“Scary” means different things to different people, especially in the context of rollercoasters. We find what our hosts love and enjoy, and 100% do not enjoy, in a rollercoaster, and touch on some unfortunate theme park incidents. Trigger warning: death and accidents.
Trigger warning: Death and rollercoaster accidents are mentioned in this episode.
✍🏻 View the transcript for this episode
“Scary” means different things to different people, especially in the context of rollercoasters. We find what our hosts love and enjoy, and 100% do not enjoy, in a rollercoaster, and touch on some unfortunate theme park incidents.
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Toast & Roast:
Georgie:
Geoff:
Geoff 0:08
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Toast & Roast. I am your co host, Georgie and as usual, I’m here with Geoff.
Hello. So I kind of wanted to continue on what I did on the holiday. Because I mean, the last episode really didn’t dive too much into what we did in the holidays.
Georgie 0:28
How do you know it’s the last episode?
Geoff 0:29
I don’t know. It’s, it’s the is the last episode of all Toast & Roast. You fast forwarded to the end, everybody.
Georgie 0:37
Oh no.
Geoff 0:37
Congratulations. Watch the last episode.
Georgie 0:41
Actually what do you think will happen? What do you think will happen at the end of Toast & Roast?
Geoff 0:46
We’ll all shed a tear and walk out of the room and it’ll be all quiet. Just like every other end of every TV show.
Georgie 0:54
Sounds about right. Maybe.
Geoff 0:56
Yeah.
Georgie 0:56
Yeah.
Geoff 0:56
No, everyone will shed a tear. Everyone. Everyone.
Georgie 1:00
Including you.
Geoff 1:01
No, no, I don’t shed tears.
Georgie 1:03
Yeah you do, you shed big Geoff, Big Boy Geoff tears.
Geoff 1:09
Big boy tears. Okay, so speaking, you’re shedding tears. Right? So I actually went for a week in the Gold Coast before I went to Perth, which is wild. I honestly don’t recommend anyone doing two different holidays back to back.
Georgie 1:28
You mean, two diff—why was it two different holidays though?
Geoff 1:31
Because one is a holiday. And the other is a holiday with family. It’s very different.
Georgie 1:37
Okay, so that’s what you mean, yeah, it’s not like you’re you’re doing an Australia holiday. It was two different types of like...
Geoff 1:45
Yeah.
Georgie 1:46
Or whatever.
Geoff 1:47
Yeah, I guess I mean, two different countries is also kind of hectic. But it was basically two different countries. Anyways.
Georgie 1:56
Australia is secretly like, five different countries.
Geoff 1:59
Yeah. This is like the first time I’ve ever spent any real time in, in the Gold Coast. It’s always been like weekends, but this time, six fucking days. So I don’t know if anyone knows what to do for six days in the Gold Coast, but we—
Georgie 2:17
For people who don’t know what the Gold Coast is.
Geoff 2:19
Oh right.
Georgie 2:20
I would say it’s a kind of really beachy resorty sort of part.
Geoff 2:24
Oh yeah.
Georgie 2:24
Part of Queensland.
Geoff 2:26
It has all the good theme parks of Syd—of Australia not just Sydney—Australia. So all Australian theme parks are in Gold Coast.
Georgie 2:34
And we don’t have a lot. Like just generally speaking.
Geoff 2:38
Yeah. I think there’s one in every city? Perth has Adventure World. Sydney has Luna Park also has a Wet and Wild but don’t go there. I don’t know what Melbourne has to be honest.
Georgie 2:52
They have a Luna Park. And it has like the oldest sort of like manual roller coaster or something. I think.
Geoff 2:58
Why would you ever go on the oldest manual rollercoaster?
Georgie 3:02
Because it’s like a historic thing. I don’t know. Yeah, that’s...
Geoff 3:07
Anyways.
Georgie 3:07
Yeah.
Geoff 3:08
And I don’t know what Brisbane has, but I’m sure they have something. Well, actually, no. Gold Coast is in Queensland, which is next to Brisbane. So I guess Brisbane has Gold Coast. So yeah, anyways, so for six days, right so we decided that we were going to try and do like a theme park and then a hotel day because we were staying at a resort, and then a theme park and then a hotel day, and then theme park and hotel day.
Georgie 3:38
Are you serious? Okay alright.
Geoff 3:40
There’s nothing else to do in the Gold Coast, we don’t like beaches.
Georgie 3:43
But I mean, okay, I don’t love beaches either.
Geoff 3:47
Yeah.
Georgie 3:47
Like yeah.
Geoff 3:49
Anyways, except we caught COVID Like the week before going to the Gold Coast.
Georgie 3:55
Oh, poo.
Geoff 3:58
And then we were like, right so—
Georgie 4:00
Every day’s a hotel day!
Geoff 4:04
Wait, what was it, I feel like we were a day behind on something. Oh yeah, we shifted our flights a day ahead. Because Because we wanted an extra day to recover and so we recovered and then we got on there so we were a day down, we’re at five days so we’re just like alright, alright, crush the crush the hotel days we’re going for the—
Georgie 4:28
Oh shit, okay.
Geoff 4:29
Because the theme parks were paid for, like like you do a three, you do a three and park entry over five days or something like that. So we had to go to the theme parks because it was all paid for. Anyways, so we hit the theme parks, we do like theme parks back to back, pretty much back to back. Which one do we do first? We did SeaWorld first, which we’re going to get into, I just got this article from my partner. Did SeaWorld first and then we did a, was it, Wet and Wild. By the way, for people who don’t know, SeaWorld is more about the animals. So there are polar bears the plug in—plugins?—penguins, sorry, working too hard. Penguins, and like dolphin shares and stuff like that. So it’s all about going and seeing like the animals of the sea do their thing. Now, I realised recently that they also have rides, they have some rollercoasters, and some other thrill rides. Then Wet and Wild is fully water slides, all water slides all day. And Movie World is more about like movies. So mainly Warner Brothers stuff there. So Batman, Joker, stuff like that. What else was there? Right?
