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AustralAsia - Part 8: Crappy Valley Shenzhen

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
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I'm always in Singapore at this time of year, which serves as a great base to head for creds in the further reaches. A certain new ride made this year the perfect time to tick Australia off the list.

Day 0 - Universal Studios Singapore
I couldn't resist doing it again. New Year's countdown here last year was a stroke of genius, I might have to make it into a tradition now.

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Got this promotional gift for being awesome. It would serve as a public transport card throughout the country, but my current one is decorated with Kpop, so no deal.
My knock off coaster crate business just keeps growing itself.

It was pissing down with rain most of the time and this is my adopted home park, so not very many pictures up for grabs.
(As the park has more sense than most Asians, all the rides continue to run in the rain with the exception of Treasure Hunters).

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Very relatable.

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Following on from Cylon being painted grey last year, Human has been repainted a sexier shade of red. Doesn't stop it being dull and, you know... vesty.

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"All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again". - The dispatch audio never rang more true.
This thing still kicks ass.

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As does Kimchi Pizza.

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New Year's eve without theme parks.

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Thought I was over it by now, but since completely forgetting Spiderman and doing another 6000 Fantawild iterations, Transformers has redeemed itself and felt a lot more aggressive and fun this year.

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Seasonal crossover.

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The whole event was even more subdued than the previous year, both because of the weather and they had a lot less going on in general (not even the Katy Perry tribute act).
Hopefully everyone was still having their lives ruined at the beach party.

Everything became walk-on by the evening, which made it prime time for jumping on 'Jurassic Park in the Dark' and my favourite past time of whoring :emoji_fire:Revenge of the Mummy:emoji_heart:

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It continued to piss it down all night, leading to a game of staking out the best sheltered spots for watching the fireworks. We resorted to stealing a bench and dragging it under a roof, much to the amusement of others. Never failed to have a good time in this park.


Rumour has it you all like animals more than parks, so enjoy:

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Christ.

Shall we move onto 2018?
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
Day 1 – Sea World

Flew out with Scoot who have a terrible reputation online, which is mostly false and from people expecting too much out of their dirt cheap economy ticket. Most of the arguments out there can be beaten down with a simple ‘you get what you pay for’.
If you don’t pay for meals, there’s supposedly a no food and drink policy and people get screamed abuse at for trying on an 8 hour flight. In reality they don’t care. There was a man eating a footlong sandwich in plain sight before we had even taken off, but we had some good fun out of jokingly being very subtle and hiding our eating from the attendants.
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Nice little lighting celebration upon landing.

Picked up the hire car and trundled towards the park. The roads were very congested along the built up bit of the coast with and it took an age.
In a very welcome change, we were in no rush at all for this leg of the trip. Research this time suggested all the parks were suffering after the Dreamworld incident, but I still allowed some extra days just in case.
I had been putting off this trip for a few years now (thankfully), because it was always going to have to be at this time of year, in the height of their summer holidays. In my mind that would always mean busy as f*ck, hot as f*ck and generally not very fun.
Research also suggested that it should have been a cool 20 degrees, but we still got the hot as f*ck part with every day being 30+ and most of the country making the news for mega heatwaves. This seems to plague me wherever I go at the moment.
The Sea World car park was very busy and turning up half way through the day put us well into the overflow section. Being a park that isn’t primarily about the rides however, crowds weren’t an issue.

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Started strong on Spongebob’s Boating School. Not sure if their 1 adult per car policy makes you look more or less cool.
Highlight: +1
Lowlight: Lack of shade

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Moved onto Jet Rescue with some excitement. Queue was a bit of an arse as they were only running one train and there’s some nasty locker faff. Didn’t have any change yet for the lockers, so managed to harness the power of the easy-going ride staff and perform a bag swap at the batch point.

