The validity of Google reviews

[Dean Barnett]

2 minutes ago, Brad2912 said:

If safety procedures are making people angry and ruining their day, the issue isn’t the procedures, it’s the people. 

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)

[Brad2912]

1 hour ago, Dean Barnett said:

Paying $400 to enter the park and achieve 2 maybe 3 rides ruins peoples days.

That’s a massive over exaggeration. Firstly no individual is paying $400 to enter. 
 

if you are coupling a whole family from a cost perspective, then you just couple them as a family for rides
 

even in the highest peak, you are not only getting on 2-3 rides in a day unless you are spending 4 hours eating and shopping, or only spending a few hours at the park. 
 

Edited January 25, 2023 by Brad2912

[Brad2912]

56 minutes ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

Can assure you, with friends who visited from Sydney over the holiday period, they only got 3 rides due to rides going down, early closures of queuelines when they were large lines, etc. They didn't stop for lunch either.

 

I’m obviously not taking into account lining up for DCR for 2 hours only for it to break down..

Your friends experience is theirs, I wasn’t there, but I can’t buy for a minute anyone only getting on 3 rides in a day with 9:30am to 6pm holiday operation. If you are there at rope drop with a plan on where you are heading straight to, even if you dawdle you’ll be on a ride within 30mins

Are you then saying in the proceeding 8 hours they could only manage 2 more rides? 
 

Doesn’t add up. 

Edited January 25, 2023 by Brad2912

[Dean Barnett]

4 minutes ago, Brad2912 said:

I wasn’t there, but I can’t buy for a minute anyone only getting on 3 rides in a day with 9:30am to 6pm holiday operation. 

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

[Brad2912]

2 minutes ago, Dean Barnett said:

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

Google reviews. Haha. Also known as exaggeration central. 
 

whilst some are no doubt genuine, 90% are exaggerated to publicly force the park into offering some form of restitution or because “poor me” I’m not happy so I want to slag off your business 

I guarantee you a large majority had no plan, rocked up late and aimless wandered around while the kids argued about what they wanted to go on first. 

 

[Gazza]

At any park it’s not physically possible for everyone to rope drop, and as the crowd surges in, someone is always going to be at the back of the pack.

So inevitably a large number of a guests  on a busy day can encounter long waits right from the start. Cant all be first.

Example: When I was at SFOG and they had added VR onto Dare Devil Dive, capacity was horrible.

I literally rope dropped that and was on the first car of the day. About 5 mins later when I exited, the wait time was already up to 2 hours.

[New display name]

Theme park enthusiast after rope drop.

[Guest 239]

3 rides in one day might be exaggerated if you are there open to close, but wait times can be pretty severe and would make it difficult to get everything done in day.

Medium wait times for Monday 23rd were the following only factoring in when the rides were open:

Ride Name	Median of Waits
Wild West Falls Adventure Ride	110
SCOOBY-DOO Spooky Coaster Next Generation	100
DC Rivals HyperCoaster	65
GREEN LANTERN Coaster	60
JUSTICE LEAGUE 3D - The Ride	45
SUPERMAN Escape	45
Road Runner Rollercoaster	30
Junior Driving School	30
BATWING Spaceshot	30

If you did nothing but wait in line than you'd be doing that for 8.6 hours which is just a little over the 8.5 hours that the park is open. Unfortunately that's not possible, and you need to factor in breaks, eating, getting to attractions, figuring out which one to do, etc. 

Here's the waits if you want to figure out how you might tackle the park on that day. Keep in mind the data is uploaded in my timezone so the timestamp is one hour forward.

[Brad2912]

20 minutes ago, Gazza said:

 

At any park it’s not physically possible for everyone to rope drop

 

Of course not, but if you are paying $400+ for the one day you can attend whilst on holidays, then unless you are maximising use of the operational times of the park then I’d suggest you are limiting the relevance of the argument that you could only get on 2 rides.. 

[Dean Barnett]

3 hours ago, Brad2912 said:

I guarantee you a large majority had no plan, rocked up late and aimless wandered around while the kids argued about what they wanted to go on first. 

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

[Brad2912]

9 minutes ago, Dean Barnett said:

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

Median wait times provided show you could easily ride more than 2-3 rides in a day.

plan or not. 

[joz]

Alright well let's play a game shall we. Say those times are accurate, not exaggerated which they often are. Let's also say I got to the park at opening, but I also at every point in the day I made terrible decisions and always went on the ride with the longest queue that I hadn't been on. What does the day look like?

 

I'd be starting the day at 9:45 on Rivals. Cool good to get a big ride done. Then the longest queue when I get off is Scooby. It's a 100min wait, and let's allow 15mins to walk over there. So I join the queue at 11, and done about 12:40. Grab a quick bite from a mobile cart, and at 1, I go to the ride with the next biggest queue, Wild West, 150mins. 2 and a half hours is decidedly unpleasant! But whatever, those are the rules. 3:30 I'm done with that. I check the app and go for the next longest line, Green Lantern with an hour. Let's say that takes till 4:45. Hope on Superman which is right next door with a half hour queue, and then onto Justice Leauge to finish off the day.

 

Does that sound like a nice day? Fuck no! Every decision I made was 100% wrong, and I made it that I queued as long as I possibly could. But making every wrong decision and having the worst day, I still rode everything except Batwing and Doomsday. So take your 'only got on 3 rides' reviews and fuck off.

