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TR: Australia etc (UniversalSingapore/Luna Park/Dreamworld/Sea World/WBMW/Luna Park/HKDL/Ocean Park)

davidm

Strata Poster
So I had an annoyingly significant birthday coming up. In order to distract myself from this (and frankly to avoid people trying to make a fuss
of my annoyingly significant birthday) I plotted to go on a big holiday to the other side of the world. It wasn't really a big cred-run, it was
a nice big-trip with a few parks here and there, plenty of beer-stops and enough things to keep me happily occupied while life's milestones
slipped by...

So here is some waffle and pictures (will take a while I think to get through it all)

Part One : Not Australia - Universal Studios Singapore

Part Two : Australia (Melbourne)
Luna Park
(Gold Coast)
Dreamworld
Sea World
Warner Bros Movie World
(Sydney)
Luna Park (obviously a different one to the earlier one)

Part Three : Also Not Australia (Hong Kong)
Hong Kong Disneyland
Ocean Park
 
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davidm

Strata Poster
Part One : Not Australia.

Singapore

Flight out was on a Saturday, had to go from Manchester via London but then onto a big A380 overnight to Singapore - was my first time on one
of those big things and I had a decent front-seat and no-one sat beside me so was all reasonably comfortable for a 13-odd hour flight. Didn't
sleep much so was a bit brain-dead by the time I get to my hotel in downtown Singapore late Sunday afternoon.

Grabbed an hours sleep just to take the edge off then went for a wander in search of some local beer and a burger.



Turned out the burger I ended up having (at a Chilli's so not some random local place) was just awful and put me off the concept of burgers
for the rest of the holiday.

There was some light-festival thing going on around the river, all very pleasant I'm sure but kinda passed me by a bit in my flight-addled
haze.





Beer place I ended up at was actually the first one I walked past and I quite liked it - was a branch of Brewerkz who seemed to be a local
American style food/beer place with a few branches in the city. Should have eaten there I think, beer was fine. But while sat there I managed
to crash my phone, it froze up and I couldn't even turn it off. This worried me, as I was rather relying on it for the next few weeks so I
headed back to the hotel to try to work out how to fix it (was easy in the end, just a special button-combo thing and it rebooted OK - phew).



Anyway, I wasn't really in Singapore for the bad-burgers and local beer, so the next morning a quick trip on the metro and I'm at

Universal Studios Singapore - Monday 25th Feb.



I'd been to Singapore a couple of times before, but well before USS was built. In fact I had spent a while on Sentosa Island, when what is now
a theme park was all a bunch of pleasant gardens/parks.



Had to wait around a bit for opening time, a reasonable but not vast crowd had built up by the time they let us in.



I headed straight for the big Battestar Galactica creds first - had it in my mind that they were a bit temperamental but were both running,
albeit slowly, by the time I got there. Very anal loose items policy though - literally nothing can be taken with you into the queue -
mandatory free lockers though, but I'd hate to see this on a busy day as to me there aren't enough lockers with only one bank of them to
cover both coasters. And they were not having any "glasses-strap means my glasses are not loose" at all (a theme for this holiday as we
shall see later). Ho hum.





Rode the sit down Human side first, and it was OK I thought - better than I expected it to be (as the milder side) if I'm honest. The trains
do look really stupid though, with their two-seats on a four-seat body, but if that is what they need to do to get it to run then fair
enough.



Went back to pick up my crap from the Human lockers and walked around to where I guessed the Cylon lockers would be - nope, one set of lockers
for both. D'oh. Back to the lockers near Human then and onto the Cylon side. There was virtually no line so rode it a couple of times,
waiting for the front the second time.



Again OK, but it does kinda shuffle around in places a bit. Seems just like a really badly designed/built coaster (both sides). What with the
long downtime it has had, and the redesign of the trains, and the locker-faff. Its all setup to be the big statement coaster, loooming like
the Hulk does in Florida over the central lagoon and it does do that I guess, but the coaster itself, hmmm. Not great. Not awful by any
means, it doesn't overdo the thrills or try too hard to throw you about, its all just a bit graceless I think?



Literally next door to the sci-fi zone that houses the Battlestar coasters is the Ancient Egypt zone, like literally rammed up against it;



and that brings us to the next coaster ; Revenge of the Mummy - I enjoyed this, much better than the Vekomas next door. Not sure if
its an exact clone of either of the other versions, seemed more like the Florida version than the Hollywood one but hard to tell. The Florida
"fake station / fire" bit was there but not set up in the same way and only had a rather lacklustre bit of fire but ride was still good for
a big show-y people eater thing.



All indoors of course, so no great pics!



Moving on, rammed up against the other side of the Egypt zone (really just the Mummy ride) is the Dino-zone labelled as "Lost World" (possibly
it would have cost more in licence fees to name the whole zone as Jurassic Park rather than just the one ride?)

But here is a Canopy Flyer that I can ride (still do not have the Florida cred) - big station building for it as well;





Pretty uneventful ride that, the trains face forwards and backwards though, so pretty different (bigger, different manufacturer) to the US
flyer in many ways.



