DRWP2005

There is a way to prevent this from happening and I'm guessing that it failed...Filter Systems are usually designed with a pressure switch on the effluent side of the filter. The pressure switch is tied to the chemical feeders, so if there is no pressure on the switch (ex. pump turned off) then the feeders can't get electricity to feed because the switch is denying the power, even if the chemical controller is calling for chemical feed. So I'm guessing that the pressure switch failed and didn't stop the chemical feed, so once the pump was turned back on all the built up chemical in the pipe was instantly released into the pool.

^ $35 Million is just starting bid for the park So it could end up selling for more then that, who knows. Although I'm guessing that someone will buy it then sell off the rides, then eventually the land. If a park that cost $400 million to build ends up selling for $35 million...then thats really a sign of the times.

I just got back today from the show...I was there all week for work, and I must say I couldn't believe the texting game either. However, I have a feeling that it will end up being quite popular, as I've read about actual texting competitions being held and such. So I suppose why not let people pay to find out how good they are at it. The fish thing was odd, and there's no way I would ever pay to let fish eat me. To answer a question earlier in the thread about the new Whitewater slide...no it does not go upside down. The rider speeds down a steep hill, then uses that momentum to ride up the next hill. The concept photo they had there was kind of misleading about that I thought. I thought the show seemed slow to previous years with fewer vendors, and smaller booths. However, the tour at Aquatica was pretty neat, and the food was really good. I can't wait to see what kind of tours they have next year in Vegas, it should be interesting! For those of you who say you're going...this really isn't something that I would recommend going to if your not really in the business. First of all it's quite expensive. And, yes it's neat to go see all the booths and vendors of your favorite rides, however the companies aren't really there to meet the fans of their rides, they are there to sell new ones.

My best advice is to get a degree in the Hospitality and Tourism / Resort Management, although not every general manager has a degree in Hospitality management, the general manager at my park has a degree in Sports Management, and the guy above him has a degree in Forestry. With a Hospitality degree you can be prepared for a number of jobs, and not just managing amusement parks, as a GM spot at a park are usually few and far between. If you're looking for a job in the waterpark industry, many schools are starting to offer an aquatics degree, which prepares you very well for managing at a waterpark. Also, general manager spots at big parks are filled with people who have been working in the industry for years at many different parks, or have worked their way up in one park...so I would recommend getting a job at your local park, and start to learn the in's and out's of how things work, etc... As for what a general manager does, it just depends on how big the park is and how many employees they have, at my park the general manager, not only deals with the various departments, but also will be out helping fix things, and building things. It just really depends, and varies from park to park. In order to be a successful park manager, not even necessarily the general manager, one must have a few key things...First and foremost an understanding family, which is probably the hardest as a manager works a ton of hours (in the summer when we're open, all managers work 6 days a week and about 9 hours a day) Second, great people skills, as you have to deal with many employees and customers, many of which will be mad at you for something that happened and will expect something in return. Amusement parks are really fun and amazing places to go to and visit, however not everyone can work at them. I see many a people start working every year who love waterparks, but just can't handle working at one. I myself have been working at one for 5 years now, and everyday it's always something different, and as with any job it has its days. I've been fortunate enough to have been moved up quickly...I started as a regular maintenance employee, and now I'm the Water Quality Manager / Park Supervisor. However that hasn't come without many many hours of hard work. I hope this helps some...

I find it funny people are saying how this doesn't make sense and is pointless if you can ride the real thing at a park...I mean why go to Disney and ride Mission Space, when you can join NASA and go, or pay a ton of money to ride the planes that go to space? Disney did the same thing at DisneyQuest with roller coasters, and yes I know DisneyQuest failed, however you still see those simulators today. Not to mention VR arcades with simulators tend to be pretty popular. An attraction like this could bring joy to many people lives, just think of one of the biggest challenges waterparks face...they have stairs. Not everyone can climb up 70 feet of stairs to ride slides for an entire day. People who can't walk or injured people could ride something like this with very limited stairs, and have a good time.

^^Yea I didn't really think about the whole big park capacity issue there, you're right the lines would be crazy for it. Although look at the Flowriders...they have poor capacity yet people line up to ride them and even just watch them for that matter. However, I was thinking of it more along the lines of an extra fee attraction, or something for an indoor park that doesn't get that crowded. Plus it fits right in with a lot of Splashtacular's trade show concepts...none of them have any capacity!! I think a small outdoor park could maintain this, as long as they had it worked out where most of the programming stuff had failsafes and always worked. All it really had mechanically was some hydraulic cylinders, with a pump for the hydraulic fluid, and some motors with drive wheels. A lot of that design you're own ride stuff already exists, as you mentioned with DisneyQuest.

