We arrived on the Gold Coast on Monday 5th
November, and we were all pretty excited because we had told the kids that we would
go to a theme park or two! We decided to
check into a caravan park just over the road from Movie World and Wet & Wild
so that we would be close to 2 of the parks we planned to visit. When we looked into the pricing of the theme
parks, we found out that it would be cheaper to buy a season pass (with unlimited
entry) than to go to 2 theme parks individually! Therefore, we bought an unlimited entry pass
for each of us and figured that we’d try to get the most out of it that we
could. Monday afternoon was quite hot
and so we decided to head to our first theme park - Wet & Wild for the
afternoon. The kids loved the rides (but
not the queue’s so much) and it was a great afternoon.
On Tuesday 6th November We went to Movie World,
and we were there all day. Mike thought
that we should do a ‘whole family’ ride first, so we went to the log ride, and
unfortunately this was definitely a wrong move.
Both Natalie and Sam really didn’t like being in the dark and were
petrified the whole ride. Josh wasn’t
too thrilled about being by himself in a seat either! Needless to say, none of the kids wanted to
go back on that ride! However as we
explored the park, the kids found lots of things that they did like doing. They all loved the dodgem cars. Also there are lots of kids rides in the ‘kids
world’. Natalie’s favourite was the RoadRunner
Rollercoaster and Sam’s favourite were the mini dodgems because he got to steer
it himself. Mike and Liz were able to
tag-team to go on some of the ‘big people rides’ which were a bit scary but
lots of fun.
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About to enter Movie World |
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Natalie and Josh on the Tweety Bird Ride |
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Waiting for the Hollywood stunt driver show to begin |
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The Hollywood Stunt driver show |
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Bugs and Lola in the Street Parade |
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Josh and Sam on the 'Tweety and Sylvester' ride |
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Liz and Natalie rocket past on the Road Runner Rollercoaster |
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The Flash and The Green Lantern were lucky enough
to have their photo with Sam and Natalie :) |
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Sam loved sitting with Bugs and Marvin |
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Liz and Josh on the Road Runner |
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Cheeky Sam! |
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Sam and Natalie on the mini dodgems - Sam's favourite ride |
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The Carousel got quite a workout from the Masons! |
By Wednesday morning, everyone was very tired, so we had a
quiet morning around the caravan park (including a ride on the BMX Track) and then went to Sea World in the
afternoon. Sea World was probably our
favourite park of the three we went to.
There is so much variety in the park and we all loved the mix of rides,
animals and shows. We enjoyed our
afternoon at Sea World so much that we went back there all day on Thursday. Thursday was a little wet to begin with, but
then it cleared up and didn’t impact our day too much.
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Sam splashing around on the BMX track |
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Josh liked to jump over the ramps at the track |
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Entering Sea World! |
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These Emperor penguins were very cute |
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The Seal Show was great |
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We couldn't believe how big this Polar Bear was |
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Part of the 'Imagine' Dolphin Show |
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This was a huge playground that the kids absolutely loved exploring |
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Josh, Natalie and Liz getting soaked on the 'Battle boats' |
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The people on land could squirt the occupants
of the Battle boats with a hand operated water canon |
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Watching the Jet Ski show was amazing |
On Friday the 9th November we went back to Movie
World in the morning and then went to wet and wild in the afternoon. As we drove back to our caravan park on
Friday afternoon, the car started making a horrible noise from the front right
wheel! We called a nearby mechanic (5
mins walk away from the caravan park) and got Bruiser booked in for Saturday
morning to try to work out what was going wrong.
So on Sat 11th Nov we put the car into the
mechanic, and then stayed around the caravan park. That afternoon Julia and Warwick (Liz’s mum
and dad – also known as Nanna and Pa to the kids) arrived at our caravan park. They were doing a trip around outback
Queensland for a month and were on their way back south and thought that they’d
drop in for a few nights. We heard back
from the mechanic that they couldn’t find the problem easily, so we would have
to re-book it back in on the Monday (which was the day we were planning to be
driving south) but we didn’t really have any choice. The caravan park we were staying at was
fantastic. It had a heated pool
(complete with a great waterslide), a Jumping Pillow, a BMX Track, a fantastic café
and other great facilities. So if you
had to be stuck at a caravan park for a few days while the car got fixed – this
was definitely the one you would want to be stuck at! It was also walking distance from Movie World
and Wet & Wild too!
On Sunday we spent the day with Nanna and Pa at the caravan
park. We enjoyed all the facilities at
the park and we ended the day with a beautiful meal at the café by the pool.
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This Pool and spa was definitely the best that we had seen on our trip! |
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Sam having a chat with Pa |
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All the kids loved the waterslide |
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Enjoying a meal with Warwick and Julia at the Cafe by the Pool |
On Monday morning, Mike dropped the car to the mechanics at
7:30am to try and get it fixed. Warwick
and Julia were due to meet some friends that day, so we got them to drop us at
Movie World on their way out so that we could spend the day at Movie World and
Walk back to the caravan when we were ready (or when the car was ready to be
picked up).
The mechanic found that the front wheel bearing had
collapsed and so they changed both front wheel’s bearings and inspected the
rear bearings. Bruiser was then as good
as new – which meant that we were ok to drive south on Tuesday 13th
November to stay at Mike’s brother’s house with Rich, Naomi and their 3 kids.
We said goodbye to Nanna and Pa and then packed up the
caravan to drive to Rich and Naomi’s house in Eltham.
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Saying Goodbye to Nanna and Pa |