The big ride in the Lost World zone is the Jurassic Park ride though, which confusingly is a rapids water ride rather than a chute water
ride like the other versions. Its set up the same though, trip through some friendly animatronic dinosaurs, oh no its all gone wrong and then
some un-friendly animatronic dinosaurs and a big T-Rex finish with a drop and big splash. The drop/splash isn't as big on this version as
the others but the rapids style was a bit different and I quite liked it.





To be honest I was not really expecting a drop at the end - I mean once we started going up in the building I was "oh there must be a drop" but
before that I kinda assumed it was all just normal rapids. So that was nice.



The next coaster, Puss In Boots’ Giant Journey was a bit rubbish though.



It isn't powered, but feels like a rubbish powered dark-ride, just set up to show off the random themeing stuff (giant geese and such like).



It does look quite good from outside - appearances can be deceptive.



That is one of two kiddie coasters in the Far Far Away land (Shrek et al) - honestly how relevant is Shrek these days to the kids? Is it
still even a thing? Never liked it myself, but then none of the kiddie-land schtick is aimed at me is it.

The other one is a Vekoma junior coaster, kinda plonked out on a bit of land at the edge of the lagoon. Enchanted Airways - and burden
upon burden its the only ride I have to Q for today ; a good 20+ minutes - pah.



+1 and done.





OK, thats all the coasters done and almost lapped the park (its not a big park, this is not a great achievement). Tucked in the final corner
or the place is a giant ship façade, I have no idea what that is so wander into the attached ride which turns out to be a Madagascar themed
boat ride, Crate Adventure. I have no idea what a Madagascar is, but sit there nonplussed for a while looking at plastic stylised animals for
a while.





I'd clocked that the WaterWorld show was about to start so rushed all the way back to the other side of the park (like a 3 minute stroll) and
sat down for a rest to watch that and complete the set of WaterWorlds (seen it in USH and Japan).



Yay big seaplane finale



OK, just need to ride Transformers and thats everything I care about done, but on the way there there was some "movie SFX" show - these
are always a bit awful but seemed to be what every movie-themed theme park felt that they needed when they were built.



Good taste in the Q line at least



Show was the usual SFX rigged warehouse thing (so like Twister but different) - some New York City boat house being hit by a storm - I suppose
we were in the New York zone in the park so at least that made some sense.

Around the corner and I'm back into Sci-Fi zone (really the themed zones are really small in this place, like they felt they needed a certain
number of zones rather than attractions in the place) and get to Transformers.





Really good ride this. I've ridden the others a few times and was always a bit "what on earth is going on" so I rode this a few times trying
to follow the "plot" a bit and also watching the ride mechanics ; all very clever it is too.

I did ride some other stuff, dark ride themed to Sesame Street was OK



and Shrek lives in the silly big castle (honestly you build a big statement castle and then just stick a Shrek short that you can get on DVD
in it, why even bother). Anyway that was rubbish too (I recall doing the Florida one once and then never again so I should have known better
really.)



I did a few re-rides, mostly Transformers and Mummy though as Battlestar was either stuck with a 30m Q or had gone down - both sides seemed to
be broken for periods of time and while I spent a while taking some pics of it trains were cycling very slowly if they were running at all.
Presumably they are loathed to tear it down and put something more reliable/modern in its place, but can't help but feel that is really what
is needed.



So an interesting but rather odd park this I thought. Its run on a licence rather than owned by Universal so is pretty different in feel to
the US-parks (much more-so than the Osaka version). Its pretty land-locked and very compact, as I've said the "lands" are all quite small and
rammed up against each other and some of the IP choices seem a bit weird and dated (or perhaps cheap in license terms?). Easily the "worst"
of the Universal parks and I would not say its a must-do in the way the US or Japan parks are, but I've had worse days!

--

So I had a pretty nice day, was getting a bit bored by late afternoon so went for a wander around the rest of the "Resorts World" area of
the island to see if there was anything that I could remember from my previous visit there (almost 20 years ago!)

I did remember this as I remembered climbing it back then, but it was a silly amount of money to repeat that experience so I didn't this
time.



There was a Hard Rock Cafe in the resort area, so had some not-burger from there and ended up chatting to one waiter for a bit who was a bit
of a goon (he had been to Nagashima spaland) but not enough of a goon to know about the Hakugei conversion so I was showing him the pics
and he could not quite understand that it was the same ride as the "big white one". Trainee-goon then.

Headed back to the city and then headed out to find some more beer. Accomplished that, but ended up back at the same place as the night before
and worked my way through their menu. The American Pale Ale was their best I think.



Beer place was in this building - my hotel was just around the back of it;



So that's park #1 done, 2 days into the holiday, only another 19 to go, but no more coasters for a little while (or so I thought... ;) )
 

gavin

Moderator
Staff member
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So an interesting but rather odd park this I thought. Its run on a licence rather than owned by Universal so is pretty different in feel to the US-parks (much more-so than the Osaka version). Its pretty land-locked and very compact, as I've said the "lands" are all quite small and rammed up against each other and some of the IP choices seem a bit weird and dated (or perhaps cheap in license terms?). Easily the "worst" of the Universal parks and I would not say its a must-do in the way the US or Japan parks are, but I've had worse days!

