Gold Coast
Finally, after what the girls said seemed like "forever " the day had arrived! Together with Mum and Dad we were finally headed to the airport to pick up Liz, Elke, Imogen, Shakira and Scarlett!
The plan? To jam as much fun as possible into the next 8 days!
As It had been 19 months since I had seen my sister and little Scarlett... We had a lot of catching up to do!
That night we had a belated birthday celebration for Liz. Eating out at the restaurant in The Big4 Treasure Island restaurant, we all enjoyed catching up with each other.
The next day we woke early and headed out for a day of fun at Dreamworld.
We spent the day going on countless rides! Upside down, side to side and round and round we went!
A favourite amongst the kids seemed to be "The Claw" and "Wipeout." Both of which they went on three times in a row... As much as I like my rides, I think I would of brought up my lunch if I had joined them on every ride!
Continuing with the theme parks we headed to Sea World the very next day. We watched the Dolphin show, saw a Polar Bear, patted large Stingrays and again enjoyed the thrills and spills of the many rides.
I think the funniest moment of this day was when Elke and the kids all jumped on a "Pirate Ship." Floating around on a track in the water with "water cannons" both on the boat and also some for us others who were back on "land." We had a great time soaking each other with Elke and Scarlett surely taking out the prize for being the most most wet!
Next stop... Movie World!
Unfortunately for the kids the main three rollercoasters all had a minimum heigh requirement of 140cms. Tori being the only one who was able to experience the crazy up and downs and loop the loops of these rides.
Luckily there was still plenty of other rides and shows to keep us all entertained. We watched the Car Stunt Show and laughed our way through the 4D Road Runner movie.
With the weather showing some typical "QLD build up to the wet season" characteristics each day was really anyone's guess! Quite often the days started with clear sunny skies and by the day's end we had rain and thunderstorms!
With this all in mind, we were happy to see that the sun was shining the next day when we headed to Wet n Wild.
As we arrived at Wet n Wild we couldn't help but notice one ride that stood out... The riders where harnessed into a body sling and then with nothing between them and the ground, slowly pulled up by a cable to a height of 54m. From there the riders pushed a release button and the cable released the riders... free falling 54m and swinging back and fourth until the cable stopped swinging.
Of course my little fearless dare devil Ella, decided that she HAD to have a go.. Which of course meant Gary and I soon joined her as three people can all "fly" together.
As we were pulled up I swear it was a lot higher than 54m!!! We had already decided that Ella would pull the release cord and as soon as we reached the top and Ella had been given the countdown... "3...2....1....FLY...." She pulled the cord... and we were off flying!!! Arghhhh!!!!
Ella pretty much laughed the entire time, whilst I tested my lung capacity out ;)
This ride was pretty impressive and was the highlight of our day!
From Wet N Wild we headed to Ripleys Believe it or Not, to check out some weird and quite often freaky things from our weird and wacky world.
From shrunken heads, statues made from used chewing gum, optical illusions, crickets painted to resemble Michael Jackson and full Elvis portaits painted on the head of pins... This place had it all.
That night we enjoyed dinner at a local restaurant. During dinner a local Magician came over and entertained the girls with some magic tricks and made them all a balloon animal each!
On November 3rd, my birthday, I was treated to a delicious surprise birthday breakfast! Elke, mum and the kids had all decorated the unit they were staying in and cooked up a breakfast of Bacon and Eggs and we even had cake for breakfast much to the kids delight.
With Dreamwolrld being a favourite amongst us all, we headed back here for the day. Again another full day of theme park fun.
That night Liz, Elke, Gary and myself headed out to celebrate my birthday. We decided to head to "Draculas Cabaret."
Arriving here we were quite excited! We were greeted by some ghoulish vampires and ushered into a elaborate Dracula themed bar and lounge. We soon were enjoying some yummy canapés and champagne before riding a Ghost Train into the theatre itself.
From here... Well this is where the fun for us stopped and I have to admit I can honestly say this was the worst show I have ever seen. With no storyline what so ever, the show made no sense and was cringe worthy to say the least. The jokes were completely humourless and our meals were all very average with the dessert being barely edible....
I ummed and arrrred over how much I should mention this place in my blog.. But after having such a bad experience, decided that if it prevented some of you who read my blog from wasting your time and money on this experience, well then I figured it was probably worth mentioning it!
Although a disappointing night, it was great to spend some time with my Elke, Liz and Gary without all the kids!
All to soon it was time to say our goodbyes to Liz. We had had such a great time catching up with her and the time had just flown!
Elke and her girls just previous to flying to the Gold Coast, had decided to extend their stay for an extra 2 week, so we didn't have to say our goodbyes to them just yet! ;)
Xx
