Dreamworld, Gold Coast, Australia - August 2010

This report will summarise three or four visits to the park over the space of two weeks. Some of the visits were over the course of a full day, while others were just for a few hours at a time.

Dreamworld is a cool park, it's located on the Gold Coat in Aus (East coast). The park has a water park called 'Whitewater World' that has been expanding pretty quickly over the past few years. Dreamworld, however has been growing at a much slower pace.

The Coasters;

Tower of Terror
Been in the news recently with the refurb and all. Tower of Terror is a great ride, it's certainly the signature ride of DW. If you don't know - they're flipping the car backwards and (apparently) speeding it up a little.

Cyclone
Relocated Arrow looper. It's not mega rough, some of the transitions feel a little ropey - but it's a nice ride. It interacts pretty well with the surrounding water slides.

Mick Doohan's Motocoaster
The Intamin version of Vekoma's motorbike coaster. This ride system is poor. Slow loading, awkward seating position. I've only ridden it once - but my first impressions weren't good. The only saving grace is the back two cars feature and bike and a 'sidecar' (as apposed to two bikes) so riders not tall enough to take on the bikes can ride.

Rugrat's Runaway Reptar
Vekoma family inverted, I really like these rides!

There's also a SBNO mine ride.

Other stand out rides include Giant Drop - the tallest freefall ride in the world. Operates on the same tower as Tower of Terror. Intamin rides are pretty common at Dreamworld. The Claw is an Intamin Gyro swing and is great fun. For water rides there is a flume (built in house) and a pretty average river rapids. There's also a great selection of kids/family rides.

My big gripe with Dreamworld is capacity. Three out of the four coasters has a single train (with only Motocoaster having two, yet usually using one). Operations are also slow - yesterday Cyclone was dispatching its single 24 rider train once every five minutes, that's 288 riders an hour!

Also, as I mentioned in my day in pictures thread - there's lots of bits of Dreamworld for the past - just let rotting and some sections of the park look really tired.

However, I don't want to end on a downer - Dreamworld is a great park, but it's not as polished as its neighbour 'Movie World'.