I think I'd still put Singapore slightly above Hollywood, though I guess that should probably change given Hollywood has Harry Potter now, plus the redo of Jurassic Park. I just found the Singapore park much more pleasant to spend time in. It's definitely not a patch on the Florida or Japan parks though.
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
I just found the Singapore park much more pleasant to spend time in.
Think that's the key to this place really. Generally a relaxed, quieter, nicer Universal experience. But I'm biased.
I can't comment on Hollywood as the price and lineup offended me to the point of not bothering. It's easy to end up more critical of the places when we've done a bunch of what they have to offer before, elsewhere.

Shame Cylon didn't treat you well. I've ridden more graceless B&Ms and it can be rather intense at times.
 

davidm

Strata Poster
I'll try not to dump too many pics on you for the credit-light days of my holidays, but there is some merit in this episode...

--

My flight the next day was (deliberately planned this way) not until the evening so that gave me a day to troll around some Singapore sights.

As I've said, had spent a few days here before (back in 2000) so was half wandering around to see how much I recognised and then also how much
(a lot) had changed. I got the metro up to the far end of Orchard Road and walked back down into the city from there - I had stayed in a hotel
on Orchard Road on my earlier visit and so had hung about in pubs around there with some people I knew who were working there at the time who
lived just off that road so that was really the bit of Singapore I remembered along with the downtown area.

Anyway the hotel I'd stayed at before had been demolished to add another large shopping mall, like there were not enough already and the
road did not seem quite so flash as it had 20 years or so ago.

Raffles Hotel was undergoing some work - the famous Long Bar at the back of it was open, but had done that before and it was a little early
in the day for cocktails anyway, so I carried on past.



After negotiating my way through a few more shopping malls I made it to the Flyer to have a spin on that.



It was OK. It wasn't great though - its a bit stuck out on a limb from everywhere, so while you can see the cityscape you are a bit detached
from it all.





(was also raining a bit so that was not great for pics either I think)

Anyway, wandered across the F1 circuit and then across the river to the other big viewing thingy on top of the silly hotel.





Thought the views from that were a lot better than the Flyer then.



Gardens again, more of that in a mo'



The famous infinity pool on the roof looked a bit crap from this angle though, swarming with hotel guests.



Looking back at the Flyer;



Definitely the better of the observation options then. You can offset the admission charge to the viewing platform if you eat/drink in the
bar up there but I didn't want to do that. Thought the hotel itself was very odd, quite Vegas feel to it all in that it was all a bit
self-contained rather than part of the city.

So headed towards the Gardens By the Bay after that, but as I emerged from the frankly convoluted route out of the hotel towards the gardens
I happened to look to my right... and what's that I can see?



Googled it and yes there was some carnival/fair thing going on but it didn't open for a while so figured I come back later.
If you are really observant (like I wasn't) you can even just see the fair from the top of the Marina Sands in the pic above.

But POTENTIAL BONUS CREDS!!!!! Happy days. :)

Headed on-wards to the gardens - they were OK but I obviously wasn't visiting at the right time of day for them to become spectacular.



Didn't go up any of the "trees" as it all looked a bit lame in the daylight - and it was raining again by then, so pah.

Headed back to try and find this carnival but had to negotiate another vast shopping mall to get there, cool fountain/light show in this
one.



Yay carnival;



Purchased my credit-card (do you see what I did there, how droll)



I needed $17 worth of credits to ride the 2 coasters.

#1 Euro-Coaster





Was a wildcat-esque affair that was not too bad - different sort of train to the usual cramped wildcat type things.

#2 Sharky & the Pirates



An awesome big-apple, but themed to Sharks. Who doesn't like a shark themed roller coaster?



To be fair the fair itself was a quite posh fair, all the rides were well presented and the ops, while obviously bored to tears with the
dozen or so punters in the place at the time, were plentiful and the whole setup was clean and tidy.



Anyway that was it for Singapore, headed back to my hotel picked up my luggage and headed to the airport for some food and beer before
my overnight flight to Melbourne. Flight was a bit rubbish as it was full and I was hemmed into a window seat by some 100 year old woman
who was travelling with a big family group that just ignored her all flight once they dumped her in her seat.



OK really no creds for a few days now...
 
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Coaster Hipster

Giga Poster
Great report already!

Surprised by your thoughts on Battlestar, as I only previously heard praise about Cylon especially. Looking forward to future updates :)
 

Hixee

Flojector
Staff member
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Happy Birthday m'Lord. Sounds like a totally excellent way to spend it - right up my street.

Looking forward t the rest of this. :)
 

davidm

Strata Poster
Part Two : Australia.

Melbourne

Overnight flight shacked up with ancient people over with, and I was in Australia at last.



Minor delay with the airport having been flooded out for some reason that morning and thus suffered a power cut so they kept up hanging around
on the plane for a bit, but not too long after that I was on a bus and then dumping luggage at the hotel as I could not check in yet.

Somewhat zonked out by the travel / lack of sleep I went in search of some lunch at a nearby shopping centre, nice feature shot tower in the
middle of it



Lunch found



Back at the hotel grabbed a couple of hours kip and then headed out to see some sights. OK, some breweries.

Had sussed out that there was reasonable hipster-beer scene in Melbourne and headed a couple of miles out of the city to Collingwood where
there seemed to be a reasonable brewery tap in a backstreet industrial area (which is kinda what I like going to).

