BGT Aug 12/13 What's up with Gwazi??
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My wife and I decided to take a few days and use our annual passes at BGT since we hadn't been in a while. Monday we were feeling a little under the weather and decided to hold off on the coasters. :-(
Monday we hit Rhino Rally for our first time and waited for about 30 minutes. It's a nice little ride, not overly thrilling, but the breakaway bridge section is unique (as far as I know). The thing that kept our ride from getting boring was our great driver! She really acted up the show aspect of it and even cried herself to tears when the bridge broke and we started drifting. So nice to find an employee who can pull off the attraction the way it's supposed to be!
The rest of the day we pretty much wandered around taking in the exhibits and shows. Still a joy to sit down in the AC and enjoy the ice skating show. Finished off with the Beer School (which, surprisingly we'd never done). Nice and informative (and extra free beer for those of us who enjoy it).
Tuesday was water rides from the start! Got on Congo River 3 times in 45 minutes! Now that we were soaked (we LOVE that ride), we rode the Stanley Falls Flume. The line for the soaker boat was a little long, so we skipped it and went to the Chinese Acrobat show. This is similar to the circus style show of tumbling and balancing they had before, but still just as good.
After lunch it was time for some coasters! Waited 15 minutes for a front seat on Montu and it's still our favorite inverted, as smooth as ever! Except for an idiot who lit up inside despite the NO SMOKING signs all around him, not a bad wait. Question: Do so many smokers really have to smoke in lines as short as this? I guess 15 minutes between smokes is WAY too long.
Over to Gwazi where I noticed an injustice! The coaster advertised as a "dueling and racing coaster" was not doing either. They were running both sides, but not together. As soon as they had the one side ready to go, they'd launch it whether the other side was almost ready or not. When we rode, our side launched even though I could tell that the other side would be ready in less than another minute. So each train was out on the track and you never even came close to the other one that left the station 45 second earlier. The real killer here was that there wasn't a line either! It's not like they were going for shortening the line, there wasn't one. A real travesty! Still a fun woodie though.
-Greg
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How long is the wait time from this point?
I have had the same experience on GWAZI during my last two visits (both this year). One train wait times with one train op on both sides and no dueling. The employees told me that racing would hurt capacity. They have the same exact loading system, so that is obviously not true. I also noticed that the ride has been slowly getting rougher since opening.
BTW, we need a new coaster in BGT. A Hypercoaster, Wild Mouse, and Drop Ride are on my wish list.
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Kind of hard to take a post as objective if a park or coaster name is part of the "user name"
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Steel - #1 Kumba, #2 Millie, #3 Mantis ||| Wood - #1 Thunderbolt, #2 Villain, #3 Gwazi
"The key to a happy life is moderation" -- Jon Stewart
SLFAKE said:
Gwasi is advertised as a "Dueling and racing Coaster?" Dueling, yes... but I never heard it advertised as "Racing" too. (to my knowledge, Hersheypark's Lightning Racer is the only wooden coaster to have that distinction).-----------------
Kind of hard to take a post as objective if a park or coaster name is part of the "user name"
I stand corrected, you are right. Maybe it's my desire to ride Lightning ;-) It is just a dueling coaster.
-Greg
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Especially considering we waited only 4 minutes for Tiger side and got a seat in the back of the front car. We could have waited for 2 trains and would have had front seat and this was 2 hours before closing.
-Greg
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How long is the wait time from this point?
I also remember reading something at one point about BGT not dueling the trains anymore.....does anybody know why they decided to do this? I heard the capacity line, but that just doesn't seem to make sense.
The Reason why BGT have stopped the Duelling on Gwazi is because the park received a lot of complaints about the loading procedures, Basiclly it was always painfully slow, and it was normally 5 mins between dispatches, the ride ops also did nothing to speed up the operations either as they would generally take their time checking all the restraints on the trains. On Top of that you were also stuck on the train waiting on the brake run for a good couple of mins as well which didnt help matters. So with the complaints coming in every day, BGT told the Ride Ops to stop the Duelling, and speed up operations.
