STDog
-
Posts
312 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by STDog
-
-
Well overall change for next year's passes is close to a $10 increase now.. stepping it up this way, makes it not as noticeable though which is a good thing.. Just makes me wish I renewed already haha!
Back in Dec I checked the records I had and found:
2016 Season Passes (Super Regular) $142.00
2016 Season Passes (Super Gold) $187.00
2015 Season Passes (Super Reg) $136.00
2015 Season Passes (Super Gold) $175.00
2014 Season Passes (Regular) $84.00
2014 Season Passes (Gold) $123.00
I believe those were all during Nov.
-
I was looking at the season passes, and it said prices will go up after Jan.1. Anyone know how much they will increase?
I believe the prices are already a little higher for the 2017 season passes but don't fall for the prices go up trick..
Have to check a few time through the season to see if anything else changes. I've never done so.
So, I wrote down the prices back in Dec after this post. Then I just checked them today.
Everything went up $4.
2017 Season Passes (Quantities 1-3) (Super Regular) $148 $152
2017 Season Passes (Quantities 1-3) (Super Gold) $200 $204
2017 Season Passes (Quantities 1-3) (Regular) $99 $103
2017 Season Passes (Quantities 1-3) (Gold) $151 $155
-
^^ Assuming Dollywood will do this again in 2017, in years past they had an enter after 3 pm deal where you get an additional next day included with the one day price of admission.
The time for that depends on park closing time which depends on the time of year.
Generally if you only have a few hours til close on day 1, then you can come back for free.
Given his stated goals, and typical operating hours in early June, one full day might be enough.
To me the park is a lot more than just coasters and I'd rather have 3 days to enjoy the rest of the park.
-
...I love pizza behind chicken fettuccine so obviously a 1 pound piece is literally a dream lol. but drop line with the extra 30? e x q u i s i t e
Explain, please?
Each slice of pizza is supposed to weigh a pound (16 oz).
Drop Line is supposed to be 230ft tall instead of the earlier 200ft so an extra 30ft tall that was previously thought.
-
From what they say, the wasp migrate, but I still don't know how tops would even help.. I would just think it would give more places for regular wasp to build nest lol like my front porch
As I recall, it creates a warm spot up above the riders, so the wasps are draw up and away.
So it has to be high enough that the wasp stay above the riders as they fly about.
They top of WE's lift hill has a lot of metal on the sides and that currently creates a warm spot that the wasps are drawn too.
The roof over it would cool the existing structure and create a warmer spot up higher.
-
That's a shame about Wild Eagle (if they go ahead with it) but it's better than having the ride closed so often.
Hopefully it can be done in a way that is minimally invasive.
Even better would be a removable structure that's only installed when the wasps are active.
-
^ I gave directions on how to find the source. (insert middle finger smile face)
This one?
I can't watch right now to be sure.
-
And I'm always so confused why Dollywood doesn't open for the areas largest Spring Break every year? (March 13 - 17)
It'd be better if the schools waited til spring for spring break.
Spring doesn't start until around March 20 (Vernal Equinox).
I remember spring break when I was in school being later (and warmer) than now.
Not much as much fun for my kids when they had it early. Thankfully their current schools have it in late March.
-
The reviewer specifically said they felt unsafe, not just scared.
I believe you said on the rides, as in more than one, not just a single ride.
That tells me that it's frivolous.
half the reviews on TripAdvisor ask for more details by email but this one didn't. Dollywood simply disagreed and reported the comment.Which leads me to believe there's more going on than just the one TA review.
One response that is very out of character with other responses?
I suspect that reviewer was dealt with on multiple occasions (in person, on the phone, email, other sites, etc) and found to be a troll.
-
I recall reading that Dreammore refunded w/o hesitation during the fires.
DW was closed most of that period anyway, but I'm certain they refunded a few that changed plans due to the fires.
That would be a comparable event to Disney Orlando and a hurricane.
