Dreamworld

Yesterday we went to Dreamworld on the Gold Coast.  This is Australia's largest amusement park, with 9 'big thrill' rides, a decent kids area, and an animal area.

Got our tickets at a bit of a discount, which was nice, but still not cheap.  I think it is more than Canada's Wonderland still, and close to Disney, but falls short of both of them for value.

Avery was excited since she loves the big rides, and she cracked 120cm with her shoes on 2 weeks before we left.  That is the height needed for all but 3 rides at the park.

It was a scorcher at 10:00 already but we came well prepared.  We started on some small rides before trying a medium one.  After some mechanical problems, Avery and I went first on the motocross coaster.  She loved it.  Trent was a bit more worried and gave it a miss.

We had some lunch and some drama over the red coloured hot dogs they have here, but we all eventually figured it out.

There is a Dreamworks area with rides from Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda, Shrek, etc, and it was a good speed for everyone.

Avery and I did the Big Drop, which is the largest free fall ride in the world.  The operator couldn't quite believe that Avery wanted to go on and smiled when she cleared the height tester by a good 0.5cm.

We lined up for the log ride at 3 and the rain started.  We made it through just as the lightning started and all the rides stopped, so we went to see the animals.  We got a chance to pet and feed some kangaroos, which was really cool!

After we left the aboriginal exhibit, the rain was falling in sheets and we had to wade through actual rivers and floods through some crazy lightning to make it out to the car.

The day was cut short, which was too bad because we wanted to fit a few more rides in, but we all had fun.

I must say that at this park, it was strange that it closed so early, and opened so late.  There is enough to do for 1.5 days probably, so a couple more hours would work well.

Also, the teenaged ride operators seem to not understand the words speed or efficiency.  Lines here moved provably twice as slow as we would have expected, and nobody seemed motivated to speed things up.

But apart from all that, it was a good day.  It was the last theme park we have planned, and that is probably for the best since there are much better ways to see this great country.

Sea world, gold coast

Yesterday we went to Sea World on the Gold Coast.  We navigated our way there and looked up at the ominous clouds at 9:30am.  We ran from the car to the gate in a torrential downpour and noticed that we were the only ones in rain jackets - everyone else was slowly walking through the lot in soaked-through t-shirts and ripped jean shorts.  That was a good clue that the day would clear up and be nice and sunny.

Sea world is a cross between an aquarium and a theme park.  They have Spongebob Squarepants next to an awesome shark lagoon filled with hundreds of awesome tropical fish.

The first thing we saw there was the sea lion show where some trained sea lions helped the "police" solve the case of the overfishing of the oceans.  The kids loved it, the tricks were great, and the message of conservation was clear.  Very well done!  We saw a polar bear (what a distance to travel to see our first one!), seals, sea lions, an awesome dolphin show, penguins, and many other good nature areas.  And mixed with that were some pretty cool rides and fun stuff for the kids. 

The day there went from 9:30 to 4:30 or so, which was just about right.  It is a little expensive, but we got a decent discount, and it was a good fun day of quality fun.

The discount we got was because I signed up for a membership to the motoring association (kind of like CAA to us Ontarians).  Apparently they never should have let a Canadian have a membership, but they mailed me a card and so far we have saved about $400 with it.  Not bad for $50!

Today we are going to see some sights in Springbrook National Park. 

Dave