Coasterbp

I'm pretty sure he MEANT to say 3 MINUTE.

Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin? Having been on both rides Sub Quest is the more out of place of the two. The ride itself has nothing to look at other than the screens the "game" is played on and the room where the sub encounters a giant squid (which currently isn't a feature on the ride, this scene involved spraying water at guests onboard the ride but the water would leak into the game monitors on the subs and cause a whole row's screen to black out). It's just a pathetic ride, and given the reactions of leadership at the park I don't see this ride lasting very long, as other users have mentioned above. I have to say though there were moments I really enjoyed working at this ride that had so many issues, as I often had time to talk with the engineers and mechanics from Chance as well as programmers from Irvine Ondrey (who were onsite often throughout the summer). It was awesome hearing these guys' stories from working in the industry from the construction of Lightning Run at KK to frustrations of programming Lightning Rod and the insane night rides the Irvine guys had on it during testing. Those dudes made some of the late nights cycling Sub Quest so much fun. I'm glad we made some of the nights fun! -=CoasterBP

Yes, that is correct. We wouldn't send a train to an area that is currently faulted. -=CoasterBP Senior PLC Programmer Irvine-Ondrey Engineering

Just to clear a few things up- 1) There are 2 separate systems involved with Lightning Rod; The Ride Control System, which our company (IOE) was contracted to do, and the Launch Control System, which was contracted out to another company. Our system, is responsible for everything but sending the train up the launch hill. So, brakes, boosters, transfer table etc. As far as we are aware, there have been no issues with our system. 2) The two systems do communicate with one another, meaning the launch system tells us that it is ready and we tell the launch system we are sending a train to it. The integration of the two systems is pretty simple and standard and since being implemented, there has not been any issues as far as we are aware. -=CoasterBP Irvine-Ondrey Engineering Senior PLC Programmer

My apologies. I was under the impression that IOE did the launch control system and not the ride system. Thank you for clarifying that up for all of us. I do not work maintenance at Dollywood. I work in a large automotive factory in maintenance. I checked through my pictures and I rode it on May 24, which was the second day of testing to the public. I thought it was earlier in the year. And YES! I did see a bunch of RMC shirts there that day and maybe an IOE shirt (don't remember exactly). Since I work in a German factory, I deal primarily with Siemens but I understand that the South tends to prefer Allen Bradley. When I was in line yesterday, I noticed that the prox switches that I could see are now yellow instead of green. which led me to speculate that there was a change in the operating system. Was gonna try and get a picture of the prox switched but the park was too crowded so we never went. Again I want to clarify that it was purely speculation and I have no employment/ contractor relationship with Dollywood. Hi, BP from IOE here. The green prox sensors you might have seen on the track were from a long time ago, before full circuit testing even started. The yellow prox sensors have been installed on the ride for quite some time now, even before there were any official/unofficial riders. Thanks! BP Senior PLC Programmer Irvine-Ondrey Engineering https://www.facebook.com/IrvineOndreyEngineering/

From time to time, new coasters will requires sensor adjusting as the ride breaks in. Minor issue, they have not called us for help, but we're here of course if they need us! BP Irvine-Ondrey Engineering

Our side of the commissioning is complete, and all went well. It is finished to satisfaction for all clients. You may see IOE on site but as support staff only as our side of the project is complete and working as expected; this is an all hands on deck project. Thank you. BP Irvine-Ondrey Engineering

Guys, just warning you... there is A TON of misinformation out there about this ride. It's pretty insane. Take everything with a grain of salt.

I was beaten to the punch, but yes, I was going to let everyone know the above. -=CoasterBP

Were they closed due to the wind today? Or is Goliath still awaiting a chain replacement? -=CoasterBP

My vote goes for "King James Hawk 145". -=CoasterBP

So we know that Intamin manufactured the track... is everything else done by Dynamic Attractions then? (trains, control) -=CoasterBP

My family and I went this past late May/June and we have stayed at Breakers for the last several years. Yeah, its dated, but the location and convenience to the park, at least for us, is worth it. We always take breaks during the day to come back and take a snooze and recharge, so for us, it works. We did, however, get a sneak peak at the new rooms. There were, at the time, 2 of the rooms on the first floor, right off of the lobby, that were completely renovated as models for the rest of the hotel. While walking past them one afternoon, the door was wide open. We peeked our heads in, not wanting to intrude. As we did this, a construction worker walked by and asked if we wanted to check out the whole room. We said YES! We didn't want to take any pics, as we weren't sure if he was supposed to be letting us in, but we did go in and check them out. They are REALLY, really nice. New carpeting, a/c, wallpaper, furniture. It's great. Really bright and welcoming and completely feels like a room that would be at a beach resort. All white furniture, with nice headboards with a pic of the Giant Wheel at the headboard. Needless to say, we can't wait to stay in them again next year! -=CoasterBP

