Park Operations

[Mc coaster]

I thought I’d create this topic to discuss our parks.  I’m currently at MovieWorld and it is very busy which is great for the park. My issue though is that rides such as Superman and Rivals are running only one train. On a quite day it would be fine but today both have an 80 minute wait time. Even with one train the dispatch’s are so slow with me timing an average of 5 minutes between each one. It also doesn’t help that a big chuck of the lines are completely outside with no shade. This was also the same case with storm yesterday dispatches were so slow and we waited about 40 minutes in the full sun and the line wasn’t really that long. It’s great to see the parks so busy but they really need to improve their operations.

[ejpdtd]

I've never been impressed with ops at our parks, it's the main reason why I can't stand visiting during the holidays, and very rarely even on the weekends, I don't want to waste half the day in lines. I don't know why there is no sense of urgency among the operators like you see at other parks around the world, I wonder if it became less of a priority to punch out trains after Dreamworlds accident? I remember reading or seeing somewhere in media that operators used to compete with each other for most cycles/h but I guess that doesn't happen anymore?

 

[Ogre]

I can understand on quieter days, but not running two trains on the coasters is pretty inexcusable during the holidays and weekends. 

At one of the recent night events they had Superman running with two trains. The queuing experience was soooo much better, and the operations were significantly faster than normal (definitely not 5 mins). It was a rare taste of what could be if VRTP got their act together. 

I'm not looking forward to the (presumably) one train ops they'll have on Leviathan!

 

 

[pin142]

So queue times are greater than usual due to running only one train and fast track is now $200. Surely can't be a co-incidence.

[Jdude95]

But if they only use one train, then they double the time before having to buy a new train 

[Mc coaster]

1 hour ago, pin142 said:

So queue times are greater than usual due to running only one train and fast track is now $200. Surely can't be a co-incidence.

To be fair they sold out of fast track very early on in the day and from what I could see there weren’t that many of them.

Honestly today was a absolutely terrible I genuinely couldn’t believe that with how long the lines where they only ran 1 train. DCR had hit 105 mins. We only got in 4 rides and saw stunt driver and three of those where with virtual queue we were there from 9:45 till closing so we had the whole day. Also the virtual queue ratios were not managed very well with the grouper often filling whole trains on superman with them which if running efficiently isn’t the end of the world but with 5 minute dispatch’s there where points where the regular line didn’t move for about 10 minutes and that line stretched to the Arkham courtyard with a lot of people in the sun. I heard a lot of either guests getting frustrated and complaining to each other so they also have that to work out. Scooby and Rivals weren’t to bad with that though.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

20 hours ago, Mc coaster said:

Even with one train the dispatch’s are so slow with me timing an average of 5 minutes between each one.

Just in general, 5 minute dispatches are pretty average for MW. I've timed dispatches for DCR and SE and its pretty consistent.

I will say that sometimes guests don't help this by not having loose items organised, or not being seated correctly, but it is pretty much a case of apathetic operations. I know there are some ride ops at MW that are passionate about a good guest experience - unfortunately I find they tend to be the minority, and they can't run an entire ride on their own.

[Gazza]

14 hours ago, Jdude95 said:

But if they only use one train, then they double the time before having to buy a new train 

Modern problems require modern solutions.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

We, of course, won't say anything about the horrendously poor guest experience in this situation - because at least it's open, right?

[alex0089]

Looking at taking the young fella on Wednesday since he's tall enough for Superman now, but jumping on the app today and seeing the queue times is pretty scary.

 

150mins for the DCR coaster now, was 90 mins at 10.30am.

 

What's going on? I get that it's school holidays but damn.

 

I went with my partner late last year and the app wait times were very underrated too, DCR said 25minutes and we lined up for it at opening, and it was still a 45minute wait.

 

Not looking forward to Wednesday as much as I was now 😒

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Queue times right at opening can't possibly be reliable - you're going from an effective zero minute wait for the first person on to potentially hours in just a few minutes depending on the number of people through the gates. You can't possibly have a reasonable estimate of queue time for at least the first 30-60 minutes.

[Mc coaster]

Nope it was absolutely packed today. I came back to movie world today the line to enter the park is all the way past the non inverted loop and going up to the edge of the car park on the other side and they are still only doing one train ops on the major coasters. 

Scooby, DCR and GL for most of the day sat at 180 minutes with Scooby sitting at 90 mins and rivals at 120mins at 4:30. Superman also shut it’s queue completely for standby lines during the day. There was a point where the shortest line was roadrunner at 90 mins. HWSD filled to capacity for 4 shows and Roxy as well. It really was insane.
 