Georgie 5:52
Is that Superman ride still there?
Geoff 5:54
Superman, right?
Georgie 5:54
Should be.
Geoff 5:54
Yes.
Georgie 5:54
Yeah.
Geoff 5:55
Yeah. Superman.
Georgie 5:56
Green Lantern?
Geoff 5:57
Green Lantern. Worst ride, by the way, if anyone goes there to—
Georgie 6:00
Oh, really? Okay. Because I wanted to go on it. And I didn’t.
Geoff 6:03
Yeah.
Georgie 6:04
Because I was a bit too chicken.
Geoff 6:06
Yeah, I mean, it’s worse because it’s not as exciting as the other ride. So if you’re too chicken to go on Green Lantern, then everything else might be a little too high.
Georgie 6:14
(laughs) We can talk about it shortly.
Geoff 6:17
Yeah. Anyways, so this article, we went on this ride called the Leviathan at SeaWorld, and I kid you not. It was made of exposed wooden beams. Like—
Georgie 6:31
OK but—yeah, because Nick is a roller coaster like sort of enthusiast. He loves understanding the mechanics. And—
Geoff 6:38
Yeah.
Georgie 6:38
Like—
Geoff 6:39
That would be interesting wouldn’t it?
Georgie 6:41
Yeah, but I think there are some that are totally safe.
Geoff 6:45
Yeah.
Georgie 6:46
But they need to have more maintenance. Yada, yada.
Geoff 6:49
Exactly. So we’re walking through—well actually, let’s let’s rewind a little bit to the travesty that is theme parks. I don’t know if this is all theme parks.
Georgie 6:58
The travesty that is Dreamworld everybody. Scarred.
Geoff 7:01
Yeah. So we get there when the park opens at nine. But actually, the park doesn’t technically open until 9:30. You see they have half an hour just letting people into the pot before actually letting anybody on the rides.
Georgie 7:14
Scam.
Geoff 7:15
Absolute scam, right. So we get there, and they’re like, sorry, we like, we want to go on the Leviathan. It’s the new hotness. But they’re like sorry, the Leviathan is not going to open till 9:30. So we like walk around a little bit and we come back, we line up, 9:30. I kid you not, they had to do checks for the next one and a half hours, we’d lined up for two hours.
Georgie 7:40
Nope, I’m done.
Geoff 7:42
Before they even let you start writing it. Now, this got us kind of nervous already. We’re like, why does this right need two, like one and a half hours of like safety checks. And then we realised that like they had really nice outside and then like the line was really nicely designed. But you look the ride itself. All exposed wooden beams, I’m like, are they going for the rustic look? All the bolts, you can see everything bolted together.
Georgie 8:11
So this is this is not like anything like Big Thunder Mountain kind of you know, stylistic, this is like, legit looks old.
Geoff 8:18
Yeah, the thing is, is not stylistic because it’s a ride about a mythical underwater beast. And I don’t think everything should be wooden or at least exposed beams. You sit in the car, you sit in the ride itself and you look in front of you and you’re like, holy crap. This was like looks like it was just put together. So we ride it and yeah, it was pretty good.
Georgie 8:47
Was it worth two hours of waiting?
Geoff 8:48
I don’t know, probably not. But it was it was pretty good. I don’t know I haven’t been to Six Flags or anything. So this is as good as it gets.
Georgie 8:58
Me neither.
Geoff 8:59
The ride, the newest ride that’s broken a lot of records in the southern hemisphere or whatever is in Movie World, called like, DC heroes or something like that. I think that one was maybe slightly better than this one. Anyway, so this article is: passengers trapped mid ride on SeaWorld’s Leviathan.
Georgie 9:22
I can’t, I can’t.
Geoff 9:24
This is a nightmare for anybody who goes on rollercoasters.
Georgie 9:29
By the way before you dive in this article.
Geoff 9:31
Yeah.
Georgie 9:32
Full disclosure. I am generally not a fan of roller coasters. There are some that I like. But when you—
Geoff 9:40
Which one?
Georgie 9:41
Big Thunder Mountain?
Geoff 9:44
Big...
Georgie 9:46
Expedition Everest, which I think is it, which is somewhere in Disney, Disney World.
Geoff 9:52
Oh, I think I’ve been on this.
Georgie 9:56
There’s like the...
Geoff 9:56
Yeah, I’ve been on Big Thunder Mountain. It’s pretty fun.
Georgie 9:59
There’s also like The Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs mine one, in, I don’t know, can’t remember which one it was.
Geoff 10:06
Space Mountain, did you go on Space Mountain?
Georgie 10:08
Oh my god, I have a fucking nightmare story about (laughs) can I, can I talk about it before you talk about Leviathan shit?
Geoff 10:15
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Georgie 10:16
Okay, I’ve been on one Space Mountain and that was the one in Disneyland Paris.
Geoff 10:22
Okay.
Georgie 10:24
I was in fucking tears when I got off the ride.
Geoff 10:28
Hmm. Yeah.
Georgie 10:30
So, so the one and the one in Paris is quite different from Space Mountain and other Disneyland’s?
Geoff 10:36
Oh really?
