Let’s Go Mum reviews… Movie World!
We’re at Movie World on the Gold Coast – Scooby-Dooby-Dooooo!
We had such fun at Warner Bros. Movie World on our recent Gold Coast theme park trip!
Only a twenty minute drive from our Gold Coast hotel (you can read our Jupiters Hotel review here), Movie World is clearly sign-posted from the Pacific Motorway, and it’s a breeze to park.
Although we strategically (ha ha) went on a Monday following the end of the New South Wales school holidays, it was still packed with fun-seekers. Clearly, Movie World is a very popular fun park.
Brooke and Samantha discuss the pros and cons of the Green Lantern roller coaster
As soon as we arrived we wanted to get right to it and experience the really exciting looking rides!
We could see the huge Green Lantern coaster looming over the carpark, and inside, the Superman roller coaster looked amazing too – it had tracks that seemingly punched out of blackened, fake-explosion holes in the side of enormous buildings. There were exciting themed story introductions to rides tempted you in, and in the waiting lines it all looked really promising – but alas, my six and eight year old children were both were too short for most of the big roller coasters and rides – Movie World ride limits were higher than Dreamworld’s 120cm minimum- we would have to search a little deeper for the little kid rides!
Time for our sisterly-love shot! On Movie World, Main Street
We stopped by information to get some tips on how to find the right rides – the attendants were very helpful, and marked out the best ones on a Movie World map. To help us review the park, they also gave us “Fast Track” wrist bands, and these made it possible for us to do an awful lot in the time we had. They covered an hour and a half or four ride turns. If I had one major recommendation for Movie World, it would be to pay the extra money to buy these for each member of the family – they may save you hours of waiting in line on really busy days where wait-times can be as long as an hour for the very popular rides. If you’re visiting Queensland as a tourist, that’s time you don’t want to waste.
One of the really great things about Movie World is the element of surprise – you just never know what unexpected fun is about to pop-up and entertain you next!
One of the really great things about Movie World is the element of surprise – you just never know what unexpected fun is about to pop-up and entertain you next! Almost straight-away we happened upon one of those awesome things that Movie World excels at – a street show.
The Scooby-Doo Show was great fun!
The Scooby-Doo Disco Detectives show was played out right on main street, but there was no problem getting a great viewing spot for the kids. For the next ten minutes the kids were absolutely transfixed by this really fun performance of the Scooby-Doo characters in full costumes and wigs playing out a mini Phantom adventure, which was interwoven with some very clever media effects. Because the show is happening on the street right in front of their eyes, the kids really get into it too – fantastic!
Once the show was over, our Fast-Track wrist band period began, so we went in search of the rides marked on our map.
Our first ride was the Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster. We were sent down the Fast-Track queue which whizzed us past lines of queuing ride-goers, and within 5 minutes our excited party was boarded.
The ride looked tame enough with an almost Ghost-Train-ish-type of carriage – and after all – it was named after a cartoon character, so how scary could it be? With this (as it turns out, naïve) reasoning, I gave in to the kids pleading and let them both sit in the front, with me directly behind. In hindsight, this was possibly not the right decision, considering I spent the next few minutes (felt like an hour) alternatively reassuring, comforting and patting my terrified children on the shoulder, gritting out “it’s okay, it’s nearly over!” every five seconds. Personally, if it had been just me I would have enjoyed it immensely – it’s a great ride, heaps of spooky fun – just possibly not-so-much for the under-nines-year-olds!
When the ride was over (I almost kissed the ground) and I had begun to mentally tally-up just how many therapy dollars I would be up for when the kids were in their twenties and still having Spooky-Coaster-flashbacks, we were ejected into the Spooky Coaster shop. Scooby-crisis averted! The kids were back to their happy-selves, rushing at the Scooby-themed souvenirs and exclaiming excitedly over Scooby-drink bottles, with absolutely no signs of the upset experienced ten seconds ago. They were even proclaiming how cool the ride was – little terrors that they are!
Bring on the super heros – it’s the All Star Street Parade!
