Glubbo's Dreamworld visit, Feb22.

[Whombex]

Hey all. I went on Tues Feb 22. The only attractions closed were the Log Ride and the Chair lift. Lara Croft has been closed for a while now apparently. The best thing about attending on a non-holiday season school day is the lack of crowds. I arrived smack bang on 10am, and had to wait under 5 minutes to get into the park (the outer booths were closed). I went with 2 of my younger brothers and their friends. First of all we hit the Claw, and to my surprise we were on the very next ride. Not much waiting, I can recall previous trips where we ran to the newest ride (Giant Drop, Cyclone) as the park opened and still had to wait a half hour. The 2 people operating the claw kept turnover high. 2 people checking restraints and controlling the entry of riders and the ride control is good. But that's to be expected at the newest attraction. The Claw is an awesome ride. I loved it, even after watching the "on ride" video available on the R-C videos page about thirty times . The usual 'swing' ride combined with the rotation on the gondola makes it great. I rode it 3 times over the day, never having to wait more than one ride in front of me. After The Claw, everyone jumped on Wipeout. I got some good 'happy snaps' of the people I was with, but I won't bore you with those. The pics I'll attach to this thread will be better than those, IMO... It was good to see the Wipeout looked its best in years. If that's because of Ocean Parade being a new focus area for the Park, or it's overhaul was just recent, I am not sure. Yes, as previously mentioned in Bigglesworth's visit thread, the Shark is operating, as is the fountain. My biggest surprise was that the wait for Wipeout was longer, even though it had 2 operators. Did it once have 3, or 4 people running it? There seemed to be more people throughout the day riding Wipeout over Claw. Not sure why. We went to the Cyclone next, and we had to wait about 20 minutes. The TVs added to the ride's theming, not too bad at all. 2 Operators. This was the first time I rode the Cyclone with a "front gate". It's a good ride, the Sidewinder and double loops obviously make the ride. There is a railing on the sidewinder (in case of a stall/malfunction?) that I swear looks too close as you pass it! The Cyclone, as I have always thought privately, has horrible post-ride 'theming' (?). You walk out of a door, down stairs, under the station, up stairs, alongside the rumble room, then spiral down the outside of the waiting spiral. As you walk down the spiral, you see an open field (Thunderbolt's site), then back-of-house behind the Wipeout, then the Thunderbolt field again. I spent some time in this area taking pictures of the Cyclone and the Thunderbolt field. Not my favourite part of the Park. I split up with my companions and stood on a garden bed at the exit of the Cyclone. I took a few pics of the old Thunderbolt lineup and station itself. The red gates are still there, as is the Kenny Koala warning above in the station. The track is long gone, only a little bit of it remains down the back near some workshops (dismantling the Thunderbolt?). RIP Thunderbolt. When I was a kid, I loved that ride. I spent the rest of the day in the Park by myself. I don't know if anyone else has spent almost a whole day in DW by themself, it's a very interesting experience. When in a group you don't look at the Park that closely. I paid a lot of attention. Next I went down into the old 'village' part of the Park, now the lower reaches of Nickelodeon. This is my first visit with the ToT entry on the other side, where Reptar's entry/the water jet part is, was where we used to wait for ToT. Reptar is a great little family coaster. It had zero people waiting, in fact, like The Claw, they seemed to be stalling just to get some more people to get on. This visit I spent the most time at Tiger Island than I had on my previous 3 visits. I ended up watching (mostly through my Digital SLR Camera's lens!) 2 shows there. Darn those cats are BIG. And they love milk. I got some very nice pics (300mm lens, I love you!). Next I went down through the Train tunnel near ToT. In the Bigglesworth visit thread, someone mentioned that the Claw was a choke point. I disagree. The chocke point is the area from Tiger Island/ToT entry through to Gum Tree Gully. Although it's nice and cool in the shade. To my surprise, only a wire fence was up at the Tomb Raider site. The area looked very tacky, the "sorry for the inconvenience" signs just make it look worse. I'm sure they could pull down the "rock" facade in the space of a night... Yes, the shooting Gallery was out of order. I began to look around this area Gum Tree Gully/Rivertown and picture my idea for a ride... which as mentioned in the "New attraction for Dreamworld" thread, is the same idea as scott's. A single-person flying coaster over the Island and "river". Scott's idea was a Jurassic themed one, which could work, you might be carried around by a Pterodactyl? My idea was for a bird-of-prey (Wedge-Tailed Eagle?) diving to the water from the trees in the Island, or Marsupial Glider