Georgie 10:37
Actually I think I might have been to one of the other ones and it was completely different, um, but the teah, the one in Paris is I would say like more like a legit roller coaster it’s fast paced. It goes upside down like apparently like three times but this is how traumatising it was for me: I did not know which way was up. It was so dark in there, like I know that some rays are dark, I get it. I’ve been on some, but like I almost couldn’t see shit. And I don’t think the ride was like faulty or anything like that. I think it was just quite dark, which I really didn’t like, it made me really uncomfortable. It moved really fast. So I didn’t know which way was up, we went upside down a few times. I remember like screaming at the top of my lungs because I couldn’t stand it at this point at which it rolled back and I didn’t even know it was gonna roll back, because you know when you’re on a roller coaster and you if you see the track you can figure out where the fuck it’s going.
Geoff 11:31
Yeah.
Georgie 11:31
And you can sort of like prepare your body, of course some people who are like, completely like completely like roller coaster phobic will probably never get over it.
Geoff 11:40
(laughs) Watching a video of the Space Mountain in Disneyland Paris, it is just pitch black.
Georgie 11:45
Yeah. (laughs) So I really did not enjoy it. And I said to Nick, like after we got off, and after I stopped fucking bawling my eyes out. I said if there was an emergency stop button on that ride, I, like, hands down, I would have fucking pressed it. Like I fucking hated that ride so much I could not wait to get out. It’s not like I thought I was gonna die or anything, but I really was not enjoying it. And I was getting so stressed and I was like feeling rather shaken about it. And you know when they take the photos of you?
Geoff 12:13
Hahaha, yeah.
Georgie 12:13
They take the fucking photos, yeah, no, dude. Like, he took a fucking photo of me on the screen and I looked like—(snorts)—I look like a fucking demon. And still lol at it, but I’m like, dude, did not enjoy that ride at all.
Geoff 12:27
Yeah, I mean, like half the fun of a roller coaster is like kind of seeing where you’re going. And this is basically like as if you just closed your eyes and like, and was on a rocky rocky chair some sort of like, just closed your eyes, like what was the point. But I remember Space Mountain in other places kind of being similar. There is a water slide ride in, in Wet and Wild which is like this. You just basically go down a pitch black tube and you don’t know which direction you’re going to slide.
Georgie 13:00
No, oh my god.
Geoff 13:02
I think that’s half the fun. But but it’s not as like—
Georgie 13:08
Intense?
Geoff 13:08
Intense, because you’re not going upside down and twisting and stuff. You’re just going left right, left right down left right.
Georgie 13:15
I think I may have been on that one.
Geoff 13:18
Yeah.
Georgie 13:18
Yeah. I think it might—
Geoff 13:20
It’s not as bad. Anyway, so you got off this ride, bawlin’, you went, did you go to another ride?
Georgie 13:28
Yeah, eventually I recovered and we went on some fucking tame-aas rides. But yeah, like I’ve been on the Superman one in the Gold Coast.
Geoff 13:36
Yeah.
Georgie 13:36
I do like the Expedition Everest one, it’s in one of the Disney Disney World parks. I haven’t been yeah, I haven’t been to Six Flags or anything like like that because yeah, not really rollercoasters not really my thing.
Geoff 13:50
The, wait you just mentioned it and I completely—
Georgie 13:54
Oh I know, I thought of a good one. Have you have you done the, have you been to, man, what’s it called? What’s the Disney, oh the Tokyo, Disney Sea, Tokyo Disney Sea?
Geoff 14:03
No, I didn’t go Sea.
Georgie 14:04
No oh my god it has the, I wouldn’t say it’s the best fucking ride but I went on it four times. So make of that what you will, there is a ride called Journey to the Center of the Earth and sort of tells this story you’re going in this mine and then like you see all these like things in the centre of the earth and then you get launched from the centre of the earth. But it’s so cool how it just goes down and then like at the end you get launched up and then you go up and you, your you exit the sort of ride building for a moment and you can see the park and then you come back down a little bit and the ride ends.
Geoff 14:34
Yeah.
Georgie 14:35
But yeah, well, that’s probably make probably my favorite ride of all time. I don’t know, it, I enjoyed it like and that’s what I feel like I want to get out of like a ride is, it’s somewhat thrilling, it’s somewhat fast, but you know, I enjoy it.
Geoff 14:49
Yeah, yeah, the the Disney ones, they were pretty good. I remember I pretty much just remember Space Mountain to be honest. I haven’t been in so long. What was the last ride. Yeah, I remember I was trying to remember something you were, you were talking about. But nevermind, it’s like, we move on. So you’re not a fan. Oh, right. So the Superman ride. That’s what I was thinking of. I went on not realising what was going to happen which was great—
Georgie 15:20
Did you empty your pockets?
Geoff 15:21
You go, you go in without any kind of like, explain, explainer or spoiler, is pretty good. I always empty my pockets. And the other one was Aqualoop is also something that I didn’t know what I was signing up for, even though you can actually see it. So in Wet and Wild there is a ride that basically has, it starts off with four vertical vertical tubes. And people are placed in each one of these tubes to start. And you’re basically, the floor drops from beneath you and you slide straight down into the tube. So you’re literally falling for the first like—
Georgie 16:04
So you literally just standing?
Geoff 16:06
You’re standing on a platform in a tube.
Georgie 16:08
You, do you know that this friggin happens?
Geoff 16:10
I mean, the thing is you watch other people are in front of you, like, drop, right?
Georgie 16:15
OK.
Geoff 16:15
But anyways, I don’t know how fast it is. But it’s literally like gravity fast. Obvious, like if you jumped—
Georgie 16:22
You’re dropping.
Geoff 16:22
You’re dropping, you’re just using gravity. So if you jumped off a cliff, it would be exactly the same, like, kind of like feeling. But this is the floor dropping from you. You’re like standing and all of a sudden you’re not standing and then you just slide straight down. You slide—
Georgie 16:38
So it’s like being in an elevator and the elevator drops—
Geoff 16:42
The elevator. Just Oh, yeah, I remember that, that was a ride.