And there was, this one being 'Stomping Ground'.



Lots of beers



Had a flight so I could have a few of them



They were OK, nothing earth-shattering though.

I then spotted (due to the handy beer finding app I rely on a little when in random places looking for beer) that there was another
micro-brewery not far away, so wandered up there, this was a proper industrial unit job, 'The Mill Brewery' - no mills were present.





Beer here was very good but the place annoyed me a bit as all the tables were "Reserved" but very few people in the place. So I headed off
to a nearby brewery bar that I had also spotted on the app ; 'Fixation' brewery...



Also had a flight here, fab presentation and every single one of the beers was really good



The place did have a fixation and that seemed to be on IPAs. They only sold IPAs! Actually fibbing a bit since, there was one small area of
the beer menu that was 'Not IPA'.



That was fantastic then - totally loved the place. Had some more beer and a pizza there, then wandered back to the hotel rather happy with life - it wasn't late but I was knackered. Might have stopped for a beer on the way back too, who can tell?

Next day needed to do a load of tourist stuff. Been to Melbourne before (back on that 2000 trip after Singapore) and had enjoyed the old
gaol so headed there





Was interesting enough, but in the ~20 years since I'd been there some museum had pinched Ned Kelly's armour off them which was rather the
feature I thought.

The big local museum had bee a few weeks away from opening on my previous trip, so made a point of doing that



Horse! A famous one (Phar Lap). Dead obviously, but mounted in the museum, not morbid at all!?!



TENUOUS CRED ALERT....

But I was delighted to find part of the somewhat eclectic range of exhibits on show was roller coaster!





POV! (they were showing a shaky old POV of it on the screen)



It was part of a olde-Australian leisure time exhibit and was the former Big Dipper ride at Luna Park ; https://rcdb.com/1832.htm



Wandered back into the city and down to Federation Square which is a big central focal point of the city, but is f***ing ugly - so ugly I seem
to have not taken any pics of it - ha ha.

But there is a moving image museum there which was pretty good, had an excellent bit of art-cinema going on in the basement;



which is a 24hr film, spliced together from loads of mostly main stream movies, where in the movie some character is looking at their watch or
referencing the time or day or something like that then that is cut into it, i.e. at the right time of day. I sat and watched that for a while
and it was just mesmerising as various scenes flew by, you would tend to see a few minutes of one film or another and then another one would
drift in for a while and so on. Ridiculously addictive - I came back the next day and watched it for a while more (at a different time of day
obviously). They only ran it through the night one day a week otherwise I would have like to have had a look at it in the middle of the night.

Went up to the big observation thing then 'Eureka Skydeck' which wasn't here the last time I was. Bit cramped up there I though and the glass
made a lot of bad reflections so not the best view, but there was a little open air bit and a silly ride thing which I watched for a little
while but looked lame so didn't bother with;

Basically you go into a room with obfuscated glass walls/floor, the room slides out the side of the tower, then the glass all clears and you
are in a glass box 88 stories up.



Its not like the views improved by being in a box though?



Oh actually you can see the fugly Federation Square in these pics - its that grey thing built on top of the railway lines. Cost a load of money
too apparently, way over budget - they were starting building it when I was here before I think, that or demolishing the buildings that were
there before.





The observation platform is at the top of the left hand of these buildings



OK thats enough touristing for one day - I had arranged to meet up with an old pal of mine that evening, he used to live in Sale (i.e. where I
live) and we worked at the same place for a while (before he left to move to Aus), anyway I'd not seen him for 10 years in the mean time he'd
settled down in Melbourne (had visited him when he lived in Sydney before, which if I remember I'll mention later on in this TR at a relevant
moment) and reproduced a few times ; consequently he was little out of practice in the beer-crawl department. So I led him astray for a while
(or we both led each other astray to be fair) and spent a few hours beer-crawling around Melbourne - was very nice, I was very glad I did not
have work in the morning anyway (unlike poor Matt)!

Next day I had some more tourist stuff to do.

SeaLife;





Actually quite good that one. Had done it before (pre-Merlinisation) and it was better when it was not Merlinised I think, but still not bad.

Silly Ice Age ride in it too (different ride mechanism to the ride that was there (which I barely remember) before.



National Gallery of Victoria;



Also pretty good, if a little worthy in places. Nice building. I liked the one trippy installation a lot;



Then round the corner from that was the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (I usually like a bit of that contemporary art me)



But that was a bit rubbish.

--

OK thats definitely enough Melbourne touristing full-stop. Went off for some gooning instead that evening, but that'll be in the next bit...
 

davidm

Strata Poster
Later that evening...

Luna Park - Friday 1st March.



The place was only open Thu/Fri evenings in the week so my visiting opportunity was a bit limited given the previous nights drinking based
activities (to be honest I had rather expected my pal to want to come out on the Friday and I'd have gone here the Thursday, but it did not
really make any difference to me). Pretty easy to get to, just a 30min tram ride from the city and you are in St Kilda, which was a nice
enough seaside sort of place, if nothing too spectacular.

Had turned up a bit before it opened so wandered around the sea-front a bit (OK its not quite open-sea, its a big bay but you get the idea).

Seemingly properly licensed "Pixar" crazy golf on the sea front



Just waiting for the place to open now...