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The ride is packed from start to finish with very fast and forceful turns. It doesn’t feel like it even needs the second launch for its size, but that keeps it going strong right until the end which I respect a lot. You also get to 'save the sealion' by riding. Add that to my morality thread.
Highlight: Pacing
Lowlight: Locker faff

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Had to locker up for Storm Force 20. Another not particularly pleasant queue, very hot and sweaty inside black shipping containers to start with, eventually opening out into a rather well themed shipping area.

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Quite enjoyed it for a Skatteøen clone. Coaster section is dull of course, but redeemed by the misty air time hill into an indoor splash with bonus theming and effects going off.
Highlight: Indoor bits
Lowlight: Outdoor bits

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All the flumes and rapids in this part of the world are still down since a certain incident. Spite of Goons.

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Jet Rescue stopped itself on the second launch halfway through queueing for our next lap and people got evacuated out of the tunnel. This resulted in a hilarious uproar from the locals who all vocally decided 'f*ck parks, lets drink and have a barbeque instead.'
Ditched it ourselves to see some animals for a while and returned later.

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Oh look, another one.

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Good place to kill a few hours overall. Could probably make a full day out of it if you were into the shows and stuff. Overnight flight with no sleep meant I was drifting in and out of consciousness by mid afternoon, so I may not have appreciated everything fully. Got a frozen Fanta in a souvenir cup (for the crate) and called it a day.

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Bit of a teaser on the drive to the hotel. They should put a warning sign up. Nearly caused a crash.
 

Will

Strata Poster
Did you fly into Gold Coast or Brisbane?
Nice report, looking forward to the next couple of days of this report as I'm trying to work out how to make the best out of my few days in Brisbane whilst stopping it being too exhausting!

Not exactly excited about SeaWorld, but I'll also be doing as a bit of a blurry cred run on Day 1 - and creds is creds :)
 
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Hixee

Flojector
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Social Media Team
Now, the curves on Jet Rescue look amazing! What a great looking family coaster.

I look forward to the next bit!
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
Did you fly into Gold Coast or Brisbane?
Nice report, looking forward to the next couple of days of this report as I'm trying to work out how to make the best out of my few days in Brisbane whilst stopping it being too exhausting!
Gold Coast. It's closer to the Sea World end (and the observation tower that comes with Dreamworld tickets), but found the hotel situation much better at the Brisbane end.
Not much in it really, it's all no more than an hour away from each other.
 

TilenB

Strata Poster
I quite liked Sea World when I visited last year. They could use one or two more rides and Jet Rescue was down (though at least it was the only ride that was down on maintenance that actually had some work being done to it). I'd go as far as to say it was my favorite of the 4 Aussie parks I've done. :)

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HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
Day 2 – Warner Bros. Movie World

Bit of a teaser on the drive to the car park. Nearly caused a crash.

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Rocked up at opening to find it reasonably busy.
Headed straight in to find an excited rabble of a queue to the entrance of DC Rivals Hypercoaster.

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First impressions of the park is that it’s a bit squashed in places. 2 coasters and the dark ride are all packed in just inside the entrance.
Staff and managers were hanging around this area advising that morning checks were running a bit behind and the queue wasn’t open yet, but we persisted with the rest.
El loco staff were leaning over the fence and asking people to ride. Only 5 minute queues guys. They were ignored.
Maybe should have taken them up on the offer in hindsight, got pretty busy later on, but like I said, no rush.

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Eventually the main queue was opened and the crowd just about filled the length of it.
Asked the man with the sign about backwards on the way past. $10 a pop, timeslotted fastrack. Cool.

Took about an hour from where we started to get on. I’d sort of zoned out what we were about to ride at this stage and it didn’t really hit me until the lift.

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It’s very good overall. Fantastic start with the crazy twisted drop, huge airtime hill and the non-inverting loop that would make Soaring with Dragon blush.

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Middle section is decent but not amazing, the big banked corner thing doesn’t do much, followed by a very long section of twisty turns and strong positives just on the right side of intense. Nowhere near the deadspot stuff I complain about with EGF and the like but if I’m looking for perfection, that’s where it falls short a smidge. Putting on my picky hat it doesn’t quite feel as well flowing or deliberate enough as a sequence of elements for this third of the ride.

