and Jr. Gemini. DW's figures do miss on relatively high capacity attractions such as Blue Lagoon, Railway, Imax theatre, and AWE. Problem is these only have limited appeal in the park, and CP has its own higher capacity equivalent for most of these anyway. Per guest in the park, a small sample of CPs major rides blows all of DW's major and some family rides out of the water. Probably just as you didn't try and include the whole park otherwise it would've been even more embarrassing. Maybe it was a bit unfair to make DW compete against a park which is hailed by all as having the greatest capacity ever, but it does make the point pretty well.

That just shows how far things have advanced at Senic World in recent years Thanks for the update Dj, keep us posted on how things go up there, Senic World is strangly very interesting to me.

Warner Village Theme Parks is owner operator of the park. WnW is to me the hidden gem of Gold Coast parks. It doesn't have actual rides but its a perfect place to spend a summer day (avoiding sunburn of course). As with all of the WVTPs, the gardens, scenery and themeing is quite well done. If you haven't been to WnW, I can't recommend going enough. It may small by international standards, but its still the biggest and easily best water park in Australia by quite a margin.

nah, Thunderbolt was good in the old (and I mean really old, say 10 years ago old) days. No one in my family really enjoys a good thrill ride, except for a distant relation of mine in England. We went to Alton Towers for the day, and he did all the rides with little in terms of hesitation, which wasn't a bad effort for someone in his mid 60s.

Nah, he's ok, but never will be as good as Kevin Bloody Wilson. Dick's telephone call, Hey Santa Claus, Cum Chin Mu Gurfren, Kev's Courting song, all classics and better then anything Rodney ever did IMHO.

I think I'm just used to it being the same job. At SW Ops are trained the basic crowd control stuff plus load unload and whatnot. If your there for a couple of years, then you'd learn say, Bermuda Control room and different things along those lines, but its still classed as being an Op. Your pay does go up as you learn different things but you essentially still do the same job as a new person. For example, I'm paid more then a new person starting in Food & Beverage but we're both still Food & Bev attendants. The person on the controls at SW gets paid more because they are capable of doing all the jobs on any given ride, and are 'more valuable to the company' or something like that. Basically competency based pay.

Whats the difference between an operator and attendant? I never realised there were two different job types out there, and what makes people think they should be paid more?

I enjoyed Wonderland about as much as I thought I would. Good fun, though much of that fun can be put down to the people who went (from here). The only other southern park I've been too is Senic World, which really surprised me. Everything about the place from its cheapness to its million $ renovations I loved. It was the most fun little place, even the food was fun in a weird sort of way.