 

Quick edit to say I'm on mobile switching windows. I expect there will be mistakes I've made. I don't care, it doesn't materially change my point.

Edited January 25, 2023 by joz

[Noxegon]

Apropos of nothing, and perhaps to lighten the mood, I’m reminded of a scene I witnessed at ah airport a few years ago. 

Passenger barked “do you know who I am” at a gate agent, who promptly got on the PA with an announcement “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a passenger at the gate who doesn’t know who he is. If you can help him, please approach the counter.”

Edited January 25, 2023 by joz

[Guest 239]

If your options are get there early and put your body and mind through a marathon of waiting, or get there late and experience very little, than you've got a capacity problem. 

[Ashley Jeffery]

Just wait for next Xmas Holidays with one of two capacity monsters out of action.

[rappa]

I’m just here to say this, and it’s absolutely true so to hell with anyone that wants to criticize my comment. 
 

But sadly, by and large, Australian workers at the age and level of your average ride attendant are lazy and unmotivated. Does that mean the parks get a free pass? Of course not, but as pointed out, when it’s home time they will work harder to get out of there. 
As long as that is the pool for staffing them our parks will suck at operations compared to overseas. 
 

You can see this easily in hospitality, as it’s genuinely the same pool. With the absence of European and north American working holiday tourists over Covid staff in hospitality here sucked!! It’s slowly getting better. 
But theme parks don’t employ working tourists, so you will always have these feet dragging staff. 
That really is a big part of the problem, it’s largely generational and somewhat uniquely australian in nature. 

[joz]

1 hour ago, Guest 239 said:

If your options are get there early and put your body and mind through a marathon of waiting, or get there late and experience very little, than you've got a capacity problem. 

Get there early, and if the queue is more than an hour, do something else instead seems like a really good option too.

 

Like you get the point of the post right? It wasn't to say 'This is a good game plan' it's literally 'This is the worst possible game plan and you'll still get most of the rides done'

Edited January 25, 2023 by joz

[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?

[joz]

Normally the parks in Australia will rotate staff between positions. Don't know how they do it these days but it used to be start in one position, have a break, go back somewhere different, have another break, go back to a third position. The only ones where it's the same ride all are rides that only have one or two positions. These days even those rides have a couple of staff on so it's not as bad as the very old days of being on one ride by yourself from 10 till 5.

[rappa]

They definitely rotate staff. I think WPHS in Australia even mandate it

[Noxegon]

17 minutes ago, rappa said:

They definitely rotate staff. I think WPHS in Australia even mandate it

Dingo Racer rotates guests too. Aussie World leading the way.

[Guest 239]

1 hour ago, joz said:

Like you get the point of the post right? It wasn't to say 'This is a good game plan' it's literally 'This is the worst possible game plan and you'll still get most of the rides done'

Yeah I definitely get the point your trying to make but it's still not a great outcome. In your worst case scenario you've ridden 5 rides. How much more could this realistically be improved? Then factor in ride outages with queue dumps, toilet breaks, if you've got kids, the fact that you're missing out on every bit of entertainment and all experiences like the batman exhibit and it's hardly a dream day. My point is that even in the realistic best case scenario being the absolute first person in the park to the time they kick you out, on a day like Monday it's just a bad time for everybody, though I'd be happy to know your thoughts on why you believe Movie World doesn't have a capacity problem.

2 hours ago, rappa said:

But sadly, by and large, Australian workers at the age and level of your average ride attendant are lazy and unmotivated.

Simply, no. This is just perpetuating unfair stereotypes based on opinion. There is no evidence to back up what you're saying beyond the fact that many young employees are unwilling to put up with poor working conditions. There is plenty of evidence which shows that many young employees are overworked and underpaid with little benefits with room for career escalation despite being just as committed to their workplace as older workers. https://www.pwc.com.au/digitalpulse/impact-millennials-workplace.html https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-22/why-millennials-are-getting-stuck-in-low-paid-jobs-for-longer/9103006

 

 

[rappa]

In sorry but Bullshit!

There is a multitude of evidence (also known as take a walk outside into the world any day) to show that there is an insane amount of entitlement in the workforce where people want an incentive to do more than just above the bare minimum rather than do the best job possible in order to create opportunity. Or hell, just to feel good about doing a great job. 
 

If you can load 500 an hour but only work at a pace that does 250 simply because “why bother, makes no difference” then you are part of the problem. 
 

Nobody in our parks is working under “poor working conditions”. Give me a break!

[Guest 239]

If there's plenty of evidence than you're welcome to show me some. 

[joz]

1 minute ago, Guest 239 said:

though I'd be happy to know your thoughts on why you believe Movie World doesn't have a capacity problem.

Can you point to where I said this? The conversation was that people go to the park and got 3 rides. Someone said that's crap and that for that to be a thing they'd have had to get there late, and do all the worst things. There was a follow up, no, look at the queue times! It's impossible to get all the rides done. Then using the queue times, I demonstrated that this opinion is horse shit. Then you come along and say 'Ha see nearly the worst day out possible is typial and proves it's shit'. I point out that the whole point was that the claims of how bad it is are at a minimum, exaggerated, and you come back with 'Why do you think there isn't a capacity problem?'.

 

By all means though, feel free to make another strawman.