The stupidiest tour ever conceived - Dubai, Australia, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo

[Trax]

So, to share my experiences (and also get some points for this years LOG), I decided to try making a trip report for my crazy tour this October/November.

First, some backstory.
I originally planned to finally head over the pond to visit the US East-Coast. After postponing this trip since 2020 for variying reasons, I was dedicated to finally get it working this year. Until my company launched a new project, which had me in a pivotal role and a deadline right when my Giga-Trip was planned to end.
So, what should I do? I decided that the only worthy replacement for my dream vacation, would be a trip so stupid, that I wouldn't care about the States anymore. Australia was an obvious choice, with the weather towards the latter half of the year being comfortable and it also being quite literally on the other side of the world.
Over the course of planning, some additional stopovers came and went. Indonesia, Singapore and Taiwan where just a few of my considerations. I finally settled for an itenerary starting in Dubai (where I went last year, but my friend accompanying me has never been there), heading to Brisbane, followed by Sydney and then going for Shanghai Disneyland, Hong Kong Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland + DisneySea. It actually escalated a bit more, but the other parks are not worth a compelete individual report.

So, let's start with the very first leg of the trip, Dubai. I would like to note that due to the sheer amount of parks, I may not recall everything correctly, or simply do some reviews instead.

After arriving the evening before and having another ride on Storm Coaster, the first day was planned to include Motiongate and Real Madrid World - a park that I missed last year due to its transition from Bollywood park.

Motiongate was signifantly more crowded then last year. We actually had up to 15 minutes worth of queue at maximum - but this was more of an outlier and most of the outdoor attractions were still walk-on.
After having to wait until 11 o'clock to get our tickets (we used the GoCity Unlimited pass for most park admissions), we decided to get the outdoor credits first.

Capitol Bullet Train is a launched Mack Megacoaster with a switchtrack and pendulum launch. And the ride is... there. It really doesn't do much at all. It isn't bad by any means, but it also has little going for it. It is there, and was a decent +1

Now You See Me: High Roller, a Maurer spinning coaster and remnant of Six Flags Dubai is actually a decent spinning coaster. Thanks to it unusual start, it is actually a fairly fun experience. Nothing special, but for sure one of the better Maurer spinning coasters.

John Wick: Open Contract was one of the creds that I missed out on last year. I was actually looking forward to it as it is was my first S&S free spin. Well, my conclusion: It is better than the Intamin Zac-Spins. That's all that I can really say about it. It wasn't really fun, it wasn't really pleasant, but it was better than a Zac-Spin, so at least a +1 that doesn't cause me to question all my descisions in live that brought me to this point.

Green Hornet is also one of those rides, that are just there and don't really stay in memory for long. I recall getting into the car, I recall getting out of it, but I have little to no recollection about the ride itself. I think this tells you quite a lot, and fits into the theme of this park.

Smurf Village Express is a Gerstlauer Family coaster. NEXT.

We then headed for the Smurfs Studio Tour. This dark ride is certainly not the best, but I still do enjoy it. This ride is one of 3 trackless darkrides in the park, all of the very same type. I guess they got a decent deal on them, so they decided to get the same ride 3 times. I like the idea of the smurfs making a movie, and the storytelling is actually fine.

Another ride I missed out on last year was their rafting, themed to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I got warned that this would be the dryest rafting out there, but it was actually alright. I did dislike that it often times went very slow in places, but the quicker parts were decent fun and I got a decent sprinkle over the course of the right. The thing that was really messing with me was the water temperature. I am used to the water being cold and kind of unpleasant, but with the temperatures in Dubai, it was actually really warm. Just an unsual sensation, but it certainly isn't a bad one.

Motiongate is also home to a Hotel Transilvania Darkride. I do like the idea of it, with it being centered arround a large room with some smaller rooms at the sides, but it just feels so bare in many places. It is ok, but certainly not a ride I would wait 30 minutes to go on.

Ghostbusters hits a similar note. I do like my shooters, and it does feel better executed than the one at Heide Park, but it is still not a darkride to write home about.

