Posts Tagged With: Gold Coast

Gold Coast, Australia: Day 3-4 Ripleys believe it or not, Movie World

Posted on July 29, 2024 by Mel

Day 3

Following our draculas evening adventures we started day 3 with a sleep in. Then icecream for breakfast. We walked down the main stretch of Surfers and saw some very interesting characters.

From there we headed to the Gold Coast institution of Ripleys believe it or not – we chose to do the mirror maze and the museum. The mirror maze was trippy! And I struggled haha.

The museum was super interesting and a lot bigger than it was when I came here 20 years ago. B had never been before and found it interesting. The newer art section was cool!

We walked back along the beach and then had an afternoon rest. 6 weeks of travel is catching up with me and I’m starting to feel very run down with a sore throat. The sunset on the beach as we walked 5 mins back into Surfers Paradise central area to have laksa at Yum Cha Noodle Haus was beautiful.

Day 4

Movie World today! The website says the gates open at 9:30am but as we learnt on Saturday that’s a bit of a fib and it’s actually 10am. We also had a lot of trouble working out how to get there and back. Movie world is a 30min drive out of surfers but it’s a multi train / bus trip on public transport. The con-X-tion shuttles are the same price as an Uber and you’re locked into specific times. So we decided to Uber which was $40 there and $53 return.

Sadly, movie world was a bit of a disappointment. Nearly all the adults rides were closed with only the hyper coaster, super man roller coaster and batman jet drop thing operating. We went on both rollercoasters.

We also waited all day for the Wild West ride to open (it’s opening soon everyone, we promise x 57 times) but no luck. We got in at 10am and honestly we could have left at midday easily….like I said – disappointing. If I had known it would be so bad I would have also done dreamworld on the same day.

Dinner was at Montezuma’s Mexican around the corner from the hotel which was average. The $10 margaritas were good though.

Home time tomorrow! I am so ready for my own bed after almost 6 weeks of travelling. And to see my fur babies.

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Gold Coast, Australia: Day 1-2 at SeaWorld and Draculas

Posted on July 27, 2024 by Mel

I travelled to regional Queensland for a conference last week and managed to arrange it so I had a few days in between when my flight got into Brisbane and when the next one left. B flew over to meet me on Friday afternoon for a Gold Coast long weekend.

We are staying at BreakFree Longbeach in surfers paradise which has an amazing view. It’s very noisy due to construction opposite though.

The drive from Brisbane airport to the Gold Coast was hell. I didn’t believe people when they told me how much worse it is at the moment…I should have listened. Almost 3hrs and it was all stop / start with brakes being constantly slammed on. We used Con-X-ion Shuttles so at least we were not driving! I am not looking forward to the return trip on Tuesday.

I was utterly exhausted on arrival after 5 days of a conference and in a crappy motel room so I basically went to bed with some icecream. B went out to catch up with his cousin who lives here.

Day 2 was a busy day! We started with Sea World! It was really not busy at all which was amazing for a Saturday. We didn’t queue for longer than 6 mins at anything.

While it wasn’t busy, we rode Leviathan which is a huge wooden rollercoaster. They have other rides and rollercoasters but unfortunately most of them were closed.

We went to multiple animal shows including the sea lions and the dolphins!

But the highlight of the day was doing a behind the scenes tour of polar bear shores! No phones allowed so no photos of that part but I stood a metre away from a 500kg polar bear. Amazing. The bear in these photos is Mishka and I also met her – she weighs 300kg.

We got back to the hotel around 4pm for a nap before dinner, drinks and a show at Draculas. It’s changed a bit from 20 years ago! The “ghost train” is definitely not as good now but probably a whole lot safer. We also agree that they have lost a lot of the characterisation that made the wait staff so much fun. They were just staff in weird makeup…no character identities.

We had VIP seats so got to enter first, ride the ghost train and then drink in the bar. It had amazing decorations.

We were the. Taken to our seats. I was glad we booked VIP as the lower level tables had one side facing the stage but the other side with their back to it. Not sure how that is meant to work! Our tables were like stadium seating. The food was average. Not terrible, not great. Drinks were yummy and prices were around $20 a cocktail.

The show was great. I love aerial performers and this show had silks, a double performance on nets and a male aerial artist. The lady leading the whole thing had an amazing voice as well.

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