Interesting Experiences

[cadboy]

Just thought I would start a thread devoted to interesting themepark experiences. By this I mean breakdowns and memerable experiences on rides and at the park in general. I will get the ball rolling by posting up my experiences: Firstly I have been stuck on leathal Weapons hilift ( who hasn't? ) Once while queing in the last part of the line for Scooby all the lights turned on suddenly. We waited and waited (15 minutes) for the ride to begin again. I asked the ride op why and was told that a passenger had dropped their bag on the track while the ride was in progress. We saw someone walk in through the doors that commence the star of the ride to retrive the missing bag. They had to send all the empty cars around the track about three times. I was on Wipeout, it got stuck when it was at full tilt. For the next while everyone's head was resting on the shoulder of the person next to them because it was to hard to hold your head straight at that angle. It took about 20 minutes for it to begin again however it only flatened out to starting postion where we all had to get off. Some of you guys already know this one but it won't hurt to re post it. On dull and overcast day at Movieworld it began to pour with rain. I was with my dad and we decided to go on Wild West Falls. It was amazing to ride in the rain because the rapid part of the ride was really surging it also had waves due to the howling wind. As there was no one in the line we didn't have to get off we went through 5 cycles of rain and wind before getting off. I was sooo cold. Another Memerable experience was on Superman Escape. Every one was seated with harnesses checked and locked. Before the ride was started a girl cried out that she wanted to get off. The ride op unlocked all the harneses and let her oyut along with her friend. Once again all harnesses were locked down and again another person called out that they wanted to get off to. In the end after this had happened about three times (I think) the ride op said that no one else could get off. So the ride commenced with all 6* people on board. *Could have been 12 can't quite remember the event. Well there they are, all the ones that come to mind. I am interested to see what other members post up. Cheers,

[Dylaan]

Ha! Nothing sucks more than being stuck on the claw in the pouring rain for ~10 minutes until what I assume was a supervisor came and manually released us. (I'm guessing it was just unbalanced. She just rotated it a bit.) Also, my first ride on SurfRider something screwed up and we only hit the top once. They ran it again a few minutes later though so all was good... Apart from that, I can't recall anything but tools who can't seem to close their restraints properly.

[Gazza]

Last time I was at Disneyland, on Indiana Jones I noticed that the lights weren't flickering in the station as we pulled back in, I knew from what I had read about the ride that this means the ride has broken down, what was frustrating was that this happened when we were one stop behind the unload position, so we were stuck for 10-20 minutes or so waiting to get off. I did however use the opportunity to snap this photo.

[T-bone]

Been stuck on Motocoaster twice on the brake run (this was before the park was officially open), the brakes stopped us, and the transport wheels didn't kick in, turned out the rides safety system had shut the ride down due to in-activity. Me and my brother (the only people on the ride) were stuck on the brake's for about 15 mins, whilst we waited for Maintenance to come, put a key in panel and wake the ride up. Whilst this was all happening, you could feel the ride slowly creeping forward thanks to gravity. When we finally got off, they sent the 2 trains around to "test" the ride. We hopped back on again for another ride (mind you, at this time Maintenance had left, as all was working a ok), and the same thing happened again. We only waited 10 minutes this time though. I love being stuck on rides. I wish it would happen more often.

[Spotty]

Ah yes, Lethal Weapon lifthill issues... I remember in 2004 when it was constantly stopping and starting and then BANG... the whole motor crapped itself. That was almost a brown pants moment, i'll tell you that! If I remember correctly about 3 days later there was a crane removing the top of the ride and installing a new motor! I've also had various general ride faults, from Tower of Terror doing a Drive Trip, and the Drop stalling halfway up the tower. As well as Claw faults, Cyclone etc. It's not a day at Dreamworld for me with at least one thing going wrong...But lately it's been alright.

[Lotl_90]

Ha! Nothing sucks more than being stuck on the claw in the pouring rain for ~10 minutes until what I assume was a supervisor came and manually released us. (I'm guessing it was just unbalanced. She just rotated it a bit.)