Not at all creepy entrance thing



A key reason to come to Melbourne was the lure of the world's oldest operating roller coaster - was really quite looking forward to this in a
silly way.



It cycled once when I was in the line to get in and I headed straight away to it in my goonythusiasm (frankly there was nothing else there
that I was at all actively interested in of course)



A small Q was ahead of me though, so they loaded the ancient looking train and I would be on the next one.

Or so I thought.

The first train dispatched, but did not make it up the lift hill. Hmmmm. Not good.

Everyone stood around for a bit, they called the engineers who went and had a look at it - still with people sat on it part way up the lift.
They evacuated the train and cleared the Q, saying "come back later". Hmmmm.

Engineers carried on looking at it stuck on the hill.



So with nothing else to do, I went off to +1 the other crappy coasters there.

Silly Serpent - Zamperla powered dragon thing





Awesome.

Speedy Beetle - SBF Visa spinning thing, just a small figure-8 one, these are getting rather common now I think.





New for 2019 though, so if I played those games that would be extra goon-points and coaster-count rare points (for a while). Whoopee.



Right back to staring at the Scenic Railway, see if there is any life.

There isn't.



At one point they appear to rip out the entire lift-hill cable system (I presume its a cable rather than a chain) and after that they could
pull the train back into the station.

But its not going to run tonight.

SPITE.

Don't mind saying that I was rather pissed off about that, but there was little I could do of course. So hung about a bit to get some dusky
pics but my enthusiasm was rock bottom by then.





The place looked a bit better in the dark, but wasn't really up to much to be honest.



Suspect I'd have been a lot better disposed to the place if I had not travelled half way around the world to ride a stupid thing that broke
down on me. :(







So I wandered off in a bit of a sulk to get the tram back to the city, pausing only to drown my sorrows briefly in a pub next to the tram
station.



Back in the city I couldn't even summon the enthusiasm to go find much beer. I did manage one in a pub near the hotel where I'd been the
previous night, but even that was a struggle.





So that was it for Melbourne - flight out was in the morning so no chance of getting back to Luna Park for the ancient-cred, just such a
tragedy.

Melbourne itself was fab though, probably my favourite place of the cities I visited on the trip, just a really cool city with lots going
on - even if their wooden coaster was a bit evil to me ; perhaps it is trying to entice me back in another 20 years?
 

Hixee

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I like the sound of this beer app - is it a global thing? I'd like a name, please. :p

Looks rather nice - impressed by the views from the observation decks. I generally like that sort of thing.

Sorry to hear about the spite though, that's a real shame.
 

davidm

Strata Poster
Still somewhat sulking from the spite of the night before, I stormed off out of Melbourne the following morning and flew up to the Gold Coast.

Picked up a car here just to make the transport a little less burdenous (was all do-able on public transport but car make it easier/quicker).

Hotel was right next to the huge big skyscraper at Surfer's Paradise so was pretty easy to find and then I went for a walk on the beach,
which was I trust rather nice, but not really being a beach connoisseur its delights were somewhat lost on me (but it was vast and clean and
the was doing very well in making the big waves).



OK bored of the beach after a few minutes so went to find a pub. There was a real dearth of decent beer in the town - there were loads of
places to drink beer of course, just all service 9 different types of mass-market lager and little else. Luckily I had scoped out one
reasonable looking place and so headed there.

House of Brews ; and it was good, phew.



Few beers and some food later (did try some other beer-places, but was all lager still - the best I could find was some Kolsch, which is
pale ale brewed like a lager FFS)

High room at the hotel, but not a sea-view



Needed to do some replanning then, I had got some internet tickets for the parks, a 3 day ticket that would get me into Dreamworld and the
observation level at the big skyscraper and a different 3 day ticket that worked for MovieWorld, Sea World and the waterpark. I had got 5
days in the Gold Coast which obviously had a fair bit of contingency built into the itinerary!

But I was checking out opening times and the like when I spotted the various park's maintenance schedules - and if I had stuck to my original
plan of Sea World for a day / Dreamworld for a day / Movie World for a day was going to cause problems as one coaster at Sea World was
due in maintenance on Sunday and a different one due down on the Monday onwards, and then 2 at Dreamworld were also due down from the Monday
- ugh just faff.

Anyway, figured I could do Dreamworld on the Sunday and pop into Sea World to do the one that was going to be down, then come back to Sea World
in a couple of days for the one that was down on the Sunday.

OK, we have a plan then! :)

Dreamworld - Sunday 3rd March.

OK, I need set some context now, bear with me (and sorry if you've heard this tale before, I do go on about it when asked)

I'd been to Dreamworld and Movie World before ; back on a monster round the world trip in 2002 I had spent a week in Brisbane ; this was all
in my pre-enthusiast days - I'd been to Alton Towers (a lot) as a kid as I grew up in Stafford and it was close but apart from the odd trip
back there in my post-school years I had got out of the habit of going to parks. I'd even been to Florida in the intervening years and only
managed Universal Studios and Busch Tampa (and the latter only because my pal I was in Florida with had been before and liked it).

