Re: Australia 2012 PTR - Sea World Update
After holding it off and holding it off, I finally managed to get to my last park in Australia a couple of days ago; Dreamworld! I could’ve gone to Aussie World yesterday, but didn't really fancy the 9 hour round bus/train trip to get to one crappy looking wild mouse credit! Instead, as this would be my finale park in Australia, I wanted to go to what many Australians call their best park last.
The past few days have been quite bi-curious weather-wise, with heavy downpours in the late-afternoons and early mornings. Thursday was no different, and from the time I woke up at about 7:30am until I finally got there at about 10:20am, there must have been at least least 5 bursts of heavy rain. No matter though, and being a being a veteran of riding rides in awful weather (PMBO at the 2006(?) Blackpool Live springs to mind), I'm not going to let a bit of weather ruin my day, and so into the park I ventured!
Here's the park sign. Sea World, Movie World and Wet n Wild should take note on how clean and unfaded this sign is!
Prices were pretty much the same as the other parks, but as this park is separate I couldn't use my pass to get in, so had to dish out $80. For an annual pass to both Dreamworld and its water park, Whitewater World, this would set you back a whopping $180!
Park map. All the major attractions are located entrance-side of the steam train line, witht eh other side containing mostly animal enclosures (more kangaroos and koalas, hooray!)
The upside-downiness of Australia even makes wizards lose their sense of direction.
I decided to head to the left first, as this area seemed to be a little isolated from the rest of the park.
Straight into the town of Gold Rush, a little woodcutting town in the Australian outback.
Gold Rush had a small buzzsaw exhibition going on, showcasing different saws from through the generations.
They had huge saws...
And chewing gum-producing saws!
Not many people wanted to view the saws today it seems!
Oh yeah, there was also this twisted contraption.
Buzzsaw was actually really good, if a bit short. After doing one complete loop, it then drops back down the lift hill, up and down the other side before braking on the lift and bringing you back down to the station. Lots of fun, but just short. Very solid 7/10!
Also in the Gold Town section was their log flume, but I didn't ride this until later as I wanted to cut back across the park to get to their main ride section. Have some photos nonetheless!
Ohh, I'm a lumberjack and I'm ok, I sleep all night and I work all day!
I cut down trees, I eat my lunch, I go to the lavatory!
He cuts down trees, he wears high heels, suspenders and a bra?!
After cutting back across the park, I made a beeline into the Dreamworks Experience, the park's pretty new childrens area.
They even had a credit; the Madagascar Madness.
All the characters were out, not that I have any idea what their names are. I think it was these guys who shoot water at you as well, and I was so close to having my camera completely screwed up by it.
Oh wait, the coaster's actually called Ecape from Madagascar, located within Madgascar Madness, located within the Dreamworks Experience? No wonder these guys are so difficult to infect!
The ride is a Vekoma Suspended Family Coaster, and I thought it was actually awesome for a kiddy credit! Half the train was weighed down with water dummies and it was still barely making it through the circuit, but I still thought it was excellent!
Wayne Rooney made a special guest appearance today!
As did Puss in Boots!
The rest of the Dreamworks area was filled with some rather standard kiddy rides. Lie down flyer things, slow spinny things and ball shooting things and whatnot.
The only blue sky I saw all day! The Claw is regularly raved on about by many Australians.
The Claw had claws!
The ride wasn't really that brilliant, and was actually rather standard. At least we got a decently lengthed ride cycle, but it didn't spin that high and it felt like it was struggling to get up to maximum height.
There was also this thing, and despite being manned by 2 ride operators, I didn't see or hear it go all day.
They also had a Giant Disk-o called Shockwave, but I wasn't too fussed about riding it.
I still really fancy going on a Flowrider again. It's always hilarious watching people fail...
:shock:
Yeah, he was quite good...
Located right in the corner of the park is the Cyclone, which I didn't think was open as I hadn't seen it go around all day.
Oh, wait! As I was walking up the never-ending spiral of a queue (almost cyclone-like, one could say!), I saw it actually go! As it's such a slow coaster and there was a light breeze today, they could only send the train with at least 14 people riding. After waiting around for about 20 minutes and groups of 2 and 3 slowly trickling into the queue, we finally had enough people to go!
The ride has a very mediocre layout.
As the ride was so slow, it didn't hurt that much, which is lucky considering everyone wanted to ride again and I didn't want to be a spoil sport by getting off and forcing them to wait again! It wasn't any better the 2nd time round.
Terrifying clowns seem to be a recurring theme at Australian theme parks.