Also, as a side note... as of today, Snake River Falls is up and running. Speaking of loose articles... is anyone else completely sick and tired of basketballs being given out as prizes for midway games? EVERY year, I almost get run over by some NBA hopefulls that feel the need to bounce these things all over the park while going from ride to ride... Maybe I'm just getting old. -=CoasterBP

I can confirm this. Shoot the Rapids and Thunder Canyon are both open. However, Snake River Falls has been silent all week and not a soul has been seen near it all week either.... -=CoasterBP

While Pooh and Tower are both trackless, they are slightly different in their methods. Tower uses an embedded wire in the floor that the AGV follows. It wasn't their first use of this tech. Universe of Energy used it before Tower. Don't know off-hand if it was used in another attraction before UoE. Pooh uses a matrix of special tiles and a Local Positioning System to navigate throughout the attraction. So, similar, but different. -=CoasterBP

He better not sleep there too long. They might just slap an ad on him and prop him up in a queue. -=CoasterBP

It's looking really good, Shane! Let us know when the water gets turned on and you need some test riders before it's open to the public. Us Vegas TPR folks wouldn't mind helping you test out the place! -=CoasterBP

I wonder what kind of impact this might have on other El Locos around. I haven't even been to the one here in Vegas yet. Hope it doesn't get shut down before I get a chance to take a spin. Good thing is that nobody was hurt.... -=CoasterBP

Brian, do you normally have a PLC in the OCCs to handle button presses and panel lights? Then that info gets sent to the Main ride PLC (or PLCs if running dual...) correct? I don't see the PLC in this console and the wiring for you buttons/indicators are going right to terminal blocks which I would assume would mean that they will end up going directly to the main ride PLC? -=CoasterBP

Yeah. Me too! -=CoasterBP

My thoughts exactly. Anyone that shows up to Studios at 11:30am on a peak day and is expecting FastPasses for Mania or Coaster to still be available knows absolutely nothing about that park. Yup, You're right. I don't know anything about that park. I only spent most of my Disney career working there. Many busy days. Many race weekends. While I appreciate and respect your information, Robb, that might be a little uncalled for? Can't we just discuss things like adults? I would find it strange that someone with your knowledge would disagree that all three of those attractions should be classified as Tier 1 attractions, correct? Maybe they are not using the same ratio of FP to Standby like I remember them using now that they are using this different system. And if that's true, then I place the blame solely on myself for not getting to the parks early enough. But if the ratios ARE the same as they were with paper FP, then the Tiering of attractions probably should be looked at. Again, I said I KNEW some stuff would be sold out, but having worked there for quite a while, I never remember a day that both Tower and Coaster were sold COMPLETELY out that early. Enjoy, -=CoasterBP

-First off, I knew the park was going to be busy. I never said I was going to walk on to everything. I knew it was was race weekend. I'm not an idiot. Please don't try to make me out to be the bad guy. I never said the system was completely stupid. There are benefits to it. Just SOME things need to be worked out and yes I KNOW its still a test. -Being an ex CM, I knew that some fastpasses were probably going to be out, like Midway Mania. But when I WORKED AT COASTER AND TOWER and I never remember a day when BOTH were out of FP by that early in the morning. Sorry. I just don't. Maybe July 4th... or NYE.... and if the parks KNEW it was going to be as busy as those types of weekends, the park hours SHOULD have reflected that. Again, not a fault of FP+, but of Disney planners. -Call it user error if you want, fine. Maybe we should have gotten there earlier in the morning. But we did have other things to do that morning that didnt allow us to get into the park that early. Like I said, I knew some things might have been sold out already. -Like I said in my post, even if my FP was for 8 hours later in the day, that would have been fine. But to have all three major attractions out by that early... seems a bit rough. And again, like I said in my post, I think that putting Tower into the tier 1 attraction list would help alleviate SOME of that issue. Maybe not all of it, but some. Have a great day. Enjoy your bands! -=CoasterBP