Georgie 16:47
Tower of Terror?
Geoff 16:47
Tower of Terror. Yeah.
Georgie 16:48
Yeah, yeah.
Geoff 16:48
The elevator? Yeah. Yeah.
Georgie 16:49
That was a pretty cool ride.
Geoff 16:51
Yeah.
Georgie 16:52
Because I liked the ones that also tell a like pretty cool story as you’re like moving along as well.
Geoff 16:57
Yeah. Went on the Scooby Doo ride which was kind of like, horrifying.
Georgie 17:03
Wait is that the one in Movie World? Well, the one that’s—
Geoff 17:06
Yeah.
Georgie 17:06
Like a mouse trap, right.
Geoff 17:07
Kind of like that. Exactly.
Georgie 17:08
Why was it horrifying?
Geoff 17:09
It’s horrifying for a different reason. It’s just like hard on your sides. Because the bends are really, really sharp.
Georgie 17:14
Yeah because it’s a mouse trap. Yeah.
Geoff 17:16
Yeah.
Georgie 17:16
I remember liking it when I was a kid, and then I went on it as an adult. And for some reason, not all the lights were working. Because I was I don’t know, maybe because I’m a heavier adult. I felt it more rath—compared to when I was a kid. I was just like, yeah!
Geoff 17:28
When you’re when you’re a kid, your sides aren’t like pressed up against like the side, against the ride. You’re actually got like a full 15 centimeters on each side of you to slide around. And that’s fun. But no one you’re an adult because you’re sitting next to another adult. You’re like, I don’t get to—
Georgie 17:44
Whiplash.
Geoff 17:45
You just blam! And you’re just like, side goes straight into the side of the car, and then, right turn, bam. Maybe that’s why it’s a kids ride? Like, it’s like there’s not enough space—
Georgie 17:56
I was in my mid twenties when I went on it again.
Geoff 18:01
So yeah, “passengers trapped mid ride on SeaWorld’s Leviathan”. Oh my god. So “SeaWorld guests have had their thrill seeking cut short after one of its roller coasters came to a halt mid ride on Friday. The park’s new roller coaster was affected with passengers forced to sit on the ride while waiting to be evacuated. They were handed umbrellas to keep the sun off them from a 28 degree day”. How long were they up there?
Georgie 18:28
Celsius by the way, folks.
Geoff 18:30
Celsius, yes.
Georgie 18:33
82 Fahrenheit so not massively hot but still quite warm.
Geoff 18:37
It was $50 million Atlantic precinct? Oh, there’s other rides that are kind of like Atlantis themed. So oh, it goes 80 kilometers an hour which is not too bad. The ride issue comes on the same day that the funeral for SeaWorld helicopter pilot—oh, yeah. Those that helicopter crash?
Georgie 19:00
Oh.
Geoff 19:02
Yeah.
Georgie 19:03
Yeah. I remember seeing on the news.
Geoff 19:04
They, they, yeah, it had somehow, a helicopter clipped this helicopter and they they both went down?
Georgie 19:11
Yeah.
Geoff 19:13
Collided at the theme park on January 2. “He was one of four people including British newlyweds and... someone who died when the helicopter crashed into the sandbank below”. So they didn’t tell you how long they were stuck up there. But—
Georgie 19:28
Well this is the beauty of news, everyone. You don’t get the full picture.
Geoff 19:31
The Leviathan ride is Australia’s first wooden roller coaster built in 35 years. So it was done on absolute purpose. I don’t deny that. But did it have to be wooden?
Georgie 19:40
OK?
Geoff 19:41
Maybe not.
Georgie 19:42
My guess is that because you know, they re-theme roller coasters sometimes?
Geoff 19:46
Yeah.
Georgie 19:47
Maybe they wanted to do it that way. Although maybe there’s also I mean, I can ask Nick but like, I feel like he wouldn’t know why. Maybe there’s a technical reason why they decided to make this new one out of wood. Maybe?
Geoff 19:57
Yeah, I mean, it’s an Atlantis theme so I suppose an underworld, underwater.
Georgie 20:03
But I don’t think it’s like about the theme. I think it’s more like, yeah, like a technical technical decision like the materials. Maybe.
Geoff 20:12
Is Nick there? Can we get him on the podcast as like a quick...?
Georgie 20:17
No, not right now. I mean, he’s here but he’s probably doing something else.
Geoff 20:21
It’s alright. Impromptu guests are really difficult. The, so the funny thing with this was that I was like complaining about the fact that it was Atlantis themed to begin with. Because how, if you can recall the beginning of this episode, a whole 21 minutes ago, I was explaining the the theme or like the purpose of SeaWorld being to showcase sea life. But Leviathan isn’t real. And neither is Atlantis. So it’s a completely fictional world being built inside a theme park, which is supposedly based on real sea life.
Georgie 21:05
I guess that is a little bit strange.
Geoff 21:08
Yeah. But I mean, I get why they needed to do this because they needed hype. Like, SeaWorld is not an exciting place if you like, just go there. Yeah, it’s sort of like there’s some kid ride, Nickelodeon stuff, that’s, and the sea life shows. And that’s like it. There’s no pizzazz to it, I suppose.
Georgie 21:32
Yeah, I went there once and I don’t even think there were like, any rides there at the time?
Geoff 21:38
Yeah. You just go there to see dolphins dance, which is cool. You get to see a—
Georgie 21:42
Seals.
Geoff 21:43
Stunt show, seals, that that was pretty fun. But normally people go to theme parks for rides, and don’t got a ride, people don’t want to go to your theme park. Oh, actually, it says 80 kilometres an hour. Let’s see what the... Movie World, what’s it called?
Georgie 22:09
Talking about the Superman ride?