Anyway, there I was on this big-holiday looking for things to do in Brisbane (I was en-route to Japan for the World Cup and had thought
about visiting that Disneyland that I had heard might be in Tokyo) when I spotted in the tourist-leaflets that there was a nearby theme park
(the leaflets were at the railway station, advertising combined train from Brisbane, bus from train station and park entry). So that had seemed
like a pretty good way to use a day, and off I went - knowing literally nothing about the place apart from its name. Seriously my coaster
experience at that point was whatever Alton Towers had, a couple in Florida and the Big One which I had been to see because it was on the
local news (just the Big One, not anything else at Blackpool!) - like a dozen or so on the count. Pathetic.

So on that day trip from Brisbane back in 2002, I had SUCH A GOOD DAY - I just loved it all. Scared myself witless on the Giant Drop, rode a
bunch of random machines that I had not idea were any good or not (Tower of Terror was notable I guess as the internet seemed to think
it was one of the fastest in the world, but the rest not so significant). I loved my day out so much, I looked to see if there was anything
else like that I could do, and luckily there was a similar train/bus/entry ticket from Brisbane to Movie World too ; so I did that too. Then I
was in Sydney a week later and made my pal (Matt, from earlier in Melbourne) take me to Wonderland in Sydney, then I was in Japan and I made
the people I met up with there go to Disneyland and when they went home a few a couple of weeks (I was in Japan for a month) I went to
DisneySea and Sega and Megaweb, and then I was in California next and I went to Universal and then Magic Mountain (by now I was gooning out,
watching all the coaster shows on the Discovery Channel in my hotels and realising I could get to the parks in the shows like the next day)
and then (what was at the time) Paramount Great America.

That trip ; specifically that first day at Dreamworld, is why I like doing what I do.

TL;DR - Dave liked Dreamworld a lot!



So now back in 2019, I was pretty much looking forward to a revisit to the place that launched my enthusiasm proper. I was also approaching
#1000 and it seemed apt that I might get to that at Dreamworld (but the rescheduling needed for ride closures meant that was not going to happen).

Car park was pretty quiet when I turned up - and it was a weekend (albeit a Sunday) morning so had thought it may be busier than it was.
Obviously the place has had a lot of bad PR recently because of that killing-a-few-guests incident on the rapids ride and it did appear
to have taken its toll. I don't remember whether I rode the rapids back in 2002 so can;t claim the death-cred with any certainty.

After sorting my entrance and the photopass that was included in my ticket (so there will be the amusement value of ORP soon) I tried to go
to the big obvious skyloop that looms over the car park, but I ended up on the wrong side of where the rapids used to be instead and
so looked at that for a while - its all gone of course.





Not at all conspicuous then, basically stuck in the middle of the park a big empty zone.



Seeing as I was right by it by then, I hopped on the Giant Drop instead.



It is a bit huge this one ; for years was the tallest one in the world.

Had a bit of an argument with the ride-op as to whether my glasses were secure with their secure glasses-strap ; she was having none of it
though - had issues like that on other drop towers so didn't give it much more thought though.

Didn't scare me as much as it had done back in 2002 though, must be getting used to them by now.



I did ride Buzzsaw next though.







Wasn't as painful as others I have been on, but its still not great is it.

There was another 2 "new" coasters here for me then, the first of which had opened not long after my previous visit (so hardly new then) so I
made my way to that ; Escape from Madagascar - a Vekoma junior suspended.

Had another argument with this ride-op as well about glasses. Its a f***ing kiddie coaster and my glasses are secure, and it dawned on me
that they have no discretion here, you HAVE to remove glasses, presumably local state-regulations and this park really has to play by the
rules now.

Pissed me off so much that I appear to have not taken any photos of that ride at all, so here is the crap ORP instead.



The Dreamworks area that the ride was in was all quite well done though ; high quality plastic themeing anyway. A few of the other areas
(mostly the kiddie areas) looked pretty good and well-kept













But other areas of the park were pretty ropey, especially the area around the Giant Drop



Pretty sure this used to be a skyride station, re-purposed as entryway to the drop ride at some point (skyride is gone).





The last +1 was the Mick Doohan's Motocoaster, which for some reason I thought was going to be like the Zamperla motorcycle coasters
despite me knowing it was Intamin.



And it was a lot better for that, in fact I'd say that was quite good.



Here you can have two ORPs, featuring a very enthusiastic ride companion.





Rode Tower of Terror too, which had, like its Californian cousin, been reversed. But unlike its Californian cousin this one was still
barely launching half way up the spike - poor show.





Shocking ORP, where I am decapitated by the graphic - wow, good work.



(thats it for the ORPs you'll be pleased to know)

I do remember riding this back in 2002, but it was broken / being mended this time so escaped that pain this time;


[ EDIT : I've since found out that this ^ was not maintenance, but removal ]

Did not bother;



This was the one scheduled maintenance, but I had ridden this before - still would have liked another go though. Was themed as a Cyclone
when I rode it, now its all Hot Wheels.



The park has a reasonable selection of animals too, so had a wander through that bit as well, despite not being a big fan of animals in theme
parks at all.



















Log flume was being evacuated as I walked by - gotta be extra careful on the water rides here;





But to be honest, I was having a pretty rubbish time. The park was empty, devoid of atmosphere, ride-ops were argumentative and had annoyed
me, there's barely anything good open here (Giant Drop is very good, Motocoaster was OK, but apart from that?). So I took a few more crap
photos and left. Just about 1/2 a day - wow.