So I figured I would weigh in on my opinions now that I have used the system at a Resort Hotel and two different parks. I'll keep it to bullet pointed statements to keep it easy for the TL;DR crowd, but first, an intro. -Party consists of my wife and I who are both ex-CMs. We currently live in Las Vegas but are out here for the wife to run the races this weekend. We are staying at a Resort Hotel but are NOT going to the parks while staying at the hotels. We had two days in the park prior to checking in where we stayed at my parents place. So the system would NOT let us pre-pick our Fastpass+ attractions. No worries. I know I can do it once inside the park. -First Day was at Epcot. When to Fastpass+ kiosk in the breezeway heading towards The Land because Main FP+ kiosk line in between Innoventions was spilling out of queue. I wanted to reserve Test Track mainly, and whatever else we got was a bonus. We arrived in the park around 10am and were able to reserve Test Track for 630pm, Living with the Land in about 10 minutes and Nemo at about 4:00pm. I believe this was Option B supplied to us and worked best as we had reservations at Rose and Crown for 430pm. -Used it at the Land where we bypassed a 10 min wait. Whoopee. Saw the standby line for Soarin' at 80mins. This was ok as I we had no desire to ride it. -Farted around World Showcase. Grabbed a quick bite at American Adventure. Continued farting about. -Waited standby at Spaceship Earth. 10 min wait posted, actual wait was about 4 mins. Noticed that FP+ people take too long to scan wrists/cards causing FP+ line to back up. At that point, Standby people were let in to keep people flowing into attraction. This upsets FP+ people. We laugh at them for wasting a FP+ reservation at Spaceship Earth. Other FP+ voice their displeasure of only bypassing a 5 min line to CM at the merge point. -Rode Nemo at 4pm where we bypassed a 10 min line. Whoopee. -Had an AMAZING dinner at Rose and Crown. -Rode Test Track at 6:30pm where we bypassed a 50 min line. That was good. Too bad the vehicle tracking system through out the ride doesn't work so we have no idea how our car stacked up against others until the post show. New Tron Track is very fun. That was it for Epcot. I think that the system worked well at Epcot. People have to get used to scanning their cards/bands to facilitate getting into the queue quicker. That's where, I think, it is a problem. Taking a FP ticket from someone, or from a group of people, is a LOT quicker than two people attempting to scan their cards/bands. Next day was at the Studios. Arrival time: 11:30am -Go to FP+ peeps behind Keystone Clothiers. All FP+ for Coaster, Tower and Midway Mania are GONE for the day by 11:30am.... I understand having SOME stuff sold out, but when I worked at the Studios, Coaster and Tower would NEVER have run out of regular fastpasses by 1130 in the morning on a day that the park was open until 8. Now, here is where I think the problem is. They have tiered Coaster and Tower separately.... WHY? So basically, I think I can safely assume, that most people reserve Coaster/Midway Mania as their Tier 1 and then pick Tower for Tier 2 WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY would they do it that way? Those are the three most popular attractions and they let you pick two of the three??!?!? Stupid. Stupid and Dumb. This is a HUGE oversight. I'm sorry, but Tower needs to be on the Tier 1 level of attractions. You get to pick ONE of those. So that's where it needs some work. Onto the hotel. -We try to check in today but we were early. No worries, we knew we would be. So we give then our cell phone and they tell us it will text us with our room when its' ready. Fast forward to 330pm and we've heard nothing. So I go to the front desk, they apologize for the long wait, but say that the housekeeper is in there cleaning and at the most it would be another 30 mins. 4pm... nothing. 415pm, finally get the text message.... but the text message tells us to go BACK to the front desk to get our room! Why not just tell me the room number like Disneyland does so I can just go straight there? So back to the front desk. Get our room number, go to the room and guess what! MY wifes' "Magic" band has no "Magic" left in it to open the door. Mine works, so I drop her off at the the room, and I Magically walk my but back to the magical frontdesk+ kiosk and get our magical magic bands magically corrected. So after 4 trips to the front desk, I can open a door now. So while we had some bumps along the way, it was an OK experience for us. Getting into the park was a little quicker. Getting FP+ was hit and miss... If they can get all the kinks worked out, it might be a pretty cool system. I'm going to reserve final judgement until they finalize things a bit more. They DEFINITELY need to look at how the attractions are tiered at the studios, if they are going to keep with the tiered system. Also, if I don't want 3 FP+ reservations, it shouldn't force it on you. What if someone DIDN'T want Tower FP+ and it forced one onto someone... That's a FP+ slot that maybe *I* could have had. I don't understand that AT ALL. Seems stupid that if you are trying to limit how many FP+ you are giving out, then why would you force people to pick three? The ONLY thing that I can see why is that if they force a FP+ onto you for later in the day, you MIGHT be more obligated to wait it out and stay longer in the park... but guess what, it didn't work for us because what I really wanted to ride, I couldn't unless I stood in 60min+ standby lines. That makes me upset and I want to leave. Giving me a free FP+ for Beauty and the Beast at 6pm ISN'T going to make me stay in the park longer.... Giving me a FP+ for a ride that I WANTED to ride, even if it were for 8 hours later in the day, WILL. So we left the park after about 5 hours because everything was super packed. B&B is NOT a Tier 1 attraction. Sorry. Lesson learned? -=CoasterBP

One of the news reports said something about them trying to nudge the train back into the station, but then decided to rescue them in place. Sounds like something is preventing easy movement of the train.... My guess is the same as others... stuck poncho... -=CoasterBP