Warner Bros. Movie World - Monday 4th March.
As mentioned above, had been here before. Back then I had thought that Dreamworld was the much better park and Movie World was a bit poor.
Well totally the opposite is true now I think, as I had a really good day here and the park itself was really quite good, if a little
quirky in places.
Quirky? Well the layout of it is just really odd. It was a built-from-scratch park not that long ago and so its rather surprising that it
has such a weird layout ; like you walk thru the entrance gate and immediately are presented with their 4 main coasters all leading off
an area just inside the gate.
Obviously it wasn't designed like that deliberately ; the gate area leads to a standard sort of entrance street area that leads to the back
of the park, but as the park grew they have built the coasters towards the front of the park and moved the entrance of the older big coaster
(the SLC) to the front also.
Anyway the park was clean and nice and seemingly well staffed and run - in stark contrast to Dreamworld the day before, only a couple of miles
between the two parks so this one seems to be winning the local competition war these days.
I was also on a mission today, Jet Rescue yesterday was #997 and there were 4 new-to-me coasters here - a milestone awaits!
The place wasn't busy but there were enough people to give it a bit of an atmosphere - probably the perfect level of business in fact, just
enough people to fill rides and keep the staff on their toes bit not enough to create more than a couple of train waits on the big rides.
I had a quick ride on the kiddie cred first thing as I did not really fancy Q-ing for that all later in the day;
Road Runner Rollercoaster
- just a pretty standard Vekoma junior
First
new cred though was the indoor mouse; they were not long from opening this ride the last time I was here, I remember the construction and
the "coming soon" signs at the time. It had been so long since I'd been here though that they had built it and then also refurbished it, so it
was a bit of a new-new-thing indeed.
#998 :
Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster Next Generation
I knew this was an indoor mouse, with an elevator lift, but not much else about it so it did contain quite a few nice surprises for me (for a
cred in a shed that is). The pre-lift section was quite large and there were a lot of video-screens during that and during the lift itself
all showing scooby-doo stuff related to the story of the ride. It let itself down in the middle a bit by opening up into a bit of a standard
wild mouse section ; if they had kept it going through tunnels and stuff then that would have been a lot better but then towards the end it
laid on the themeing a bit more and redeemed itself.
So really quite good that - (for a mouse).
OK, picking up the pace now, headed back to the entrance and headed into
#999 :
Superman Escape
Strict no loose items policy again - free next to the ride entrance though and I had come prepared today by putting in contacts rather than
my glasses so I was happy enough. The Q and station are all indoors and you don't see the platform from the Q at all as you are batched up to
full height doors rather than air-gates (bit like how the the former Superman ride at Walibi Holland batches you). They were quite good at
pulling forward single rides from the main Q too so I skipped a few train waits a few times on this.
I had it in my mind that this was "Rita with a top-hat", but thats not really the case - it has quite a long pre-launch section leading out
of the indoor buildings (some shtick about some disaster or other then Supes pops up to rescue us) then it launches out into a top hat but
also has other substantial hills too as well as zipping back inside a building at one point. So really quite good then, liked it a lot. A lot
more than Rita.
OK, milestone time.
I bought the $10 upcharge ticket for the backwards facing back row and headed in
#1000 :
DC Rivals HyperCoaster
Zero Q for the backseat (and zero for the single-rider line and maybe a train wait for the normal Q) so straight onto this ; they made a point
about loose articles while you were in the Q line but had a station storage bin thing that worked well so no issues here. I had made a point
of
not watching any POVs of this recently (had done when it was new of course) so I was not really sure of the layout as we set off and
sitting facing backwards certainly did not help.
So really very disorientating riding something that big and fast backwards - I've ridden a few American woodies backwards and the one at
Universal in Japan but this must the be the biggest ride backwards I think? So pretty fast at the start, pretty smooth, pretty big, some good
views back over the park going up the lift hill - really fun then.
Back in the station I grab the attention of the ride-op and tell them that was #1000 and get them to take a pic. She was a little confused
about exactly what the 1000 was (whether I'd ridden DC Rivals a 1000 times) but when the penny dropped she was a bit amazed (ha!) and suggested
I go tell Guest Services about it and maybe they'd make a fuss (so I clearly didn't do that, what do you think I am some sort of extrovert?)
Goon tho';
Obviously right back round again to ride it a few times in the correct direction - heck of a lot easier to understand what is happening when
you are facing forward.
Its a very good ride. Kinda felt like a taller, more modern version of Walibi's Goliath if I had to compare it to anything - seats are much
more comfortable though (not that I have any problems with the Intamin's ones). After riding it a few times I could be a little critical of it
though ; the start is good, the drop, the big hill the non inverting loop and even the turn around section at far end of the course, it
meanders a bit for a while though as it heads back to the park but finishes well with a few little airtime hills.
So not "Top 10", but definitely "Top 10%" and the best coaster of the trip (that and Superman were were much better than anything else on the
trip I think).