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The ending is back to fantastic again with the two very intense hills and another funky one halfway through a corner. I felt the airtime through my teeth here, which I’ll take as a good thing. It also joins the very exclusive club of rides where I instinctively use my hands to stop my head coming off.

Booked a backwards slot upon exiting and joined the queue for the Justice League thing.

Nicely air-conned and themed building to queue inside. There’s some sort of talking going on from screens and an animatronic from the other side of the station, but you can’t really hear any of it from the queue. Don’t know much about this Batman stuff, but the gist I got as the vehicle departed was ‘shoot Superman’.

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Liked the ride quite a bit. One of those where you can shoot both the physical objects with lights on them as well as the interactive screens for your points. Shot Superman a lot, even when I wasn’t supposed to. Got the best score in Australasia. Good stuff.

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Back to backwards. System got us on in about 10 minutes. Again I zoned out what we were doing until the very end of the lift. This was very clear on the on-ride video clip we watched at the end, which I rather regret not buying now. Calm conversation until the crest, followed by visible screams of terror and ‘oh f*ck, oh f*ck’ down the drop and during the layout. Watching it back had us in hysterics.
Whoever cooked this idea up is a mad man. Completely out of your seat falling vertically backwards to kick it all off. Really intense throughout and it enhances that middle section as you feel things that didn’t even seem to be there in the forwards transitions. Hit the brakes just breaking down laughing and crying at the same time.


There's still a park to complete. Jumped in the queue for Green Lantern.

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Spent about 45 minutes watching Australia's crazy wildlife. Birds fighting. Big lizards chilling. Good entertainment.

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Weird seeing the 4 across seating and another lap bar edition means I still like El Locos just a little bit. They've definitely reprofiled that last turn since Mumbo as well, rides nowhere near as sh*t.

Hit me again how compact this part of the park is, as you're exiting this ride and running parallel to the main park entrance.
Also hit us that half the day was gone and we still had quite a few rides to do. It was a little on the busy side so tactics might need to be deployed.
Walked to Superman - 60 minutes. Hmmm.
Walked to the SLC - 1 train and VR. That can f*ck off.
Walked to Scooby - 90 minutes. Nope.

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Roadrunner it is.

Sucked up the wait for Superman after that. It passed quicker than stated. Lockers are back in action but they're free here, unlike the meanies at Sea World.

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Had a bit of a rollercoaster of expectations with this one.
Came here with the phrase 'Intamin launch full of air time hills'. Gonna be great.
Saw it in person with the phrase 'that's just Rita with a top hat'. Gonna be crap.

Quite liked it though. Powering through all the theming bits on endless kicker wheels at the start is rather fun.
"It's SUPERMAN!" says the audio.
"Lets go lets go!" says the Australian.

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Offride is deceiving as it looked like it was stalling on the top hat, but there's a decent kick to all of the hills and I apologise for the Rita comparison.
Could have been really good but, you know... shoulder restraints.

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Decided at this stage we weren't going to achieve everything on that day and didn't want to compromise on DC ridels.
The main queue was staying full all day, so we jumped in the single rider queue which we had seen working well earlier in the day as at least 1 seat was broken/closed off on both trains. It worked.
Saw from the top of the ride that the car park was now half empty. All the families seemed to have cleared off early.
Booked another backwards slot and headed off to Scooby which was now a more manageable 30 minutes.

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Knew nothing about this thing until I was being told in the queue. More than just your average Wild Mouse, with a few tricks up its sleeve and a lot of fun for it.
Didn't quite see it at its best as they are currently in the middle of retheming/refurbing it.
There is a sign outside saying some scenery may be gone. Pretty much all the scenery was gone and the whole dark ride section was just a warehouse. Made it a bit off, but rather hilarious.

Back to backwards.
Amazing.