Two Scooby-drink bottles later (that’s right, I caved in to keep ’em happy), we rushed back to the main street just in time to check out the “All Star Street Parade”.
The girls absolutely loved the All Star Street Parade!
My very lucky kids were put into the VIP area, where the passing parade of impressive super heros and Warner Bros. cartoon characters all stopped to pose with them for photos.
Cat Woman really has claws Mum!
Brooke thought Scooby Doo’s Freddie was cool!
Meeting Wonder Woman was such a thrill!
The kids felt like Hollywood stars themselves getting all this attention – it was such a feel-good moment for me watching their excitement and happiness that I think it will stay with me for a very long time!.
Sufferin’ succotash – it’s Sylverster in the All Star Street Parade!
After the parade, the very helpful attendant encouraged us to try out the 4D Cinema movie, “Journey 2 – The Mysterious Island”. This was fabulous, and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. Somehow we got lucky and got middle-front-row seats. The 4D experience was rollicking good fun, with moving seats, and some rather unexpected effects – but then I don’t want to give away too much and go spoiling your own 4D experience other than to say – don’t miss this!
The 4D movie experience involved a lot of reaching out to touch….nothing!
Next we trundled off to find another ride marked on our map – “Justice League 3D – The Ride”. More of a gentle ride (yay!), this was a highly interactive shoot-em-up ride where your carriage moves along on a track and each person gets their own laser gun to shoot all sorts of alien bad guys – some of which 3D-fly out at you and you can still shoot them – don’t ask me how that works. It’s very impressive, high-tech, atmospheric and great fun. At the end of the ride you can even check your final scores for bragging rights – or at least, Brooke and Samantha did. After a quick comparison I concluded that obviously my target-shooting needs a bit more practice!
The Justice League ride. Oh yes – this looks like it’s going to be fun!
After Justice League we decided to head over to the completely opposite side of Movie World (my unique map-reading and navigation plans often end up this way) and check out the Kids’ WB Fun Zone – and fun it was!
Movie World’s WB Kids’ World is a fun centre for kids!
We used up our final Fast Track rides on the Looney Tunes Coaster which we all wanted to go on again and again – this is a great young kids ride.
Selfie time! We’re about to roll on the Looney Tunes Coaster!
It only took one go on the Looney Tunes Coaster for the girls to become brave enough to try the front carriage together with Mum behind them – their faith in roller coasters was restored!
Yay – we did the Looney Tunes Coaster in the front seat!
Eventually we were tempted away to Sylvester’s Pounce ‘n Bounce, a hilarious little kids ride where the parents can kill themselves laughing at the surprise and joy on their kids faces as they get raised up and dropped – just a little bit – over and over. As you can stand directly opposite this little ride, you can get priceless photos and videos – one of which I’m determined to pull out on their 21st birthdays it’s just so funny!
Sylvester’s Pounce ‘n Bounce is the funniest ride ever – for parents to watch!
Worst luck, it was 5 o’clock and the theme park was closing – it was time to leave. We dashed into the Kids Zone shop for some last-minute souvenirs, including two $10 girl-superhero capes, and then headed out the gates with the kids chorusing, “Let’s go again Mum!”.
Even though we did so much at Movie World, there was much more that we really wanted to do but ran out of time – we excitedly discussed our favourite Movie World rides and experiences as we drove to Coolangatta airport, a mere 30 minutes away. Needless to say, we are already planning our next holiday to the Gold Coast!
We entered Movie World mere girls and left – Super-Girls!
Let’s Go! Info…
There are some great value passes to Movie World at the moment – we bought a one-year VIP Magic pass for $99.99 per adult or child and got an extra pass for free, (VIP Magic Pass Buy 3 Get 1 Free) which we gave to a friend. The VIP pass gave us unlimited entry to Movie World and Sea World until June 2015. For a full listing of tickets and discount online prices, see the Movie World website here.
All prices are accurate for July 2014
Have you visited Movie World? Tell us your favourite ride or show in the comments below!
Hey,
I go to Movieworld every weekend.
But It is nice to see Kyal as Fred and George as Shaggy, I haven’t seen them play those characters in ages!