Best WoZ Coaster

[Gazza]

Personally, I love the visuals of the Kansas Twister dueling boomerang on board, impressive! That's such a short runout includes both a flyby and a racing section.

[Levi]

i think they’re both great family rides, but overall they’re just okay.

looking away from the theming, Kansas Twister is a fun little coaster, but i do wish it maybe ran a bit faster on the return trip and was a bit longer. 

FOTWW has a fun layout and the drop + first turn are decently intense for a family coaster, but it’s way too short and it’s a capacity nightmare. not being able to do up your own seatbelt, while the gates also don’t open until the station is completely empty, while it’s also only able to run one train makes every dispatch around 4 minutes, that’s only around 300 people an hour. so by the time you actually make it through the boiling hot queue line and experience the fun, but 30 second ride, you’re left with a sour taste in your mouth. 

for the hardware itself, FOTWW is my preferred option, but for how they are at the park, the experience of Kansas Twister is better imo, but they’re both just way too short. part of me thinks they should’ve gone for either a singular coaster like a big bear mountain / fire chaser express style of ride or a Vekoma STC & family boomerang combo.

[Spotty]

On 13/1/2025 at 1:45 PM, Levi said:

i think they’re both great family rides, but overall they’re just okay.

looking away from the theming, Kansas Twister is a fun little coaster, but i do wish it maybe ran a bit faster on the return trip and was a bit longer. 

FOTWW has a fun layout and the drop + first turn are decently intense for a family coaster, but it’s way too short and it’s a capacity nightmare. not being able to do up your own seatbelt, while the gates also don’t open until the station is completely empty, while it’s also only able to run one train makes every dispatch around 4 minutes, that’s only around 300 people an hour. so by the time you actually make it through the boiling hot queue line and experience the fun, but 30 second ride, you’re left with a sour taste in your mouth. 

for the hardware itself, FOTWW is my preferred option, but for how they are at the park, the experience of Kansas Twister is better imo, but they’re both just way too short. part of me thinks they should’ve gone for either a singular coaster like a big bear mountain / fire chaser express style of ride or a Vekoma STC & family boomerang combo.

FYI. I have not ridden this, or Jungle Rush so my opinion is just based on what I can see.

I personally think if they went with a single large Vekoma coaster it would have been a bit too similar to Jungle Rush. I think the rides they went with were a good idea in theory, however with the way that Village operates their rides it's a big downer. I think if they can fix the operation procedures (which TBH, I don't see happening) I think FOTWW would be a great coaster. I'm not quite sure how good the dispatches on KT are, but if ran properly it would be pretty good for capacity which right now is what the park needs. 

[Michelangelo]

2 hours ago, Spotty said:

FYI. I have not ridden this, or Jungle Rush so my opinion is just based on what I can see.

I personally think if they went with a single large Vekoma coaster it would have been a bit too similar to Jungle Rush. I think the rides they went with were a good idea in theory, however with the way that Village operates their rides it's a big downer. I think if they can fix the operation procedures (which TBH, I don't see happening) I think FOTWW would be a great coaster. I'm not quite sure how good the dispatches on KT are, but if ran properly it would be pretty good for capacity which right now is what the park needs. 

Ops aren’t anything special on KT, there’s lots of room for improvement. But they’re lucky the capacity is so huge that there’s barely a line or wait… Max I’ve ever waited for KT was 11mins. That’s including the walk.

[Levithian]

They needed to fill more of a gap in the tween demographic without building rides adults couldnt or wouldnt go on. With that regard, they pretty much nailed it. Helps to fill a void between kids flat rides and the extremes of thrill rides. Even scooby doo was too frightening for miss 12 to go on when it was open, but she was bored with road runner, so i think this is great. 

Pretty much all the rides have ammended safety devices and additional control proceedures that the ride manufacturers deemed unnecessary. 

Its the biggest stumbling block when it comes to throughput, ride capacity vs actual capacity.

Unless safety policies and proceedures drastically changed at village roadshow, nothing is going to even go close to approaching their actual capacity.

Could things be improved? Especially with regards to their queue management? Hell yes. But you arent going to shave minutes off dispatches while the above is still the biggest influence.

 

Edited January 17 by Levithian

[Coasterjoe]

I mean its clearly wicked witch but my goodness the operations and dispatches are attrocious. Was timing cart in to cart out dispatches today and was averaging 5minutes. 

[Ash]

1 hour ago, Coasterjoe said:

I mean its clearly wicked witch but my goodness the operations and dispatches are attrocious. Was timing cart in to cart out dispatches today and was averaging 5minutes. 

5 minutes is quite good for that ride run by Movieworld operations 😂

[TV15]

On 17/01/2025 at 4:57 PM, Levithian said:

Unless safety policies and procedures drastically changed at village roadshow, nothing is going to even go close to approaching their actual capacity.

What is the safety issue with opening the gates as soon as the train has arrived in the station, instead of waiting for everyone to get off, get their stuff and exit? Other parks, including down the road, don't seem to have the same issue.

