Boxing Day 2023 Parks CLOSED

[themagician]

Sea World was the only park that has remained open today, but Leviathan and Storm Coaster. And with Vortex still closed, that only left Trident and Jet Rescue as the main attractions. Trident has been over an hour and Jet Rescue ranging from 30-60 minutes.

[CR4ZE]

Flew up here on Thursday and am feeling relieved I got to SW/MW while I could. Now got to get to DW for Taipan by Sunday, which should (touch wood) be plenty of time for this to clear. Based on current conditions, I think tomorrow will be a similar story. Feel terrible for all the interstate/overseas travellers whose plans have been disrupted but there's nothing that can be done, unfortunately.

On a side note, ride ops were pretty poor on DCR yesterday. Slow dispatches and often 1-3 vacant seats each cycle despite two trains and long queues in the afternoon. Left seat row 9 on one of the trains was out of action; this is the second time I've seen that exact issue. The seatbelt policy is a shame because it slows things down further.

Leviathan ops not great on Saturday either. One train during peak period. Was my first time riding; man that holding area/load-unload cycle sucks. Really wish SW thought that through better and hope they can make changes in the future.

Edited January 1 by CR4ZE

[Tricoart]

1 hour ago, themagician said:

And with Vortex still closed, that only left Trident and Jet Rescue as the main attractions.

The most surprising part about this is that they had Trident open.

[Baconjack]

On 31/12/2023 at 8:09 PM, dbo121 said:

Surely if they are true to attempting rebrand to nostalgia they will allow a last hurrah with these cars !

Will never see them again in operation .

just have to remove the damaged roof . 

There's bigger fish to fry at the park. Dreamworld only have so much money in the budget, I'd rather that money go towards a renovation of Motocoaster rather than re-opening a ride that's got 6 months left at most before it gets moved.

Edited January 1 by Baconjack

[dbo121]

7 hours ago, Baconjack said:

There's bigger fish to fry at the park. Dreamworld only have so much money in the budget, I'd rather that money go towards a renovation of Motocoaster rather than re-opening a ride that's got 6 months left at most before it gets moved.

It’s being replaced with new version and not removed . 
If it was a decision based on cash alone I don’t think they would bother either . Is it there last original attraction? I’m guessing they see it as being upgraded / replaced so that may play into it re the old version not coming back now . 

Edited January 1 by dbo121
Corrextion

[themagician]

All parks excluding SW are closed again today 

[themagician]

Busy day at MW for its first day of operation in 2024. Superman and Rivals a 2.5-3 hour wait, WWF at 2 hours and everything else up to an hour.

[Miloja84]

Vintage Cars 3/1/24 

[Dean Barnett]

Like clockwork 

[Rabbit2014]

3 hours ago, Miloja84 said:

Vintage Cars 3/1/24 

I think vintage cars will be retired in current location until new vintage cars open in Rivertown.
You can see tree took out part of roof of the load/unload and it wouldn’t surprise me if there was a ride vehicle that was under the wreckage.

[New display name]

2 hours ago, Dean Barnett said:

Like clockwork 

People thinking the park isn't going to be crazy busy after being forced to shut down?

[dbo121]

1 hour ago, Rabbit2014 said:

I think vintage cars will be retired in current location until new vintage cars open in Rivertown.
You can see tree took out part of roof of the load/unload and it wouldn’t surprise me if there was a ride vehicle that was under the wreckage.

Speculation re ride vehicle but agree . One vehicle alone would not stop a reopening . They wont bother given other damage. 

Sad ending to the historical cars . I have no nostalgia for the current track in its location . Only the cars and their sound as you accelerate . The track at new location could never compete with the old one, which moto coaster took over. I recall the characters that randomly appeared at times on it before the 2000s ( convicts / police and even Goldie the clown at times ) .  Created a good vibe . 
 

One day a car broke down in the track . My father restarted it ( was like a motor mower ) as the younger operator struggled ) . Good memories. 

Edited January 3 by dbo121
Grammar

[CR4ZE]

44 minutes ago, New display name said:

People thinking the park isn't going to be crazy busy after being forced to shut down?

People have a right to be upset. A day out at a park for a family of five runs you up several hundreds of dollars, and if your whole day amounted to ~8 hours of sitting in queues, you'd feel duped. Park-wide closures due to the weather, slow loads/unloads, 3-4 empty seats on ride cycles, single-train ops and so on all compounded together are giving paying guests a less-than-satisfactory experience, so of course they're going to speak up.

Neither Dreamworld nor Movie World have enough attractions operating to keep up with demand. They're taking proactive steps to address these issues for the future, but in the interim it's reasonable to say these school holidays are not the right time to be visiting.

I'm not going to rant about it in a Google review, but it's all stuff I've observed this past week, and you can feel the frustration amid the wearied atmosphere. Lots of families are giving up and leaving by lunch time. That's not a good thing for the parks or their staff, because though they've got the gate fare, they've got unhappy staff copping abuse, families not spending as much on food/merchandise, and a generally negative perception which diminishes return visitation.

