A quick Gold Coast Trip

[DJKostya]

So after a very long absence I finally made a trip to the Gold Coast this past weekend (Admittedly it was for a Roller Derby tournament) and decided to take a few extra days to get reacquainted with the parks.

Movie World

I hopped off the plane and headed straight to Movie World. I was dissapointed that Superman was under maintenance but I haven't had a chance to ride Green Lantern yet. I was really annoyed when rocking up to the front gate to see that Green Lantern was also not operating. It would have been nice if they had this information on the website or on their hotline (of which I checked both). Not wanting to really visit having 2 major attractions down I decided to cut my losses and head over to Dreamworld.

Dreamworld

To say it's been a while since i've been here would be an understatement. The last time I visited The Giant Drop was only new. Overall though I was pretty impressed with the park. It was clean and tidy and everything was operating. I was very unimpressed with HWSW as they only had 1 ride op to man the ride. Cycles were taking upwards of 5 minutes and the wait was around 45 minutes. It was still just as rough as I remember it being back when it was a Luna Park the last time I rode it. Aside from the Rapids and Log ride everything else was a pretty short wait. The highlight of the first day was definitely the ride op on BuzzSaw. That guy really enjoys his job, my favourite quote from him to a girl who was screaming BEFORE the ride even started was "Don't worry if you fall i'll catch you". Day 2 he was working on Pandemonium and was cracking wise the whole time.

Sea World

What happened to Sea World? I was very dissapointed overall with Sea World. The first impression that they made was terrible. I got there about an hour after opening time and had to wait 45 minutes just to get inside. I was handed the usual promotional stuff and a computer printed map on a piece of A4 paper. With the food court area getting the new roof getting around was difficult and very poorly signed, Jet Rescue seems to be abandoned in a corner all by itself (It was a walk on). Most of the rides were a walk on but I couldn't help thinking that there really wasn't much to do for the older crowd. There's certainly lots of rides for kids but not for teenagers or adults. The animal exhibitions though were great. One thing I did notice, sorry if this has already been posted somewhere, but there seemed to be some work going on around the old Sea Viper site.

So that was my quick trip up to the Gold Coast. Overall things were OK, not great but OK. One thing that I did find interesting though through talking with the ride ops was that the parks were all on offpeak mode now that the QLD school holidays were over. When I mentioned that it was only QLD that was back at school and that most states were still off on holidays they mentioned that management only looked at QLD school holidays. I thought that this was a bit short sighted seeing as many of the tourists on the Gold Coast, hell even from less than an hour away across the border, were still on holidays.

[downunder]

Bummer, I was at MW on Saturday. Green Lantern did get going eventually. It had a big line at first, but it dropped off a bit in the middle of the day. I was disappointed Superman wasn't running too, I hoped it would be going during the day like the previous week, but oh well.

Sea World was ridiculous to get in on Monday too. I got there super early because they were opening at 1.30pm and I had the Shark Encounter at 2pm.

[New display name]

20 minutes ago, DJKostya said:

 

I don’t think it’s the first thing any parks think of when they first discover a problem in the morning checks is to run and post it on the internet.  From my experience, a ride that is found wanting in the morning will run at some point during the day.  At Christmas the WWF was having problems waking up in the morning (She had a big day before).  The staff at the gate told us to ask at any ride attendant if she was out of bed yet and they would find out.  I thought that was pretty good customer service.

What do you mean by what happened to Sea World?  Sea World has always been a family park and never been a teenager park.

[Theme Park Girl]

44 minutes ago, DJKostya said:

 The highlight of the first day was definitely the ride op on BuzzSaw. That guy really enjoys his job, my favourite quote from him to a girl who was screaming BEFORE the ride even started was "Don't worry if you fall i'll catch you". Day 2 he was working on Pandemonium and was cracking wise the whole time.

Sounds like Justin. He's known to be one of the most entertaining ride ops there

 

[DJKostya]

15 hours ago, skeetafly said:

 

What do you mean by what happened to Sea World?  Sea World has always been a family park and never been a teenager park.

I agree Sea World was never aimed at teenagers.

I guess I was just generally disappointed with Sea World. It was lots of little things such as:

• The very long wait to get inside (Even when I got to a booth 1 adult cash payment took way longer than it should have)
• Jet Rescue out in the middle of nowhere
• fences with barb wire around the perimeter (Necessary I know but perhaps they could cover it so guests can't see from the inside)
• poor/nonexistent signage and no staffing to help people around when parts of the main thoroughfare are closed
• lack of food options because the main food court was closed.

Things like that all add up over the course of the day.