Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster Reopening [Dec 26, 2016]

[AllegroCrab]

So now, after hearing the news that Doomsday is back open, please tell me Movie World are closing Scooby to continue the refurb.

[jake_hunt]

You'd think with the park back at 100% operation, and with peak season drawing to a close, it would be closing very shortly...

[themagician]

In previous years all the parks have released the years maitence schedule within the first week of the year, but this year nothing has come up yet. But I imagine Scooby would reclose early to mid February and remain closed for a couple of months, hopefully reopening for the easter school holidays 

Edited January 21, 2017 by themagician

[Flynn_Smith]

26 minutes ago, themagician said:

eater school holidays 

Gotta love them eater school holidays! 

[Jamberoo Fan]

@AllegroCrab, in my opinion, I wouldn't think so until either whenever Arkham Asylum re-opens or when peak season finishes, whichever happens first.

Edited January 21, 2017 by Jamberoo Fan

[AllegroCrab]

@Jamberoo Fan

Ah yeah I forgot about Arkham, shows how much attention I've been paying on my holiday.

[Blake]

I posted on their Facebook regarding when it'll be shut down (only because I'm flying up on the 28th from Newcastle and wanna ride Scooby whilst it's barren) and this is the reply I got:

Quote

Hi Blake, the Scooby rollercoaster is not currently under schedule to close for maintenance. From time-to-time unfortunately occassionally we may experience
unforeseen technical difficulties with rides, which may cause disruptions to operation unplanned closures. Our maintenance personnel work tirelessly to rectify any issue and have rides operational as soon as possible. It is advisable to always check the ride maintenance schedule available on our website. Regards, Eve from Warner Bros. Movie World

 

[Slick]

7 minutes ago, Blake said:

I posted on their Facebook regarding when it'll be shut down (only because I'm flying up on the 28th from Newcastle and wanna ride Scooby whilst it's barren) and this is the reply I got:

 

TLDR, the person who replied isn't aware of Scooby's current thematic minimalism.

[pushbutton]

That's extremely poor. Not necessarily the fault of "Eve", but management should ensure that the people responding to enquiries are fully aware of what's going on in the parks. Certainly major upgrades.

[Reanimated35]

20 minutes ago, Slick said:

TLDR, the person who replied isn't aware of Scooby's current thematic minimalism.

 

2 minutes ago, pushbutton said:

That's extremely poor. Not necessarily the fault of "Eve", but management should ensure that the people responding to enquiries are fully aware of what's going on in the parks. Certainly major upgrades.

 

I read it more to the point of "there's no set date for the ride to commence maintenance at this stage as it could change at a moments notice, so best to check the site." Even if you know/have seen a current schedule for it, it could still change. As far as the theming goes, the rep is technically correct that it's still open given the poster asked specifically if it was closed on/around January 28.

IMO it's not that they don't know there's reduced theming, or that it's "poor" or management's fault, it was more "here's an answer that isn't likely to result in follow up questions."

[joz]

I think it's important to remember that at no point have Movie World suggested a timeline.  In making excuses for them gutting their best ride everyone just kind of said 'oh it'll close after the holidays'. I'm not surprised that they know nothing about it, I'd be very surprised if they had a plan for rebuilding the themeing when they pulled it out.  The only change that's happened on the ride in 4 weeks of operation is to block the view of the rest of the ride from the exit run.  Has that got more to do with themeing or more to do with making sure no one else takes photos?

[Jamberoo Fan]

On 12/01/2017 at 7:52 PM, rac2703 said:

Found this response on Facebook regarding a visitors question about the current state of he ride:

"There are plans for thematic enhancements to be made at Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster. We started the enhancements to the attraction during the maintenance period, however we want guests to be able to experience the attraction over the school holiday period so it is currently open with reduced theming to the dark part of the ride."

I think this is the closest we got to a 'timeline' @joz which would indicate it closing again tomorrow when school holidays finish in QLD. The only flaw to that 'timeline' is that SDSC actually re-opened on Boxing Day & not the beginning of the QLD school holidays - so peak season is probably what they meant instead of the QLD school holidays. Given there is still no announced scheduled maintenance for SDSC, I'd say that 'timeline' is no longer valid anyway (unless they did mean peak season - when that finishes exactly I don't know). It also points out that the thematic enhancements commenced during it's initial maintenance period late last year (but like you said, it does not exactly imply that it was the plan during it's scheduled maintenance).

Edited January 22, 2017 by Jamberoo Fan

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Stick it on your fridge folks!

[rac2703]

They are likely to keep it open until after NSW schools go back though, and with the Australia Day Public Holiday they would probably want it open for that as well.

[pushbutton]

Just been watching a video of the Scooby Doo ride at Movie World Madrid.

Does anyone think maybe the one in the Gold Coast might end up resembling this (in style)?

Personally I hope not, but it's a possibility I suppose.

 

[themagician]

It would be utterly disappointing if it did, but I doubt MW would do that. I still think the same theming will return.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

I wouldn't call it a disappointment. 

Having taken a ride on it today i had a couple of observations to make - but first in regards to the above video - i'm not against them using UV lighting and UV active paint to accent certain parts of the ghost train (or even the disco room I guess) - Disney use a lot of UV effects in their rides and I think it does well.

Sure, the 'original' in the movie doesn't use that, and the ride was themed to be representative of the ride in the movie. I think the movie is still relevant, albeit getting on in years, and i'd love to see a 'similar' experience return, but with 'added' effects utilising UV.

Now onto today's experience:

Scooby was the first coaster I got my wife to go on (I lied - it worked), and it has always been one of our favourites. Today, scooby was rough. as. guts. jolting, bumping, hitting every brake hard. I'll attribute some of that to having 4 grown adults in the car, and I think 3 teenage girls in the one in front.