We then headed for the longest queue of the day: Madagascar Mad Pursuit, an indoor Gerstlauer Infinity coaster and the star of the park. But before that, we actually had to wait in a line for 15 minutes. Apparently, we got there at the worst timing, as all of our repeat rides were pretty much walk-ons, but this first ride did require some patience. The S-Bends after the launch can actually be a bit painful as you don't expect this kind of sudden movement, but the ride itself is actually pretty good. It has a few nice airtime moments and tells a nice story throughout its layout. It looses a bit of speed after the MCBR, but it is still easily the best coaster in the park. Having known nothing about it in 2023, I was suprised that this one is airtime and turn focussed and feautres no inversions.

Dragon Gliders is a nice use of the Mack inverted powered coaster and for me superior to the original at Europa-Park. It features a nice story and it's coaster part feels more natural than the one on Arthur.

We also did the KungFu Panda Simulator ride, which could actually be a fun experience. But with us sitting in the last row, several of the movements were just too jolty and we didn't get thee feel of riding a boat at any moment.

Overall Motiongate isn't a bad park, but you really see that they are struggling with low attendance. I guess they expected Dubai to grow a bit more towards their park, which would make them easily accessible from the city, but as of now it requires at least 30 minutes via car to get there. Luckily for us, the taxis in Dubai aren't that expensive, but I feel like the location is the biggest issue for all of the parks at the resort.

I will skip ofer Real Madrid World and Legoland; We basicly just got there for the creds, and left quickly for that reason. Legolands kiddy coaster a one notable issue, as it's seats are black and exposed to the sun, so the ride was actually closed until 4pm due to the seats being to hot for anyone to sit on - talking of design fails.
Real Madrid world is actually not included in the pass, and cost about 80$ with the cheapest offer I could find. And this park is nothing but a ripoff. You pay that much money just to be bombarded with cheap ads for Real Madrid, in a park that utilises half it's area and clearly shows that it used to be a different park. Hala Madrid, their GCI wooden coaster was my only beakon of hope, and it managed to beat Joris en de Draak as the weakest GCI for me. Yes, it has a great start, but after 2 elements it is just doing nothing. Well not quite, it *tries* to do something, but never really achieves it. Maybe it wasn't a great idea to build an airtime focussed coaster with trains that are not suited for negative Gs.
We got 2 creds, and that is the best I can tell about this park. If you're not a hardcore counter, just ignore this one. It is empty for a reason, even Motiongate felt like Magic Kingdom on Memorial day compared to this.

Next Part: Ferrari World, Warner Bros and SeaWorld Abu Dhabi on one day - running from ride to ride.

 

[Trax]

Ferrari World, Warner Bros and SeaWorld Abu Dhabi on one day - running from ride to ride.

Day 2 was originally just intended to be for Ferrari World, However, I knew that there is an option to upgrade our Ferrari World Ticket from the GoCity pass to a multipark ticket and did hope that we'd be able to experience Sea World as well. Turned out that Ferrari World had me covered, with Mission Ferrari spontanously extrending it's planned maintenance (it was orginally scheduled to be open again 2 days before our arrival), and Formula Rossa out of order since January, the park really did not had that much to offer.
After getting rejected at Flying Aces because the ride had some technical issues, went for Fiorano GT challenge. Luckily for me, the other track was opened, so I could at least grab a +1 here. The ride is quite interesting, as it is focussed on laterals, but with just one track and little to no theming on the outside, there is little race feeling to come up.
After a brief car ride which was fine, Flying Aces did finally open, so we went into the pretty queue-line, just for it to having problems again after 2 trains. This took about 15 minutes to resolve, in which we had plenty of time to see the pre-show over and over again.
The ride itself is somewhat overhyped in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, it is a really good coaster, but it feels like it is trying to accomplish just a bit too much during the layout. The super-fast lift and the Non-Inverting loop are crazy, but afterwards it starts loosing speed and also looses intensity. It still has good airtime in places, but nothing too crazy. I also dislike some of the wonky transitions, but I guess that is a personal issue.