Back to the entrance plaza and the next big coaster right by the gate;
#1001 :
Green Lantern Coaster
I'd ridden a couple of other El Loco (Steel Hawg, the one in Vegas and Mumbo Jumbo in Yorkshire) but this seemed to be bigger? Checking the
stats now it does seem to be a bit bigger but not by how much I thought it was? The trains are bigger though for sure, 8 seaters rather than
4 but the layout is the same as Steel Hawg/Mumbo.
Not as uncomfortable as the 4 seaters as I remember; it's not a bad ride, nice drop, interesting outside banked bit and the upside down bit
are all OK.
One last coaster to ride, and its a SLC. Deep joy. When I came here in 2002 I was a bit in awe of this huge big ride, my first SLC, forgive
me I knew no better (I was all "oooh this is like that Nemesis one at Alton Towers" - such a noob). It was themed to Lethal Weapon back then
and I recall a tedious pre-show that they made you watch and me feeling very smug with myself the second time I rode it by sneaking through
without watching the film.
Arkham Asylum - Shock Therapy then ; they had moved the ride entrance to near the other coasters and removed the pre-show (yay) but
they had introduced upcharge VR on it too so it was not all good. The trains had been replaced and whilst they were a lot more comfortable
restraint-wise than the solid horsecollar ones of old SLCs, that didn't help the train track any better and it did rather shuffle its way
around the course. Pretty painful then, and not "like that Nemesis one" at all.
I could remember doing a few other things back in pre-goon 2002 ; like the Police Academy stunt show (now just a generic stunt show) and the
water ride (themed then to Wild Wild West - gosh they did pick all the big films to theme stuff after!) so did them again. The Warner park in Spain has a copy of the water ride and I did quite enjoy this one that day, a bit different in some of its transitions to the normal log
flume rides.
Poor man's ORP of water ride
One thing I recall quite well from 2002 was the original Harry Potter Theme Park experience - long since gone, Wikipedia tells me it lasted
a couple of years then turned into a Matrix experience. The thing was a Diagon Alley mock up with a bunch of actors in it - you had to knock
on a wall to gain entry then you wandered down the street and it ended up with someone with an owl. Can't say it was an amazing experience
to be honest, but a few years ahead of Universal anyway. The area it was in had been turned into a fast-food zone.
Some odd themeing in the kiddie-area;
They did have a modern movie-experience here ; a bunch of stuff from the Aquaman movie on display - I've not seen Aquaman but it all looked
quite genuine, even if most of the models had no heads.
Just outside the Aquaman bobbins was another reasonably new ride (I didn't ride it as it looked sickening) but the plaza it was in was quite
interesting so gave that a bit of an investigation. The idea is that you buy these NFC token from the nearby shop and then you can interact
with the various DC shenanigans that surround the plaza - like the wand/Potter stuff that goes on in Universal I guess.
Didn't see many people indulging though (I certainly didn't) but the scenes themselves all were very well done - the interactions seemed a
bit limited, some scenes had screens associated with them that stuff happened upon and some of the other monsters squirted water or played
sounds I think. Anyway, it was a bit different.
I had a bunch of re-rides on the coasters I liked (so minus the kiddie and the SLC) and got my fill of DC Rivals, saving the front row for
last which was good too. Really good ride that.
The waterpark next door to WBMW (part of the same complex but a little down the road) also has a coaster, an Intamin half-pipe and my 3 day
ticket included entry to that, so I nipped down the road (should note that all the car parks were free today and yesterday - thats a nice bonus
over the money grabbing tactics usually employed by parks) just before closing.
Headed to the cred but it was all wrapped up and looked under maintenance - denied
I checked at Guest Services and it was just closed for the day - had been running earlier so it was just a timing issue (was the last hour of
the park opening at the time) so I figured I could pop back in the next day if I really felt the need (SPOILER : I didn't so I didn't)
Played around in the car park of WBMW for a while taking some pick of the creds since its a bit hard to see much of DC when you are in the
park itself.
Wide (stitched) shot of DC Rivals;
So REALLY good day (despite the half-pipe spite) - pretty impressed by the park this time, its definitely a proper-park these days as opposed
to my previous impression of the place (I kinda thought of it as a 1/2 day park compared to Dreamworld back then, but roles very much
reversed now).
Headed back to hotel and since one of the 3-day tickets I had got me entry to the Skypoint tower next door to my hotel I headed up there for
some views. (The next day would have been the last day on my ticket and I was formulating a plan for the day that would not involve me being
anywhere near the tower then so it was now or never).
Pretty impressed with this observation deck though ; very spacious up there and some spectacular views (albeit one side of the view just
being a lot of water).
Could just about see Sea World to the North.
And there was some display about the local tourist attraction history;
Only had my compact camera with me rather than the good one (which was only back in the hotel I was just too lazy to detour there first), but
still managed to get some results I think.
Some other tourist-friendly bar for some food later, themed to 'Steampunk' but not sure that amounted to much apart - stool was nice?
Also their beer was that not-great Kolsch again so had to pick up some tins from the nearby bottle-shop to finish off the night.
