Monday, November 19, 2007

Gold Coast - Wet N Wild

Well, this is going to be a bit of a massive post... a review of our trip to the Gold Coast for Nan's 80th birthday. Lets just say the whole weekend was fantastic, we had beautiful weather and the accommodation at The Calypso Coolangatta was excellent.

We flew up on Thursday night on Qantas and the trip was smooth and the girls were most excited. Landing in Coolangatta, the girls enjoyed walking across the tarmac and we hopped into a hire car and headed to the hotel which only took 10mins. After checking in, we had a quick walk around town, had some ice cream at the Cold Rock and crashed out.

Friday was the big fun day at Wet'N'Wild. The girls were out of their skins and they were determined to go on everything! Brookie though was a bit scared of the rides when she got there and she was a bit under the height requirements anyway and it was left to Kate & I to fly the flag for the family.

The hit of course was the Tornado, which is a big tube that can hold 4 people which simply shoots you down a near vertical drop and out into a huge spirralling funnel. It really is an impressive ride and great fun. Kate & I did this 4 times and this video clip is that 4th time... listen carefully, you can hear Kate yell "ready Daddy!" as we're about to go down the drop! I recommend going backwards for the maximum thrill!



Kate really was the dare devil on this trip, she even went down the rides I baulked at. We went down together on the "JetStream" which is a near vertical drop slide in which you cross your ankles, put your hands behind your head and kiss your backside good bye (well, in my opinion!). We did it together, but she was keen to go once again and she went up by herself, climbed about 12-15 flights of stairs and bravely went down. It is a scary sight up there and I thought she might back out, but as you can see she loved it!



Brooke though also had a great time and warmed up to the rides as the day went on... from not wanting to get splashed in the kids "Buccaneer Bay" in the morning, just before lunch she decided she was ready to go on a ride. She picked the AquaRacer! Talk about a quantum leap in fear management!





Overall, the day at Wet'N'Wild was fantastic. Because the whole place is rides, you dont have to timetable things like at SeaWorld or Movie World. You basically wander around and jump on what you want when you want.

For the record, Kate & I went on the Tornado 4 times, the Black Hole 3 times, the SideWinder twice, the AquaRacer (with Brooke) twice, the JetStream twice (me only once!), the Terror Canyon once (big queue for that!) and the Whitewater Rapids twice. They were the traditional waterslides and even Niki went on that. I wont mention she beat me down the mountain though!

On top of the rides, there was plenty of fun times in the wave pool, Buccaneer Bay and Calypso Beach (where you float on a tube down a river dozing all the way).

I will post more about our weekend, and Nan's 80th, next post :-)

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