Its a simulator, it spins 360 degrees around, and tilts to either side 18 degrees. It can also rise up and down to simulate different g-forces. It is designed so that the rider can build their own slide then ride it via the simulator. The POV of the slide they designed was projected right in front of the rider to give them the full effect. For those of you who watched the show, I really think this is going to be the next big thing in the waterpark industry. They even had help from Splashtacular, who I'm guessing will be the first to make this now. It just makes sense, since they design some pretty crazy rides. However there are still a few things to fix/design. Mainly, in the show they just added in some water with a hose, some sort of filtration system would have to be designed and could give a better ride, and better experience. I didn't understand their problem with the, "how to display the image problem," that they had...that water curtain technology already exists from Technifex. In fact the ride they rode researching had one of those projection systems on it, so I don't know why they didn't think of that, and just borrow how they make their water curtain. I couldn't believe that the roller coaster wheels didn't last and melted. I mean that entire thing weighed 9 tons, so the slide portion had to weigh about 5 tons I'm guessing...even at 9 tons, roller coaster cars weigh more then that and travel much faster, so maybe they didn't have true roller coaster wheels? I really thought those would have lasted. For those of you who didn't see the show...it worked, and they had people riding it, including one of the head guys at Splashtacular. Anyways like I said, I totally think this will be the next big thing, and with IAAPA coming up next week, I'm guessing it will be the talk at the Splashtacular booth. Well I know I'm going to ask them about it there!

You know, as its already been said this park had a lot of problems... No out-of-market marketing. The loan they took out to operate the park for 4 years, lasted less then 1. They sold 11,000 season passes. (Way to many) Gave away another 7,500 season passes. Only brought in $20 Million through the front gate. Whoever did their feasibility study and said they would bring in 30,000 a day was way off...Partially due in large part I believe to the economy. I'm not saying that all their problems are related to the economy, however a lot of parks this year simply didn't bring in the numbers they were hoping to because of the economy. But they also had a lot of other problems, like not paying their suppliers and other companies, way to many employees, and crazy long operating hours each day. However I think that after the restructuring, they do have potential to turn out being a pretty decent park, putting up some pretty good numbers...I really hope things work out for them.

First of all I don't like American Idol, and I think this is a dumb idea especially for Disney, who is in all reality, as its been said already, promoting another networks shows. It doesn't matter who owns it, its still a Fox show. When I read the title of this thread, the very first thing I thought was, "Isn't Idol on Fox?" So I don't really see how this makes sense. However, I think this will be popular, just look at all the people you see in the news that show up at the casting calls for Idol...and now if you're saying you have the chance to win a front of the line pass at the audition, you're going to get a lot of people who want to try this just for that alone. Everyone wants their 15 minutes.

This park does seem like it will be really neat when it opens. That one video says spring of 08...if that second video is recent, they still have a ways to go it seems! From the looks of it, I'm guessing the slides were done by ProSlide?

Along the lines of really awesome new things to put in slides such as the LED's are these 2 things. One uses a projector to place an image of whatever you want onto a waterscreen. It's actually really bright when you're looking at in from within the tube. I can see some people getting really freaked out by this. Only problem is these things are expensive! The other one is solar powered LED's that shines images onto the slide. They are neat, not as expensive but nowhere near as cool. Projector Lights

^^ Yea I agree the runout should be a lot longer I think. Considering the rider will be going about 40MPH at the bottom! From that picture it doesn't look long enough to slow someone down.

Apparently the looping slide is being tried again, this time at a park in Germany and is supposed to open later this year. It looks like a corkscrew/loop hybrid. From what I can gather, they have already tested it and right now the rider experiences 6G's going through the loop, however the company is going to change the loop so that the rider experiences 4-5G. Photo Credit Looping Slide

A lot of older water slides started out like that...Schlitterbahn has a few that are like that in one of the sections of their park. I'm not really totally sure why a lot of old slides did that, however I would venture to say that it might just be due to the fact that it uses less water that way, instead of a steady stream, you use only what you need to send the rider to the bottom. However that slide in the video looks pretty fun anyways. I was impressed with the ride time, it seemed to go on for a long time...something you don't see a lot these days.