 

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

is this just a case of everyone's pent up holiday time all being spent on the coast at one time? why on earth has it been this stupidly busy? (other than the park's deathly slow ops)

[Juddanator]

I went to Movie World and it was absolutely horrendously ridiculous. Most rides had over a 2 hour wait time. The fact they were only running one carriage for the Hypercoaster and Superman was ridiculous for school holidays. They could have gotten through so many more people. People were stuck in the sun, there were groups sitting down in lines waiting for forever. There should have been a cap on people allowed in the park. The potential for an absolutely devastating spread of Covid in a place like this is real. Yesterday at SeaWorld they were sanitising the rides afterwards but they did nothing here today. They are not equipped for all of this. 

[fletch]

Can't remember an exact date, it was about a month ago on a weekend. The park had 1hr 30min waits for DC Rivals and Superman and about 45min for everything else. I decided to see how long they took to send a train out on DC Rivals and Superman and suprisingly it was on average 2:30 every time unlike the usual 5-7min. I must say the line for Scooby-Doo seems to always be misleading, you get in line with a expected 60+min wait and manage to get on within 20min.

[themagician]

They haven’t had crowds like that for some time now, but those queues some ridiculous, especially if they aren’t operate rides to the max. There was a time when no matter what, every school holidays, the rides would operate with every train. And even remember a time when on weekends they would sometimes operate with all trains. But the fact they were operating the park like it was a normal week day is insane. What you doing VRTP.

Edited April 12, 2021 by themagician

[westical]

3 minutes ago, themagician said:

What you doing VRTP.

Private equity?

[TimmyG]

Some would say it’s good to see the parks this busy. It means consumer confidence is growing. Congratulations to the parks for sticking through Covid.
 

I’m sure there are some valid reasons as to why they aren’t running to peak capacity. 

[Brad2912]

I can tell you that both Thurs and Fri last week and again this morning the queue to enter the car park between 9:30 and 10:30am extended the entire Northbound off ramp of the m1 and about 500-600m south of the exit itself.

 

I’ve never ever seen that occur in 15 years living up here. 

[Skimbleshanks]

Believe me; the ops wish they were running more trains too

[rappa]

5 hours ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

is this just a case of everyone's pent up holiday time all being spent on the coast at one time? why on earth has it been this stupidly busy? (other than the park's deathly slow ops)

Its not just the parks. The whole Gold Coast is just nuts right now. 
God I miss cheap family holidays to Bali being a thing. 

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

14 hours ago, Juddanator said:

Yesterday at SeaWorld they were sanitising the rides afterwards but they did nothing here today. They are not equipped for all of this. 

There seems to be some sort of expectation from the public that the rides are sanitised after every run. this simply isn't true (and would blow queues out massively). in line with government guidelines, i believe they now do it hourly.

This doesn't include things like queue rails and chains which guests have to touch EN MASSE though, and everyone out in public needs to take a little personal responsibility and sanitise their hands \ not touch common surfaces etc - it cannot be up to the park - or any other facility used by the public - to constantly sanitise every possible surface.

Since Sea World and Movie World are operated by the same group - it stands to reason that if they're doing it at one, they're doing it at the other, and you're probably just not in a position to see it happen.

12 hours ago, TimmyG said:

Some would say it’s good to see the parks this busy.

I'm sure the crowds we've seen have been large, but by all accounts, not running \ staffing rides at capacity is a surefire way to make it look busier than it actually is.

A supermarket with only one register open is going to look about the same.

9 hours ago, rappa said:

Its not just the parks. The whole Gold Coast is just nuts right now.

That's what I asked...

 

[red dragin]

There is a product that lasts over an hour on surfaces when tested. 

The group I'm involved with uses it, we do a section every 15 or so minutes, so that the public see us doing at least one or two cleans whilst waiting. 

We actually applied the set up for SE/DCR for our queuing process in our covid plan (pre allocate a group for the next trip). 

[jack.c]

I was at movie world Saturday and Sea World Sunday. The dispatchers were extremely slow. But then it dawned on me why! They want people to pay the $10-$20 to “ride it now” 😃😃 absolute thieves. 

[ThemeParks4Life]

To all the Gold Coast locals, do you think it will be this busy into the weekend? My family and I arrive this weekend but we are rethinking our whole trip after seeing the comments and reviews about wait times and stuff. Would rather spend our money elsewhere (lucky we haven't bought our tickets yet) as my kids will get really irritable and cranky in 1-2 hour lines.