Turbo Track was up next, and it is still one of the most boring thrill coasters I've ever experienced. The launch isn't really intense, it's airtime isn't strong and the spike doesn't achieve too much either. It looks cool and appears to be of interested for the GP for looking cool, but as an enthusiast, there is little fun I have upon riding it.

With my guilty pleasure, Formula Rossa out of order, we figured we just grabbed a few dark rides, have a re-ride on Flying Aces (we got the last row) and then get our tickets upgraded. First the dark-rides: They all consist mostly of screens, and feel fairly bare in between. And none of them is really good, including the flying theatre. It isn't the worst I've done, but that's all I can say about it.

I have to admit, that I was quite happy that we'd be going to leave Ferrari World. I did enjoy the park during my original visit, but mostly due to me loving that crazy sense of speed you're getting in the Front Row of Formula Rossa. Whilst Flying Aces is a very good coaster, it is not that great, that it's keeping me in that park. Most other attractions feel like an add for Ferrari, were the brand came first and the fun second. One might argue that that is exactly the point of the park.

After a brief discussusion, we concluded that we'd be trying to hit Movie World and Sea World on that day. The upgrade was pricy, but with 80€ per person still cheaper than any other option. Although there are free shuttle busses available, we opted for a Taxi, which was about 3€ (which is the minimum fare) for the 5 minute drive - not too bad. We started at Movie World, knowing that we'd had to hurry up. The park was significantly more crowded than Ferrari World, but that only meant 20 minutes of queue at most. The counts are nothing special, a Zamperla Spinning coaster and an Intamin inverter. The latter one had some nice Road-Runner "Mep mep" sounds in 2023, but they were not working this time. The Intamin is actuallly a fine coaster, and has a cool theme overall.

The theming at Warner is without a doubt its large strenght. They really took advantage of it being completely indoors, and created some great worlds on the inside. Especially the Gotham area has an amazing atmosphere, but the other areas aren't bad by any means.

We used the lower crowd levels to also get a ride on their Scooby-Dooh darkride - a fun one, that I'd love to have another go on, as well as the Flintstones log-flume. The log flume caused us some headache, as it went down 2 boats before we'd be getting in. Anyway, the problems were solved within 15 minutes, so we got a ride in. It was pleasantly wet, and thanks to everything being indoors the water was as cold as you'd expect.

That actually concluded WB Movie World for us. We both agreed, that we'd be going to spend more time here for a future trip, as we didn't really do much and mostly ran from attraction to attraction. On the other hand, this saved us some time for the main attraction of Yas Island:

Sea World. This park is nothing short of amazing. It is huge, multi level and feels like a labyrinth in places. The amount of exhibits is high, and the exhibits themselves vary between really large up until "OMG, did they bring a whole ocean in here?". We had 4 hours here, and that just wasn't enough. We focussed on the counts first, which weren't that easy to find as the place isn't really easy to navigate. I originally missed out on this park, as I visited 3 weeks before its opening. But looking at other counts I missed on this trip, I do have a habit of having a bad timing.
Anyway, lets get to the counts:
Electric Eel is a family coaster, and it is fun for the smaller ones. As a thoosie, it is a +1. It goes a bit around the other family rides, which improves it quite a lot. Worst thing here was the queue, with about 20 minutes due to it being popular and doing 2 laps at a time.
Manta on the other hand turned out to be my favourite ride in Dubai and one of my favourites on the whole trip. What an amazing coaster, wow. The launches aren't the most intense, it's speed isn't really fast, but with 3 launches on a 1.2km track, it manages to keep its speed. The theming during the ride works quite well, especially the S-Bends towards the second launch. It also has some amazing airtime moments, that I didn't expect. Overall a very pleasant suprise, surspassing Flying Aces as the best coaster in Abu Dhabi. Last row was in my opinion the best one, allthough the S-Bends worked amazing in the front. But the airtime in the last row was just better in my opinion to make up for it.

I won't go too much into details for the animal exhibits, most of them are so large that you really have to experience it yourself. I do have to shoutout the antarctic area. Picture this: You are in the middle of the desert, and go into a freezer to stand next to penguins. Yes, their arctic exhibit has you walking through it, with a temperature in the negatives. Crazy thing, and I was happy to have left the exhibit because I was so cold.

