Escape

Yesterday, we bought an Escape Pass. This allows entry to two theme parks over three days (a different franchise to Dreamworld). Both days started out the same way: cool and raining. I wasn’t too thrilled with either state, even after we stopped to buy cheap umbrellas. Rain and sun hit us sporadically over the next two days, quite different to the 32 degree heat we experienced during our first day on the Gold Coast.

Sea World
I really love Sea World in San Diego. (I should stop comparing, but I just can’t.) Sea World Gold Coast is a teensy tiny version of the real thing and probably takes about half a day to fully explore. Of course, we don’t have kids, so that could be part of the problem.

The underwater aquarium was great, and we shot a few movies. Here is a great one of a school of fish who constantly swam back and forth along the window from one end to another - it would make a great screen saver.



We also enjoyed watching a polar bear playing in the water with a stuffed toy:



The highlight of the day was the dolphin show, where five dolphins strutted their stuff and put on a fabulous display. If I had thought or known about it when planning our trip, I would have loved to book a session swimming with the dolphins; hopefully another time.

(BTW, we checked out Jupiter’s Casino tonight – finally! – and gave ourselves limits of $20 and 1 ½ hours each. After 20 minutes, we were ready to leave, with my sweetie blowing a full dollar on the 2c slot machines and me not finding the right change to do the same. Instead, we invested $2 each on a monorail ride and enjoyed overlooking a beautiful calm night in Broadbeach. We’re obviously not cut out for the gambling business, lol!)

Warner Brothers Movie World
We got to Movie World early, where my sweetie could be first in line for the Batwing Spaceshot and before most of the shops opened. Again, I found it really hard to not feel underwhelmed. (OK, I didn’t do so well with this today, but am trying to get over it.) The whole park is about the size of one ‘land’ in Disneyland or Universal Studios area. There are six rides (apart from the kiddies’ ones), and one was closed for refurbishment with another unavailable for part of the day. Being mostly speed/thrill rides, I found I had plenty of time to explore the whole park several times over. And over. Oh well. We enjoyed the Shrek 4D Adventure show, though.

Upon reflection, we think we did the theme parks in the wrong order. We’d recommend going to Sea World first, then Warner Brothers Movie World, finishing with Dream World. (We didn’t go to Wet 'N' Wild or Whitewater World, so can’t really comment.) And, most importantly, make sure you do the Gold Coast theme parks before hitting Anaheim/LA or Florida etc; it’s hard to not come away feeling underwhelmed.