Ella Travel Blog: Gold Coast: Dreamworld (GC14 Part 4)

Gold Coast, 2014

Welcome to Dreamworld. Anything looks familiar?

When we were planning the itinerary for Gold Coast trip, our main target was to cover the three main theme parks, but the challenge was to squeeze all these three within five days. Not everyone in our group shares the common interest. So we need to plan what's the best for everybody.

On our 4th day in Gold Coast, we planned to go to Dreamworld just the two of us. We let the rest to choose their own activity of the day. As there's just the two of us, we got all the time to ourselves and be straight to the point. No kids, no stroller and no side track. Only me, him and roller coasters. Total freedom!

We arrived early to the front gate and there were already bunch of people waiting for the park to open. There are too many gates and counters with different queues for different types of ticket. So we were a bit confused. After asking around, we found out that the ticket we bought online need to be redeemed at a counter for real tickets (with bar codes). So this process pretty much delayed our entry for like 15 minutes. But it's still acceptable. Upon entering, we decided to go through all the roller coaster rides first and try to finish them by the 1st half of the day. Seems like a very cool and ambitious idea, right?

Buzzsaw

Dreamworld is famous with its Big-9 thrill rides. The things I was looking forward this entire time. Our first Big-9, was Buzzsaw. This thing is evil. The structure looks simple as a standing vertical loop with a twist of barrel roll inversion on top. Simple, but the elements are underlined perfectly. Like the Green Lantern coaster (Movie World), we're hold on to the seat by a lap bar, which makes the whole experience even more exhilarating! If the queue wasn't so long, we would have repeat the thing again.

Gulp!

See that!

Mick Doohan's Motocoaster

Still amazed and overwhelmed by Buzzsaw, we moved to the next roller coaster, Mick Doohan's Motocoaster. We rode on to a racing bikes replica with a special restraint system to make the whole experience of riding on what looks like motorbikes seems real. It's a high speed ride apparently, even at corners it still goes up to 72km/h, with many sharp bends and turns. We really feel like we're on a Moto GP race!

Tower of Terror 2

Motocoaster is kinda "mild" for our standard. I prefer the Jet Rescue (Sea World) more than this. We then moved to the Tower of Terror 2 for some real adrenaline pumping. The structure looks huge and pretty scary (it is actually a combined structure with The Giant Drop), and the sound it makes every time the train launched rocket speed is just thrilling. Why is it Tower of Terror 2? Well, this is actually a second version of the original Tower of Terror. Instead of moving forward, the train now goes backward. So we boarded on to the train, located inside a tunnel station. The light was then turned off (with minimal lights left), before suddenly the train rocketed, backward! Too fast! And it seemed like it's going on and on, to nowhere. When I said fast, it is actually 160km/h in 7 seconds! And from the darkness inside the tunnel, we're propelled into the bright sky! When we're like 100 meters far from the ground, feeling weightless for a second, then plummet, face first! The end.

Just like it said, face gravity face first. Fuhh~

We went on 7 out of 9, Big-9 rides. And they were,

1. Buzzsaw (the best of all!)
2. Mick Doohan's Motocoaster
3. Tower of Terror 2
4. Cyclone
5. The Claw
6. Tail Spin
7. Pandamonium

The other 2 Big-9 that we skipped were,

8. The Giant Drop (too chicken)
9. WipeOut (by end of the day, I felt a little dizzy after the Pandamonium ride, so I passed this too)

No. 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 are flat rides. And things about flat ride is that it could get me dizzy pretty easily on not-so-good days (lack of rest and dehydration).

Swing left.

Swing right.

Here comes Tail Spin.

Pandamonium.

WipeOut

The Giant Drop

Anyway, we also got to try the not-a-Big-9 rides too, and they are:

1. Escape from Madagascar (an inverted roller coaster). I got to give credit to this ride as the staff in-charge was very funny! He managed to keep all riders waiting in line entertained with his endless joke. And for the first time ever, I actually enjoyed queuing. There's one time when a single rider was required, he called out "Is there any single rider, who is single, and has no friend? Please come forward.". And then someone came out, and he went "Please every one, put you hands together for this person who is alone and has no friend!". Amusing!

2. Shockwave. All I can say is, I regret it. Should have gone to the WipeOut instead. Just a plain dizziness-inducing machine.

3. Thunder River Rapids. I went on this to get wet and cool off, but the only part that was drenched was my bottom part. It stayed damp until I got home. Huh.

4. Rocky Hollow Log Ride. Finally some water sprinkled on the face.

The park is huge! They even have animals like bengal tigers and Australian wildlife in there. And for a first timer like me, it's pretty difficult to understand the park layout and to manuever from point to point around the park. I believe that this is because of how the park has expanded over time since the 80s. The merchandise selections are nothing special too, as compared to what they have in Movie World, so we didn't buy much. We got ourselves some fridge magnets, and soft toy for the kids (as a bribe for leaving them). Without their presence, we accomplished our missions, took lots of photos, went on 10 rides, enjoyed lunch with the ibis peacefully, and the possibilities are endless. Thank you my children. And thank you babysitters.

Enjoys the photos..