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How long are the queues?


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Hello everyone, Yes I am one of the mexicans going north for the Xmas holidays this year, we do this to escape our weather! I haven't been to Dreamworld and Seaworld since I was ten and remember going on the thunderbolt (it was pretty scary for me back then, I have sinced learned on these forums if I thought that was scary, I am in for a real treat these holidays... Anyway I am now taking my own kids to the Theme parks, and was wondering how long the queues are? It sound like you only get 8 rides a day, as each ride is an hour queue.. We are going early January, so probably the worst time for crowds I know..Are the queues really that long? Or I have been reading the worst case scenarios?? Thanks for your time..

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que lines can be long sometimes. It depends when your going which is in january so yeah most likely they will be long. But, not all rides show be hour long ques. I remember last time i went, i waited 75 minutes to go on the cyclone, and it was a waste of time. Lol you will get way more than 8 rides a day but. Lata.

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While queues can get long you can avoid them with a few "stratergies" -Firstly, get the kids up early (Though they probably will have woken up at 6am from excitement anyway) and turn up at the park half an hour to 15 minutes before opening time. Pre purchase your tickets online or through RACV (im assuming your from Victoria), this website sells Dreamworld tickets too. By doing this you can get into the park quickly and ride many of the attractions early without a queue at all, sometimes you can even do multiple rides in a short space of time. -Some parks open early/close later (DW does these, and WnW is open late), but for some reason people dont know this so the parks are much quieter at these times. Check the websites, last summer DW opened at 9:30 AM (normally opens at 10:30 i think), when i visited i was able to go on the Big 5 thrill rides all within the hour, some even a couple of times. Similarly, at WnW when the dive in movies are on the rest of the park is pretty quiet so the amount of rides you can go on is really only limited by how fast you can run up the stairs :P -Remember that some rides never have bad lines so you can ride them anytime, for example Superman escape at Movie World, Corkscrew at Sea World, The Wipeout & The Claw at Dreamworld all are efficent rides, which means fast moving queues. (If you are up for it, see how many times you can ride superman escape in an hour, 10 times is pretty achieveable :D) -Remember some rides always have bad lines, so ride them early, for example most of DWs rides get bad lines, especially Giant Drop, Cyclone and TOT. Bermuda Triangle at SW can get busy too, as can a lot of the slides at WnW. I have no idea how busy White Water Worlds' slides will get, but since its a brand new park im guessing it will be pretty busy. -Not all rides are terrible, Take Wild West Falls at MW for instance, even if the whole queue house is full you wont be waiting more than 20 minutes (this is based on my last visit, assuming they run the same number of boats). Scooby Doo at MW is an odd one, and the queues can be pretty variable, if the whole hall is full then avoid it, but if its say only a little bit full then go for it, and anyway there is a nice movie you can watch in there which is interesting so you dont get bored. -The kids rides are never a worry in terms of lines so they will have plenty of fun on them. -Many of the people here exaggerate about stuff, maybe being at the park makes their brain go all wacky so they overestimate etc, anyway the queues are not really as bad as some say. I once read that someone waited 3 hours for Wild West Falls which is a load of.......... When i went up early this year i was sort of in the same boat as you as i hadnt been for ages and had heard all these horror stories and i went in January too, but i had a good time and had few long waits at all. Just have fun, but really, turning up early is probably the best thing you can do.

