Australia - July/August 2025

[golgactic]

I visited Australia with my father as part of a 3-week British & Irish Lions rugby tour, which included visiting the Gold Coast and Sydney and I managed to visit all the parks in those locations. I don’t usually write trip reports but, given the remote location of these parks, I thought a summary of each might be useful to others. Not posting photos given the new forum rules. For information, we were on the Gold Coast during the tail end of the New South Wales winter school holidays, so those parks were relatively busy. I was also mostly riding solo as my father is acrophobic. First up:

Sea World Gold Coast​

Located just north of Surfers Paradise, Sea World was an easy single-bus ride from Broadbeach (where we were staying) through Surfers Paradise. Public transport in Queensland is fantastic - fares are currently just 25p one way regardless of journey length, payable via contactless card.

Tickets
Individual entry to Sea World or Warner Bros. Movie World was around £60, but they offered a 5-day combo ticket for £80, which includes unlimited entry to both parks plus Wet’n’Wild (closed for winter during our visit). It’s cheaper to buy online and the ticketing system appears to be the same as used by Merlin.

Park Overview
Sea World is a Thorpe Park sized well-kept park with a mix of rides, animal exhibits and live shows. While there’s no dedicated green space, the wide paths, water and tree-lined areas make for a pleasant atmosphere. The shows included classic animal presentations, feeding demos and a water stunt show near the entrance. While the animals seemed well cared for, some enclosures felt too small for comfort, particularly for the penguin house and polar bears.
Almost all the rides are clustered on the eastern side of the park, just beyond the stunt show lake. The Huss Top Spin, Vortex, was closed for maintenance. I skipped the family flats, the battle boats and the Zamperla kiddie coaster, SpongeBob’s Boating School Blast, due to queues, jet lag, incoming afternoon rain and wanting to spend more time with my father. We only stayed for half a day - if you have younger children it’s a full day park. There are no SRQs currently at this park.

Leviathan​

Rides: 1x Forwards (Row 4), 1x Backwards (Back Row)
Sea World’s standout coaster is Leviathan, a 2022 Gravity Group wooden coaster that dominates the park’s skyline. Headed there upon park opening and managed to get on the second train of the day after a 15 minute wait.
Queue/Operations: You enter through a large themed arch with giant statue however then the main queue is a cattle pen within the ride structure. You’re then batched onto floor dots, then move into themed tunnels straight into the stunning station, which is complete with video screens and lighting effects. Unfortunately, operations across all Gold Coast parks are extremely slow due to strict policies banning all loose items (even in zipped pockets or securely fastened e.g. glasses straps). Virtually all trains have two restraints, one of which the ride ops must close by themselves (in this case the main restraint), followed by re-checking all restraints. You are only allowed through to board when the station is fully empty. Expect around 5 minute dispatch intervals on most major rides.
Ride Experience: Compact but surprisingly long, the layout features strong laterals, fun unexpected airtime moments, and quirky transitions with no filler elements. Felt like a combination of the best aspects of Wodan and Troy. It uses Timberliner trains however, which I find always ride too rough on larger coasters and are headache-inducing. This ride was no exception to this, a shame given it’s only 3 years old.
Backwards Ride: For an additional £7.50, you can ride the back row, which faces backwards. This also skips the main queue which was nearly an hour by this point. This was the superior experience - the drop felt more intense and the layout became even more dynamic and forceful in reverse. Also more comfortable than riding forwards for me. Highly recommend this!

Storm Coaster​

Rides: 1x (Front Row)
The 2013 Mack water coaster was surprisingly good! I wasn’t expecting much, but the mix of outdoor coaster section and indoor splashdown/dark ride worked really well. Vehicles are themed to lifeboats. It was a walk on, with the queue mainly being an indoor cattle pen with theming and you do get wet on it!
Outdoor Ride Experience: The outdoor track is a clone of Skatteøen at Djurs Sommerland (which I have not ridden), and it rode smoothly with a combination of turns and a nice drop with an airtime hill before the splashdown.
Indoor Ride Experience: I didn’t realise the splashdown was indoors (very wet) followed by a cool dark ride section - turns out this ride reuses the old Bermuda Triangle show building. I was wondering why I was reminded of Area 51 at Movie Park Germany throughout this section, turns out Area 51 was a clone of Bermuda Triangle.

Jet Rescue​

Rides: 1x (Front Row)
This 2008 Intamin motorbike launch coaster (themed to jet skis) was a sleeper hit for me. This was the only rollercoaster my father went on for the entire trip as it barely gets above ground level. After a 20 minute wait in an outdoor (uncovered) cattle pen queue, we luckily got the front row.
Ride Experience: Two punchy tyre launches, fast-paced layout and whippy tight turns just above ground level. Great fun. The straddle seating and punching through the air made it feel far faster than the listed 43mph top speed.

To be continued with Dreamworld…

 

[golgactic]

Finally got round to the next installment, having been ill for much of the last couple of months...

Dreamworld​

Located in Coomera, northwest of the Gold Coast, is Dreamworld. Though you could take public transport via an easy tram and bus combination, we hired a car and drove, taking advantage of the ample free parking. Our visit was on a Sunday on a very pleasant, sunny day, the last day of the NSW school holidays.

Tickets​

We just bought a day ticket for £58 each, which is pricey. They do offer better value season tickets or multi-day tickets, which can include the impressively looking neighbouring water park WhiteWater World (which was closed) and the Q1 Skypoint. Tickets are cheaper online.