Thankfully DW doesn't deal with such event often, unlike Disney Orlando.
On the CS side, my only experience there was getting a 4 pass after getting 3 in the off season. Turned out my son was able to come on the spring trip. They added the 4th pass and included the discounts as if I had bought all 4 at once.
That was with out asking. I just explained what happened (short version as above) and asked how much for the 4th pass.
-
I have seen several people on this forum say if you go to the park for LR and it's closed, it's your own fault.
That's my opinion of visiting ANY park for any ONE ride.
On any given day there could be a problem that closes it.
-
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.
So if the sensors that check the position of the restraints suddenly indicated an unlocked restraint as the train was about to hit the LSMs, would it stop the launch? What system would be responsible for reading that sensor and stopping the launch?
Are there sensors to detect problems between the first drop to the brake run?
What is the last point one of those could stop the launch?
-
Just witnessed a failed launch...
Test run or passengers? Have you seen any loaded runs?
2.) Or work night and day to fix it.. common occurrence here is that Dollywood list the ride as TC, they try a few launches in the morning and then end up closing it for the rest of the day.. if they really want it running the last few days of the season work night and day and figure it out
What's to say they didn't have a dozen good runs before the fault?
I've had things test perfectly dozens of times only to fail when the real execution matters.
-
My understand was that repeated sensor errors had led to a culture of overriding the system. That led to lax checking to ensure the the fault was invalid prior to overriding it.
I cannot say much on the culture of operation at Alton Towers, or the lax checking of faults prior to overriding them, but I do know from personal experience operating coasters that we are taught not to ignore any faults that are presented.
In a perfect world, but humans screw up. Processes are put in place to fight human nature but they don't always succeed.
In a statement on Tuesday, the theme park owner said: “The investigation concluded that the incident was the result of human error culminating in the manual override of the ride safety control system without the appropriate protocols being followed."https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/sep/27/alton-towers-owner-fined-smiler-rollercaster-crash
Investigators ... found that a chain of errors led staff to override a safety warning when an empty test carriage got stuck on the track in strong winds.Engineers mistakenly believed the safety warning was a false alarm, the investigation found, and released the next carriage full of passengers, with the disastrous effect that it crashed at high-speed into the empty test carriage.
-
A lot of coasters have buggy sensors. And the operators ignore/override known false readings. As I recall that was part of the problem that lead to the Smiler crash. LR may not have overrides because of past situations like that (or only have them in an engineering/test mode nogt available to the regular operators)
There were not false reading to ignore, no malfunctioning sensors. Just pure human error.
My understand was that repeated sensor errors had led to a culture of overriding the system. That led to lax checking to ensure the the fault was invalid prior to overriding it.
Sort of, "Oh that again. It happens all the time. It's nothing to worry about."
I may be confusing it with another ride.
I do know it's a common problem with fault detection systems and human nature leads to complacency.
Just like the large number of warnings in manuals on on equipment lead people to ignore them after a while.
They actually make things less safe because people assume they a waste of time and just ignore them.
Who pays attention to a car alarm in a parking lot anymore? Large numbers of false alarms led to them being ignored.
That being said, it is hard to assume what led to Lightning Rod's failure to launch. It could be as simple as a sensor not picking up on the train's position and energizing the LSM system, or a power dip, or something much more complicated in the PLC or the launch system itself. Whatever it is, the ride did as it was programmed to do and shut down in the case of a fault.
Exactly as it should have for the fault it detected. They question is why it's detecting faults that don't appear to be valid.
-
So say it's a safety sensor, who designed that part of the coaster and the software to go with it?
I don't have a clue since we don't know much about it. How the systems are split up, who did which, who specified what, etc.
I'm speculating like everyone else, using the limited info we have and my personal experiences.
My guess is it's an integration problem. No one specific sensor or system, but how they work together.
So when a given system is tested it looks good, but when you get them all together at once weird things start happening.