Edited by Gazza
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While queues can get long you can avoid them with a few "stratergies" -Firstly, get the kids up early (Though they probably will have woken up at 6am from excitement anyway) and turn up at the park half an hour to 15 minutes before opening time. Pre purchase your tickets online or through RACV (im assuming your from Victoria), this website sells Dreamworld tickets too. By doing this you can get into the park quickly and ride many of the attractions early without a queue at all, sometimes you can even do multiple rides in a short space of time. -Some parks open early/close later (DW does these, and WnW is open late), but for some reason people dont know this so the parks are much quieter at these times. Check the websites, last summer DW opened at 9:30 AM (normally opens at 10:30 i think), when i visited i was able to go on the Big 5 thrill rides all within the hour, some even a couple of times. Similarly, at WnW when the dive in movies are on the rest of the park is pretty quiet so the amount of rides you can go on is really only limited by how fast you can run up the stairs :P -Remember that some rides never have bad lines so you can ride them anytime, for example Superman escape at Movie World, Corkscrew at Sea World, The Wipeout & The Claw at Dreamworld all are efficent rides, which means fast moving queues. (If you are up for it, see how many times you can ride superman escape in an hour, 10 times is pretty achieveable :D) -Remember some rides always have bad lines, so ride them early, for example most of DWs rides get bad lines, especially Giant Drop, Cyclone and TOT. Bermuda Triangle at SW can get busy too, as can a lot of the slides at WnW. I have no idea how busy White Water Worlds' slides will get, but since its a brand new park im guessing it will be pretty busy. -Not all rides are terrible, Take Wild West Falls at MW for instance, even if the whole queue house is full you wont be waiting more than 20 minutes (this is based on my last visit, assuming they run the same number of boats). Scooby Doo at MW is an odd one, and the queues can be pretty variable, if the whole hall is full then avoid it, but if its say only a little bit full then go for it, and anyway there is a nice movie you can watch in there which is interesting so you dont get bored. -The kids rides are never a worry in terms of lines so they will have plenty of fun on them. -Many of the people here exaggerate about stuff, maybe being at the park makes their brain go all wacky so they overestimate etc, anyway the queues are not really as bad as some say. I once read that someone waited 3 hours for Wild West Falls which is a load of.......... When i went up early this year i was sort of in the same boat as you as i hadnt been for ages and had heard all these horror stories and i went in January too, but i had a good time and had few long waits at all. Just have fun, but really, turning up early is probably the best thing you can do.
What ever drugs your on mate you better get off them. every time and i repeat every time i ride SE it's always atleast a 15 min wait. That's in the non peak time. They always and i repeat always run 1 train.
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Might be hard to get RACV tickets if they are from Mexico.. Curiously Gazza have you been on SE during non school hol periods? because during normal operation they only run one train and it's usually 15 or more minutes wait..towards the end of the day you might get two in a row or someting but not "anytime" and definately not 10. School hol's you have a chance to do 10 in a row because they run two trains but good luck any other time. Que lines depend on popularity as well, in the heat rides like wild west falls will get packed especially near the end of the day (I went to go on it at 3pm and it was a 2 hour wait), other rides like the claw have fast que lines so does the wipeout in a sense because it seats 40 people.. The Cyclone is slow because they only normally take in one group at a time. Giant Drop can be slow because it only seats 16 if both sides are working. Never really waited more than an hour and 15 for a ride at either park but your best bit is if its hot do the wet rides first if you want to do them, do rides like the giant drop first and probably the tot.

Edited by lisalila
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There was specific mention in the first post of the Christmas Holidays being the time of the visit. At this point all parks operate at maximum capacity. With the exception of unforseen circumstances coasters will run as many trains as they are capable of. That said, 15 minutes is absolutely nothing for a coaster. If anyone considers that a lengthy wait then I'd hate to see you in an hour or 90 minute queue. As a very general rule of thumb (this certainly doesn't hold true for all rides), if the queue house for the ride in question isn't full your queue should be under 90 minutes. Some cases will be more, some will be less. Use common sense and you should be fine. Dreamworld is the park you most need to be strategic if you want to get everything done. It's all been mentioned here more or less, but I'll add some more.

