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Small News From The Theme Park Industry

Spotted at the Silverton construction site at Walibi Belgium:

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The park has removed Tuf Tuf Club dodgems for the arrival of the Technical Park ride. However, it also seems there is a wooden box from Mack found at the place.
 
Disney corporate are no saints, they are a mega-corp interested only in the $.

However, in my view, in this instance all they did was not pander to the nasty-right-wing-politicians "win over the right-wing voters" policy (and Disney had to be goaded into taking that stance because of the more liberal make up of many of their customers and crucially their employees). At which point the nasty-right-wing-politicians threw their toys out of the pram and decided to take them on.

And I'm not calling people nasty - I'm calling right-wing Florida politicians nasty - because they are.
 
So far, I've no major problem with what's been posted on this subject - I agree with the distain for the politians in this case. That said, I'd like this thread not to digress into a polical backwards and forwards.

Obviously keen for future updates to be posted, and fine with members adding their opinions as things go along, but just a friendly heads up to try and avoid ending up with a left-wing/right-wing debate.
 
For me this is not a right wing/left wing debate. It's just my personal belief that people never should be referenced by derogatory words such as nasty. Calling people such a word does dehumanise them, which in my opinion, no human deserves. This gets even worse when genrealising a group of 5 million Florida Republican members as nasty. After all, all those 5 million are "right-wing Florida politicians". Imagine living there, would you actively consider a quarter of your neighbours as less than human and "nasty", instead of just getting a long? Or visiting Disney, Universal, Busch, Seaworld, etc and considering the people around you nasty? To me, that's such a sad way of seeing the world.

I dont agree with DeSantis, but that does not mean that I wont respect him and his party as fellow human beings.
 
Let's get to some smaller news. In Gothenburg the last weeks have been a **** storm regarding the massive underground train project that is being built. I have talked about it before in the thread. It's a three station underground rail project. One station is under the Central Train Station, one is under my school (called Haga) and the third is under Liseberg (called Korsvägen). That's why there is so much construction going on next to and on Liseberg property. It also blocks off a big plot at the front of the park, which in my opinion will hold Liseberg's next major coaster. Here is a map of the train tunnel:

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The contractor for the Haga section has been fired due to massive cost overruns and delays. And the contractor for the Korsvägen section has already received 5.8 billion SEK out of a 3.8 billion SEK contract, while only 41% of the work is complete for that section. There is speculation that the Korsvägen contractor also will be fired. Getting rid of a contractor does mean that new tendering needs to take place, which takes at least a year, when only very limited work can take place. The time of completion for the Haga and Korsvägen sections has been adjusted to 2030, instead of the planned 2026. For Liseberg this is probably a massive negative as it does mean that their prime plot at the front of the park will probably be blocked off until 2030, meaning that major coaster additions seem unlikely until then.

Here is the latest government update on the whole project (it's in Swedish), skip to 8:10 for great aerials of the Lisebergs portion as well as a clip of a aqueduct going into the small creek running through Liseberg:

Watch the first 6 minutes of this video for even better aerials of the constructions going on around Liseberg (train tunnel, hotel, water park and Volvo museum). Look at the spaghetti bowl of coaster track that is in Liseberg. The rest of the video are other constructions around Gothenburg.
 
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Matt N said:
Intriguingly, VelociCoaster at Islands of Adventure has apparently had an operational change, according to a recent video posted by ElToroRyan:
Ride operators now check restraints twice as opposed to only the once (as is typical on coasters), and this has seen dispatch intervals fall from around 55 seconds on average (~1,560pph, ~65 trains per hour) to around 75-80 seconds on average (~1,100pph, ~46 trains per hour).

For context, the ride's previous record was said to be 1,745pph (~73 trains per hour, 1 train every ~49s), and the ride's theoretical throughput on 4 trains is said to be 1,800pph (75 trains per hour, 1 train every 48s). Universal's internal target is said to be 1,440pph (60 trains per hour, 1 train every 60s).

I wonder why the ride's restraints are now checked twice? It seems odd given that most coasters only have one check.
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Sounds like the procedure has been relaxed and throughput is closer to what it was before:

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Gardaland have finally removed Sequoia Magic Loop

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Gardaland's new attraction for this year the Jumanji Labyrinth has opened - it's basically an indoor/outdoor funhouse
 
CSLKennyNI said:
Gardaland have finally removed Sequoia Magic Loop
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Only the Magic Loop!! They did a better job when they would remove that old Vekoma too, even with the retrack from some time ago.
Because they could have placed a new ride in the whole area and not just something smal.
 
The_bullgod said:
Only the Magic Loop!! They did a better job when they would remove that old Vekoma too, even with the retrack from some time ago.
Because they could have placed a new ride in the whole area and not just something smal.
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From what I gather the Vekoma like the one at Efteling is considered a bit of heritage. It was the first looping coaster in the country and a bit iconic.

Despite it being rough as sin and not liked by enthusiasts. I don't expect to see it go anywhere anytime soon.
 
roomraider said:
Despite it being rough as sin and not liked by enthusiasts. I don't expect to see it go anywhere anytime soon.
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It was actually rather decent when I last rode it in 2019. Then they went with a retrack and made it unridable (from what I've heard at least). But yeah, they're not getting rid of a coaster that still has people riding it and they just spent some money on quite recently.
 
Yeah, that Vekoma is really bad. It has a really bad transiton around the corkscrew that massively beats up your head. Except for that one moment it's actually pretty good. Would be no lose to remove it. Doubt anyone will miss it.
 
I went to Gardaland past summer and this is theming-wise a very beautiful park. The Jumanji darkride is very nice. But I won't return to this park in the next decade.

The Magic Mountain (Python Efteling copy) was enjoyable until the last turn. There was a giant kink in the track which gave my company and myself real neck pain.

Blue Tornado was the worst of all. It caused headaches and especially pain to the ears from bumping into the restraints the entire ride. I can certainly take a rough track as a theme park- and roller coaster enthusiast, but this pain was on the verge of crying. You could hear people screaming in pain during the ride. Everyone came out with bright red ears.

When we arrived at raptor, we thought "yes, looks like a decent wingcoaster", unfortunately even this B&M was disappointing. Pretty rough and bad restraints for a B&M.

The only smooth coaster is Oblivion: the Black Hole. The minetrain of the park (I guess it's called mammut) was decent.

My favorite rides were Jumanji, Oblivion & the 3 waterides (logflume, rapid & watercoaster).

Would I recommend this park? Certainly not. The rough coasters make this park not worth it. There's a lack of other family or thrill/flatrides to make up for this.

The only thing they have left to do is removing Magic Mountain & Blue Tornado. Plus, retracking Raptor at some points and replace the restraints. Then adding 2 new coasters instead and then it may be worth visiting again in 10 years or so. 😅

What I learnt from this experience is that I feel so lucky for living in between all good West-Europe parks. I'm Belgian so I live in the themepark-center: Efteling, Toverland, Phantasialand, Disneyland,... This trip made me realise that even small parks in our small country like Bobbejaanland or Plopsaland de Panne have very smooth coasters. I do appreciate my surrounding parks even more now. 😁
 
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Are Wild Mouses (Wild Mice?) notorious for having a high throughput? In my experiences, they almost always have some of the worst throughputs and longest queues at a theme park...

In any case, even when Rattlesnake doesn't run in "safe mode" (which could imply the existence of an unsafe mode? 😜), it's hardly a throughput monster.
 
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