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Back tomorrow.
 

TilenB

Strata Poster
Lockers are back in action but they're free here, unlike the meanies at Sea World.
Ugh, they wanted money in August and they didn't let you on with anything in (even zipped) pockets, bastards. Funniest thing is that you still had to exit the ride through a gift shop, like you weren't required to leave your wallet (and glasses) elsewhere.
Glad to see DC Rivals is running well, still annoyed I missed it by a month, ugh.
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
Day 3 – Warner Bros. Movie World

Back again for some unfinished business.
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Powered straight over to the SLC to get it over and done with. Escaped with only 1 trains wait and no one was going for the upcharge VR which is bought at a desk right at the entrance to the station.
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It’s got those weird vest trains with missile firing handles. Rode like crap, but no lasting damage.

Called in for a quick re-ride on Superman on the way past as it hadn’t quite filled up yet.

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Used the single rider trick again on DC. They had fixed one of the three broken seats since the previous day, but it still worked a treat. Also had one final backwards ride.
More souvenir wristbands for the crate.

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Mission complete.

Dreamworld

Another scorcher of a day and another very busy car park. Hopefully they’re all in the water park next door.
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First thing we came to was Mick Doohan. Spent a good while in the queue watching the weird restraint system. Should be better than the Vekomas right?
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Nope. What a piece of crap. There’s some rubber padding where your knees sit that has worn away to a solid mess. Spent the entire ride which does f*ck all repeating the phrase ‘ow my knees’ ‘ow my knees’ ‘ow my knees’.
It also reduced a local kid to tears.

Stumbled through some kids play area to Tower of Terror II.
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The ride has become a bit of a joke. Whatever ambience it once had or fear it may have once instilled is long gone. The skull face and creepy industrial walkways are lined with TVs playing pop music videos while you stand in 40 degrees, moving 10 people every 10 minutes.

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Almost ashamed to say this is potentially the fastest thing I’ve been on, I’ll have to fix that very quickly. It certainly isn’t the tallest as it's still barely making it halfway up the spike.
Such a mediocre experience. Obnoxiously loud and felt nothing but rattle. Then it failed to park itself. Then it overshot. Then you have to get in a grotty lift to exit which I was hoping to be some redeeming scare attraction. It isn’t.

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Saw an exhibit of tigers and brave blokes upon walking the wrong way round to MadaPanda land.

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What sort of abomination is this? SFC with shoulder restraints. Rides like complete sh*t and even manages to bang heads at a top speed of 10Mph.

Well there’s only a Skyloop to follow this Arrow, let’s see if this park can go 5 for 5.

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They’ve done it.
Another miserable queue of heat, sweat and terrible music, finished off by a strong smell of sewage at the air gates.
Trains have got a horrible clampy vest restraint ‘upgrade’. The track is terrible and not in the usual amusing fashion. Skip.

Affectionately named it the Drayton Manor of Australia at this stage, but really Troublesome Trucks is better than anything here.

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Better get that Skyloop then. I liked my first one. I like them less with each subsequent installation. At least it had no queue.

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This 1-upped the throughput of Tower of Terror by being 8 people every 10 minutes.

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Quite a good drop tower. Nice suspense at the top as it really takes its time to sort itself out. Doesn’t kick as much arse as a good small tower though. Height isn’t everything.

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Walked past a couple of abandoned water rides to look at some animals.

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Park was getting ready to close, so only saw a couple of critters

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before jumping on the train to the entrance.

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What a place. It’s quite nice to hang around in generally, but all the rides and queues are so grim.
At least it’s done.
Almost.
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
Day 4 – Dreamworld

Another case of unfinished business, but definitely not for the coasters.

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Great position.

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Saw the rest of the animals.

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Rode the vintage cars. A real RCT throwback.

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Did the train again.

Walked in and back out of the Giant Drop queue. F*ck that throughput.

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And that was Dreamworld.

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Went for a drive around.

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Up some hills and stuff.