Overall, my ranking of the 3 parks looks like this:
- Sea World
- Warner Bros
- Ferrari World

With Formula Rossa hopefully reoping soon, this might chance to to it being my guilty pleasure. But objectively, Warner and Sea World just have the better experiences compared to Ferrari World. Of course, the most amount of creds are to be gathered at the Ferrari Park, but if you are into more than just advancing your count, I highly recommend the other 2 theme parks.

I did realise that I skipped over IMG Worlds of Adventure, that was done in the evening of the first day. But as we more or less just ran through it, grabbing the creds and leave again, there is really not much to tell you about this one.

Next: Heading Down Under - Dreamworld Australia

 

[Trax]

Heading Down Under - Dreamworld Australia

After a very tedious immigration procedure in Brisbane, which caused us to leave the airport 90 minutes later than expected, we quickly grabbed our rental car and drove down towards our first Australian theme park: Dreamworld.

Dreamworld is currently in a transition progress, with lots of the park being under redevelopment for Jungle Rush, announced to open later this year. To stay in line with our perfect timing, Motocoaster, an Intamin straddle coaster, was also down for maintenance.

I can't really judge the crowd levels at the park, as I don't have any point of reference, but I'd consider them reasonable low. However, most rides still turned out to be a 20-30 minute wait, thanks to operations that rival even IMG Worlds of Adventures - the park that I had given that title during my visit last year.
To be fair, they do place a very, very, very high emphasis on safety. My sunglasses - which are always secured by an additional strap and were fine on any rollercoaster until then, were for example not fine, even on their kiddy coasters. Not the ideal combination with me being quite sensitive to light, combined with the Australian sun, but it is what it is and it doesn't make much sense to argue.

Anyway, maybe I should start at our arrival. Even though we discovered that Dreamworld was Australias biggest themepark and is so large, that it feels like visiting multiple parks at ones, we felt that everything we saw looked rather small. I've seen staff parking lots larger than their main parking lot. Their entrance also felt a bit on the smaller side, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing. At least we got a nice view of Steel Taipan


Steel Taipan was also going to be our first ride of the day, so we headed there, just to wait 10 more minutes for them to complete even more test runs. We then did the major mistake to ask for the last row (which is row 8, as row 9+10 are an upcharge spinning seat). This turned out to cost us about 20 minutes in total. Not only were we not allowed to just wait 1 train and get to the gate, we had to wait 3 more trains because someone with RAP rode in our row and apparently they are allowed to remain seated if they want to. With single train service, that was a bit annoying.

Well, complaining won't help, so we got in there and had a ride on the only Blue Fire clone with a switch track. That changed things up more than I expected, as the launch track was significantly shortened compared to the original. Not only did this made the launch more intense, but you didn't really know when it would kick in, which was a fun twist. The rest of the ride is of course as you expect. Not great, not terrible, just a solid coaster.


We then got in line for their flying theatre, but after 15 minutes with no movement in the queue, we decided to skip it for now and focus on the creds first.
We kept to the right and came by Kenny's Forest Flyer, a 2002 Vekoma SFC. That one was a suprise - I rode a few of those over my years and this one was easily the worst one. With its intense and constant rattle and OTSR restraints (with additional seatbelt), I thought it was a Zamperla, but no, it is apparently a genuine Vekoma. So I can no proclaim - not only their old thrill rides rode terrible.

Gold Coaster was up next, and this ride was a walk on. And walking we did, up a long spiral until we reached the station. Luckily for us, they just dispatched a train, causing us to be send for the front row. Is it just me or does this 1 look a bit... suspicous?

Living in Europe, I didn't experience many arrow coasters, so I was looking quite forward to this one - and I wasn't disappointed. It was reasonable smooth, and apart from some janky Arrow-transitions a really enjoyable old coaster. Unfortunately for us, a queue formed behind us so we decided to skip the reride.

