Dean Barnett

I just wish they tried *something* to improve the general guest experience. Tusenfryd rotates crew around each position every hour or so (within the attractions and around the park) maybe that will work against the Australian nature?

You shouldn't have to have a plan to be able to on most of the rides in one day.... there's a lot of assuming going on with your posts rebutted by @Guest 239's hard data

Check the google reviews - it's littered with similar experiences.

Something like this?

You could have a happy medium

Paying $400 to enter the park and achieve 2 maybe 3 rides ruins peoples days. You can't argue with that. The procedures are way over the top - there's no reason why the ride can operate as linked above, without a seatbelt, without attendants pushing down on every restraint and without using a RFID verify. Eliminate all these things and everyone is happier! (except for the marginal drop in express passes I guess)

The extra measures they take.. for rivals for example of the RFID thing and seatbelts for the trains.. is just safety theatre. The train won't dispatch if the restraints aren't locked. Visual checks to see if the guests are seated properly and not holding/wearing something inappropriate is the only thing required to prevent a "critical safety error". I've been on plenty of coasters that just do only a visual check. The seatbelt is not even required Most parks that are really good at operations just pull up on restraints to check they're locked - then move on. Here that process is in some cases operators putting their entire body weight pushing down on the restraint, then pulling up, then scanning the RFID thingy. I'm surprised they didn't invest in another RFID thingy to reset the row - instead of calling out to the panel op. Here's a video of a the same train model as rivals dispatching trains in under 30 seconds - and it's still completely safe! Imagine rivals pumping through 2500 people an hour. I haven't been to the parks in a while but I've heard that dispatches can be around 5 mins between.. which would be around 10% of that. The only difference between Europa and Australia is the GP can be more apprehensive, but there's no need for constant theatre which slows operations, makes everyone angry and ruins days.

The reason for the abrupt closure might be due to a spot opening up on a ship to ship the old track out for it to be refurbished off shore? Just speculating

So I’ve done a few parks (60) and the only park that has worse ops than our Gold Coast parks is the Merlin ones in the UK (Alton towers and Thorpe Park).

$25 for backwards, $45 for braked spinning, $65 for freespin.

One of the greatest

Not sure.. many of their operation decisions don't make sense. Any chance of them putting Mack Spinning cars (RtH style) on the track? Another chance for an upcharge!

Probably a few weeks at least. Idealy a few months. Disney (I know, on the opposite side of the scale) recently announced RnR's closure from Feb 20th on Dec 29th.

A multi million dollar upgrade.. that they announce (checks calendar) 3 days out.

X is terrible now. Instant headache in any seat.

The only useful thing I've seen with the RFID tags is on Hagride. With the rolling station, the attendant verify the car as secure with one location and can even reset/unlock the cars with another RFID reader position. If the train hasn't been secured by the end of platform area the whole station stops. Velocicoaster until recently was fine with one attendant checking the restraints (and just pulling up. never stapling people in). Millions of people have ridden without incident. They recently changed it so every seat gets checked twice, but I feel like this might be to stop half empty trains being dispatched because the groupers can't keep up with the platform load speed. Using RFID's to verify seats on a static station seems like a waste of both time and money.

Phantasialand doesn't have any hyper coasters - they're height limited, so everything is built low by necessity. 95ft is the tallest coaster, and that's only because it was built below the ground level. Just look at Silverstar - and incredible coaster inside a immaculately Disney level themed park- and the station is too.. but the coaster outside of the station, while navigating the carpark is completely un-themed... and it doesn't need to be.

Nothing a bit of bracing couldn't fix

I can't think of a single hypercoaster with theming around the track. It doesn't need it.

Would be neat to weigh the trains (like DL SM) to work out exactly how much juice is required to very gently crest the top hat.

The Smiler incident was caused by a maintenance team member forcing the continuation of the ride.

Completely possible

No chance. The throughput is bad enough as it is.

It backs up my claims that they’re not posting that the attractions are closed at the front gate - and people are travelling from interstate to ride these attractions also $12 for lockers … and coins only?!