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Ended up back at Gold Coast to do the observation deck owned by Dreamworld people. You wouldn’t know it was a tourist attraction, not really signposted at all. Stumbled across a little car park round the back of the area and walked across from there.

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One of the fastest lifts in Australia or some sh*t.

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A few views from the top.

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Dreamworld was promoted on signs up here. Movie World was not.

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Withdrawal symptoms kicking in. Better get back to cred hunting tomorrow.
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
Day 5 - Aussie World

Last day in Australia spent in style getting a +1.
The morning drive took us through the middle of Brisbane.

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What is this, Japan?

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What is this, China?

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It was 1000 degrees, so this terrible picture was taken in vampire mode.

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Here we are. The main event.

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A rare no-antenna tyre-lift model.
Also can't park itself properly.

Are you...
Scared
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Of spiders!?

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Finally, the first water ride of the trip. Can't beat a good double down.

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Took a spin on the wheel.

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No sign of that spinner being built yet.

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Developed a fear of large deceptive mirrors.

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What's in the shed?
Honourable mention to Little Beaut Toot Toot.

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Golf was fun, though a little on the cheap side. I could have made it onto the hero board, but we were a little liberal with the scoring.
And that was Aussie World.

Found a few more things to look at in the area.

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Wild Horse Mountain.

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Brisbane from another mountain.

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Good stuff.

Guess what country comes next.
 

TilenB

Strata Poster
Drove by the place, but I wasn't going to hand them over 30 AUD for a Wacky Worm. Not after they demolished their wooden Wild Mouse...

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Coaster Hipster

Giga Poster
Amazing report! I thoroughly enjoyed that read and some of your pictures are really good. Also, thank you for the in-depth analysis of DC Rivals :D
 

Mysterious Sue

Strata Poster
Thanks for the report. So jealous of the backwards experience - sounds amazing. Also jealous of the blue sky in those photos.
 

Gazza

Giga Poster
I had been putting off this trip for a few years now (thankfully), because it was always going to have to be at this time of year, in the height of their summer holidays. In my mind that would always mean busy as f*ck, hot as f*ck and generally not very fun.
Advice to anyone doing an Australia trip, Summer is peak season, and what you say is true, but given the 363 day operation of the parks, you run the risk of missing stuff at other parts of the year due to ride maintenance. in the December/January school holidays, you are guaranteed everything is open, except this year at Dreamworld lol because they were fixing so much stuff (The log ride is on the cusp of re-opening btw)

. You also get to 'save the sealion' by riding. Add that to my morality thread.
Did you see in the 2nd launch is a sealion animatronic, and then in the last outdoor bit you see the sea lion happily nodding.
Ugh, they wanted money in August and they didn't let you on with anything in (even zipped) pockets, bastards. Funniest thing is that you still had to exit the ride through a gift shop, like you weren't required to leave your wallet (and glasses) elsewhere.
Glad to see DC Rivals is running well, still annoyed I missed it by a month, ugh.
Recently they did a big "guest friendly stuff" push in the park, which basically meant free lockers on superman, no credit card fees at shops, and more characters.


Quite a good drop tower. Nice suspense at the top as it really takes its time to sort itself out. Doesn’t kick as much arse as a good small tower though. Height isn’t everything.
No. Incorrect opinion. :p It's DWs redeeming thing, along with the Gerstlauer sky fly and the water park.
Park was getting ready to close, so only saw a couple of critters

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Otherwhise known as a bin chicken

So with Aussie World i cant work out if you did the mirror maze....it's actually really good and is like a mini version of the "Infinity" attraction in surfers paradise.

The first set of mountains is the Glasshouses mountains, the other one looking over brisbane is about 10 mins from my place...Mt Coot-tha.
 

Gazza

Giga Poster
There's no ladders in there, i think a couple of steps from memory. A bit of a hidden gem, but if you've done that Hocus Pocus hall that is/was at Chessington, you'd have the idea.
 
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