Its pretty safe to say I don't love Dreamworld anymore then - shame.
 
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gavin

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That is a shame, but it is what it is. I wasn't enamoured with the place either. I had it in my head that I'd really like this place and that Movie World would be the "meh, whatever" park, and it turned out to be the complete opposite.

I, too, enjoyed the drop tower, but Tower of Terror is f**king s**t, as was the motocoaster thing.
 

Hixee

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Aww, shame to hear the park that arguably "started it all" let you down a bit. Maybe this is a sad fact of life though - a good visit to a park coupled with lots of nostalgia makes for a hard standard to beat.
 

davidm

Strata Poster
Sea World - Sunday 3rd March (a little later)



Being a bit disappointed after my morning at Dreamworld, I headed off in the afternoon to Sea World - according to the maintenance schedule
the water-coaster was down today but would be up tomorrow onwards, whereas the kiddie-coaster was open today but was going down from tomorrow.
Such complications in the goon-life!

The original plan was to drop in to get get the kiddie-cred and see what else the park had to offer and come back to do the rest another day,
but since I had spent a lot less time at Dreamworld that I thought I would, I ended up at Sea World a lot earlier than I had planned.

Initial impressions of the place was that it was all a bit 1970s - you enter through the somewhat tired entranceway and there is a big lake
in front of you that you have to walk around to get the rides and to most of the animal exhibits.



And as I headed towards the kiddie cred I could see the water-coaster was running - deep joy, maybe I will not need to come back?

Elbowing small children aside, I have a ride on the kiddie-cred, excusing myself to the op with a "sorry, got to ride them all" and a sheepish
smile.

SpongeBob's Boating School Blast - a Zamperla family coaster, have ridden a few of these but for some reason I thought this one was a
bit better than the others ; reasonably well themed in a SpongeBob themed area and all.







Ok, a little non-SpongeBob themeing too


Nearby was the water-coaster, a clone of Mack's Skatteøen from Djurs in Denmark this one is called the somewhat uninspired Storm Coaster.





and this was pretty good ; the ride itself was pretty much as I remembered Skatteøen being, maybe the final splash was a but more restrained,
but the bit after the splash was different as it was all indoors, which kinda surprised me, and there were those water explosion things going
off in the indoor bit too - all a bit different then. Rode it a couple of times in fact.





The exit path was back through the indoor bit too;



OK once last coaster to get and once I was quite looking forward too as I recall it being built years ago and it had quite intrigued me at the
time - and I thought I had not been on one of these models before (however I had, since that Motocoaster earlier in the day is pretty much
the same with different vehicles).

Jet Rescue then - gotta say the first impression walking up to the ride was a bit rubbish, I thought that it might be in a bit more
of a scenic location in the park but its rather stuck out on the edge in a bit of a sand pit (what, no water?)



But I rather liked this one, much more than the Motocoaster earlier. A lot of close to the ground sweeping moves going on. But seriously what
are you doing on a jetski on dry land ; bizarre.



Wandered around the rest of the park after that then.

There were some very odd themeing things going on, giant sea-creatures and the like







Interspersed with various sea-creature exhibits in the style of your US Seaworld type places.





So a somewhat schizophrenic place ; neither a sea-park, nor a ride-park, nor a simple mix of both of these. Kinda disjointed then.





You could do a helicopter tour from one bit of the park



They had a jellyfish exhibit, these are usually quite pleasant but they tends to be all the same sort of thing and after Melbourne's a few
days previous I was not too over excited by this one





Penguins! Melbourne's exhibit was better though.





There was an ancient monorail (Australia's first they proudly boasted) that runs around the park (and around the car park for those parking
lot views you just can't get from anywhere else) so took a lap on that and snapped some pics.







Different angle on the coaster, but no well-timed trains







Wandered around a few more animal exhibits but didn't go to any of the shows, this chap looked fed up with the heat



Shark exhibit wasn't bad, big outdoor pool with underwater viewing areas









Overall it wasn't a bad place - I was more entertained that afternoon than I had been in the morning and I could see how you could spend a
longer time there if you planned your day around the shows and the like rather than just a cred-run and a few hours wandering around like I
had been doing. But I didn't feel any need to come back to "do it more" in the following days.

Can't beat a wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tubeman either, but this one was a bit lame



Headed back to the hotel, dumped the car and went to the nearby Hard Rock Cafe like a good tourist, it wasn't bad this one actually even if
the beer was still lager-like pale ale (but much better than the one the night before)





Retreated to the good bar from the night before instead for a couple more before the day was done.

 
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davidm

Strata Poster
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.



 
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davidm

Strata Poster
Now since I'd managed to do all 3 of the Gold Coast parks in 2 days of my allotted 5 nights at the Gold Coast, I now had an extra contingency
day to fill with some touristing. So only one very tenuous coaster connection coming up. I'll make it brief then.

Got the train up to Brisbane (where I spent a week back in 2002) to have a look around - the Southbank area (where I had stayed before) was all
quite nice.





There was a wheel, so I went for a spin.