themed one. However if a Ride of this type were to be built, it would have to focus on the Island and the front area of the "river", with the station whare Model T lane is currently. The back side of the "river" has the "Gum Tree Gully Farm" at the waterline, and an endangered animal exhibit (Paddymelon, Cassowary) and Kangaroo area too close for a coaster. As it is The Wombat and Dingoes must be sick of the sound of the ToT rattling up and down the Tower. Or deaf. After taking a few pics of the Rivertown area, I went over to the GD and took a few pics of the ToT from the GD bridges. That whole area bugs me (The Train line overpass linking the Big Brother Cafe/Blue Lagoon with Rocky Hollow, GD and Gold Rush. The maze of stairs/ramps/overpasses could surely be simplified??? I took a pic of the Camera tower for the Carpark side of the GD. Long gone is a photographer...nowdays a coaster (Thunderbolt?) camera sits in that tower (I will post a pic soon). The Giant Drop que was only half way out of the building back towards the arch queing area. Still, with only the COAST side open, I had the longest wait of the day, my estimation was 80-100 minutes. There was only one operator for the GD. The fans were working in the old "evacuation room" but no water from the sprays. The Skydiving Video, although fitting into the 'altitude' part of the ride, got boring rather quickly. Maybe this was due to me being by myself at this stage. The Carpark side Gondola was still there, just not in use (maintenance?). This was the worst part of my day (horrible landscaping/theming at the Cyclone included). After that I went down the back of the park, past the water-free log ride with the logs sitting in the tunnel. As I had only aquired my camera a few days' prior, I wanted to spend some time taking pics of the animals. Almost two hours later I emerged back at Gum Tree Gully. Oops. Highlight of that part was being the only person at the Bird enclosure presentation. Highlight? Not. The guy still had to do the presentation in case more people wandered in, and I just couldn't walk off now, could I? Anyway, I got a few nice bird pics. Yes, bird, as in the things with wings. It was after 3pm when I returned to Gum Tree Gully, and I returned to Tiger Island for the last show of the day. Few more pics, then I went back to ride the Tower of Terror. The que was to the bottom of the stairs, but seemed to be moving ok. Then, about half way up (last corner before the door), we seemed to wait for almost a half hour. I'm not sure if it was that (over-reverse) bug or just that they took 5-6 rides worth of people through the door at a time. At least I was under a TV monitor to see the Dragsters. I had thought that there were real Dragsters near the ToT entry, but it was only an episode of Speedweek (SBS/Fox) on thw aiting TVs. The 'speed' theme was my assumption for that choice. The ToT, after the wait, was as good as usual. I can't wait for a coaster to be propelled like this! Went on The Claw a few more times, and took a few more pics. Realising that I hadn't eaten, I did a silly thing: At 4:30pm I bought a Burger meal for $9.95. And it was terrible. I always take food into DW these days, and buy one item of food to make it "fair". Maybe I'll try the BB cafe next time, the menu looks a little healthier, but TEN DOLLARS for a small size burger, chips and drink? Pfffft! Especially for something that could have been made an hour before! I left at 5, having not made it anywhere near Gold Rush, Blue Lagoon, The Imax Having paid "Adults at Kids prices", I don't think I was eligible for the $15 re-entry within 14 days offer. I'd have taken it up if I thought I could.. there was more I wanted to see (and photograph - dang it my battery died at 4:30pm! Only 70 DW pics on a 300 pic 1GB card! :mad: ) Anyway, I loved Dreamworld. And the first time I went though the place by myself. Although I paid attention to the bad theming (re: the Movieworld thread) and bad queing (mainly on the GD only, it had 1 operator and only 1 side running). Comments? Questions? PICS to come later in the thread.

[Whombex]

...some pics. Claw, Cyclone.

[Whombex]

...some more pics. Included in this group are the area where I had imagined the Flying Coaster... imagine a single-person, bird-of-prey themed flying coaster high in those trees, and diving towards the water??? *Sigh* It'll never hapen, too close to the Park's animals, and I seriously couldn't see them getting rid of Captain Sturt. Also included is what I believe to be DW's cost-cutting measures... the Giant Drop Photographer... although it won't miss a photo...

[Whombex]

...more pictures. These pics are of the Thunderbolt Site. The last piece of track is visible at the back of the image Tbolt feb05b by Glubbo.jpg. Also included are the pictures of the station/que area, as I referred to in my first post.

[Whombex]

Last pics: 300mm Lens on the camera paid for itself!! Plus the "empty" Wipeout photo I love. Taken at the end of the day, all the people going or gone, yet the mighty Wipeout Prevails to fight another day. Shark swimming around just adds to the ride's menace.