Less sensitive sensors may help, but then you don't want to go too far and miss real problems.
A lot of coasters have buggy sensors. And the operators ignore/override known false readings. As I recall that was part of the problem that lead to the Smiler crash. LR may not have overrides because of past situations like that (or only have them in an engineering/test mode nogt available to the regular operators)
-
Sure sounds like a relay opening, cutting off the launch. . .
I feel like if it were something that simple, Dollywoods very intelligent, and highly qualified maintance team would have figured that out, and fixed it by now.
A sensor is tripping that causes the relay to open. It's supposed to open when a fault is detected to stop the launch and it's doing that correctly.
The problem is why the fault was triggered.
My point was it sounded like a safety system shut it down, not failure of the LSM to move the train.
FWIW, back when I worked on military radar systems, about half of the trouble was in the fault detection system not the actual radar. A false fault would be detected shutting down the system. Then you spent time checking what could cause the fault instead of checking the fault detection. The more complicated the fault detection system more likely it was to be problematic.
And for a personnel safety issue (like a roller coaster) you design to not miss a fault, That ends up with a lot of false positives.
-
Sure sounds like a relay opening, cutting off the launch. Possibly triggering anti-roll back brakes too.
And that would jive with a sensor issue. It detects something wrong and kills power to the launch.
I wouldn't call it a roll back either. That generally refers to not having enough power to top the hill (like on catapults, where it clears the launch mechanism but doesn't top the first hill). But here the power is cut before it even starts up the hill. It just doesn't slam on the brakes when the power is cut. So it rolls up the hill little.
Not even half the train is on the hill. It hasn't even gone through the LSMs.
-
I was looking at the season passes, and it said prices will go up after Jan.1. Anyone know how much they will increase?
I believe the prices are already a little higher for the 2017 season passes but don't fall for the prices go up trick..
They are higher for '17. It was discussed here back in early Nov.
Another thing that might change is the payment options. I think they want all payments done by Apr or May. At least in the past, 6 payments weren't an option in March.
Have to check a few time through the season to see if anything else changes. I've never done so.
-
I'm sure they will get it worked out eventually.. I mean worse case scenario is bring in a new group of engineers and have them redesign the mechanics of the launch..
That assumes the launch needs reworked.
Since day one people here have been faulting the launch but ever semi-official comment has said it's not the launch.
-
You can also get it done at the booth at the entrance for the resort shuttle/preferred parking.
-
It happens at least a few nights a week. Nobody's posting about it but you can see it if you check the app since it shows ride status regardless of whether or not you're in the park.
Currently I'm in bed asleep at that time.
It's 22:48 here.
-
Does anyone know if Lightning Rod closes with the steel coasters or does it run in lower temperatures?
We don't really know yet. This is it's first cold season. They might close it early or try to keep it open longer.
Yes we do, the coasters close for temperature all the time, usually a little after the sun goes down.
I've yet to see a single post about any of the rides closed for temperature this year.
Since it's the first season for LR we only have speculation as to what temperature they will run it down to.
But sure, sundown on cold days is a good rule of thumb.
As it is we can't get a specific temperature. The park signs say 36, but many reports of them closing at higher temps.
And many reports of them running when it's colder.
-
Does anyone know if Lightning Rod closes with the steel coasters or does it run in lower temperatures?
We don't really know yet. This is it's first cold season. They might close it early or try to keep it open longer.
I'm pretty sure it also has something to do with the computers/block systems. I was told that by an employee on new years this year.The employee may have been speculating or repeating speculation heard from someone else.
Problems are usually air lines freezing (depends on how good the driers are in the system) and the lubrication making things sluggish. Extra drag on the wheels would eventually prevent the ride from making the full circuit. Depend on how active they are about changing the lube as the temps get lower.
Dollywood Discussion Thread
in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Posted
The shows, the crafts (glass blower and candle shop are always fun), the food.
Just walking and enjoying the scenery.