This is the tenuous coaster connection then ; this was the area that some Brisbane World Expo was on back in 1988 and there were 3 coasters
there - I had ridden the boomerang in 2002 when it had been relocated to Sydney and I found a picture of it (top right) in the park there.



Walked across to the city and wandered around the botanical gardens for a bit, saw some critters casually hanging out in the city





Then wandered around the city centre for a bit, it was a lot less pleasant than I remember it being though so swiftly dived into a pub to
consider my options.



I discovered (via the power of that Untappd app) that I was only about 1/2 a mile away from a brewery - however it was a 2 mile walk there
because there was big river in the way - ha! OK there was a ferry, so I got on that instead.



Sealegs brewery ; spent a while here, was nice.





Had a couple of beers and was about to head off when they randomly gave me another pint (they were testing some taps and drew a couple of
pints so gave them away). The best beer is free beer. :)





Uber-d it across the city then to another brewery, Green Beacon Brewing Co.





and that was pretty good too - no free beer this time though :(





There was another place nearby, so headed there ; Newstead Brewing Co.





This place seemed a bit older than the other two and it was OK, but preferred the earlier places I think.





Anyway it was getting on a bit by then, so found the train back to the Gold Coast - funny the trip back didn't seem to take half as long
as the one in the morning!
 
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davidm

Strata Poster
Hmmm no roller coasters for a while now, and then just the one. Such poor goon behaviour.

Next day I did some wandering around hills and forests and things ; Tamborine Mountain





all very pleasant, some views and treetop walks and green stuff









Amusingly and entirely by accident, even found a brewery up there (but I was in the car of course, so did not indulge)



View back to Surfer's from the mountain



I can see my hotel from here!



The day after flew down to Sydney for a few days.



My hotel was not far from Darling Harbour, so had a wander around there to re-acquaint myself with the city, there has been a fair amount of
demolishing/rebuilding since last I was here in 2002.

Had been to the old HRC in Sydney a couple of times, but that closed down many years ago and the next franchisee had opened up in a much
more tourist-friendly area (the old one was down some backstreet miles away from the tourists)



Went into this one but stormed out in a huff - was stood by the "please stand here" sign for a seat, place was empty and two servers walked
past without even acknowledging my presence ; no wonder it was empty!

I randomly encountered a Japanese themed beer place instead to eat ; and was it fab so I was happy with that!









Did a day trip out to the Blue Mountains because I'd done that back in 2000 and it was a nice enough day out so figured I could do that again
(Ok, more tenuous roller coaster references coming up)

Cool views anyway



And some "rides" at the one big tourist destination ("Scenic World")





Cable car thingy



Steep train ride thingy



Other cable car thingy





But the first tenuous roller coaster reference was the never-opened failed coaster Orphan Rocker (which was never opened and standing there
doing nothing back in 2000 and still standing there now, albeit with a few more sections removed to make way for upgraded cable cars)







This is the nearby 'Orphan Rock' - hence the name.



Some more views and stuff









I was sat at the front of the tour bus, so on the way back to the city made a point of looking for the site of the old Wonderland Sydney park.

Back on that 2002 trip, after I had my enthusiasm awakened (see above), I was in Sydney and crashing on the floor of my mate's (Matt who I
had beer with in Melbourne earlier in the thread) flat on Sydney harbour - seriously literally right on the harbour; this was the view out of
his lounge window, ridiculous.



Anyway I had persuaded him that we should go to the amusement park one day, so we got the train out of Sydney to Rooty Hill to meet up with
the park's shuttle bus to take us to the park ; only the train was late so we missed the shuttle bus and walked the couple of miles to the
park instead. Park was dead too - possibly why it ended up closing not long later. But I got to ride my first ever boomerang (the one from
Brisbane expo above) and my first woodie (only the kiddie-coaster Beastie though, the big Bush Beast was shut that day)

Its all demolished now and replaced with a business park ; can't really see anything but it was just off this bit of the motorway


(very tenuous that then!)

And nearby is the new place, a waterpark that has been open for a couple of years now



Tour bus dumped us near the Olympic Stadium for what was euphemistically described as a cruise back to the city, but was in reality just a
ticket for the ferry!





But it was all fine, and a pretty nice day out.



Dodgy high-end fashion shops they have in Sydney though;



May have found a couple of beers on the way back too

 

TilenB

Strata Poster
Loving this report so far!
Yeah, the Gold Coast parks aren't up to much in comparision to what the rest of the world has to offer. Half of the big rides at Movie World were shut for us (DC Rivals had just been topped off and Green Lantern and the flume were closed for 'maintenance'), so I was struggling to see it as a full day destination park (asinine no-loose items policy and mandatory upcharge lockers on Superman didn't really help).
The water park next door was in pretty poor condition as well, especially compared to Dreamworld's (which is easily the highlight of amusement park offer on Gold Coast; if you're into waterparks that is).
Dreamworld seems to be headed into quite a downward spiral at the moment, the place seems to be in even worse condition than I remember. They could really use some serious investment, otherwise I can't see them lasting for too much longer. The area around drop tower/Skyloop was half abandoned then, but looks absolutely dead now, with rapids/indoor coaster being replaced by a big pile of mud with no plans of adding anyhting new in that area...

Looking forward to some more Sydney stuff then! :D

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