joz

I thought it was a real bargain park. Definitely worth the stop, even if you don't spend the full 3 hours (I think we spent 2 hours there including lunch and mini golf) its still worth doing. The wild mouse was a heap of fun, and the park had an impressive collection of off the shelf thrill rides. The day I went the place was deserted, and when you wanted to go on a ride, the operator would go over with you, operate the ride, and ask what you wanted to go on next, and operate the next ride for you. No lines obviously, since we were the only customers in the park. Quite an interesting experience. I hope this park does well, if it does well, there's no telling what they'll do next.

This sounds like a great improvement over the "Fright Night" they had last year. Quite a few of the issues brought up by people (including by some on this site) are taken into account, and its really good to see the park respond so positively to the guests input. Everyone wanted less tickets, more rides and longer hours, well Dreamworld is delivering all of those and then some. Well done! The only remaining issue is with how the park handles closing the rides by 10, as that was the big fiasco last time. Its kinda surprising they aren't closing the rides at 9.30 this time around, since saying rides are open until 10 implies queues will be open till 10, though in reality it means "everyone off the rides by 10". Still, probably a minor issue in what sounds like will be a good night.

Wow, so many points here. Lets dive right in here shall we? Well, that's true, but don't forget that the building has been around since the mid 80's now, and some of the infrastructure has seen better days. Having said that, after just spending $1million on doing it up for pig, its looking good enough that its not urgently needing replacement. Pig has been released once, and lost a good deal of weight very quickly. Its in Pig's best interest that he stays at Sea World, as in the past its been clear that he just can't do it out there. Realistically as well, one individual animal isn't going to be the difference between the species surviving or becoming extinct. Pig's role at Sea World is to be the ambassador for Dugongs in the wild. People who see these animals in captivity have more of an empathy for there cousins in the wild. Most people don't even know what a Dugong is, so to have one that people can see, relate to, and learn about is a very important step in making people aware of their plight in the wild. From a business point of view, I don't think Pig will ever turn a profit. He is one of the most expensive animals to have in the park, as his feeding is labour intensive, he has full time carers, and he does eat allot of food. Pig is there because its the best thing for Pig, and its best for Dugongs as a whole. I think for that reason (Depending on Pig's own health) we can expect to see Pig for quite a while in the park. One reason is it might help to spread the crowds more evenly over the course of the day. As anyone who works there would know, the top of the park is pretty much dead between 1.15pm and about 4pm. Maybe having a ride at that end of the park would encourage people to stay up the top and take some of the stress off Plaza and the central rides area. Since this is a pretty unreliable rumour, I'm just going to go nuts and link it up with another old unreliable rumour: "Bermuda is getting replaced soon". Does it make sense that Bermuda's HUGE footprint could be better used by other rides in the middle of the park (You could probably fit 2 or 3 on there pretty easy)? Perhaps, but that still leaves the problem of finding a new home for Pig, new turtle rehabilitation pools, a new spot for the carpenters and workshop, new special events storage sheds, new warehouse, as well as new offices for HR, Marine Sciences, Education, and training. Not all of this stuff can be simply moved to Movieworld or into the top offices.

When I edited it, the info about who had voted dissapeared (No biggie) but no idea whats going on with that other one only showing 3 votes. Strange...

Without question this is Disney's fault, I don't think anyone disputes that. Unlike you, I believe the majority of the blame can be rested on the shoulders of the guys who tagged it as safe for use without doing the job properly, rather then on the operators or even the operators policies. I also believe the new policy doesn't affect the operations of the ride, but is more of an attempt to give people some confidence in the ride (There's a new term for ya, "Placebo policy"). This is indicated by the fact that they were (supposedly) planning to take the train off the ride even without the guidelines telling them to do so. Really, if the maintenance guys had done the job right in the first place, then we wouldn't be talking about this. I think blaming the operators is a bit like blaming the goalie when your team looses at soccer, even though the ball had to get past 12 other players first.

I don't think the policy will make the slightest difference. The problem is that a ride with as many trains BTMRR, simply identifying the train making the strange noise could prove difficult. Every cycle sounds different on many rides, due to things such as the weight distribution, newness of certain components etc. So hearing a slightly different sound on a train wouldn't necessarily suggest a problem. When the train comes back still making the noise, even if the operator notices again, there's a good chance that even a competent operator wouldn't realise it was the same train - it would take a couple of cycles before someone notices which train it was.

If the ride was operating normally, the riders were of "normal" proportions and riding correctly? No, you probably would not need the restraints. However, the chances of needing the restraints is high enough that IMHO, they are required on that ride. I wouldn't trust people to be riding correctly, and one would suspect that standing up, for example, during the backwards drop bunny hill section could send one flying.

I believe the point Alex was making was that before the ride crashed, there was no evidence of something 'catastrophically' wrong. Of a fault yes? But of something that would prove fatal? Not at all. Think of this, if they had loaded this train, but then unloaded it before sending it on its way and taken it off the track before sending it out, then this would be a story of some seriously pissed off guests annoyed by the parks "irratic" operations. The guy who was killed wouldn't know that his life was saved, and could possibly been annoyed to the point of complaining or even abusing the ops. That's aside from the chaos on the station and possible disciplining from boss' (hell, they probably wouldn't know that the guy would've died otherwise either). No, much easier to send it once more, and simply not load it again when it comes back. Sadly, as we know it didn't quite work out like that...

Are we getting defunction mixed up with Dreamnova here? And are we also getting a petty argument mixed up with kinda significant information?