Geoff 22:10
DC heroes. Ride... I think.
Georgie 22:14
We gotta talk about that Dream World shit as well.
Geoff 22:16
Oh, yeah. Yeah. What happened in Dream World?
Georgie 22:19
The fucking—you know, the one the ride flipped and people died?
Geoff 22:24
No.
Georgie 22:25
Woah, you don’t know about this? Literally just type “Dream World” uh, I don’t know...
Geoff 22:30
Death.
Georgie 22:33
Oh no...! Oh no.
Geoff 22:34
“A pump malfunctioning caused water levels to drop—”
Georgie 22:36
No no, you gotta start from the beginning.
Geoff 22:38
Okay.
Georgie 22:39
So—
Geoff 22:40
I know—
Georgie 22:40
The ride that’s like a water, water thing like big, big boat, kind of things that seat like however many people, four to eight people. I’m pretty sure. I think they’re quite common in the US as well. So I think people would be familiar with them. But there’s, you’re floating around in parts that are like water. And then there’s I think a part on the Dream World ride, which by the way, I think is gone now because of this accident, this incident. And there’s like a conveyor belt, but it’s like a one of those rickety, old kind of things and you move up and then you get put into like water or whatever. But the way that these boats are, I think someone noticed there’s a problem when they all started bunching together at the end of the ride in that, like when, depending on the weight inside, that one of them can be like, pushed up by the edge of another one. And I think that’s kind of what happened in the accident is that there was a little bit of pileup, and I think there might have been one that was empty, and some that actually had people in them, and one of them, the edge of one of these big boat—I don’t know what you call them, gondolas or whatever—flipped. Flipped one of them over, including—
Geoff 23:53
Shit.
Georgie 23:53
Yeah, Thunder River Rapids ride. And, in, with the people in it, and there is no way—just gonna cut to the like, what happened—there is no way that these people could have survived because they were thrown onto the machinery and—
Geoff 24:11
Oh shit.
Georgie 24:11
Trigger warning about like, this is quite graphic, but they people said that they were shredded to death.
Geoff 24:17
Yeah, shit. So see, I pulled up a picture, right. It’s it’s like a big tyre, I guess like a huge tyre. Everyone’s sitting in the middle of it. And you get a little circular, like a little rail in the middle and everyone’s holding on to it. So everyone’s kind of like floating down these rapids. And then, looking at some pictures of the water gone. You can see how they achieved the rapids. And let’s get into the thing here. So “the owner of Australia’s Dream World theme park has pleaded guilty to safety violations on a ride that malfunction and killed four people in 2016”. I won’t go into it and anything else other than that. “Four adults and two children were aboard a raft”. Oh, it’s called a raft. That’s what it’s called. “Thunder Rapids Ride was simulated the experience of whitewater rafting. Towards the end of the ride a pump malfunction”—as you said—“caused water levels to drop. This led the occupied raft colliding with an empty one that had drifted loose of its moorings. The raft with the passengers flipped fatally injuring adults, the children survived”.
Georgie 25:29
I just wanted to add like, I think these two kids were essentially orphaned because their parents were killed on this ride.
Geoff 25:36
That’s probably why he had to plead guilty. So “He found Dream World had not properly assessed the ride’s safety risk in 30 years and it was only a matter of time before an accident occurred. The coroner recommended that the Queensland Government pursue charges” against this guy, introduced industrial manslaughter laws. So yeah, basically it flipped upside down and according to this photo, the rapids were achieved by logs and like, like metal metal pit, like what do you, what would you call them like crowbars connected to this log and I’m not even sure like how they generate rapids but I’m guessing they’re moving and I’m guessing that as soon as you hit one of those you’re pretty much a goner.
Georgie 26:29
No, I think it was on the, I think it was not on the actual water part, but on like I think it was like on the end.
Geoff 26:38
Oh.
Georgie 26:38
Like where, they were they start moving them back in like I think there was a conveyor belt thing.
Geoff 26:42
Oh, right. Like right you were saying like there was a conveyor—
Georgie 26:46
Yeah conveyor, there it is.
Geoff 26:49
Oh, here we go. Conveyor. Yeah. Conveyor.
Georgie 26:54
“Down the conveyor collided with the first stranded raft. Both rafts pivoted upwards driven by movement of the conveyor before the first raft fell back to a level position resting on support rails. The second raft was further moved by the conveyor into a vertical position subsequently caused passengers to either fall out of the raft or become trapped in close proximity to the conveyor mechanism, leading to fatal injuries”.
Geoff 27:16
Yeah, being trapped in a conveyor belt is probably not a good idea.
Georgie 27:19
Not a good way to fucking die.
Geoff 27:22
Yeah, I mean, what is a good way to die? Sleep?
Georgie 27:26
Sleep? I don’t want to talk about death?
Geoff 27:29
That is the missing episode, we have to re...
Georgie 27:32
Oh, we didn’t really talk about how...
Geoff 27:35
Oh yeah.
Georgie 27:35
...one dies. I think we just talked about just—
Geoff 27:38
It’s...
Georgie 27:39
I don’t even remember.
Geoff 27:40
Not even meant to be talked about. We will not talk about that episode. One other thing was Wet and Wild had a had a ride malfunction as well.
Georgie 27:51
Because there’s one, there’s one in Sydney and you’re saying there’s one, there’s one in the Gold Coast as well.
Geoff 27:56
Yeah.
Georgie 27:57
Oh my god, can I read that review? Can we please, please I love reading shit reviews.
Geoff 28:02
“River Rapids”—
Georgie 28:02
Two out of five stars.