  • Hit Giant Drop first. The only time this thing isn't agonising to queue for is when there is no queue.
  • While you're in this part of the park give Eureka Mountain a ride. It's very much an overlooked attraction but its abysmal capacity means that you'll waste a lot of time queuing for a mediocre ride if you don't hit it early. Time better spent queuing for better rides.
  • Cyclone would be your next best bet. It's a combination of a low capacity and a big queue house which means it has a very full queue most of the day. Just have to resist the urge to ride the queueless The Claw and Wipeout as you walk to it.
  • I'd go Tower of Terror next but its small queue house means it's often reasonably quick to get on despite being a lower capacity ride. If you hold off until later in the day, provided you're not joining the queue outside it won't be a bad wait.
  • Runaway Reptar is a good choice next if you want to ride it (it's not that bad) because it tends to draw huge queues.
  • From here it's up to you. Thunder River will be a big queue all day, but eventually the Queensland heat will get to you and you'll do anything to be wet. Rocky Hollow generally has smaller queues because of its location and small queue house.
  • All the flat rides in Ocean Parade will be very easy to knock over.
  • You'll probably have to consider a two-day ticket at this time of year (or whatever multi-park equivalent they may be offering by this point) with the family because I'm sure you'll be spending a lot of time in the animal sections of the park and at Wiggles World, Nickelodeon Central etc., as well as taking things at a slower pace with the kids than most members here would.

The other Gold Coast parks don't need the same kind of attention and strategies. Sea World's rides are all easy to accomplish in a day, along with all the shows and animal attractions. Warner Bros. Movie World's major rides are all high capacity (Superman Escape, Scooby-Doo, Wild West Falls and Lethal Weapon are all 1000pph - the highest capacity on the Gold Coast - when running at full capacity) and you should be done with them in a few short hours to give you plenty of time with the shows and other smaller attractions. In case anyone didn't pick up on it, the Mexico in question isn't quite as far away as America. Think of Queensland as the USA and, well, south of the border is Mexico.

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What ever drugs your on mate you better get off them. every time and i repeat every time i ride SE it's always atleast a 15 min wait. That's in the non peak time. They always and i repeat always run 1 train.
Um... I have waited much shorter times for Superman: Escape, even LESS than 5 Mins at times, You just need to know when to go. This "Superman never runs 2 trains" is also a load of Codswallop, I went down there VERY breifly on Tuesday ( I needed my S:E Fix) I waited 10 minutes to get on due to 2 Train operation. One of the reasons you rarely see 2 trains on the Circut is because in the quieter times, it's just not worthwhile running 2 trains, as it costs too much. However in the busier periods (such as the holidays) Chances are you will see Superman : Escape running 2 Trains. There has even been a report that Lethal Weapon is also running 2 trains (something that doesn't often happen) Allthough, the lines are significantly longer with 1 train on Superman, because of the way the Station ect. was organised.
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Hi all, Fantastic responses guys, thankyou.. Starting to get excited myself now... Yes I will have the handbrake on somewhat, stopping to see the animals and dolphin shows etc.. But it is probably a good thing, as I may get a bit excited and start running around the parks like when I was 10..Security would have to be called to calm me down.. :)) I noticed this site in a Google search, and only signed up yesterday, and I have found out more information in one day, than 10 trips to the Gold Coast, so well done on a great forum guys..

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I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say we're glad to help, and trust me when I say if you haven't been to the parks for years, then you and your kids are going to have a ball. How old are the little ones BTW? Be sure to fill us in on how your trip goes :) Just going to give you a game plan for SeaWorld, since January is going to be VERY busy this year with all the annual pass holders: Get a couple of laps in early Bermuda, Corkscrew and the Flume ride first thing, then check out the shows and animal attractions during the afternoon. As a rough guide, do the rides up till 12, then make your way down to the front of the park for the ski show and lunch, and check out all the other shows and animal exhibats till about 4 in the arvo. At around 4 the queues will/should have died down enough to allow you to get some re-rides in.

