Bussy

I haven't been hit but was operating a ride when it happened. I was operating Psyclone (pretty much the same as The Claw) at Canada's Wonderland, when a teenage girl got hit by a seagull. I saw something go flying and nearly hit the e-stop. My supervisors were in the booth me and went to investigate, and came back with a box with the dead seagull in it. The girl was in tears but okay. The seagull landed in the garden next to the merry-go-round. "The Bus is now leaving for Seagull Point, NSW"

It'll open when Sky Voyager opens 😜 Skeletal to me Luna Park and Scenic World are so different they can't be compared. "The Bus is now leaving for Orphan Rock, NSW"

I agree, we always stop at Coffs for at least one night on the way up to the Gold Coast and I hope the park stays open and expands/updates regularly. I took the family to the Big Banana in January but didn't use the water park but was surprised how busy the place was which is a good thing. "The Bus is now leaving for Banana Creek, Western Australia"

I wonder how the park will go with the Coffs Harbour Pacific Hwy bypass build starting soon. "The Bus is now leaving for Bypass Nunatak, Australian Antarctic Territory"

So the ride did what it was supposed to do? I'm guessing the" lack of communication" would've been they weren't happy being told they were stuck and they couldn't tell them how long it would be. What did they want, someone telling them every five minutes that they were still stuck and they would be off soon? Or a full technical explanation of how the ride works and how the safety systems may be activated? Given the price of food at DW food vouchers would be sufficient compensation. "The Bus is now leaving for Stopping Well, South Australia"

I did The Demon climb experience a couple of times, for free, definitely not interesting. I can't understand the appeal of this, no view of any value at all and a photo with what in the background? Carpark, motorway and houses? Yeah I'll give it a miss too.

Sorry but I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one. Sunway never purchased Wonderland with the intention of running it as a theme park, it was a strategic and very business smart investment with various factors coming into play, mainly the soon to be built M7 orbital in it's doorstep. If they hadn't done it the next owner would've. Was it sad? Yeah, it was shit to have the best job pulled out from under me and the rest of the staff. But I can now see it for what it was, a very smart business decision. "The Bus is now leaving for Purposes, NSW"

I'm currently on the GC for a family holiday and headed to Dreamworld today, I couldn't believe how quiet it was. We got there around 10:30/11 and we're able to park close to the entrance. Having 3 young kids we headed straight to the ABC/ Wiggles area and everything was walk on except the Big Red Car which was a 15 minute wait. The tiger show at 12 was busy with the entire amphitheatre being full. After that we headed to the DreamWorks are and again everything was walk on. My 7 year old son lived Escape Madagascar and was able to have a heap of rides. Overall we had a great day but I can see that they are trying really hard with the park but they aren't spending the money needed. This is my 1500th post. "The Bus is now leaving for 15 Mile Well, Western Australia"

I thought it had been much longer than that. The Bus is now leaving for Forty Year Spring, NSW.

@webslave @Slick Nope not me. @AlexB Not quiet 5 months but close 😅

@AlexB I clearly haven't been on here for a while so haven't seen your post until now. It's been nearly 15 years since I operated Bush Beast so my memory of the control panel is limited. I'll start from the top of the diagram and photo and go from there; Key for ON/OFF: pretty self explanatory. There is a difference between the photo and the diagram, the photo has dual key (not sure why) where as the diagram doesn't. Next three orange lights across the top indicate what brake sections are being occupied by a train, this didn't really matter if a single train was in use. Emergency Stop: Again self explanatory, only helped if the train was on the lift or approaching a break block. Lift Start: Only used at the start of the day. Moving on down to the last button on third row down as everything else was for the maintenance guys. Lap bar release: pressed when the train was stopped in the correct position in the station and often needed to be pressed several times. Lift Stop: Only used at the end of the day. Next two were for maintenance use. OK Dispatch: Was pressed and held when the train was ready to go for a cycle. From memory was used in conjunction with the button below it Dispatch Brake Release. Lap Bar Down: Unlocked the lap bar from the open position so that riders could pull down the bar. Emergency Brake Release: I'm not 100% sure of this but this was either the first section of brakes coming into the station or the brakes on the back curve. Trim, Ready and Dispatch brake release were the three sections of brakes coming into and including at the platform and had to be pressed one at at time to allow the train to be stopped in the correct position in the station. I'm not sure why the Auto Brake Enable wasn't used. Further to the photo the black panel with the LCD screen on the top left of the photo was a wind speed and direction monitor, if the wind was at or over a certain speed from a certain direction you weren't allowed to dispatch the train as it would not have enough momentum to get around the back curve and would become stuck. On another side note there was a manual release for the lap bars, it was a small hole on the upright section of each seat section that required a long bolt to be pushed in and pressed on the right bit and pushed down. We trained the operators in how to do it at the station and was very fiddly to get right. I only had to do it once on the lift hill and it was very difficult to get right. You can just see it in this photo http://www.wonderlandhistory.net/media-gallery/detail/13/260 it's just above the blue hat. Hope that helps.

I don't know for sure but I'm going to guess that they going to announce they have secured land to start planning and building "Sydney's Wonderland". As for the 'museum' I think it's a ridiculous idea and if it is going to be part of the new park it should be a very small section and definitely not include the carriages they have secured and are very lucky to still have as the people who own them thought they could store them on someones land indefinitely and not pay for it. The target market for Sydney's Wonderland couldn't care less about a park that closed before most of them were born. Happy 2018 everyone.

Having operated Snowy River Rampage at WS for several years and having been on TRR in August I have been reading with interest the media's 'spin' and members of the public's thoughts on what happened to cause this tragic incident. My thoughts is that it was a combination of operator error (unfortunately) and ride system failure. Firstly the ride operators should've been aware that the first raft had stopped where it was and that the lift was still moving and stopped the ride, there are at least two operators who should've picked up on this. Secondly is the system failure, at WS there were sensors at the top of the lift that stopped it if two boats were too close together. (it's a bit blurry but it's in the bottom right hand corner of the photos where the white electrical junction box is). It's a bit hard to see from the photos of TRR I have been able to find but I would presume that they would have the same or similar systems at Dreamworld which have failed and the lift has continued moving the raft. Again this is my own opinion and I will be interested to see the outcome of the Police and Coronial investigations.

Don't put Carnies in the same boat as permanent park ride ops. In my experience, travelling show rides (from Royal Easter Show to my local towns show) are operated by a group of people who should not be trusted with children. I always made an effort to put a smile on the face of the guests, if that meant making myself look like a bit of an idiot with a stupid joke or doing an evil laugh over the PA, then that's what I did. I tried to pass on that attitude to the other staff I trained.

Yeah they did do it deliberately, it was a business decision. They never bought the park because it was a theme park, they bought it because they had the foresight to realise that the M7 was going to be built and it was the perfect hub for warehouses to distribute their goods around Sydney and the state.