Ok, I've seen these SlideWinders Advertised for years now in Industry Publications, and to me they don't seem all that exciting. Are they fun at all? I've never been on one, however parks keep building them...to me in a way its a cheaper substitute for a ProSlide Tornado.

Well for those of you who read CP's Blog at the very end of todays edition, there are some really neat photos of the park coved with snow. The last 2 pictures are of a construction barrel and the caption says: CP Blog Well there you have it...

I don't believe one of these was announced yet...The one is the video I'm pretty sure is at the Pro-Slide testing facility, where they try out all their latest ideas etc... Every person in the video that I saw, I know works for Pro-Slide. So I don't know that I'd get your hopes up.

Well I received my “Roller Coasters in the Raw,” just the other day, right before the holiday weekend, which was great because it gave me something to do this weekend. I must say this DVD set is awesome!! It covers pretty much all the new roller coasters that have been built around the world in the last 4 years or so. All the footage was amazing, and I was highly impressed with the quality of all the footage. Every ride is covered from multiple angles, with of course an incredible looking POV right in the middle of each segment. Without a doubt the best thing about this DVD set was the uncut footage of the rides. Before I started working in the industry about 5 years ago, I was able to travel and go see and ride all the latest and greatest creations. However now that I work in the industry 6 days a week, I haven’t been able to travel very much. This DVD set caught me up with the last 5 years in roller coaster innovation. I’ve read about them and seen pictures of them on-line, I have just yet to see videos of them, and this DVD did exactly that. This DVD set is a must have for any roller coaster fan! This DVD is the perfect holiday gift for any coaster lover. And for those of you worried about what your parents might think because of the cover…don’t worry there’s nothing offensive in it at all. For only $15, you get to travel around the world and ride all the latest creations in the roller coaster world. This DVD set is great and I hope TPR comes out with many many more of these!

This looks really cool...and 7 slides is more then I've seen coming off a structure like this is a while. Has there been any word of who's actually building this? It looks like a Whitewater Structure to me.

Anyone remember when MTV was talking about making a reality TV show based on the people who worked at Schliterbahn? It was supposed to be like Laguna Beach style or something I believe...Did they ever start filming it? I know they were supposed to be filming it this summer, but I don't know the project ever really got off the ground.

Yea a lot of those food closing procedures seem about right on par with what we do. Foods isn't my specific area, but i'm familiar with what they do. But I'm surprised to hear that the doors all aren't locked at night. But then I guess if someone's there 24 hours a day, it doesn't really make sense to lock them. But I guess thats whats different, we have the various "leads" as we call them, who basically supervise the general employees lock things up, then us managers go around and double check everything to make sure it's all locked up and secure for the night.

Ok so tonight at work as we were locking up the park, we were wondering how Disney goes about locking up its park at night? Like who checks all the doors to make sure they are locked? And do they know if a door isn't locked? Kinnda a random thing but we were all curious...

Ok so like I said yesterday I'm guessing this accident was due to rider error/not following rules. I don't think it was a good idea for this lady to post on a message board telling everyone that their wrong and this is all 6 Flags fault. I mean come on, on average like what probably something around 2000 probably ride that ride in one day. Just think of how many people ride before a serious accident occurs. If these rides weren't safe the park wouldn't be installing them. And secondly, I wanna touch on something in that ladys post...the fact that they waited 26 minutes to call 911. Believe me calling 911 is a very last resort in amusement park injuries. I can't speak for 6 Flags, but we have multiple EMT's on staff each and every day in the event of an injury, and if the injury is serious enough 911 is called. Most of the time the person who is injured is fine, its the family who want's 911 called immediately, when an all reality the same person looking at them at the park is the same person coming off the ambulance.

You know its funny, people always want to sue the park in situations like this. I would venture to say that about 95% of the injuries that we see at our park, have to do with riders not riding the ride properly. (holding handles, and sitting properly in the tube) And kids are usually the first person to break these rule despite instruction from the guards.

I don't get it, I highly doubt he was "Mishandled" by police. I mean if they went up to him and said "Sir can you come with us, we need to ask you a few questions?" Then questioned him, and he agreed everything would have been just fine. I'm guessing something like this guy refused to listen to the police so they escorted him out. And odds are he threw a fit about it, so they took him in. It's just crazy that he wants $10 million!!! I hope this guy gets nothing...