Geoff 28:02
“...was disgusting. River Rapids was disgusting. I went with my wife and three kids. We started the day with great fun on rides suited to young children. We eventually got to the River Rapids Ride and apart from the usual long queue, once we got to shelter cabin at the top of the hill, it was a putrid smell that was absolutely disgusting. Which I can only guess was a combination of body odour, sunscreen and chlorine. What made it worse was that my wife was waiting with two of our kids with two of our kids in different queue and someone had urinated in a certain area. There were air fresheners, but they were not working so obviously, they already knew about the problems for a while. Solution is simple, adequate ventilation and some high pressure cleaning. This is displeasing to us, all to all of us, made us want to go down the ride as soon as possible to just get away from it. The rest of the park we experienced was fine and fun. Just don’t bother with River Rapids. Since we wrote the letter of complaint to management they said they were aware of the issue working to resolve it”. 2011.
Georgie 28:02
And they still killed two people—killed four people five years later. They were not working on it.
Geoff 28:42
Wait, River Rapids was—this is—
Georgie 28:45
That’s the one I think? Is, oh wait, hang on.
Geoff 29:16
Different, different.
Georgie 29:17
Different River Rapids? No that’s Thunder.
Geoff 29:19
Thunder River Rapids. I can understand that the mistake, yeah, Thunder River Rapids is in Dream World, River Rapids is in Wet and Wild.
Georgie 29:28
Still sounds disgusting. According to this review.
Geoff 29:30
Yeah. So just go deaths, Wet and Wild deaths. Oh, they also had a fo—wait.
Georgie 29:42
No that’s the same. Yeah. Oh, I did see that—I don’t, I don’t want to, I don’t want to open that one. I feel like it’s—
Geoff 29:48
Oh, bleeding.
Georgie 29:49
Yeah.
Geoff 29:51
Anyways, hey, look, there’s a whole Wikipedia list of incidents in independent amusement parks. Anyways.
Georgie 29:56
As if you didn’t know that.
Geoff 29:58
Yeah, people don’t know the risk of going to theme parks? So in Wet and Wild, they have this massive like, think of it like a funnel like a really long cone, a big cone. And basically at the wide end of the cone, they, they, they, they throw you in on a on a four person raft.
Georgie 30:17
This already sounds horrific Geoff.
Geoff 30:19
Right first—
Georgie 30:19
Sounds horrific.
Geoff 30:20
So you’re sliding basically side and side side to side in this cone and you kind of like leave the, leave the cone at the end, like through the hole at the cone.
Georgie 30:29
That’s a no from me.
Geoff 30:30
Right? You don’t go upside down or anything you just slide from from one side of the cone to the other side of the cone on the inside. Now, you can probably already guess what the incident was. Someone’s slid—
Georgie 30:42
Oh my god.
Geoff 30:43
...a little too far up the cone and ended up falling. Like upside down. Like it’s like a skateboard halfpipe and you just went up the halfpipe. And then you just fell face down.
Georgie 30:57
No, no, no, that’s so bad.
Geoff 30:59
Yeah, so I’m pretty sure that was the incident. And I was like, oh gosh, do I really want to go on the ride?
Georgie 31:09
So you knew about this before going.
Geoff 31:11
I did know about it before going on the ride. But I still went on it.
Georgie 31:14
Okay, yeah.
Geoff 31:15
Oh, here we go. Have people died on the giant drop. Is it the giant drop? No, that’s the freestanding drop tower. Now I’m wondering if like there’s any truth to that story, because I remember I read it somewhere but it seems like it’s not like coming up as—
Georgie 31:29
This episode got dark real quick.
Geoff 31:33
Oh, yeah. Tornado. Here you go Wet and Wild tornado incidents? Yeah, okay. Super crazy. Take storm. Oh, I guess? I guess. Maybe that wasn’t true. Maybe it was just like a minor injury and no one like, no one wrote an article about it. But hey, that’s a possibility. Yep, just beware.
Georgie 32:04
For people who are like, death-ass terrified of this shit. Every time I have this conversation with Nick, he says to me, but like, if you think about it, at least for roller coasters, I don’t know about water stuff. But at least for roller coasters. It’s like they, they’ve tested this, like you see them, the way that they build these things. They’re actually designed to like keep you safe. So he’s trying to make me feel better about me freaking out, like freaking out about falling out and stuff and—
Geoff 32:34
Yeah.
Georgie 32:35
If you if you look at incidents and why they happened some of them were because they weren’t checked they weren’t tested or that kind of thing. But obviously before they open a ride at a theme park they would go through a lot of testing unless it was a super dodgy place.
Geoff 32:52
Yeah.
Georgie 32:53
So you can almost assume that most of the time they will have testing and they test with crash dummies and things like that. And then the incidents are rare, because I mean it could be for example like a human error I think is what a lot of them come down to is someone didn’t put the belt on properly, or they chose to not—take it off or whatever or they had their bag with them or, I don’t know, so.
Geoff 33:19
Yeah.
Georgie 33:20
Yeah, worth keeping in mind.
Geoff 33:23
Yeah human error can happen random, but yes, they are designed to be safe. I, the DC heroes or whatever ride that was pretty big, DC Rivals, let me just pull this up. So the DC Rivals one is absolutely pretty mad. It is apparently the tallest, the tallest, longest and fastest hyper coaster in the southern hemisphere. 1.4 kilometre track, 89 degree drops. And of course you go upside down a fair few times.
Georgie 34:02
No thanks.
Geoff 34:04
To be honest, like it was pretty good. I was pretty good with it up until the point where it start like, it actually the most mellow, technically mellow apart. And, at the end of the ride, it actually goes up down up, down up—
Georgie 34:21
And you’re not okay with that?
Geoff 34:22
But that one, that one was a little bit like sickening, right.
Georgie 34:28
But wasn’t very vertical was it?