Nice queue - only JUST spilling into the big 'cinema' room - however the modifications to the queue rails to accommodate fast track are terrible. I'd rather they loaded fast track through the exit (which probably isn't possible with the harness controls i suppose) but the split line up that narrow hallway has resulted in them defeating the purpose of the design of that room - the queue rails were designed down the centre of the hallway to keep bored fingers from damaging the walls. I don't know how long it's been with fast track like this (it doesn't matter really) but it has resulted in waiting guests queueing against the wall - and thats when boredom sets in and assholes take to scratching their names, drawings, rude words and anything else they can think of into the paint of the walls - completely ruining the look. The 'columns' too have suffered, as repeated leaning, bumps, rubbing as you walk past has taken all the paint off the front side of the columns and exposing bare fibreglass (or whatever). I sincerely hope when they take this ride down to reinstall the ride theming that they give some attention to the queue, and try something that is a bit more vandal proof.

Ride experience was ok. I was quite happy to see the exposed sections of the ride - it was interesting to see the actual layout spread out in front of you. Shame they hid the exit section. I liked the sneak peak into the disco room as you approached the lift instead of the mirror. I understand why they needed to pull the themeing out, and I understand why the opened it as it is during peak - but since they were just coming out of Fright Nights at the time, i'm wondering whether they could have repurposed some halloween props - spider webs, skeletons, whatever - and just had a few things to look at that they could shine a light on. Sure it was a little extra effort, but 'a little extra effort' is their reputation - and it's sad to see them not live up to it. 

Its been a while since I rode, so i'm not sure how long that particular laser has been there (it changes so often! jk) but i like it - i'd only have liked it to be brighter, faster moving, and covering more area (or maybe just have 2?). Fantastic amount of smoke coverage in the room made for some excellent beams throughout which really helped - But I still would like to see those fast moving, bright green beams we had striking the mirror panels originally.

All up, i'm not upset with it's current state, I know it's only temporary, and I relished the opportunity to see it 'differently'. I look forward to seeing them bring it back all refreshed, and hopefully with a little extra somethin' too.

[loki75]

We rode SDSC yesterday and whilst I enjoyed being able to see it in it's exposed state I did feel for the tourists in front of us that missed out on the classic SDSC experience. 

Disco room was actually quite good. Lots of smoke and the laser really lit it up.

I did notice the lighting in the queue seemed dimmer than normal.

 

[Blake]

Just now, loki75 said:

We rode SDSC yesterday and whilst I enjoyed being able to see it in it's exposed state I did feel for the tourists in front of us that missed out on the classic SDSC experience. 

Disco room was actually quite good. Lots of smoke and the laser really lit it up.

I did notice the lighting in the queue seemed dimmer than normal.

 

Definitely this. I went yesterday too and tbh I LOVED it so dark and gutted, but then again I haven't been up here in QLD in like 3 years lol. A lot of people were asking me and my friend why it looked different :')

And may have rode it 10 times? There were times it was literally walk on so took it to my advantage tbh. 

It didn't however stop working around 4pm-4:30pm though. Not sure if it got up and running again.

[MaxxTheMonster]

Yeah I was able to ride it on Saturday (read fit on it for the first time in 3 years HUZZAH!!!)...

Little Mr 4yo was a little put off with how dark the queue area was and actually chose not to go on it due to "it's scaring me"...  Don't think he would have handled the almost pitch black ghost train section anyways...  

[themagician]

Finally had a chance to ride it this morning and wow. I know people have said time and time again that it was dark, but if you really couldn't see a thing, and at times I forgot which way the ride would turn and I'd prepare myself to go the other way, and the drop for the axes I completely forgot about so that was a surprise. What i did like but having the ride like this was it gave a real perspective of its layout and how everything is placed. But will definitely be great to have it back to its former glory. 

One thing I do want to say is when waiting in the queue a guy got in the car and was asked to take his hat off, he didn't and then as the car moved forward and the girl had to stop the ride and she asked him again to refmoved his hat. He continued to refuse or step out the car, so they had to get security to come and speak to him. Bit rediculous that someone is that set on not removing his hat. But I get he may have some real reason for removing it, but seriously. It's dark in there, no one will see. Just take the hat off

Edited February 15, 2017 by themagician

[Reanimated35]

55 minutes ago, themagician said:

. 

One thing I do want to say is when waiting in the queue a guy got in the car and was asked to take his hat off, he didn't and then as the car moved forward and the girl had to stop the ride and she asked him again to refmoved his hat. He continued to refuse or step out the car, so they had to get security to come and speak to him. Bit rediculous that someone is that set on not removing his hat. But I get he may have some real reason for removing it, but seriously. It's dark in there, no one will see.

And if the hat came off and hit you in the face while you were on the ride, you'd be complaining about that. 

Rules are rules and are there for a reason. 

[New display name]

10 minutes ago, reanimated35 said:

And if the hat came off and hit you in the face while you were on the ride, you'd be complaining about that. 

Rules are rules and are there for a reason. 

@reanimated35You have misread @themagician

Edited February 15, 2017 by YLFATEEKS

[themagician]

8 minutes ago, reanimated35 said:

And if the hat came off and hit you in the face while you were on the ride, you'd be complaining about that. 

Rules are rules and are there for a reason. 

I wasn't complaining that they didn't let him wear his hat. I was saying what you've said and that rules and rules and couldn't believe the way he was acting

[Reanimated35]

@themagician apologies mate, misread it as you having a go at the staff for making him take the hat off.