Steel Taipan running empty (except for Tailwhip seats)

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Last week I had another opportunity to get on Taipan a few times and planned on staying for moonlight markets after close. I was watching the queue and although the general queue was pretty low, there was quite a few people with Tailwhip wristbands. 

I found it odd that they closed the general queue at precisely 5pm, despite having several tailwhip cycles to run (I'm pretty sure they have to redo all restraints on a train before dispatch) and because they had both trains on track, they were literally dispatching the non-spin train entirely empty every second cycle so that they could bring the tailwhip seats back into the station for the next group of two. 

Several cycles ran empty, or with only the tailwhip seats occupied, and this just felt a bit flat - there was a small group of riders stood around the area watching these two trains cycle repeatedly for solidly 10-15 minutes until all the tailwhips were done.

I know park management read the boards, so this is more directed at them than for general discussion (but hey - add your 2c, i'm not fussed) - but I wanted to throw it out there that either Dreamworld needs to:

• Ensure they don't oversell Tailwhip in the final hour, or:
• When it reaches 5pm, Spiel to the queueline that the ride will continue to operate until the tailwhip queue has been cleared, and they make no guarantee anyone joining the general queue after 5pm will get a ride. Heck - give a 'queue marker' to the last person to enter before five, and just post a sign. 

I just feel like the guest experience could be plussed here with very little additional effort to give a few last rides to people on trains that are going to be dispatched anyway...

[Rivals]

43 minutes ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

When it reaches 5pm, Spiel to the queueline that the ride will continue to operate until the tailwhip queue has been cleared, and they make no guarantee anyone joining the general queue after 5pm will get a ride. Heck - give a 'queue marker' to the last person to enter before five, and just post a sign. 

This would be a great idea, not last Friday night but the Friday night prior, the ride continued cycling for at least 30mins after park close and guests there for the Moonlight Markets were walking over to the area thinking the ride was open. Having the ride open for a little bit just to finish the TailWhip cycles and having a sign out the front of the area, or even a staff member stating there’s no guarantee that just because you’re joining the general queue, doesn't mean you’ll get a ride if the TailWhip seats have been emptied.

[Guest 239]

I can see why a hard 5 PM rule might be preferable to a softer one. The coaster is right at the front of the park which means that you've got a parks worth of people heading that way to leave. It wouldn't be difficult for a small crowd to amass and then have to disappointment them when you close the attraction because the paying customers are done riding. 

I think the better solution would be to just limit 4-5 PM riders so that staff and guests don't have to lull around waiting for maybes. 

[Dean Barnett]

Yeah it’s common practice overseas to give away rides for free if they need to cycle a train anyway - seems like a waste if not. Unless they can just unlock the spinny car instead of the whole train 

[Noxegon]

I've previously been told "no" to the last ride of the night at a park in Europe, despite there being several empty seats on the dispatch in front of me – because I joined the queue precisely at close time.

[Gazza]

I think the reason they wouldn't allow others to join would be to just speed up the throughput for those waiting for their tailwhip ride?

Checking an empty train is quicker than letting people on / waiting for them to deposit loose items and sit down / waiting for them to exit.

 

Edited August 23, 2022 by Gazza

[Dean Barnett]

Just leave them on Gazza - you can just keep the rest of the train secure and unlock the rear car. Simples.

[Gazza]

I think over time if it became known you could get a quasi ERT at the end of the day there would be enough people wanting rides at 5pm you'd have to let new people on.

Hence them just cycling quickly to pump them through so the staff can go home.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

As I mentioned previously, this is based on having tailwhip seats to fill. I don't think a quasi-ERT situation would occur, as if it were occurring too often, they could simply stop selling tailwhip earlier (or record the sales better to avoid the situation). 

My original post didn't assume this would be common - just that when it happened, whats the harm in allowing others to keep loading. 

Fair points made about the time taken to unload and load if there was more than a train's worth, and that's probably the only answer needed TBH, but on a quiet day if you've got a handful of folks, let them ride while you clear the tailwhips you clearly oversold.

[Gazza]

15 minutes ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

just that when it happened, whats the harm in allowing others to keep loading. 

Because it takes longer and the staff would want to just clear the tailwhip queue and go home, not muck around dealing with a whole trains worth each time.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Gazza

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Then stop overselling the spinner?

[Gazza]

IDK there might have been a breakdown on the day you visited so they had a backlog.

Did you get plenty of rides prior to 5pm?

Edited August 24, 2022 by Gazza

[joz]

I think they should let others ride, back in the old days when I was a ride op if it turned out i had spare seats on a final cycle I'd see if anyone nearby wanted them. I think it creates extra memories and is a really nice peice of goodwill, and all that good shit. This works best if there are only a handful of people around, hordes of people you're going to potentially cause an issue. 'You can queue but you might not get to ride' will not work and is going to piss people off even more than 'It's after 5, it's closed'.

 

So with that in mind if them running it empty for people who paid is what they decide to do, fair enough. 'Don't oversell it'. Why? Because seeing it empty hurts your feelings or makes you feel entitled to ride? At that point it's very much a 'you' issue, not a 'them' issue. Your ticket lets you ride till 5. You got that. If it takes them till midnight to clear the tailwhip queue, it would have exactly zero impact on you.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

16 minutes ago, Gazza said:

IDK there might have been a breakdown on the day you visited so they had a backlog.

Did you get plenty of rides prior to 5pm?

There wasn't, and I didn't. 