Geoff 34:30
No it wasn’t vertical or anything it was just like a gentle, gentle like—
Georgie 34:30
It was enough to have your stomach drop at every—
Geoff 34:37
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Georgie 34:39
Yeah.
Geoff 34:39
My stomach—
Georgie 34:39
And to have a few of those in succession was like “oh god”.
Geoff 34:42
Yeah, that was pretty sickening. You can check me on fast paced upside down spinny and then around the corner, 90 degree, 89 degree turns, whatever. Drop me from the highest point. That’s fine, but if you like simulate, like ocean-like (laughs)
Georgie 34:56
(laughs)
Geoff 34:59
Sea sickness kind of sets in and I—
Georgie 35:01
I know, I now know what your least favourite ride is. Do you know what it is?
Geoff 35:05
What is it?
Georgie 35:07
Spinning teacups?
Geoff 35:08
Oh spinning, so spinning teacups is kind of okay, because I’m spinning horizontally. Like you can spin me as much as as much as you want. But like up and down, like, I think we just—no, no. It’s like simulating boats, essentially. And then we went to Perth, and we actually rode a boat over to Rottnest Island. And I was just like—
Georgie 35:29
Nice.
Geoff 35:31
Eh, that wasn’t too good. And then I went on a jet boat. That was fun. That was kind of like a rollercoaster.
Georgie 35:36
Yeah.
Geoff 35:37
Yeah.
Georgie 35:38
So there was this ferris wheel ride? Where was it? I forget what it’s called. I think it’s called Pixar... Somewhere in the US. It’s a Ferris wheel where part, some of the gondolas and the wheel like swing,
Geoff 35:51
Yeah.
Georgie 35:52
Pixar... what is it? Roller coaster? Pixar Pier? Is that what it’s called?
Geoff 36:00
Oh I think I’ve heard of Pixar Pier.
Georgie 36:02
I think it’s now called something else, not roller coaster, the ferris wheel, ferris wheel.
Geoff 36:12
Sweet.
Georgie 36:13
Pixar Pier ferris wheel. So if you look at a picture of the—
Geoff 36:16
Oh my god, so they have like—
Georgie 36:19
So it’s a normal ferris wheel, as in some of the gondolas move as a normal ferris wheel would. But some of them are like loose on rails. And so as you’re moving around just the small movement of this rotating ferrid wheel, then some of those gondolas move, like, from left to right but—
Geoff 36:39
Maybe.
Georgie 36:39
But they’re not just moving left to right, because they’re hanging by a point. The whole gondola is like, also swinging, like a giant swing. I thought it was so fun. And Nick was like shitting himself, he was like, I can’t. I thought it was fun, I can see how some people would actually find this kind of terrifying. I think the point, which I didn’t like, because Nick is basically twice my size, because I’m very small and short, is at a certain point, while it was swinging, it would feel like I was about to fall backwards. Because—
Geoff 37:13
Yeah.
Georgie 37:13
Or like fall forwards because he weighs more than me. So swing in a very particular way. It’s still, for a ferris wheel, rather thrilling.
Geoff 37:22
It’s funny because like all the rides at at like Wet and Wild, whenever there’s two or more people like the like the heaviest person has to sit at the back, and the lightest person sits at the front. And we, I had to sit at the back despite, like my partner wanting to sit behind like to let me go first. So I’m like oh, sorry, I have to actually sit at the back because I’m, I’m heavier. But yeah, actually funny thing is the Aqualoop, which I’ll bring up a picture of it here. Because it’s been around for a while. Aqualoop images... water slide. Yeah. So bring up a photo. This is what looks like inside, where you just have a platform there. And the platform just like—
Georgie 38:09
Holy crap.
Geoff 38:11
Drops beneath you.
Georgie 38:12
That is kind of terrifying.
Geoff 38:14
Yeah. So you can see this. Oh, yeah, we can watch it. This is a little video here. Someone’s sitting in there, and then they just fall straight in. And then down. And then—
Georgie 38:23
No. Oh, my God, I think this would like actually freak me out.
Geoff 38:27
Yeah. See it in here, right here. Boom. It is quite scary.
Georgie 38:37
I think it’s just the drop.
Geoff 38:39
It’s just the drop.
Georgie 38:41
But I don’t like those in rides.
Geoff 38:44
So the funny thing was that there was a weight limit. There was a weight minimum for this of 45 kilos and above. I’m—
Georgie 38:52
Geoff!
Geoff 38:53
I made it on.
Georgie 38:54
Are you 44? Oh.
Geoff 38:55
I made it on. But my partner didn’t.
Georgie 38:58
Aww.
Geoff 38:59
But the thing is, I’ve been on this ride before I’ve been on it maybe eight or so years ago, and I was perfectly fine. The if you have a look at the image of the ride itself, you can see that the loop is a big ass loop. So you drop and then the velocity that you’re dropping is supposed to help you go around the loop. Now there’s a lot of like, you can see little stairs and stuff next to here. This is where people slow down and get trapped in there. Right because they couldn’t make it.
Georgie 39:26
It’s possible to not be able to go around the loop.
Geoff 39:28
Yeah, yeah.
Georgie 39:28
Maybe not heavy enough or something.
Geoff 39:30
I saw a kid, like put his hands out immediately when he got dropped. And then he didn’t make it around the loop. So they just—
Georgie 39:37
What!
Geoff 39:37
There’s an escape hatch. You just go out. Because he slowed himself down, essentially.
Georgie 39:41
Oh, because he just slid his hands down.
Geoff 39:43
Yeah.
Georgie 39:44
You wanna, is that why that person in the video was just hugging—
Geoff 39:46
Yeah, they’re like you have to have your arms crossed and your feet feet crossed so that you don’t like instinctively save yourself from falling. As funny as that sounds. So.
