I just came back from my Chinese New Year holiday a few days ago. I decided to do an Australia revisit since it’s been eleven years since I was at the Gold Coast, and there’s a fair bit of new stuff since then. My original plan had been to start the trip in Sydney – again eleven years since I was there - but due to general faff involving other people, I ended up finishing the trip there instead. At first this was annoying since it meant hitting the Golf Coast parks during a holiday weekend, but it was actually fine.
Hong Kong Airlines now has direct Gold Coast flights. They’re s**t (selling themselves as a full-service airline while offering a budget airline experience), but it was the best option for what I needed. The flight should have arrived at 9 in the morning, but was over an hour late. In my panic at losing an hour, I stupidly ignored a bus that was just about to leave and got an Uber instead, which proceeded to follow the bus for most of the journey into the city centre. It saved the faff of a transfer to a tram though, so I got to the hotel about 5 minutes quicker, meaning that the 30 quid I spaffed up the wall was definitely worth it.
I was prepared to dump bags and head to a park, but the hotel gave me the room early, so I quickly changed and bathed in sun screen before immediately heading back out.
Sea World
This park made sense as the first one of the trip for every possible reason: closest to the hotel (which was right in the middle of Surfers Paradise), already missed park opening, only one new cred, more relaxed park after an overnight flight etc. The main (only) reason for bothering to come back here was Leviathan, a Gravity Group woodie that opened about 3 years ago.
I got straight in the queue and then it broke down. This caused some obvious cred anxiety, but I waited it out and was back up in about half an hour. A lot of people had left the queue by that point, so by the time it opened, I was on fairly quicky. There’s a fairly large indoor queueing area, but they’ve decided to not use it, instead batching people outside and then opening a door to let people into the indoor bit. The station is very impressive, surrounded by screens which the monster swims between.
I was in the 2nd to front row for the first ride, and honestly didn’t enjoy it too much thanks to the rattle. It wasn’t rough, but it definitely isn’t riding like a 3-year-old coaster should be riding, and I’m getting old. An immediate reride – this time just one row behind the first one – was somehow much better. After that initial faff with the break down, the queue never really built up again, so that was good.
There’s also a new kiddy cred here since my last visit, so that obviously had to be done for the +1. It only had a couple of trains wait, I’d done the major new coaster twice and there was still plenty of time left.
I’d really enjoyed Jet Rescue on my first visit – maybe because there wasn’t much else here - so decided to stick out a 30-minute queue (actually took closer to 40) to see if it still holds up. It does. It’s short, but it’s a very underrated/overlooked coaster in my opinion.
I remembered Storm Coaster being very wet, but still decided to ride it. That’s until I got into the station and saw a very big queue and couldn’t be bothered with it. I think it had gone down for a bit earlier, and it also seemed to be the most popular coaster there. Leviathan was practically a walk-on at this point, which I found strange. Maybe Jet Rescue and Storm Coaster have more of a reride factor? Partly down to operations (though these weren’t particularly great on Leviathan either)?
They’ve got some animals here as well. I didn’t bother with any shows – seen one sealion/dolphin show: seen them all – but their main tank is pretty impressive. The climate means that it’s all outside as well, rather than in a dark building.
There’s a backwards row upcharge on Leviathan – this back row upcharge would become a theme – so I did another regular ride and then gave that a go before leaving. Nope, it just made me feel sick. I think it’s the first time I’ve done a wooden coaster backwards though, so there’s that.
Not a bad afternoon then. Despite getting to the park a couple of hours later than hoped, I’d taken the possibility of a delay into account and it didn’t turn out to be a big problem anyway. I think I ended up getting into the park by around 12:30 and was out before closing, managing to get multiple rides on the new woodie as well as picking up the +1 kiddie and getting a reride on Jet Rescue.
After that, it was just a quick bus back to Surfers Paradise, food and hotel.
Next up: Dreamworld
Hong Kong Airlines now has direct Gold Coast flights. They’re s**t (selling themselves as a full-service airline while offering a budget airline experience), but it was the best option for what I needed. The flight should have arrived at 9 in the morning, but was over an hour late. In my panic at losing an hour, I stupidly ignored a bus that was just about to leave and got an Uber instead, which proceeded to follow the bus for most of the journey into the city centre. It saved the faff of a transfer to a tram though, so I got to the hotel about 5 minutes quicker, meaning that the 30 quid I spaffed up the wall was definitely worth it.
I was prepared to dump bags and head to a park, but the hotel gave me the room early, so I quickly changed and bathed in sun screen before immediately heading back out.
Sea World
This park made sense as the first one of the trip for every possible reason: closest to the hotel (which was right in the middle of Surfers Paradise), already missed park opening, only one new cred, more relaxed park after an overnight flight etc. The main (only) reason for bothering to come back here was Leviathan, a Gravity Group woodie that opened about 3 years ago.
I got straight in the queue and then it broke down. This caused some obvious cred anxiety, but I waited it out and was back up in about half an hour. A lot of people had left the queue by that point, so by the time it opened, I was on fairly quicky. There’s a fairly large indoor queueing area, but they’ve decided to not use it, instead batching people outside and then opening a door to let people into the indoor bit. The station is very impressive, surrounded by screens which the monster swims between.
I was in the 2nd to front row for the first ride, and honestly didn’t enjoy it too much thanks to the rattle. It wasn’t rough, but it definitely isn’t riding like a 3-year-old coaster should be riding, and I’m getting old. An immediate reride – this time just one row behind the first one – was somehow much better. After that initial faff with the break down, the queue never really built up again, so that was good.
There’s also a new kiddy cred here since my last visit, so that obviously had to be done for the +1. It only had a couple of trains wait, I’d done the major new coaster twice and there was still plenty of time left.
I’d really enjoyed Jet Rescue on my first visit – maybe because there wasn’t much else here - so decided to stick out a 30-minute queue (actually took closer to 40) to see if it still holds up. It does. It’s short, but it’s a very underrated/overlooked coaster in my opinion.
I remembered Storm Coaster being very wet, but still decided to ride it. That’s until I got into the station and saw a very big queue and couldn’t be bothered with it. I think it had gone down for a bit earlier, and it also seemed to be the most popular coaster there. Leviathan was practically a walk-on at this point, which I found strange. Maybe Jet Rescue and Storm Coaster have more of a reride factor? Partly down to operations (though these weren’t particularly great on Leviathan either)?
They’ve got some animals here as well. I didn’t bother with any shows – seen one sealion/dolphin show: seen them all – but their main tank is pretty impressive. The climate means that it’s all outside as well, rather than in a dark building.
There’s a backwards row upcharge on Leviathan – this back row upcharge would become a theme – so I did another regular ride and then gave that a go before leaving. Nope, it just made me feel sick. I think it’s the first time I’ve done a wooden coaster backwards though, so there’s that.
Not a bad afternoon then. Despite getting to the park a couple of hours later than hoped, I’d taken the possibility of a delay into account and it didn’t turn out to be a big problem anyway. I think I ended up getting into the park by around 12:30 and was out before closing, managing to get multiple rides on the new woodie as well as picking up the +1 kiddie and getting a reride on Jet Rescue.
After that, it was just a quick bus back to Surfers Paradise, food and hotel.
Next up: Dreamworld