We moved into our Airbnb apartment at Broadbeach. This would be the base for our second week. With children in tow, we would guarantee ourselves to visit the many theme parks. We could do theme parks every day and possibly do all of them, but as I mentioned from my first earlier posts, my kids were not really theme parks person. So we would just choose a couple. To get a better deal, we could purchase packages such as 3-day, unlimited entry to 3 parks, etc. Because these parks are owned by different companies, we could only get packages like Dreamworld/Whitewater/Skypoint combo or Movie-world/Wet&wild/Sea-World. It turned out, we were able to get some discount online for the first Dreamworld package, 3 days unlimited access.
Combined with the Corroboree and wildlife sections, it is said to be the largest theme park in the Gold Coast. For small kids, there are Wiggles Bay, Wiggles World, ABC Kids World sections and the Trolls Village.
Dreamworks
Dreamworld is associated with Dreamworks and the section revolved around animated movies like Kungfu Panda, Madagascar and Shriek. My younger kids were amazed by the themes and kiddy rides but the teenage boy was more interested in the more thrilling rides such as the Pandamonium. The boys regretted taking the ride which suspended them upside down with 360 swings. The girls were smart to try the mild Shrek’s Ogre-Go-Round and the Skadoosh Bumper Cars. But all enjoyed the Gingys Glider together.
Monster Rides
We didn’t manage to take all the rides, as some were under maintenance. After that first Pandamonium, the boys were kind of being “humbled”. The Tower of Terror II and Giant Drop involved dropping from the 120m tower. The Tower of Terror II will accelerate you backwards and up into the air along a track and up the tower. Then gravity will pull you back to earth face first, hence the punchline – “face gravity, face first”. I took the eldest boy to queue for these rides, but as it was too long and the other kids wanted to do get wet at the white-water world, we have to “reluctantly” gave it up. As it turned out, this was quite a relief for me (I may be too old for this kind of thrills). Later I found out that it was also a relief for my boy too.
The HotWheels roller coaster was closed for maintenance if not, it will be fun for us, as the boys liked HotWheels cars and bought quite a lot during this trip. There was a HotWheels shop, selling limited edition HotWheels50 vintage cars. There were also simulator race rides within the shop. It was Free for 15 mins of simulation.
We rode the Shockwave. It was a mild ride but still had several twists and turns that gave us stomach upset. The best for the family was the Mick Doohan’s MotoCoaster. Mimicking riding a fast motorcycle around a race track. The roller coastal is fast with high G turns, but not a lot of drops. The kids loved it. We skipped The Claw and WipeOut as no one was game enough to join me.
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Corroboree World
This section contains the world of Indigenous culture, language and stories of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. Quite educational for the kids. There were enclosures displaying Australian Wildlife. Koala bears, crocodiles,
There were also rides and games there. We did the Vintage Car and Water Log. The Vintage Car drove around trees with Koalas, pretty interesting.
Tiger Island
The Tiger Island qualified as a section by itself. This was the first time we have seen so many magnificent tigers up close, including a white tiger. Even at the Australia Zoo, we have only seen one tiger at a distance. It was quite a strange feeling having direct eye contacts with one so close, albeit separated by glass.
WhiteWater World
By popular vote, we decided to move over to the WhiteWater World late in the afternoon when the day has cooled. We changed and hit the waters immediately. We were cooling off in the Cave of Waves and rode the Hydrocoaster for the rest of the day. The younger pair played in the Pipeline Plunge. – a series of kiddy slides and bucket pouring water.
If you have toddlers, there was this Wiggle Bay, a pint-sized section designed for the tiny-tots. Filled with mini-slides, small sprays and colourful water cannons.
On the second day, The younger group head straight to the WhiteWater World while I took the older ones back to do some more rides at the Dreamworld, basically to repeat those we liked. By noon, we were again back to the WhiteWater World. We did all the slides that were operation except the Wedgie, where you stand in a “capsule” and the floor would open sending you to a verticle drop. Our Favourite was the Hydrocoaster followed by the B.R.O. which we repeated several times. The Greenroom was also quite thrilling although my girls did not like it.
We had a great time. If not for the weather forecast of an impending storm, and we wanted to use the remaining fair weather days for hiking out in the national parks, we would have spent one more day at the WhiteWater World. But having done all the rides we wanted, there wasn’t any regret.
In all, the ticket price we paid was worth for a couple of days of fun. Purchasing the package that included the Skypoint Observation Deck entrance made it even more worthwhile.
gobassky