We also did their Kiddy Coaster Big Red Boat which had a very enthusiastic ride attendant, but as it's a Kiddy Coaster I won't go too much into the details.

Giant Drop is their drop tower, which also doubled as the Spike of their Tower of Terror, a 1 lane Superman: Escape from Krypton style ride. There where a few remnats of this one scattered around, but the drop is of course the most obvious one. With a ~25 minute queue, it wasn't too bad. Luckily for me (my friend is afraid of heights and doesn't do drop towers), they were looking for a Single Rider 10 minutes into the queue, so I got to skip a significant part of the wait. The Tower itself feels high for sure, and was decently fun. Not my favourite, but definitely in the upper half as far as drop towers go.

Before heading for the Flying theatre yet again, we took the train - which just travels between 2 stations at the moment due to the construction going on, and explored their animal park a bit. I do like their small explanation sessions they do over the day, so you get to see a bit more than just signs and sleeping animals. Unfortunately for me, I didn't purchase a picture of me holding a Koala, because I could also do it later for less money - at least I was told. Well, turned out that this was my only opportunity to hold a Koala; yet another reason to retun, I guess.

Their Flying theatre was fine (and just a 10 minute wait), but the loading procedure at Europa Park's Voletarium remains superior. At least I got to know that Thongs are Flip Flops.

And that already concluded our day at Dreamworld. We could've spent more time there for some rerides, but even with a decent amount of sleep on our 14 hours flight from Dubai, we felt a bit tired and decided to call it a day. The exit is via a Lego store, and leads you back to the parking lot.

So how would I rate the park? Their operations are likely the worst I ever witnessed, most rides managed to have a 20-30 minutes queue, even though there weren't that many people at the park. On the other hand, they do invest a bit to keep everything nice, even Gold Coaster boasted a nice, vibrant paint job - not a standard in Australia. Jungle Rush certainly looks like a promising addition and with its large area open to the public, the park will likely feel more whole. But did it feel like visiting multiple parks at once? If those parks are a smaller themepark and a small animal park: yes.

Next: Warner Bros. Movie World - awakening childhood memories.

 

[TilenB]

To be fair, they do place a very, very, very high emphasis on safety. My sunglasses - which are always secured by an additional strap and were fine on any rollercoaster until then, were for example not fine, even on their kiddy coasters.

Interesting, I don't remember that being a thing in 2017. Both me and my dad wear glasses (we usually take them off for the big rides) and we didn't have any issues wearing them wherever we wanted.

Fun reports so far, keep them coming!

 

[Trax]

Warner Bros. Movie World - awakening childhood memories

Disclaimer: Due to filming for CoasterStats, we were able to skip the queues for a significant time of the day. We also got free admission (even though I had purchased our tickets weeks earlier).

The next park was easily the one I was most interested in Warner Bros Movie World. Not only did this park appear to have the most interesting attractions, but I grew up visiting WB Movie World in Germany; a park that was copied in many places from the Australian one. They copied it so thourougly, that they din't include heating in the buildings. And once I turned right into the main street, I really felt like I was at Movie World again. I mean, I technically was, but you get my point.
Of course there were differences, but the main feeling was the same, and for a minute I felt like an 8 year old again.


We did have a short discussion of what ride would be our first one. Whilst DC Rivals is the obvious choice, there was still Flash (new for 2024) and Superman as an alternative. We went with Superman, where we had about 5 minutes before the ride open to have a talk with the lovely member of staff who is as crazy as I am about rollercoasters. Sorry mate, I forgot your name, but if you're reading this: It was great to meet you!
We put our bags in the free locker, and headed for the ride.