I personally think its a shame it doesnt Duel anymore, thats the whole point of the coaster, and it certaintly makes it alot more fun(Nothing beats going down the drop and then seeing the other train coming down the other drop coming towards you, AMAZING) Personally I do think they have taken this rule too far, and should have thought about it a little bit more before banning it complety, I mean why cant they just stop the Duelling On Weekends when they know it will be busy, and just have the duelling on Weekdays when its really quiet, I think it could work???????
Good point PaulD. The last time I went to BGT, I was on the Tiger side and the Lion side got done loading seconds before us and instead of waiting they let it go. I was SO mad.
Anyway, what I'm wondering is, if the Ride Ops did nothing to speed up the loading times why didn't they just get new ride ops?? Granted, most of the time they try as hard as they can to make it quick but sometimes they crawl down the rows.
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Does this thing go faaaaaast!
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Bob Hansen
A proud CoasterBuzz Member
"So you think your'e really brave, gonna see the DEMONS cave.
You silly dude, your'e only food, for the DEMON"
LR has waits of 10 min? That is a LONG wait for LR. Most of the times I have ridden that coaster the lines are walk-ons to a 3 train wait for every seat except for front (and maybe back).
While I don't think Gwasi's dispatch time is as horrible as everyone says (I found Dueling Dragons to be very bad), LR certainly has the shortest dispatch time of any racing and/or dueling coasters out there. I don't know how they do it. Are the M-Flyer trains easier to load and unload? Or just more efficient crews?
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Kind of hard to take a post as objective if a park or coaster name is part of the "user name"
I'm pretty sure Gwazi does not have a varriable speed lift to ensure perfect dueling (like Dueling Dragins @ IOA). Therefore, the ops have to launch the trains at the EXACT same time for proper dueling effect. Even then, differences in weight of the trains will throw the duels at the end off.
On my last trip to BGT, they would duel the trains if you asked. However, if they were off by a second or two leaving the station, the dueling effect was totally lost.
Didn't know that about the variable speed lift of Gwasi (or lack there of). Like you said, DD has a variable speed lift, as does LR.
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Kind of hard to take a post as objective if a park or coaster name is part of the "user name"
Does LR have the same type of double safety (lap bar and seatbelt) that Gwazi has? If so, and the wait times are so short up there, maybe we need some decent ride ops down here! I used to work ride attractions at Disney for 6 years, so I get really upset when I see how lazy so many ops people are now.
-Greg
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How long is the wait time from this point?
*** This post was edited by Shady Z on 8/19/2002. ***
IIRC, LR doesn't need variable-speed lifts because both sides are controlled by ONE button....therefore the trains MUST depart at the same time....(pretty ingenious simplicity there, huh?)....Also, I think LR had two restraints but one "check-step" for both restraints....am I remembering correctly....I do KNOW the ops on LR were busting those trains in and out.....got 5 rides on LR that day, won 4 races....lost one on Thunder...LR rocks the house, an awesome racing/dueling, an a tribute to those good folks at GCI who build 'em right....now as to why BGT can't seem to run them right, or to take care of them like Hershey, that's a whole other can of worms......
edit: the ONLY flaw on LR was those super-soft springs that let the laps come down as far as possible at the first sign of positive g's....
bill, still can't believe the solution to horrible dispatch times is to stop the dueling, the ONE thing that really made Gwazi a stand-out ride....still good on the "good days", a little rough on the "bad days", but nothing like what it was.....MAINTENANCE.....
*** This post was edited by rollergator on 8/19/2002. ***
SLFAKE said:
LR has waits of 10 min? That is a LONG wait for LR. Most of the times I have ridden that coaster the lines are walk-ons to a 3 train wait for every seat except for front (and maybe back).
SLFAKE it was a 10 minute wait for me when I went on a Saturday in the middle of August the line was pretty long and it went by fast. I was surprised because I saw the line and I said we are going to be on for a while and I never stayed at 1 spot for 30 seconds because the line kept moving. And That has to be one of the best looking stations in America. lol
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