Dreamworld
By
Will Barker
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The
Claw was one of the
best
rides at Dreamworld
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The
Giant Drop is hardcore!
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It's been many long years since I visited a
theme park. The year was 1988, when I drank cherry cola and
ate giant pizza at Disney Land in Los Angeles, while watching
the Mickey
Mouse club rock out.
This
lack of rollercoasting was beginning to gnaw at me for various reasons,
and a famous Shakespearean broadcast on AM radio drove the
message
home: "Thy scary rides, thy lairy rides. Ye spew upon the friendly
John".
On a recent trip to Byron Bay in Northern
New South Wales, a decision was made. We would go to a theme park. So,
a friend
and I braved the hour long journey up the Pacific Highway to
hit
the Gold Coast and experience what can only be termed a world of
dreams: Dreamworld!
I was quite surprised by Dreamworld, and by
the end of the day
thoroughly impressed. Expecting a fairly crappy affair, the
whole operation was actually a fairly professional experience for the
most part.
There
was a lot of construction going on which gave the large park a
half-finished feel in some places, but the buzz I came away
with at the end of the day far
outweighed the sketchy walkways and signage.
Top 5
Rides:
- The Claw
- The Giant
Drop
- Wipeout
- Tower of
Terror
- The
Cyclone
Perhaps most
impressive of all was that I didn't puke once, which was capped off
wonderfully
by watching a girl vomit all over The Claw, a particularly
stomach-churning ride that is nine stories tall and hits a reputed
"75km/h" according the jovial ride operator.
I first
headed to The Claw because that's where the loudest screams came from,
and upon buckling into an contoured seat was instructed along with the
other two dozen or so punters to "Keep your heads back," to
avoid spinal injury one assumes, "and your lunch down."
Good advice Mr Operator.
Though there were a few rides closed on
the Monday we attended one of Australia’s biggest theme parks
(including the Flow Rider),
the Southern Queensland world of dreams was decent value for the
relatively high entry price considering the strength of the Aussie
dollar.
Some
of America’s best rollercoaster theme parks charge less, but
considering there aren't many options in Australia, it's not too bad in
terms of value. The Six Flags theme park in San Antonio, Texas, for
example, costs US$46.99, which is
about $55 local
bones. When I sauntered up the ticket booth out the front of Dreamworld
in Australia, I was kind of shocked to see the $64 entry
price.
But
as it turned out, the average cost of a ride was about $4, which is
pretty decent considering how insanely scary some of them are.
The
highlights of the park weren’t the big brother compound –
that was closed. To be honest I had no interest. But the Giant Drop and
the Tower of Terror were quite harrowing, and left an indelible mark
on this writer (in the form of yellow stains).
It’s so
incredibly scary being secured into a giant box and then plunged into a
completely
helpless situation. I didn't plan on screaming, but it was impossible
not to.
But more on the rides in a moment...
Because we attended on a
Monday in winter (the day was still fairly warm and sunny at 24 degrees
- at least for this Melbournian who is used to 4 degree
mornings!), the queues were almost non-existent on some rides.
Apart
from the rides, we also watched the Bengal Tigers in an impressive show
of strength and agility, and also chatted with a dinosaur called
Dorothy. The food was pretty average and fairly expensive, but these
things are a given at any modern theme park.
There
was also a wildlife park area where you can hug koalas and get up close
to various other marsupials and monotremes, which is always a hit with
curious kids. But the reason adults like myself head to Dreamworld is
for one thing only - the rides.
Dreamworld : William's Top 5 Rides
 Easily
my favourite ride at Dreamworld, and after several consecutive turns, I
was still eager to strap in for what is best described as a
gravitational pummeling. Think of it as a giant pendulum ending in a
claw that holds its victims, sorry, patrons.
About 30 or so people strap into the ride
and, like a pendulum, get swung back and forth at more than 70km/h. The
ride works on a number of levels. It squishes you into your seat on the
up swing, and then holds you upside down high above the theme park for
half a
second before hurtling you towards the ground as your feet dangle
ponderously off the edge.
In a word, snazztastical!
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Thrill
Factor: 4/5
Vomit
Count: 1.3
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As
the name suggests, you and seven other people get hauled some 39
storeys (120 metres) up a custom made tower of doom, which
takes about
two minutes to get to the top. This affords an amazing view of
the hills surrounding the
Gold Coast.