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I have never felt so misunderstood in my whole life :rolleyes:

Might be hard to get RACV tickets if they are from Mexico..
Well for starters the starting post didnt sound like it was written by a mexican, plus in his first post he said he was from Langwarrin.. And just to top it off, he also said:
Yes I am one of the mexicans going north
But if Mexico is in the Northern Hemisphere, and Australia is in the southern one, then heading north would not be going to Australia....
every time i ride SE it's always atleast a 15 min wait. That's in the non peak time. They always and i repeat always run 1 train.
Hmmm, but i thought he said
I am one of the mexicans going north for the Xmas holidays this year
So why would i give info relating to the non peak time? Im taking a punt but MW will probably run 2 trains during the school holidays.
Curiously Gazza have you been on SE during non school hol periods?
But I said...
When i went up early this year i was sort of in the same boat as you as i hadnt been for ages and had heard all these horror stories and i went in January too
Edited by Gazza
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Go to Movieworld on new years eve!!!!! Last year we did and the longest we had to wait was 20mins for Lethal Weapon!!! All others were between 10-20 mins!!! I rode superman escape at least 15 times in 1 hour or so. It was awosme, the shows are choccos full either and if you have small kids that love looney tunes ride area then they get walk ons all day as loonytunes was deserted. I got atleast 2 re-rides on road runner. I'm not sure if dreamworlds the same though. After this we went home at 6 and we were fine to go out and watch the fireworks and stuff.

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What ever drugs your on mate you better get off them. every time and i repeat every time i ride SE it's always atleast a 15 min wait. That's in the non peak time. They always and i repeat always run 1 train.
well how would that be true because when i went on the SE i went on it 12 times and there was hardly a que
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I would also try to hit Dreamworld on a Saturday. Saturday is traditionaly the quietest day for the parks up here even during the holidays. I don't really know why, my theory is that everyone assumes Saturdays will be busier so avoid the parks and they end up being quiet. I don't know, but this has been the case for years...

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Um... I have waited much shorter times for Superman: Escape, even LESS than 5 Mins at times, You just need to know when to go. This "Superman never runs 2 trains" is also a load of Codswallop, I went down there VERY breifly on Tuesday ( I needed my S:E Fix) I waited 10 minutes to get on due to 2 Train operation. One of the reasons you rarely see 2 trains on the Circut is because in the quieter times, it's just not worthwhile running 2 trains, as it costs too much. However in the busier periods (such as the holidays) Chances are you will see Superman : Escape running 2 Trains. There has even been a report that Lethal Weapon is also running 2 trains (something that doesn't often happen) Allthough, the lines are significantly longer with 1 train on Superman, because of the way the Station ect. was organised.
When I went the on monday, they had one train running. It was so stupid, a 75 minute wait just the get on, the WHOLE que house was full and was going out the door. I went back to movieworld on thursday at about 1, and 2 trains running, I only had to wait 2 minutes, and I rode it like 10 times in a row! At one stage I got off it walked back into the que house and... you guessed it, only 3 people in que, I got straight back on it, it was great! As for the lethal weapon... I asked an operator and he said, the lethal weapon now operates with 2 trains ALL the time unless one is under maintainance. Although, if the lines are only short, they leave both trains on the circuit, but run the blue train through with no people on it and only let people on the red train. Oh and the blue train, is it new? Because its hardly marked or anything, it has brand new tires, and its not as rough as the red train. Edited by mickey_079
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So, are the parks quieting down now?
Absolutly not. They are actually getting a bit more busy because of Indy next week. Also, Wet N Wild is packed, dont know why, even on that cold windy day, there were heaps of people. My suggestion... if you want to go to Wet n Wild, go on Saturday night because its empty. I got 15 rides on the tornado on saturday night, and through the day... 2 rides. The parks should quiten down after Indy. If not, then I dont know whats going on, because there usually quite 9 months of the year.
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So, When I go up next week... Your saying that its going to be PACKED at DW/MW?
Honestly I don't know sorry. We were told this week is always packed because its a week before Indy, and people who come for Indy come a week before it so they get cheap accomadation, in that week that gotta do something, therefor... theme parks.
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