...and a screen

Interesting about GD, most days I've been the ops have only admitted say, 4 groups at a time, and left the queue waiting at the door (Due to the increasing vandalism apparently). The problem with this is that with 1 person op, there is one dispatch in 4 (or however many are admitted) that takes close to 5 mins. When you don't load GD that way, you end up staying in that room for extended periods of time, and speaking personally, I don't think its the most conformable environment. A good solution would be to have queue rails inside the building to make the queue narrower, thus not as many guests being able to fit inside, and guests not spending as much time in there Movieworld did this to great success on Scooby. When the ride originally opened the hallway between the main queue and the station didn't have any extra queue rails, and it often took around 10mins to get through that section. Now with the extra queue rails making the line narrower, not as many people can fit in, and you don't spend as much time in the hallway. Doing this at DW would also stop people vandalising the "Exhibits" in the queue for GD, which I hear is an issue...

What about fake trees? That also gets rid of the problem of trying to plant tress on the top of a building. I always thought a better idea though would just be a large western style sign (themed advertisement for Wild West Burgers, or the Rio Bravo shop at the rides exit?) that is both large enough to cover up the unsightly back of the ride, as well as promoting a product in the park and perhaps increasing sales to boot. With the top room, I don't think it should be restored to exactly as it looked before. It didn't look that great anyway, but did look better then as it is now. At the moment it looks kinda like a warehouse with a few barrels, and the flashing lights add nothing to the ride. All I think really needs to be done is to A. Change that stupid mirror thing, and B. Make the path to the exit much more discreet. The smoke and wind machine aren't that significant to the overall success of the room, but when the room looks tacky, the whole ride (IMHO) looks tacky. It just needs some more themeing elements and the mirror thing looks stupid. Realisticly though I don't expect anything to be done about it, because the ride rates the same as it did before the fire.

Adam, the emergency stop wouldn't have done anything. The train was loaded, and they decided that next time it came back they were going to take it off the track. I think the key to this is there was no rider misconduct involved here. When a someone misbehaves, and injures or even kills themselves then its not a great concern for me, since I know it was their own fault. When its purely mechanical failure, with no fault of the rider, I don't think the stats can make it any more acceptable. The idea that its ok to accidentally kill one guest in 48 million is pure insanity. On the flip side Alex, I get what your saying. Indeed I'd probably ride BTM without a second thought. It does make you wonder whats doing though when the last 2 deaths at the park have been no fault of the victims, and have come in such quick succession.

It looks more like the guests load at the bottom, and launch from right to left, and over the top. Rather then being a lift hill at the top, that section looks more like a brake section. I wanna know how the cars rotate, wether its like X and controlled, or like a topspin and not controlled. BTW, I still think it looks like a carnie ride, though it'd probably fit into parks that have very little in the way of themeing.

I don't think DW needs another thrill ride (not at the moment anyway). Even with MW's rocket, DW will have the hold on the thrill ride market come Xmas. I think instead DW will go for an attraction with as broad appeal as possible (something that attracts Teens and families the same). I also don't think it'll be a ride.

Well sorry guys, but there's been a development on this one: The projected opening it seems has been pushed back to December as confirmed by Village's latest release (available at www.asx.com.au). The release does however refer to the ride as: Superman Escape. More when its relevant

Wild mouse version of Arrow's ride with no turns? Not a bad idea, after all, the prototype of Arrow's 4D (in Utah, not X) looked like a bunch of fun and was on about the same scale. It looks fun, but with no turns the ride looks somehow awkward. IMHO it'd be a much better concept if there was more flexibility with what could be done with the track. Its the sort of thing that looks more at home at a travelling carnival with a painted wall behind it.

Unless I'm mistaken, the lift takes several boats up at a time (Like Scooby).

Well, theres nothing new going on atm. While there's nothing going on, then go a bit off topic (not too off topic, like whats happening now). When something is happening, you'll know about it (more then likley in another thread).

Call me crazy, but on my last visit (early last week) I thought Dreamworld was looking pretty good overall. There were a couple of rough spots around the park (River Town, Giant Drop and Thunder River were the main ones, but ToT wasn't open ), but nothing that couldn't be fixed easily enough. Hell, they even had the fountains on Wipeout working, first time I've seen them work since the ride first opened. Now all they need to do is make it a "Wet ride" (and let everyone know so people don't complain). The Imax theater was playing Super Speedway, so I guess they've stopped playing Kingdom of the Tiger which IMHO wasn't a very good film anyway. It fit in nicely with Dreamworld and the Tiger's, but the film was still a bit boring.

Figured it might be that one, but didn't think Flea was privy to such information. Odly enough never been to My Bar, I've always got at least one mate who doesn't meet the dress code for the place... damm... Anyway, Wild West's themeing indeed looks ordinary at best up the top....

Ah Flea, My bar? What are you on about? BTW, I'll probably be out tomorrow man DJ, so I'll head into shooters and say gidday to Nat (I think thats what it was) for ya

Alex, relax man, its not that big a deal. Adam, pretty much everyone is 99.99999 percent sure that such a system does not exist. Its not gospel, but its about the best your going to get, and remember, the people on this site normally get it pretty right when it comes to this sort of thing. You have to remember that everywhere in the haunted house section is within a short walk of an exit, and every bloke brake inside the ride has a catwalk to it. The other point as well, is if the ride e-stopped (trapping the cars on the brakes) it wouldn't be able to move anyway. There are quite a few reasons why this wouldn't work, so its a better then fair chance that the cars don't have a motor.

That would be very much appreciated.

I don't like the idea of having a live feed from the ride into the queue, simply because you know there'd be people doing the middle finger and all that sort of stuff, which doesn't belong in a family theme park.