AWWWW! I want one now! ^_^
Literally every single guest in the park is in this photo watching the rather decent tiger show.
This show demonstrates a tiger’s ability to absolutely own you if you try to tease it with snacks!
Possibly the park’s most famous ride is located right next to the tiger show; Tower of Terror II, the park’s Intamin Reverse Freefall coaster. When it opened in 1997, it held the record as the fastest roller coaster in the world with Superman in SFMM at 100mph in 7 seconds. Even though this ride goes just as high and as fast as Superman, RCDB claims that this ride is actually shorter height-wise, which I think is quite strange.
To enter the queue, you have to go through this cool-looking skull theming thing.
Similarly to Superman, ToT2 had its car turned around a couple of years ago so it now launches you off backwards.
Unlike Superman, however, this ride blasts you through a high tunnel with light effects before you ascend the hill. The tunnel did add a little bit to the ride, but it was fairly humid in there and I’d dread to think what it’s like on a hot Australians summers day.
Overall, I thought this ride was about on par with Superman:EfK. Even though ToT2 doesn’t manage to get as high as Superman (despite what RCDB claims), the tunnel makes up for this I think, and both rides feel as fast as each other.
I think Australia has found its next Steve Irwin here!
Children’s TV in Australia is fairly weird, with one channel having a possum show up every night telling kids when to go to bed. The Wiggles seems to be no different…
It looks like Barney’s retarded cousin.
Other than the tea cups, a show that I missed and a closed ride, there wasn’t much else in Wiggles World and it all seemed fairly dated.
Following the path around and you get to Mick Doohan’s Motocoaster. When this opened in 2007, it almost instantly gained negative reviews with people saying it went too slow and didn’t do anything, and was voted near the bottom of that year’s Mitch Hawker poll. However, since then, one of the ride ops told me that they have boosted the speed up a bit.
If you didn’t know who Mick Doohan was, then you probably still don’t know as I didn’t get close enough to view his facts.
The trains are themed to motorbikes like the Vekoma launched coasters. On this version, however, the back two bikes have sidecars attached with a lower height restriction, so now kids can ride as well which I think is quite clever.
The whole ride remains relatively low to the ground without any major hills, and is a real thigh squasher as the restraints continually push down on your things but doesn’t really affect the rest of your body.
Overall, it’s an alright ride, but nothing special. Certainly not the worst launched coaster in the world, but nowhere near the best either.
After the Motocoaster, you hit the area with the log flume in, which also contains The Giant Drop, the huge-ass drop tower on the side of ToT2.
The ride seemed to hold you at the top forever, and that’s from my perspective on the ground I was totally wussed out from actually going on the ride.
The ride uses both sides of the tower, but only one side was up today and even this was struggling to be filled. I believe these are exactly the same cars that SFMM are using for their version of the ride opening this month.
Apart from a drained River Rapids, a steam train which I didn’t go on and a couple of other generic kiddy flat rides, The Giant Drop rounds off the list of rides you can find at Dreamworld. By far the best for me was the Tower of Terror, but I was also rather impressed with Buzzsaw. Apart from the rides, though, the park also has a generic animal section…
And I thought the bus on Nemesis was poorly parked!
Whatchu looking at?
No wonder why contestants struggle to eat Kangatesties on I’m a Celebrity! :shock:
Speaking of crappy reality TV shows, apparently the Australian version of Big Brother was filmed at Dreamworld, and this board kept you updated with what was going on with the people inside the house. When this programme finished a few year ago, the park just left the board and café there in a sorry state in full public view. Quite strange really. :?
Wait… what?! Best. Theme Park Show. Idea. Evar!
Unfortunately, it looks like I’ve already missed it.
What’s a llama's favourite video game?
AlPaca-man…
What a totally unique and awesome name for you main park shop. Never heard this one before! I wonder where they got the idea from for such an original name?!
And that will do for my Dreamworld trip report and for my time in Australia.
Overall, I thought Dreamworld was an excellent park, and by far the best park in Australia. If they spruced up Wiggles World and did something to Cyclone to make better use of that space, I think this could be a truly great theme park. Perhaps it was just because the park was so quiet why I got everything done in a few hours, but perhaps a couple more rides wouldn’t hurt.
I hope you have enjoyed my Australia park trip reports. It’s a shame I got spited out of Aussie World, but never mind! Next stop is Hong Kong, where I’ll hopefully be taking photos from the 4 parks I want to visit and the general sightseeing stuff. If you have enjoyed reading these reports, then I’ll definitely so some more!
Until then…