Happens quite a bit with that one, but Im pretty sure that just what happens when they have to come and restart the ride. Sometimes its when an operator uses the autostop function, sometimes its just a computer fault, but I know for a fact that it does the same thing (the lil rotation hooha) when the engineers start the ride up every morning. So meh. Funny thing about Tower, I remember when one of the launch motors blew (or faulted or something), they were lucky it was early friday morning and they were able to get a cherry picker out that day to repair it. They had just returned the cherry picker late that afternoon only to have the other motor do the same thing at like 5 to 5. So the ride was down all weekend waiting to be fixed. If youre ever on Motocoaster these days you will notice that they now have one permanently parked underneath for use on Moto, Tower and Hydrocoaster.

[Spotty]

Hmm... so thats what that Cherry Picker is for. We now know everything ahaha! I also love it when Claw turns into a Carousel after a fault

[TommyDig]

I have been stuck on the claw when it didn't align properly. There are two sensors in the ditch and underneath the pendulum. Each time the pendulum swings past it registers on the computer. When the ride is ending and the sensors don't line up the Claw then becomes a carousel as Spotty said. Also when I was on work placement, the hydrocoaster needed to be tested. I got to go on it five time in total and the first four times the slide checkers and I got stuck at the top of the last hill. The slide checkers have the best job. A different experience was the Reef Diver. Now this may seem a bit lame but it is by far the scariest ride at Dreamworld. Four friends and I decided to ride it. The fact that you are in a cage with a dodgy door, held in by velcro and your spinning 10 - 20 metres in the air is the most frightening experience at Dreamworld.

[Spotty]

Not to mention the very creaky noises... but that's a whole other story!

[revolutionx]

A different experience was the Reef Diver. Now this may seem a bit lame but it is by far the scariest ride at Dreamworld. Four friends and I decided to ride it. The fact that you are in a cage with a dodgy door, held in by velcro and your spinning 10 - 20 metres in the air is the most frightening experience at Dreamworld.

When we were at Dreamworld recently, my sister and dad went on the Reef Diver. When it was finished, my dad undid his velcro and then my sister thought he had split his pants or something, she didnt know what the noise was.. As she didnt actually have hers on, and the ride op didnt even check! That put me off riding it. At WWW I was stuck at the top of the Hydrocoaster, in the tube waiting for it to start for about 10 minutes before a maintenence guy came and fixed it up, and it happened again later when I was in line. I havent been on a LW lifthill breakdown, but my cousin was, he said it was for about 10 minutes before it started up again. Ive had a few experiences with SE. One being in 06, when we were second inline for SE at the beginning of the day, but they wouldnt open it, and they kept testing it. 2nd experience was just recently when we were inline and it didnt launch for a while, and they had to get a maintenance guy in to fix it. 3rd being when I was on it, and it wouldnt dispatch from the station, and they kept raising our restraints and we had to keep re doing our seat belts and the ride ops were joking about how the seatbelts dont do anything. That made me very confident indeed.

[saberon]

I've only been in a few interesting situations. One on the wild west falls. I don't exactly know what the problem was but we traveled up the first lift hill and moved into the turntable and it didn't rotate. All the special effects and everything just stopped and went silent. after a couple minutes an automated announcement started saying something along the lines of We are having technical difficulties with the ride, please remain seated, the ride will commence again shortly. After another 5 minutes the ride effects started again and the ride rotated and went as normal. Only other thing was on the Tower of terror. Didn't realise really what happened until after the ride stopped. It had an ebrake failure and went flying past the station and hit the perminant magnets. An OP walked along the edge of the tunnel on a small narrow platform. Put a key or something into the side of the car and the restraints lifted. We then got out the left hand side of the car and walked a narrow pathway kinda curving the body over a bit so you didn't smack your head on the curved beam supports or the walls and walked forward about 15 metres to the station. Then headed down the lift. Apparently it takes between 5 - 10 minutes for them to winch the car off the magnets and get it back to the station but only 30 seconds to reset the ride.