 After
what seems like an eternity hanging 39 storeys
in the air, your feet hanging freely, a small catch sounds and the
'gondola' plummets to the ground in just 5 seconds. The ride is best
described as "pants shittingly scary". Excuse the language, but there's
no other way to put.
I
only rode the Giant Drop twice - it's so
unbelievably scary, and the vertical speeds become so high in the
rides' short duration that your legs get forcibly blown upwards while
your brain tries to make sense of the gut-wrenching speeds.
Allegedly
"the
tallest free-falling ride in the world according to the Guiness Book of
World Records" the ride simulates freefall for a short amount of time,
and one of the scariest things for this rider was trusting the huge
electromagnetic brakes to stop you before hitting the ground at
terminal velocity. That and the story about the young girl in the
United States who had her feet severed by a cable snapping.
You're
so tightly strapped in and the inexorable forces that bear on your body
are impossible to fight. It's a real exercise in self control to just
accept fate and mentally prepare yourself for the vertical lunacy. Once
you're onboard, it's terrifying as your brain tries to anticipate the
sudden drop that ensues...
The
surge of adrenaline that the human body delivers as you plummet towards
the Earth is just stunning and I've never felt anything like it. Not for the feint of heart!
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Thrill
Factor: 5/5
Vomit
Count: 0.4
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 With
a surf-board theme, Wipeout is a monstrous contraption that, while one
of the most uncomfortable at the park (you get squished into your seats
VERY firmly), is also one of the scariest. It's one of the longer
lasting rides at Dreamworld, with a 5 minute duration, and basically
all 40 victims are spun upside down and flipped around and around on
two giant 'arms' while hovering just above a shallow lake.
For
the budding engineers its a colossal work of art with some incredibly
huge multi-joint hinges that allow it to twist, spin, rotate, and
basically rattle the breath right out of you.
The scariest
moments of the ride happen when the carriage starts to spin around on
its horizontal axis, and then about one minute before the ride is over
you are hung completely upside down over the water before embarking
on one final giant swing of insanity.
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Thrill
Factor: 4.5/5
Vomit
Count: 0.7
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 The
Tower of Terror, sometimes called the Spire of Speed
by Dreamworld
groupies, uses the same 39 storey tall structure as the Giant Drop. A
single 16-person carriage propels thrill seekers to 160km/h in seven
seconds horizontally, and then vertically along a quarter-pipe like
track.
The g-forces you feel are pretty cool, but I
was a bit
disappointed in the thrill factor. It wasn't as scary as I was hoping,
though coming down the vertical section of the track backwards
does tend to leave your stomach behind.
The ride's operators reckon you get 6.5
seconds of weightlessness, but I'd call it 6.5 seconds of boredom.
Okay, so it is heaps of fun, but
after riding the Giant Drop it doesn't compare.
According
to a friend of mine who's name has been suppressed by
a Supreme
Court order, the ride used to be much quicker. Up to almost twice as
quick as it is now according to underground theme park cults.
I
reckon extra speed would have worked well at improving the thrill
factor.
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Thrill
Factor: 3.5/5
Vomit
Count: 0.1
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 As
one of the tallest rollercoasters in the Southern Hemisphere at 13
storeys high (40 metres/120 feet), the Cyclone promised us much in the
way of thrills and spills, but I was a little disappointed with the
reality.
It is quite fast, reaching
speeds of 85km/h,
and there are two loops, but the best bits are the fast corners which
really punch you in the guts with the g-forces. The track is only 800
metres and so the ride only lasts a short while but it is worth
checking out, and particularly for the rollercoaster fans out
there.
One thing that I didn't like
about The Cyclone
was the harshness of the ride. It's bumpy, and coarse, and the seats
aren't very comfortable. If you're over 6-feet tall, expect no leg room
at all, which makes the bumpy track segments even more painful.
For mine
it needed more height, more loops, and more high-speed banked corners.
And more legroom.
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Thrill
Factor: 3/5
Vomit
Count: 0.6
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Conclusion:
Much
more
enjoyable than I thought it was going to be. The major rides as listed
above have to be experienced to be believed, and the Giant Drop is one
such ride that just defies logic in its ability to scare. Pack yourself
a small lunch, take some extra bottles of water, and you'll probably
end up having a very enjoyable time at Dreamworld.
Links:
Dreamworld
Luna Park Melbourne
Luna Park Sydney
Movie World on the Gold Coast
Wet
N Wild
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