Edited February 9 by TV15

[Ash]

6 minutes ago, TV15 said:

What is the safety issue with opening the gates as soon as the train has arrived in the station, instead of waiting for everyone to get off, get their stuff and exit? Other parks, including down the road, don't seem to have the same issue.

Correct jungle Rush have their gates open whilst other are collecting their belongings 

[Levi]

6 minutes ago, TV15 said:

What is the safety issue with opening the gates as soon as the train has arrived in the station, instead of waiting for everyone to get off, get their stuff and exit? Other parks, including down the road, don't seem to have the same issue.

yeah i’m not really sure, Jungle Rush’s gates open pretty much as the trains restraints unlock, and then the they’re checking before everyone’s even seated. i don’t get why they can’t do the same.

[aaronm]

54 minutes ago, TV15 said:

What is the safety issue with opening the gates as soon as the train has arrived in the station, instead of waiting for everyone to get off, get their stuff and exit? Other parks, including down the road, don't seem to have the same issue.

I don’t get it either, there’s more than enough room for both boarding and disembarking guests to access the cubby holes. The train is stationary for goodness sake.

My guess is that a risk manager suggested it as a solution to some imaginary problem, nobody wanted to challenge and now it’s VRTP policy forever.

Edited February 9 by aaronm

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Isn't wicked witch a ground level station? so theoretically someone could wander out the rear of the station and into the envelope if ops aren't paying attention?

[New display name]

12 hours ago, aaronm said:

I don’t get it either, there’s more than enough room for both boarding and disembarking guests to access the cubby holes. The train is stationary for goodness sake.

My guess is that a risk manager suggested it as a solution to some imaginary problem, nobody wanted to challenge and now it’s VRTP policy forever.

My guess is Village don't give a shit if a guest spends the whole day standing in a queue. 

[Ashley Jeffery]

1 minute ago, New display name said:

My guess is Village don't give a shit if a guest spends the whole day standing in a queue. 

Backwards way to run a theme park.

[Gazza]

2 hours ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

Isn't wicked witch a ground level station? so theoretically someone could wander out the rear of the station and into the envelope if ops aren't paying attention?

You can have light curtains that turn on when the train is parked. If a guest walks through it sets off an alarm.

Meanwhile in Denmark:

Funny story, I was in Korea, I was catching a high speed train and i decided to walk to the front to get a photo of the nose cone. As soon as i got near there, an alarm went off and a message in both Korean and English..."You are in a restricted area, please return to the main area of the platform"...I scurried back red faced. It's common to even have CCTV in warehouses which use AI to pick up if workers deviate from designated walkways etc.

Edited February 10 by Gazza

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

9 minutes ago, Gazza said:

You can have light curtains that turn on when the train is parked. If a guest walks through it sets off an alarm.

Does FOTWW have these?

[New display name]

So next time you go to Korea and you're with someone.  Do you set it off for giggles @Gazza? 😉

You know, I'm setting of the "sit down" recording on the Timber Mountain Log Ride.  (it's a right of passage for an enthusiast)

[Levithian]

On 09/02/2025 at 5:54 PM, TV15 said:

What is the safety issue with opening the gates as soon as the train has arrived in the station, instead of waiting for everyone to get off, get their stuff and exit? Other parks, including down the road, don't seem to have the same issue.

They have done it for a long time. Take Arkham for example. They actually had a staff member go over and open the exit gate, then wait until the platform was clear, close the gate, then give a clear signal and for the console operator to open the platform gates for entry. 

Other rides that shared a load/unload you could say space was an issue, but not there. I guess its a bit like the changes at west too. Now they have gates, boats have to come to a stop in position before they will open them. 

I don't think we can blame village for everything though. You can't underestimate how much of an effect the dreamworld accident had on things. They were already focused on high levels of safety, but after reports came out, it's almost a pathological need to be seen as the safest place in all of existence. A lot of these things are picked up during audits every year. Sometimes they aren't official and make it into reports, it's more like a verbal discussion on what the person doing the audit might see, or suggestions they might have based on what they could see might be a problem in the future and management run with it. 

Couple all that with a pro active culture and you can see the results. I can tell you 100%, they will sacrifice ride throughput, even levels of guest satisfaction to maintain what they feel is that standard. Some things have probably gone too far in the effort to minimise all risk, but it is what it is and it's unlikely to change. In the next decade they probably won't be seen as being overreactive, they'll just be ahead of the curve when we experience another incident that causes parks to reassess their policy and procedures world wide. 

I don't even want to think of the effect insurance has on procedures. Getting someone to underwrite your policy for a particular ride and how much you pay for this has a lot to do with your track record and your safety measures in place. Risk managers (or "safety teams", hehe) are pretty much on the front line now and nothing makes it through without their scrutiny. That goes for both sides too. 