[Spotty]

Ah... nothing like a good old E-brake. I just love some of the peoples faces as it happens. It's hard to describe but it's sort of a "WTF... Should we have come back out of the station!?" Face. That and I'm sure the ops appreciate the little break they get when it happens.

Edited June 21, 2008 by Spotty

[Adam]

My most interesting experience is that I got free sauce at Movie World a few months ago. I will never forget that day. My second most interesting experience is that I saw an obese child rejected from the Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster. "The computer won't let me press start," the ride op remarked awkwardly. Other than that, mostly, everything and everyone has been working as you'd expect with a couple of breakdowns here and there.

[kieran]

Yea, I feel so bad for the obses people that get rejected from SE and Scooby doo.

[Gazza]

I once saw that happen on Batman at SFMM...They couldn't get the restraint past the 45 degree mark.

[DonjaiInLA]

Ahh Indiana Jones breakdown club member! The fun part was walking back along the path by the track with the sensors activating and shooting air at us every second : ) A drive run on Superman and trapped on Tower of terror in Paris!

[little lefty legend]

my only interesting story was from dreamworld this year, around april although im sure many people have had this happen was cueing up for motocoaster. and everything was getting held up by 2 'obese' men. they couldnt get the part that folds down, to come down and cover their legs enough for the back bar to come in and lock in. two ride operators were practically sitting on it trying to put it down only other thing was on the same day tower of terror getting shut down after every run.... so glad i at least got one run on it.

[Spotty]

Hmm... I still like the "If you are over 5ft 10, please remove your shoes as it helps the bars close" rule. And the Tower is really starting to show it's age. Was it stopping mid launch and slowing to a stop or e-braking (going into the Bog Pit behind the station)?

[Gazza]

Just on that, I've never understood why...If you are that tall then the couple of centimetres lost by removing your shoes wouldn't make a difference surely?

[myk]

I am also an Indiana Jones club member. When I was there in 2004, those who have been on it know the part where the animatronic hangs from a rope and the boulder narrowly dodges the car. This is sort of the climax moment of the ride. We got to the bit, and the boulder decided to fall but the car didn't move, and the animatronic just hung there blinking for like 3 minutes. I vaguely remember us thinking 'What the hell is going on'... it was pretty scary considering how dark it is in there.

[Spotty]

I honestly have NO idea why that rule is in Place, I haven't heard them enforcing it lately, it just depends which op you have I guess. A lot of the things Dreamworld do I have no idea about, So I just don't bother questioning it anymore!

[cadboy]

My second most interesting experience is that I saw an obese child rejected from the Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster. "The computer won't let me press start," the ride op remarked awkwardly.

On the issue of obese people being rejected from rides once I saw a guy on Runaway Raptar rejected and on Batwing there was another guy that was so obese that he was stugling with his harness. Two female OP's were both pushing as hard as they could on his restraint but failed to get one click if I remember correctly, so the guy couldn't ride.

[DonjaiInLA]

who doesn't enjoy watching an obese person riding a ride though, something about how they yell...

[little lefty legend]

Hmm... I still like the "If you are over 5ft 10, please remove your shoes as it helps the bars close" rule. And the Tower is really starting to show it's age. Was it stopping mid launch and slowing to a stop or e-braking (going into the Bog Pit behind the station)?

from what i could gather, it was going into the bog pit behind the station, considering it closed about 4 or 5 times in the one day for extended periods im guessing this is why. i eventually got to ride it that day. however it sort of stopped accelerating on the run at one point then accelerated extremely hard before the hill (not sure if thats normal or not) but when we got off it got closed so not sure what went on there.

[Spotty]

Hmmm... Slowing down mid launch is understandable as that would be a common Drive Trip. However having it suddenly accelerate again... thats not so normal And since when has the Tower NOT been Ebraking lately!