On 21/07/2022 at 11:44 AM, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

I just feel like the guest experience could be plussed here with very little additional effort to give a few last rides to people on trains that are going to be dispatched anyway...

We're all happy to talk about Big Bad Dreamworld and how their reputation had taken a hit and they had much more work to do to regain that reputation. As I said (above) in my original post, it was an opportunity to plus the day for very little effort. 

19 minutes ago, joz said:

Because seeing it empty hurts your feelings or makes you feel entitled to ride? At that point it's very much a 'you' issue, not a 'them' issue.

It's very much a 'them' issue though - because it's not doing their reputation any favours when its the last experience you have in the park before you leave. Imagine being the average punter who checks their brain at the door, who sees the trains running, with people hooting and hollering on it, not understanding why some got to ride and others didn't (to be clear, some GA seats were loaded, some were empty).

You'd potentially assume some sort of premium experience but there was no signage nor staff at the entrance to explain what was happening and Average Joe is left to make his own assumptions. 

22 minutes ago, joz said:

I think it creates extra memories and is a really nice peice of goodwill, and all that good shit.

Absolutely agree - and the extra memories are sorely needed in Coomera right now.

[Dean Barnett]

I managed to get 3 laps of Apollo once - front row - at dark. Some how the last two groups of the front row were 3’s. Perfect. 
 

Got a double ride on shammy too - In the back row. Ops were actively asking for people to re-ride .. maybe to make sure it was a fast cycle?

 

Anyway in conclusion - allowing rerides should definitely happen more often on coasters here. 

[Coasterjoe]

A simple solution is limit the Tail Whip hours to close at 4.30…. done 

[joz]

Nah, screw that. If it takes till midnight to clear the tailwhip queue and each cycle runs at a profit, who cares?

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

7 hours ago, joz said:

and each cycle runs at a profit

Each cycle from dispatch to brake zone is about 2:20. If the ops crew are absolutely on their game, that means you're making $50 every 5 minutes, or $600 an hour when you have two trains on the track. 

I don't have pricing on ST's per hour running cost, but having seen event pricing for ERT for Dreamworld, Sea World, Movie World and even Wonderland back in the day, I don't think you're running at a profit.

[joz]

I mean arguing its not profitable based on what they charge for events is some pretty weak cheese indeed. 'I've seen how much they charge for soft drink, they wouldn't make profit if they sold it for $1'

 

Reality is that each cycle would cost something; power, train rebuild/maintenance cost spread out over each cycle, staffing etc. If after all those things are paid for, and you're still running at a profit, run it till midnight for all I care.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

1 hour ago, joz said:

I mean arguing its not profitable based on what they charge for events is some pretty weak cheese indeed. 'I've seen how much they charge for soft drink, they wouldn't make profit if they sold it for $1'

 

Reality is that each cycle would cost something; power, train rebuild/maintenance cost spread out over each cycle, staffing etc. If after all those things are paid for, and you're still running at a profit, run it till midnight for all I care.

Oh please. See this is why I give long-winded explanations - because a reasonable statement gets rubbished unless it's exhausted to the -enth degree. I'm well aware of the associated and on-costs, and i'm sure you'd have a fair idea too, so I didn't see the need to explain in every detail beyond 'i know what the pricing is and it isn't gonna be profitable'... 

Ahem... Weak cheese my arse.

Ride hire costs (usually only for an hour of the event) are add-ons to an already profit-making banquets \ events booking. This booking already has your park security and other support staff covered and rostered for the event. What you're suggesting doesn't keep anything else open including F&B outlets (unless you do, and there's another cost) plus you need to keep your first aid team onsite, and cleaners to maintain the facility. These sorts of costs are typically factored into an event booking, and not a "pay per ride single seat price during normal operating hours" price.

Overtime... Fatigue Limits for ride operators... minimum call times if you call a new crew in to keep it going...

This isn't something you can ad-hoc, I guarantee your staffing costs alone exceed $600 per hour, and if you plan it, then you might as well open the GA seats as well and charge for those outside of hours to make up the excess and then if that be the case what even are we arguing about?

 

(...and I have seen costs for soft drink, and post-mix is the biggest profit-making product in any park hands down. Selling it at $1 would still make a profit, so even the free refill scheme is a money maker and why Village didn't do much to prevent people from abusing the refill stations for a long time.)

[joz]

11 minutes ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

What you're suggesting

What I'm suggesting is if it runs past 5, it doesn't matter. 'Run it to midnight for all I care' isn't an actual literal suggestion to do that. I mean far out dude I'm surprised you didn't mention the park has a 10pm curfew for rides.

 

You'll also note the original post says 'if it's profitable', I make no claims to know for sure. I don't know how much each cycle costs, it would be an interesting number to have, but I do know that going off the event hire price and working backwards from there IS the weakest of weak cheese, and deep down I think you know that too.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

26 minutes ago, joz said:

deep down I think you know that too.

We all know what happens when you assume. 

You said 'if its profitable'. I said 'I think you'll find it won't be' and if you think i'm basing it off the publicly listed event hire price and nothing else (especially after I went into further detail about the additional costs associated with it) then you're very much mistaken - and you think my position is weak. 

I'm done here. 

[joz]

9 minutes ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

I'm done here. 

This is very good news.

 

Incidentally I'm off to my local bar this afternoon. They have happy hour 4-6 where drinks are $5. I don't think they make any money on that because normally they charge $9 

[Dean Barnett]

i just want to ride rollercoasters in australia when it's dark outside of events.

[Naazon]

Build your own? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