G'day mate! Experience Australia Day 3

Gold Coast - Movie World

We've reached Gold Coast the previous night, and checked into our hotel, Courtyard Surfers Paradise Resort by Marriott. The hotel is only 5 mins' walk from the famous Main Beach, Surfers Paradise, and we could enjoy the breeze even from the shopping area outside our hotel.





Surfers paradise is a suburb on Australia's Gold Coast in Queensland. It is famous for its many high rise apartment buildings and the Main Beach. We stayed at the main shopping precinct in Surfers paradise, which is one of the busiest shopping strips in Queensland, and the centre of activity for night life and late shopping. Generally, shops in Australia close at 5pm, but the shops here usually close after 8 or 9pm. Some even remain open till 10pm. Apparently, this is the only place in Queensland that offers late night shopping 7 days a week, unlike other places that offer late night shopping only on Thursday nights.

There's beachside market along the Main beach on Wednesday and Friday nights, with a selection of locally made gift ideas ranging from accessories, crafts, artworks, beauty products, homewares, jewellery and music. We plan to visit the market tonight, if the weather permits (the stall holders might not set up stall if it rains, since it is in the open area).

Pictures we took along the beach in the morning on the 3rd day:

















The itinerary for today: Movie World, Gold Coast!



Movie world needs no introduction. One of the newest and main attractions of the theme park is the Superman escape rollercoaster ride, which apparently can go from 0 to 100 km within 2 sec!! However, rather than feeling apprehensive, i was raring to try it out!! I must have been feeling really adventurous then.

We saw the Batwing Spaceshot and Batman Adventure theme ride once we enter the park, and we decide to go for these first.





The Batwing Spaceshot is slightly different from the typical vertical drop ride.
It is a 4.5G vertical launch up a 60 meter tower, followed by a drop into a breathtaking negative descent, to simulate the launch by Batman. It was pretty fun.

The Batman adventure ride is a ride with computer simulations that brings us on a journey through the dark Wayne Manor library, the shadowy Batcave, and then a thrilling chase through the streets of Gotham City, to help Batman and Batgirl to defeat the villians, Joker, Catwoman and Mr. Freeze. There's not much thrill so to speak, and probably fanatic Batman fans would enjoy it more.

Batman out to welcome visitors:



The Batmobile that was used in the movie "Batman Forever" starring Val Kilmer, Jim Carey, Tommy Lee Jones and Nicole Kidman:



Another Batmobile:



Next, the Superman Escape!



There's a pre-show adventure that is themed around the popular DC Super Hero. We commence our adventure in a Metropolis subway loading dock. As we travel through the subway, a terrifying earthquake takes hold and threatens our safe passage.

To escape the catastrophe, SUPERMAN rescues us by propelling our carriage out then vertically upwards at 100km per hour! What follows is an exhilarating and hair raising rollercoaster ride experience, hahaha... In fact, the ride was over within a couple of minutes. It was THAT fast.

We vowed to take the ride again after we've finished exploring the entire park, haha.

Sights through the Main Street:







Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets shop!! I was raring to go in and splurge, hahaha...





We wanted to take the Lethal Weapon ride next, which is also an exhilarating roller-coaster ride like the Superman Escape. To our disappointment, it was closed for maintenance! Awww....

Looney Tunes World. More for the kids actually. But interesting and fun characters nonetheless.









My favorite pair of Looney Tunes characters: Sylvester Cat and Tweety Bird!









Yosemite Sam Railroad. Kids' ride.







Who is the scarier one?









Some of the Looney Tune characters coming out to meet fans and taking pictures:







Batman show at the Main Street at 11:30am. I was kinda distracted by this family with very CUTE angmoh kids, who were seated next to me during the show, so i wasnt very sure what the show was about, haha. But the storyline should be similar to the recent movie, with Scarecrow and the ninjas who want to take control over (and destroy) Gotham City. And Batman comes to save the day.

























Scooby-Doo Mansion and the Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster:





Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster is an indoor rollercoaster ride inspired by the feature film shot at Warner Roadshow Movie World Studios on the Gold Coast.



We first enter a rather creepy, dimly lit courtyard and then the heart of Spooky Castle, where there are ghouls, gargoyles and an odd talking armour suit. The coaster cars are similar to the Scooby-Doo film, complete with laser lighting and sound effects, animatronics and a kaleidoscope of colour, depth, height and trickery of dimension. I was pleasantly shocked when the coaster car moved backward and downward on the track at rather high speed at one point!



Wild West Falls Adventure Ride. A wet ride, but nonetheless still quite fun.











Streets Star Parade at 2:30pm, where the Warner Bros. Movie World characters i.e. the Looney Tunes characters, Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Inc. gang, Shrek and Princess Fiona, Batman and other DC Superheros, and Marilyn Monroe were out to meet fans and visitors along the Main Street.









We also took pictures with some of the characters.









That marked the end of our visit to Movie World.

Next day, Dream World.