Georgie 39:58
Wow, that is kind of funny.
Geoff 40:00
Yeah.
Georgie 40:01
But that’s good that you can fucking get out there if you can’t. Yeah.
Geoff 40:05
So this time, I actually didn’t make it around the loop.
Georgie 40:08
Oh, whoa, okay.
Geoff 40:10
I don’t know what happened. I don’t think my weight’s changed too much. But yeah, I didn’t make it around the loop. And it was pretty interesting not making a random loop because you’re like, going pretty fast. And then at some point, you try and make it up the up the loop.
Georgie 40:27
Yeah.
Geoff 40:28
But then you start going sliding back. And that kind of that’s kind of like a little bit scary. I can see. I can see how people can be scared about sliding backwards. But yeah, you just kind of just let yourself slide backwards, stop for a bit and then—
Georgie 40:41
Because it’s got water running through it right?
Geoff 40:43
Yeah, there’s a hatch above you. You just get out. It’s like, it’s like an open hole, essentially. So—
Georgie 40:47
So was it easy to climb out?
Geoff 40:49
Yeah. So you just climb out.
Georgie 40:52
The water is not like in the way or any or like—
Geoff 40:54
No, they don’t drown you in this one.
Georgie 40:56
Yeah.
Geoff 40:57
There is a ride, though. There’s a slide where it starts with a waterfall. So you’re going through, you have to just basically like, shuts off all your senses. And then you’re like, this is not a scary ride. But the fact that you’re semi drowning at the beginning is kind of like off putting.
Georgie 41:13
And then they’re like translucent so they can see before they let the next person in that you’re like—
Geoff 41:18
Oh, they can see at the end. Yeah, they’re kind of translucent.
Georgie 41:21
Or they can see you come out of the hatch.
Geoff 41:23
Yeah.
Georgie 41:23
If you didn’t make it.
Geoff 41:24
Yeah. But man, it’s a wild ride, I’d, I’d recomm—I was recommending I recommend to people who are like a little bit thrill-seeky, like.
Georgie 41:32
Oh my god, I just don’t like it. Oh my god. You know what this reminds me of? Right? Because there’s this picture you have on the screen is the person inside the start of the ride?
Geoff 41:40
Yeah.
Georgie 41:40
It reminds me of like, claustrophobic shit.
Geoff 41:43
Oh, definitely claustrophobic shit. Don’t go in there.
Georgie 41:45
Yeah. And I think yeah, I like, I’m not claustrophobic. But I get really uncomfortable in those kinds of situations that don’t have a lot of space. And especially if I can’t control what—
Geoff 41:56
Yeah, what’s gonna happen.
Georgie 41:57
Yeah. And you know what, I saw a video of something of people doing this in New Zealand, because we’re going to be going there at some point soon.
Geoff 42:05
Yeah.
Georgie 42:05
And I was like, I am not doing that. And it’s this thing where you climb into these... it’s kind of like bubble soccer. But you climb into these inflatable balls. And like, you get rolled around like a maze. And—
Geoff 42:19
Oh!
Georgie 42:20
They put water in it. And I was like, I’m not fucking doing that. Because if I’m in that ball, and then we’re rolling down a hill and I fuckin shit myself. There is no way—how do I fucking, how do I stop this ball. It’s called Zorbing.
Geoff 42:34
Ah, I think I saw this in Amazing Race but not in a maze. That’s pretty cool. That’s like basically being a hamster in a ball and being forced to go through a maze to get food.
Georgie 42:46
Yeah, I’m like, no, I don’t I don’t want any of this shit. I would just panic.
Geoff 42:51
The crazy thing. Oh, no. Was it was it Hell’s Kitchen? Or was it? Yeah, I think it was Hell’s Kitchen. The crazy thing was that there’s they had two people in the bowl, no water. No water, by the way, just two people in the ball. How, that’s dangerous, what if one of them trips over and crushes you.
Georgie 43:08
Well, so the thing is, I think because we saw a couple go in and they were they were trying to they were doing a vlog, in the ball. But I think like, you’re, because you’re rolling, it’s not like bubble soccer. You’re not, you’re rolling. So you can’t actually like, do much. You can’t stand up.
Geoff 43:27
Right.
Georgie 43:27
You have to sit there and be moved around. So.
Geoff 43:30
Okay.
Georgie 43:31
Yeah.
Geoff 43:31
They look like they’re having fun.
Georgie 43:34
This is not fun to me.
Geoff 43:36
Yeah. This is this is what you saw people like trying to vlog their shit inside a ball. There it is.
Georgie 43:46
Yeah. So you’re just, you’re pretty much lying, lying in the ball, because the ball is huge.
Geoff 43:50
Oh, you’re lying. So you’re not actually running?
Georgie 43:52
Yeah. So you can’t stand up and you’re roll—the ball is rolling down a hill. And I’m like, I cannot control where this ball is going. If I decide I want to out. I can’t.
Geoff 44:02
Yeah. I mean, it’s full of water. So I guess you can piss yourself? It’d be okay.
Georgie 44:08
(laughs) I think there was an option to have water and not have water.
Geoff 44:12
Interesting. Not having water would be a lot harder. You know what’s a lot harder? Ending this episode. So you can follow us on @toastroastpod on Twitter. I don’t think I said it last time. I just said you can find us on Twitter.
Georgie 44:29
You can follow us, too. It’s all good.
Geoff 44:31
Yeah you can follow us on Twitter. @toastroastpod.
Georgie 44:33
You can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and the big inflatable ball. I guess.
Geoff 44:42
Got the big kahunas.
Georgie 44:43
Not very long though. (laughs)
Geoff 44:46
New episodes every Monday. So see you next week.
Georgie 44:48
See you next week.
Geoff 44:49
Bye.