Superman Escape is one of those coasters that I watched a POV of as a kid and always wanted to go on it. Present-me is aware that this ride is nothing special, but talking of childhood memories, I have to admit that it felt strange to finally get to have a ride.
The coaster features a lenghty dark-ride section, giving you a tour through the subway of Metropolis, until an Earthquake hits, water floods in and even a policecar breaks through the roof. Really cool twist, the only complaint I have is the speed you go through it - its about twice as fast as it should be for my liking.
Once you reach the launchtrack, you hear the voice of Superman who is going to get you out fast - super fast. The layout is a figure 8 with a Top-Hat, so nothing special. However, it is suprisingly intense and features decent airtime with intense positives in the valleys. Force-POV is coming
I really enjoyed this one. Not a Top 10 candidate by any means, but still a very good more oldschool ride.
Special shoutout to Superman's restraints - they are a bit higher than on similar rides like Rita, Desert Race or iSpeed, allowing me with my 1.92m some freedom that I wasn't used to. I could even get my arms up during the ride.



We then headed towards the back of the park to have a go on Wild West Falls, their Log Flume. Also the only classic water ride that we saw in Australia, with neither Dreamworld nor SeaWorld having anything comparable. I don't know why, especially considering the average weather in Australia, but I really felt the Eastcoast was lacking in water rides.
Luckily for us, WB still had a log flume, and it was a great ride. We had 3 gos on there, Including one using their Single Rider line. Oh yeah, they have Single Rider for some attractions, which is also always a good thing.
The ride was on the shorter side, but certainly fun. I liked the part were you go through a ghost town, a tombstone pops up and the population number decreases at the same time. Enjoyed it, can recommend. Also not too wet.
Oh, did I mention that it simply looks amazing?

The WB kids area was... well, a kids area, including a Vekoma family coaster. I don't think I need to say more about it. I was allowed to wear my glasses, which was a great change.
I did also enjoy some nice details in the area; their driving school goes through a miniature theme park.


That actually concludes most of the park that was open. It has an overall area comparable to Phantasialand, and doesn't pack them even half as tight. Scooby-Doo was still closed for refurbishment (scheduled for 2025) and their new wizard of Oz area is scheduled to open sometime in 2024 - but unfortunately after our visit, so a total of 4 lost counts for both of us.
Luckily there was still an S&S El Loco to be counted - my first one with the wide cars. Green Lantern Coaster is alright, but I am simply not a fan of this layout. But this was one of the smoother ones, so it has something going in it's favour.

Oh, there is also the Flash: Speed Force. It is... there. Little theming, which is strange for this park, and really not a special experience. It was walk-on despite being the new ride for this year, that says a lot. Other rides had up to 45 minutes wait tacked onto them at that time.

I don't want to ignore their Batwing, an S&S Shot and Drop tower. But is there really much to say about them?
The Justice League Dark Ride was also closed for maintenance.

And then there is the main event. The 202 foot DC Rivals Hypercoaster. It might be the smallest Hypercoaster out there, but it is certainly a great one.
I had the opportunity to have multiple rides on it, including a few in the last row, which is an 20 AUD upcharge and also includes a skip-the line.
Whilst Superman was not close to my Top 10, this one definitely is. It is long, it's intense, twisty and has great airtime. We also both enjoyed the last row experience - which was suprigisng to both of us. Keep in mind that my friend is afraid of heights (perfect for the lifthill) and I get sick easily when going backwards. Still, it was amazing. The first drop is something you see coming, but everything else is a complete suprise and the ride just rips you out of the seat in many places. World Class ride, and I think it surpassed Helix in my personal ranking, making it a very strong number 3. Last row is a candidate for an even higher ranking, but with it being a significant upcharge, I feel it's unfair to put it there. But if you are at Movie World: Shell out the money for at least one ride in the last row.



After a few rerides, mainly on DC Rivals, we reached 5pm and the rides closed for the day. Really a pity, I would've loved to spend some more time here. This parks is great, and with the Wizard of Oz area opening soon, it will likely be even better.
Some areas look a bit random, especially the area around the entry to the wild west area, but their theming is really good. Some rides are unthemed (DC Rivals as well), but when they decide to theme something, they do it proper.
Let's conclude with a screenshot from the onride video that will be uploaded at some point.


