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Dreamworld Gold Coast

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Dreamworld is the leading ride theme park on the Gold Coast. The rides here are meant to thrill and there are more than 20 different rides for all ages. Other attractions include Tigers Island, the Australian Wildlife Experience and the Australian Big Brother house.

Dreamworld's Big 5

The five “thrill rides” as they call them are The Claw, The Big Drop, Wipeout, the Tower of Terror and Cyclone.

The Claw is a circular, spinning and swinging toilet plunger looking claw, but I think Claw is a better name. I did not see anyone looking sick when they got off, but you’d have to be quite brave to go on.

The Big Drop is a 120m tower which slowly winches you to the top, only to leave you dangling like a hooked fish on a fishing rod, gasping for breath and running scenarios of death through your mind. Who knows how long it was, but when I heard that clicking noise, I knew my stomach would be rising through my esophagus to the back of my throat. They describe it as terminal speeds for 5 seconds. Yes, thrilling, but don’t forget to smile on the way down as they take pictures of you.

Wipeout – the quintessential Aussie ride, melding the beach with the thrill of theme parks.

Tower of Terror is connected to the same 120m pole as the Big Drop, but it’s a rattling thunderbolt metal car that is going up an “L” shaped rail at 160kph in 7 second. And yes, there’s no roundabout at the top, so when you come back down, you travel backwards.

Cyclone is the rollercoaster of Dream World. It is the highest one in the Southern Hemisphere and has many twists and turns to make you want to scream STOP. Just remember, no one will ever hear your cries. The stats are: 13 story’s high, a 360-degree loop, speeds of up to 85km/hr and is 800m in length.

There are three major water rides, which will make you wet. If it’s a cold day, you will be walking off these rides wet and cold. But it’s Queensland, so it’s not likely to be cold ever. All these rides have specific themes, Rocky Hollow I have not figured out yet, but something to do with chopping logs and rustic tin roofs, Gold Rush Country is obviously based on the gold rush, and Blue Lagoon is the Brooke Shields ride. Blue Lagoon is really a water park, which houses Krakatoa's Revenge Water Slide, the Aqualoop Flume Ride and the Toboggan Ride.

The Thunder Rapids Ride in Gold Rush Country was fun however the ride was a lot shorter than expected. Sitting in a circle with five others, you’re thrust down a body of water. This is a sopping wet ride. Put your poncho on if you don’t want to be wet.

Eureka mine was the one where the story was central to the ride. Where you try to get into the heads of these miners and how terrifying it all was to be a miner in the gold rush days. This was one of the more enjoyable rides, as there was an anticipatory feeling of something scary happening, or that you’d get very wet.

The Flume Log ride was predictable and not all that exciting or thrilling, as we had to wait over an hour to get on, but, it is a fun ride for the kids. You’ll also have to put your poncho on for this one.

There isn’t much room for innovation when it comes to the water rides. You have to be in some sort of cramped vessel, get winched to the top at an acute angle, in the dark, so that your anxiety levels rise and you don’t know how high you have risen. You are then pushed out the top of a volcano, mountain, electricity tower, something very high, into a body of water – getting wet on the way down.

Tiger Island

The highlight for me was Tiger Island, where you watch the cats do what is natural. I was lucky enough to pat the tiger and get some pictures taken. Although I wanted to don my best leopard print frock, I had to be considerate and not encourage the tiger to eat me. As with anything special, being able to pat the tiger came at a cost – a princely sum for a royal animal - AUD300 for 15minutes. Apparently, the tiger is in some sort of meditative trance while you pat it and take pictures, although they look pretty normal to me. For AUD300, you get 20 or so pictures developed and one blown up and framed. It is a sweet souvenir if you can afford it. It allowed me to put into perspective how big tigers really are, and the strength of their bodies.

The Tiger Island show, which is performed twice a day, was quite educational and spectacular. They are cats. They are just bigger than domestic cats, but they can do pretty much the same things, like climb, leap, pounce and attack – just on a bigger scale.

I’m no food gourmand but I know when it’s bad and when it’s going to clog up my arteries – the food is bad. If you are on the cusp of major heart disease, you will have to go without for the day or take the risk of dying in Dream World (ironic?). Or just chew gum, but that might be illegal in the theme park, and they don’t sell it.