Was at DW today and because I somewhat know the daily crowd cycles, I was able to get my party a pretty good day out of it. We were there for ~5 hrs (yes, we got there very late) and got six different rides in, with a re-ride on ST at the end. I count us lucky.

Edited January 3 by CR4ZE

[New display name]

A tornado and a flood within a week and its the parks fault they can't get everything operating?   People who turned up thinking the parks were going to be at their best are dumb.  

[CR4ZE]

I redirect you to my post above to read through, just in case you have anything more than a vacuous one-liner to share.

[New display name]

12 minutes ago, CR4ZE said:

I redirect you to my post above to read through, just in case you have anything more than a vacuous one-liner to share.

I stopped reading after you said people had a right to be upset.  I more concerned for the staff member who couldn't work today because their car was crushed by a tree.

[CR4ZE]

Well, besides sending our best wishes to the staff member in question, you and I clearly have nothing to discuss.

[Rivals]

families go on holidays and buy theme park tickets this time of year, not everyone has a choice on when they can visit, so spending $500+ then having a below average experience will make them upset, and rightfully so. yes, people should’ve expected big crowds BUT so should the park so they can implement better crowd control. staff aren’t motivated or trained to do fast operations and there are way too many people being let into the parks at once. if you can’t get everything open, either explain that when announcing you are reopening (like Dreamworld did with Tiger Island and the other animal areas) OR keep the park shut until you can ensure everything is okay to operate. I mean half the compliments are about park presentation, food, dirtiness and communication issues, stuff the park CAN fix so guests on a busy day can still enjoy their time, but stuff they don’t want to fix.

Edited January 3 by Rivals

[Dean Barnett]

The least they could have done is extend the hours by a few hours, and not accept queue skips during those hours. 

[New display name]

A lot of people are off with the fairies tonight.  Every person that went to the parks today knew what the northern GC was going through and they still chose to go to the parks.  The parks didn't force these people to go.

[Rivals]

35 minutes ago, New display name said:

A lot of people are off with the fairies tonight.  Every person that went to the parks today knew what the northern GC was going through and they still chose to go to the parks.  The parks didn't force these people to go.

considering no one’s agreeing with what you’re saying i don’t think it’s us “off with the fairies.”

tickets are PRE bought. if the parks are closed because of the weather on days you planned to go while you’re on holiday, you go when the park reopens. it’s not that hard of a concept to wrap your head around babes.

[CR4ZE]

The most appropriate response to vapid shitposting is to ignore it until it skeets away.

[Baconjack]

3 hours ago, New display name said:

A lot of people are off with the fairies tonight.  Every person that went to the parks today knew what the northern GC was going through and they still chose to go to the parks.  The parks didn't force these people to go.

As mentioned by others I’d say most of the people visiting at this time of year have pre bought tickets prior to going up north. So they need to go within a span of usually a few days they don’t have unlimited time to visit the parks.

Either way the problem is very manageable. It’s not by letting less people in but by improving what you do day to day to lower wait times. I like how in your post you used those quotes and missed this one:

8 hours ago, Dean Barnett said:

What excuses are there for these? There are about 6 months in the year village could use to complete train rebuilds and get them online for peak time.

Back in the day both major coasters would run a 2 train service from Boxing Day to early feb, and allowed guests to do their own seatbelts rather having the 2 station attendants doing a whole train full of them. You’d figure if 2 of your majors were down at the busiest time of the year (with another being replaced) managers would figure out a way to churn through people an hour on each ride efficiently. That means training their staff based on how Universal does it, or by creating a culture that values efficiency. 

Edited January 3 by Baconjack

[Dean Barnett]

No one can still answer why the ride attendants need to put the seatbelts on - when it’s fine for the guest to do it on every other park on the planet on this same ride model (most don’t even have seatbelts)

 

And as @Baconjack said - I’d you want to have train securing methods that are way over the top - put 4 people on the platform that their whole job is to secure the train - and let them check each row independently (not wait for an issue on the other side of the train to be fixed)

No one can still answer why the ride attendants need to put the seatbelts on - when it’s fine for the guest to do it on every other park on the planet on this same ride model (most don’t even have seatbelts)

 

And as @Baconjack said - If you want to have train securing methods that are way over the top - put 4 people on the platform that their whole job is to secure the train - and let them check each row independently (not wait for an issue on the other side of the train to be fixed)

Don’t know what happened above - I can’t edit it 😕

[New display name]

7 hours ago, Rivals said:

considering no one’s agreeing with what you’re saying i don’t think it’s us “off with the fairies.”

tickets are PRE bought. if the parks are closed because of the weather on days you planned to go while you’re on holiday, you go when the park reopens. it’s not that hard of a concept to wrap your head around babes.

If the park was closed when you were planning to attend  you have a few options to get your money back.  The sooks took the option to attend the first day it reopened.

Sidenote:

DW could handle the crowds because DW numbers are still shit compared to they what they once were, at this time of the year.

8 hours ago, Rivals said:

considering no one’s agreeing with what you’re saying i don’t think it’s us “off with the fairies.”

Who cares?  @CR4ZE @Dean Barnettand you would send a theme-park broke within a week.