Edited February 13 by Levithian

[themagician]

1 hour ago, Levithian said:

I don't think we can blame village for everything though

No we can’t, but when you compare their ride ops to DW and how quickly the park can pump out guests on Jungle Rush and Steel Taipan, Village ain’t doing something right.

[TV15]

1 hour ago, Levithian said:

I don't think we can blame village for everything though. You can't underestimate how much of an effect the dreamworld accident had on things. They were already focused on high levels of safety, but after reports came out, it's almost a pathological need to be seen as the safest place in all of existence. A lot of these things are picked up during audits every year.

When I visited White Christmas last year, the ops team at DC Rivals was doing sub 2 min dispatches. It got to the point that after around 7:30 they were pushing out trains so fast that there weren't enough people in the queue to fill all the seats. I had never seen ops that good, ever at MW. Gates were opened as soon as everyone had cleared the seats and were retrieving their belongings behind the yellow line.

Why can't they operate their rides like this during peak times, they're more than capable but just never seem to do so during regular hours.

[New display name]

47 minutes ago, themagician said:

No we can’t, but when you compare their ride ops to DW and how quickly the park can pump out guests on Jungle Rush and Steel Taipan, Village ain’t doing something right.

There are other rides at DW that have slow operations.

JR & ST have 2 things going for them. 

JR not having seat belts & ST's final block location for the second train.

 

 

[Levi]

25 minutes ago, New display name said:

There are other rides at DW that have slow operations.

JR & ST have 2 things going for them. 

JR not having seat belts & ST's final block location for the second train.

 

 

Kansas Twister and JR have the same trains, Twister takes a lot longer. 

Sky Voyager, Tailspin, Dreamworld Flyer, BRB,  and GD all have decent ops. the only bad ones i remember are Gold Coaster, Motorcoaster, MM and KFF.

im going to guess King Claw SHOULD have good ops, depending if guests can connect their own seatbelts or not.

[red dragin]

Is it safety driven, or is it keeping the throughput lower to use the equipment less, reducing general maintenance and power costs? 

In my opinion, the White Christmas example above shows they can go faster, and it's not 'safety', that was purely about guest experience and reducing complaints about people missing out on rides due to the short time window of the event. 

And if they were so concerned about safety, they wouldn't have the background music on FOTWW so loud you can't hear the ride ops shouting instructions at you. 

Edited Thursday at 11:58 PM by red dragin

[Dean Barnett]

No worse feeling than getting to the end of a really long slow line and having an operator shouting across an empty train instructions that are pretty much common sense. 
 

Mean while 

They can run Silver Star 100 people per hour above B&M’s rated max capacity. 

[Levithian]

Im talking more about them doing things that obviously slow up load/unload. Like the example raised earlier about waiting until the whole platform is clear until opening the gates.

Poor performance within those constraints is 100% up to operations. 

In peak times, some of it is crippled by needing more staff, especially when it comes to sorters. Village have shown time and again theyll give someone multiple responsibilities and save having to pay another staff member, even if it slows load and dispatch times significantly. 

The training on specific rides and positions was (still is?) pretty generic. Focused on the responsibility and the safety aspect, but not really a lot on how to do the job efficiently. Plenty of people who really dont want to be there, its just a minimum wage job, turn up and leave. Also it seems like seasonal people that just havent got enough experience. They rotate people around too much they dont really get much of a chance to work on their skills at one particular ride for a long period of time.

If they really cared about these complaints they would get together a bunch of their most seasoned/experienced ops, then go through each ride procedure and drill each ride to death to find where improvements can be made and set a realistic benchmark everyone should be able to achieve (time wise) between dispatches. I know they do have meetings with senior ops and discuss problems and receive feedback, but id never seen anyone revisiting their procedures and actively drilling the process on anything other than their newest rides that everyone is being trained on. Youd think they would revisit this at least a couple of times a year, just from working on efficiency I mean.

Opening crews get the most time and scruitiny, then everything else is filtered down to the rest of the staff instead of giving everyone a couple of weeks intensive training at a time.

Surely they could develop a rewards system for the crew achieving the most consistent (maybe highest overall daily dispatches?) dispatch times. Likewise, if the procedures arent being followed properly, you going to be penalised so people cant risk safety over winning stupid prises. It means managers would have to be actively watching whats going on every day, which means they probably need a level below park operations management team though as theyve got plenty to do as it is. Maybe something senior ride ops could rotate through, giving them a bit of a bump in pay in the process? Trouble is they have been having real issues retaining these people since covid. 

Other side of it is, you know what motivates people? Acknowledgement from management for good work (not just senior ride ops) rewards after being recognised and actually paying staff properly instead of hiding behind an EBA to underpay them. 

They used to have a pretty good ride star awards each month. Recommendations, prizes, even just seeing your name on notice boards for doing a good job. Lots of stuff kind of just faded away and not enough effort was put into maintaining everything. Its summed up by saying its all a bit average.

Edited Friday at 01:56 PM by Levithian