Next: Sea World Australia

 

[Trax]

Sea World Australia
Disclaimer: Due to filming for CoasterStats, we were able to skip the queues for a significant time of the day. We also got free admission (even though I had purchased our tickets weeks earlier).
Sea World has quite an odd location, located on a narrow strip of land a decent distance away from the other parks, it feels like driving complety the wrong way until suddenly Sea World appears. We were pretty early, so had enough time to stroll arround a bit.
Sea World offers way more than just the theme parks. Part of their offerings include a whale watching tour (which I'd love to have done, but our flight departed from Brisbane airport at 8 o'clock, so we didn't have the time to spare), as well as helicopter tours. The latter ones where suprisingly affordable, and offered tours of different lenghts. Also something that was sacrificed for our flight.

We were able to enter the park a few minutes earlier, which gave us a headstart at the back of the park. Storm Coaster would need a few more minutes, so we decided to head over to Jet Rescue to get a few rides in.

Jet Rescue is another of Intamins Straddle Coaster, this time with a Jet-Ski theming. It feaures 2 tire propelled launches, and is still a good fun. It is not comparable to Juvelen, but still a fun ride and something that people tend to underestimate. Get on it, you won't regret it!

Of course the main ride here is the 2022 wooden coaster built by the Canadion company Martin & Vleminckx, utilizing Gravitykraft trains - Leviathan.
Rides my M&V are fairly rare, with just 16 roller coasters under their belt, most of them being in China (and and 7 being named "Jungle Trailblazer). Next to Leviathan, Boardwalk Bullet is likely their best known coaster. So, how did it fair?
Well, it is a fun coaster, but already rides pretty rough, as typical for the Gravitykraft trains. Luckily, the rattle is fairly consistent and only changes it intensity over a comparable long period of time, with just a few jolts. Does it induce headaches? Unfortunately, yes. But not after one ride, so you should be fine.





It still makes for a great view upon entering the park, though.
This also features a backwards last row, that is an upcharge. It tried a couple of times to get a g-force video from that seat, but to no avail. Some transitions come so sudden and violent, that it wasn't possible for me to remain in the same position during the ride. We did the last forward row.

Before I forget - I really enjoyed the last bit of the queue as well as the station itself. You are basicly going down in the lair of the Leviathan, who then appears in screens all around the station (which are neatly tucked in between rocks), telling you that you need to prove yourself as a guardian of Atlantis by going on a ride with him. Pretty neat, and with the amount of screens scattered around, it really gives a nice atmosphere.

We then did Vortex, their suspended Top Spin. It features some nice views, but I still prefer Talocan. We concluded our "offical" part of the visit with a ride on Storm Coaster, the shorter version of the Mack Water coaster. This also rides better than Poseidon, and with the drop going indoors, it creates a suprisingly long and sustained splash.



With all recording done, we finally had some time to enjoy the park by ourselves. After getting the Spongebob Kiddy Coaster and enjoying the world's smallest Pizza, we started visiting the animals exhibits.

I will summarize them here, as I don't know how much to say about animal exhibits... they were nice, but not comparable to Sea World Abu Dhabi. But this is a bit unfair, as the Abu Dhabi one probably cost more to build than the Australian park has costed up until now.

We also did the Sea Lion show, which was fun and a bit educational, so thumbs up for this one.



So, final words: Looking at it as a theme park, Sea World is the weakest of the 3 parks around Gold Coast. However, like Dreamworld, Sea World also offers animal exhibits, but here they are significantly larger. The park itself feels like the largest of the 3, and there are many quiet areas with just animals to look at. I also like that most animals are quite a distance away from the larger attractions, so they shouldn't be disturbed in their life by a rollercoaster or a similar loud attraction.
If you want to have a great zoo + some rides, Sea World is the way to go. As a pure theme park, I'd rank Movie World easily above. Dreamworld is hard to judge, as a significant portion of the park was closed or under construction, so I can only say that I wouldn't recommend this one above the others as long as Jungle Rush is not open.
You can have a good time in all of those parks and will not regret your descision to go there.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank not only the Sea World-team , but also the Village Roadshow Themeparks Marketing team as well es the Movie World team. You were all incredibly hostiable, and we had not only a great time, but did also acquire some amazing footage thanks to you!

Next: A bit of Sydney, and a Luna Park