Park Overview​

This was the largest and most complete park I visited in Australia and reminded me a lot of Emerald Park. There are various themed ride areas at the front of the park, with the newer areas around Gold Rush and the kids’ areas to various cartoons being excellent. There is obviously a lot of investment currently going into the park, given the number of recent additions and the current construction of the new Intamin gyro swing (King Claw) right in the centre. They had a few pop-up events celebrating Christmas in July, despite it being 23 degrees Celsius and sunny.

At the back, there is a zoo surrounded by woods and a pond at the back, which is a lovely escape from the rides area. There are a surprising number of exhibits, and you walk directly through the Koala and Kangaroo enclosure. Luckily, that isn’t possible for the Crocodile one!

Motocoaster was down for maintenance (not a huge loss). I also did not do The Giant Drop (Intamin drop tower on the remains of Tower of Terror), Big Red Boat Coaster (2023 powered Zamperla kiddie coaster), the flying theatre and a number of family flat rides due to crowds. There is a SRQ on Steel Taipan and a sneaky SRQ on Gold Rush.

Steel Taipan​

Rides: 1x Forwards (Row 8), 1x Spinning (Back Row)
Dreamworld’s standout thrill coaster is Steel Taipan, a 2021 Mack Blue Fire clone, the unique one with a swing launch and twisted spike. The ride is at the front of the park in its own section but sadly there’s basically no theming or scenery apart from two random pieces of rockwork (I believe this was the area that used to have the water ride that suffered a fatal accident in 2016 and a Maurer X-Car now at Gumbuya World). You do get nice interactions with the main path running underneath a third of the layout, however. It was my first ride of the day walking on using the SRQ and my last ride of the day with the spinning seats.
Queue/Operations: Simple covered ramp queue to a large box station which holds four trains worth of passengers, I guess likely reusing the old station of the X-Car. You are batched at the back of the station and step forward towards the air gates as each train departs. The trains are standard Mack ones but with pointless seatbelts, because Australia.
Reliability: Was down most of the day and was lucky to get the spinning ride at the end due to ongoing reliability issues with the seatbelts (took an hour of queuing/waiting).
Ride Experience: It’s the standard Blue Fire experience - decent but not elite apart from the Blue Fire roll. Runs very smoothly. Backwards launch and spike is fun but not on the level as, say, Toutatis.
Spinning Seat: For an additional £10, you can ride the spinning seats on the back row. Was easily more fun than the standard seating, especially going sidewards through the Blue Fire roll and turning through the spike, though sadly I didn’t get any real sustained spins. I think Enso works better as it’s a longer ride and all the turns/twists are more conducive for spinning.

After the first ride on Steel Taipan, headed to Gold Coaster. On the way I rode their Gerstlauer Skyfly, Tail Spin (no magnetic brakes so managed 30 or so flips) and their DiskO coaster Shockwave (slightly better version of Edge at Paulton’s Park) as both had no queue.

Gold Coaster​

Rides: 1x (Row 4)
The 1995 Arrow looper, originally Big Dipper at Luna Park Sydney and relocated in 2001.
Queue/Operations: As the original Sydney station is elevated, the coaster is also elevated, mainly over back-of-house buildings and the water park. Dreamworld have constructed a bizarre large spiral walkway at a park dead-end to get there, though the quickest way is through using the emergency stairs. There is some very loose theming to surfing here and there. One train wait.
Ride Experience: Uses a single Vekoma train with modern vest restraints, which was very welcome. Get great views of the park from the surprisingly quiet lift hill. Possibly the strangest Arrow looper layout due to its history. After the drop, you go through traditional janky turns and some straight track, building up speed to finish with a half corkscrew and vertical loop. A well-kept, fun old-school ride.

Followed this by:

Jungle Rush​

Rides: 1x Backwards (Row 6), 1x Forwards (Back Row)
The newest attraction at the park, a 2024 Vekoma Switchback family coaster. It has two modes of operation - it was running two trains on my visit, so one always starts forward and one starts backwards, with a shorter ride cycle than just on a single train.
Theming/Area: Fabulous. Located in the area, Rivertown, the large station is themed to an old temple surrounded by jungle plants, rockwork, and remnants of past expeditions, such as a rusted crashed plane. The outdoor track sections weave their way over the paths and the neighbouring family car ride, Murrissippi Motors, themed to a jungle safari.
Queue/Operations: The indoor queue is excellently themed as a temple, with multiple different, unique rooms. The queue splits into four near the station - Forwards, Backwards, Fast Pass, and an unadvertised SRQ accessed using the Fast Pass entrance. I’d highly recommend at least seeing the full queue once. The advertised 40 min wait took 20 mins, and the hidden SRQ was a walk on.
Ride Experience: Really fun family coaster, nothing too extreme. Lots of twists and turns outdoors weaving through the foliage. Indoors, the inclined turntable is great, surrounded by theming with lighting and sound effects, otherwise pitch black. There isn’t a huge difference in experiences between starting directions.

When it comes to food, the fast food stands within Main Street struggle on a busy day both on speed and quality. The sit-down restaurant nearer Jungle Rush may have been the best option.

Kenny’s Forest Flyer x1​

This 2002 Vekoma SFC was forgettable and only offers a long queuing experience.

The only other ride I did was Serpent Flyer (Zamperla Air Race) while I was waiting for Steel Taipan to reopen. They offered two different cycles - one that inverts and one that doesn’t. This also means it takes forever to actually get on the ride.

To be continued with Warner Bros Movie World…