Australia 01/18 – Movie World
Day 8
My sleep was so intense that I woke up confused to where the hell I was or what I was doing there. Then I rolled out of bed, walked to the bathroom and discovered I’d been sunburnt in places I didn’t think possible.
Movie World
You first see Movie World’s brand new hyper coaster, DC Rivals, about 5 minutes from the park and from that point onwards until you arrive in the car park it only gets more beautiful.
Although Movie World is operated by the same company as Sea World, which looked a little worse for wear, first impressions of Movie World are very positive. Friendly and enthusiastic staff members at the entrance, a nicely kept entrance area, many coasters looming in the background and a massive pink hyper coaster right in your face.
We went straight to DC Rivals and joined the sizeable queue that had formed outside of the ride’s entrance. The ride team from Green Lantern (the El Loco) came over to ask us, “why wait for DC Rivals to open when Green Lantern is currently walk on?” He’s joking right?
DC Rivals – Being a huge fan of Mack rides I was so excited to try out their 2nd ever hyper coaster and I was more than right to be because it’s simply outstanding.
Climbing 200 feet in the very exposed and very lovely Mack mega trains is actually rather unnerving, though we will top that later. The first drop is brilliant, violently launching you out of your seat and pinning you to the restraint until you level out. DC Rival’s first massive air time hill delivers strong ejector air. Then you’re taken up and through a 131 foot tall non inverting loop, which I figured would ride gracefully but no, it’s crazy and provides yet more ejector air. The next section takes a break from air time and concentrates more on snappy twisty elements, personally this was a slight let down for me but it’s not long before ejector air comes back in style. Things really pick up again after when you are subjected to 4 insane air time hills in a row which provide the strongest ejector air DC Rivals has to offer. What a strong way to end a coaster.
Sounds amazing doesn’t it? But we can top it. For the low cost (at the time) of 5 Aussie dollars you can ride this World class machine BACKWARDS. Needless to say experiencing a coaster this good and this intense not knowing what’s going to come next is absolutely mindblowing and it gives DC Rivals an almost unfair advantage against the other World class coasters it’s competing against.
I think mine and Heartline’s onride video that we watched in the gift shop is the best advertisement you could ever ask for to sell backwards DC Rivals. It went something like this…
Climbing up the massive lift flopping against our restraint looking a little uneasy. About 2 seconds before dropping, at the exact same time shouting “OH F**K!”. Then we take the already intense as all hell drop backwards, with absolute fear on our faces. Then on every one of the intense air time moments (which are 10 times more intense when you can’t see them coming) we had the perfect combination of shock and unrivalled excitment on our faces. It was incredible.
It would appear DC Rivals helped to kick start a trend of insane coasters being added to Australia, so it deserves yet even more credit.
Superman Escape – This Intamin hydraulic launch coaster was the park’s star attraction before they added DC Rivals, sadly for me it’s nothing special.
The coaster starts with a long and rather well themed dark ride section which I quite enjoyed.
Superman’s layout should be really good but for me was let down by 2 things.
The trains, Intamin’s vest restraints work quite well with some of their coasters but not so much here. The violent air time on the top hat is just painful because of the vests and the high speed twisty stuff is also painful for the same reason.
The dark ride section, while it’s good fun it allows your eyes to get used to the dark, which means when you’re launched into the bright Australian sun it’s beyond uncomfortable.
When you combine those 2 issues it makes Superman rather unpleasant, which sucks because as I said it has every right to be really good.
Green Lantern – The park’s 8 person El Loco was fine, I’m not massively interested in these coasters.
Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster – I was quite excited to ride this heavily themed Mack Wild Mouse but sadly it was in the middle of a refurb which meant all the on ride theming had been removed. This meant it was just a wild mouse coaster in the pitch black, which to be fair was still pretty fun.
The park also had a Justice League shooting dark ride which was pretty excellent.
Strangely, despite it being school holidays and the middle of Australian summer, Movie World was closing at 6pm and this meant we wouldn’t be able to complete the park’s coaster line up and get much wanted rerides on DC Rivals. Therefore we decided to come back tomorrow morning and end today on one of the greatest coasters in the World.
Movie World is no questions asked the best park on the Gold Coast and now with DC Rivals should be on every coaster enthusiasts to do list.
Day 9
After waking up we quickly jumped in the car and made our way back to Movie World.
Arkham Asylum – The park’s SLC featured a fabric vest style restraint and while it did stop the classic SLC head banging, it did not make the ride any smoother.
With the park now complete we rode Superman again, sadly still disappointing.
So we spent some more quality time with DC Rivals before bidding it a sad farewell and moving onto the next park.
Thank you for reading, click here to find out what happened during the rest of our day, when we visit the rather terrible Dreamworld.