Roller-coaster curse

[yaark]

First time we have travelled to the Gold Coast parks since 2017. We have had a horror run of roller coaster breakdowns.

We were at Seaworld yesterday in the loading gates of Leviathan when the ride broke down. The operators allowed us to us their names to get back on later in the day through the fast track queue.

At movieworld this morning we went straight to Superman, which was delayed in morning testing due to the press event for the announcement of the new Flash ride. Opening was delayed and once up and going, we were next to go through to the loading gates and the ride broke down. 

Now we are currently at DC Rivals and there is an issue with ride while we are on the ramp to get on the ride. Not sure whether they will get people on the ride again today or not.

Been a horror couple of days for us with the parks coasters.

Overall, Dreamworld was quite good, mid sized queues with a max of about 30mins wait.

 

Seaworld was pretty good, Leviathan was the only ride that had a queue of any length. All other rides were 1 or 2 cycle wait. It was a very wet day.

Monday and today at Movieworld have been horrendous for wait times. Considered fast pass, but at 150 bucks for 1 ride only on each ride is far too steep. Virtual queue was full the entire day, although we did use it once for Justice League. Wild West was a 2 hour wait. Superman was an hour and a half wait when they got it operating again. 

 

[REGIE]

Superman often opens a little later. I think that’s pretty common for hydraulic launching coaster’s.  Not sure what is going on with Leviathan. 
weird that DCR went down. It’s been happening a bit lately other wise it’s pretty realible.   I hope you still had a fun day at all the parks. Despite everything.  Did you notice if superman and rivals were running 2 trains?

crazy that dreamworld’s collection of coasters are now the most reliable on the Gold Coast.  

Edited July 5, 2023 by REGIE

[yaark]

1 hour ago, REGIE said:

Did you notice if superman and rivals were running 2 trains?

Yes both rides were running 2 trains.

I think Rivals was having an issue with one of the harnesses on one of the trains. 

We still had a great time overall.. looking forward to the next trip when the next phase of rides are up and running.

[yaark]

Steel Taipan has 2nd train back running empty today. According to ride operator, it just came back from maintenance and they need to do 50 empty test cycles before allowing guests on.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

I took the family down the coast last week to meet up with friends visiting from interstate. We visited all 3 parks. I know it's school holidays, and you expect things to be a bit busier, but having recently come back from California during spring break, there really isn't much of an excuse for some of the things we experienced. 

Dreamworld

I'm surprised to get home and find there's no thread about this - but Dreamworld had a burst water main on Friday afternoon. It happened around 1pm-ish, and staff were quickly running around with signs to attach to the bathrooms advising of the water outage. Shortly after, a looping announcement played over the park PA at regular intervals (maybe 5-10 mins or so?) advising of the water outage. 

Luckily for DW, WWW is fed from a separate water main, so the bathrooms worked at WWW - however instead of opening the internal gate near gold coaster, guests were directed to exit the park through guest services to receive a pass out stamp, then walk across the carpark to WWW to use the bathrooms. Soda fountains were also out of action but they were offering sipper refills from bottled soft drinks at some locations. 

I heard someone in park mention that the water main may have been hit by construction crews in-park, though that is just rumour. Without knowing that, it's hard to fault the park for it and I don't - the only issue I took with the park's handling of the situation was making guests pass-out instead of opening the internal entry to WWW as there are facilities just inside the internal gate.

The park proceeded with Night Market, though we decided to leave rather than keep heading over to WWW all afternoon.

Ride queues were reasonable given the holiday period. Cast were being as efficient as possible, wasn't as busy as I expected it to be.

Sea World

We visited Sunday, and Levi wasn't open. Staff advised it was unlikely to open that day. Trident was cycling intermittently - we noticed it cycled empty several times in a row. Vortex sounds horrible for such a recent installation - not as bad as wipeout in it's later years but still bad sounds - especially right near the dolphin pools. We stopped by all the animal exhibits up to Shark Bay and with all of Atlantis unavailable, we opted to leave for MW - Storm was 130 minutes and Jet Rescue was 55 minutes - whereas over at MW at the same time, Batwing, GL, JL, DCR were all 30 minutes or less (and we later found that the posted 30 min wait on Batwing turned out to be more like 15). 

Movie World

Obviously, queues were a little shorter given there was more to do. One of the kids in the group wasn't feeling that well so we didn't end up staying for the HvV parade, and only did a couple rides. The park was well staffed, and Ops were moving as quick as i've seen at MW in a long time. That zipline tower on main street looks atrocious, and the park is looking tired - main street lights are falling down in places, one of the queue poles for Roxy wobbles a solid 12 inches side to side, so much so that when a kid swung on it, it pulled the queue pole into my son's head with quite a bit of force. Mentioned it to Roxy staff who acknowledged it was broken and had been reported several times.

We did catch the 'cartoon heroes' mid afternoon parade, which was fun, albeit a bit short. With only three vehicles, it was over too quickly (though the song choice pumped a lot of energy into main street for the duration). I would have liked to have seen some of the other characters out in the parade - the park needs a 'generic' float that any character is suited to for this, IMO.

 

Overall, this reinforced for me why we tend to avoid the parks during holiday periods. It was busy, but not stupidly so. Cast at all parks were doing a great job despite circumstances out of their control. Dreamworld has a ways to go but all signs point to them looking like they're on the right path. MW is chugging along, but Sea World is just disappointing in it's current state, and despite getting the most recent attraction installations, they haven't impacted the park positively at present, with all the downtime - and having the main drag past the dolphin pools closed off really fractures the flow of the park. Trident is an absolute lemon and Leviathan's unreliability is hurting them badly.

[REGIE]

That is odd they made you walk outside DW to get the the toilets.. I wonder what the thinking was behind that.  
 

It really doesn’t make sense how Sea worlds new rides are so unreliable.  They are all fun but I don’t think I have seen them all open at once yet.

 

how was Superman escape? Did it break down at all?

Edited July 11, 2023 by REGIE

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

It is strange to me - They would have needed to staff the gates at WWW, and presumably another staff member to supervise the facilities to ensure guests didn't wander further into the park, so it can't be a staffing decision. Perhaps they already had staff onsite at WWW (maybe for contractors?) so it was simpler to do?

As for SW - I think the latest numbers i've seen have Levi operating around 50%.

I saw SE running while I was there but as mentioned, we didn't hang around long as one of the kiddos wasn't feeling well.

[djmcbell]

I'm just surprised at MW fast passes. $150 for a day, and only once per ride? Ouch!

We're going to the Gold Coast again in February. Chances are we'll just do a few days at Dreamworld - get passes for the year when we go, and go again before the year's used up.

We last did Movie World and Sea World over a year ago, and found them way too busy. Driving School took over an hour to get on (just got to do that with kids), DC Rivals we were lucky and got a virtual queue. I think that, apart from Justice League and some of the kids rides, that's all we managed at MW.

SW was worse - it was heaving. Spent 30 minutes just trying to get on the banana thing before sacking it off.

DW, on the other hand, was great. 15 minute queues tops for ST, lots of variety in rides. Think we'd just also do E MW and SW too much on previous holidays by that point.

But, if we go back to use the last of a 12 month pass (so late 2024 / early 2025) then we may do MW and SW too in order to do their new stuff (I think the Oz area will be open by then). Plus Rivertown.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Yes I do think Village's upcharge offerings change during the holidays - VQ wasn't available on our visit over the weekend in either MW or SW - so i think there's an element of surge pricing, and turning VQ off to reduce pressure in park. 

DW is a lot more manageable - they're quieter because people are still avoiding them. Once Rivertown has opened I think a lot of that will change.

[Park Addict 93]

26 minutes ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

Yes I do think Village's upcharge offerings change during the holidays - VQ wasn't available on our visit over the weekend in either MW or SW - so i think there's an element of surge pricing, and turning VQ off to reduce pressure in park. 

Village do charge more for Single Use One Shot Fast Tracks via the app during peak periods but in general VQ remains available. It is an advertised ticket inclusion. Just need to jump on it at 10AM/when it starts. 

Ride availability is not guaranteed, but usually that is only impacted when the ride is not operating at full capacity. WWF was only filling up a maximum of 6 seats per boat on a visit earlier in the holidays and was not available on Virtual Que but everything else was (with varying availability throughout the day).

[Brad2912]

VQ may be an advertised inclusion but I can state categorically that at least 80% of school holidays visits it is unavailable. 

They may put it down to some form of tech error/glitch, but when it happens more often than not and is in correspondence with peak periods, it’s strategy.

They get away with it due to this small t&c in the VQ FAQs:

Please note: Any operational hours and service availabilities are subject to change without notice.

Edited July 12, 2023 by Brad2912

[Park Addict 93]

1 hour ago, Brad2912 said:

VQ may be an advertised inclusion but I can state categorically that at least 80% of school holidays visits it is unavailable. 

They may put it down to some form of tech error/glitch, but when it happens more often than not and is in correspondence with peak periods, it’s strategy.

They get away with it due to this small t&c in the VQ FAQs:

Please note: Any operational hours and service availabilities are subject to change without notice.

I can state categorically in my experience that is not the case, unless you are saying it’s unavailable simply because you waited until it had run out to try and utilise it and didn’t check back throughout the day when further availability opens.

As a “free” physical que skip service it will always run out, especially during the holidays. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t available that day.

Here’s a screenshot from earlier these school holidays.

Edited July 12, 2023 by Park Addict 93

[Brad2912]

9 minutes ago, Park Addict 93 said:

you are saying it’s unavailable simply because you waited until it had run out to try and utilise it and didn’t check back throughout the day when further availability opens.

Why would I be saying that?

congrats on it being available when you went. That wasn’t the experience when I or many others have attended in holiday periods

[Park Addict 93]

I’m simply saying it’s been consistently available during school holidays since it’s inception and to say otherwise is false. If you’ve never been able to use it whatsoever perhaps look if you do have a genuine technical issue with your app or account.

[Naazon]

I went to MW during the holidays and VQ was pretty much booked out after 11am

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

13 minutes ago, Park Addict 93 said:

I’m simply saying it’s been consistently available during school holidays since it’s inception and to say otherwise is false.

Given the experiences being shared here, this statement is patently false. if it were consistently available, others would be talking about their success in using it. The fact that most are not able to use it proves it is very much inconsistent.

[Park Addict 93]

1 hour ago, Naazon said:

I went to MW during the holidays and VQ was pretty much booked out after 11am

This is what I believe is simply what most people are encountering, and it pays to simply try again throughout the day as more availability pops up.

[Brad2912]

6 hours ago, Park Addict 93 said:

I’m simply saying it’s been consistently available during school holidays since it’s inception and to say otherwise is false

The only thing that’s false is that statement.