Pupletts in Sweden: Gold Coast Pt 4 - Movie World (16-23 Jul)

Our final theme park was Movie World. We visited on Friday, Sunday and Monday. On the Sunday we met our friend Sarah and her son at the park and spent the day with them. I was worried the lines would be huge since it was a weekend, so we planned to do the character photos and shows on Sunday and then the rides on Monday when I expected the lines to be shorter. I was completely wrong. On Sunday we blitz through multiple turns on the rides, while on Monday the lines were 60-75 minutes. We ended up doing the character photos on Monday and left in the early afternoon to head to Mount Tambourine (see the next post).

Warner Bros Movie World was opened in 1991 and hosts a series of movie themed rides and characters. Currently it is mostly DC Comic and Looney Tunes themed.

The park is split into roughly four areas - the Thrill Rides, Main Street, WB Kids and the DC Supervillians Unleashed.

The park currently hosts four major thrill coasters (one, the Arkham Asylum ride, was closed for maintenance when we visited), two of which can be clearly seen from the road.

DC Rivals Hypercoaster and Green Lantern visible from the carpark (the Joker face is lit up)

Road Entry Gates

Main gates with the Batwing Spaceshot and Superman Escape visible

Grand Archway

Immediately inside the gates is the Fountain of Fame:

Fountain of Fame, looking back towards the entrance from Superman: Escape

Unfortunately our children named it vomit fountain after someone threw up in and some water got on Kristine's backpack, making it smell like vomit all day.

To the right as you enter is the photo shop and the entrance to main street. Straight ahead is the Fountain of Fame and, beyond that, the entrance to the Superman Escape coaster. To the left is the Green Lantern ride store and the entrance to the Thrill Rides.

Roof Design on the Green Lantern Shop

On the first day we worried that the Thrill ride line was too long (the park opens at 9:30, but only the entrance square, so people queue for the Main Street, Superman and Thrill ride entrances), so we lined up for Superman.

While we lined up, Kristine watched the Rainbow Lorikeets eating their way into the palm trees:

Going...

Gone.

The Superman Escape ride was opened in 2005 and is an accelerator, meaning its main draw is the fact that it rapidly accelerates from 0 to 100 km/hr (62mph) in two seconds. It also features a steep drop from a height of 40m and is themed on an escape from the Metropolis Rapid Transit subway during earth tremors. The queue area is themed as a subway station and there are warnings of tremors. As you start slowly moving through the subway you hear more warnings and pipes start breaking and you see collapsing walls and the subway breaking up. There's a warning that the subway will collapse and then a blue light appears and Superman says "Don't worry folks, there's only one way out of this mess. Heads back. I'll push you out of here. Fast. Superman fast." The kids loved the "Superman Fast" and that became a quote for our holiday. After that quote, the ride accelerates rapidly and goes up the big drop, then curves before going back inside the building.

Of course, the kids noticed a problem. When they mention that the subway will collapse in 8 seconds, there is a delay and then Superman speaks. From the second ride onwards the kids began counting. "It took 14 seconds, we're all dead. Thanks Superman."

Overall though it was a great ride, it was just a pity that only a single cart was running so the queue moved slowly.

The first rise and drop

Going down

We rode this a few times, so got lots of ride photos - here are a few of the best ones:

The obligatory I'm asleep shot

After the Superman ride, we headed into the Thrill Ride section

Thrill Ride Section with the DC Rivals Hypercoaster in the background

On the right was the Batwing Spaceshot - a tower ride that sped upward to a height of 61m (speed 64km/h creating 4Gs) then moves up and down. The initial rise was great, but I was expecting a free fall, Tower of Terror style, but it was controlled up and down afterwards:

Base of the Batwing Spaceshot

Riders of the Spaceshot

On the left was another of the big coasters - the Green Lantern Coaster. This was opened in 2011 and has the steepest drop of any rollercoaster in the southern hemisphere and the second steepest in the world, due to a beyond vertical drop - the coaster goes around an overhang before dropping. At first the ride looked like it would be pretty tame compared to the Hypercoaster, but it was a lot of fun. It felt more controlled speed-wise, but with the drop angle of 120 degrees and some twists and inversions it was good fun. The carriage was two rows of four seats, with the outer seats overhanging the rails, making for a fun ride.

The queue theming was based on the comic books and was pretty cool:

Entry

Going up

Going around the overhang

Kris and the kids going down the overhang

The camera for the ride was on one of the twists, so in all the photos it looks like everyone is bending their heads to the left. Here's a few of our best ride pics:

Asleep again

The next ride on the right was the Justice League: Alien Invasion 3D. This was a 3D ride with lasers to shoot at aliens for points. It was opened in 2012. The theme is the justice league defeating Starro Spores - mind controlling starfish like aliens.

Cyborg heads up the queue and explains the theme

Scores are show by the rides - I beat the kids, woohoo!

Somehow the empty seat scored 3000 points

The final ride in the thrill area was the DC Rivals Hypercoaster. A hypercoaster is a roller coaster with a height greater than 200' (61m). When it opened in 2017 it was the tallest, longest and fastest coaster in the southern hemisphere. It has a height of 61.6m, max speed of 115.1 km/hr and track length of 1.4km.

The ride is themed as a battle between the Justice League and the DC Supervillains and the top of the rise is capped with an illuminated stylized joker face:

The Joker face is visible from the road

Theming

Going up

Queue theming

We rode the ride quite a few times and Kris and I even paid to ride it in backwards facing seats. That was really cool, but I'm not sure it was worth $15 per person for a single ride.

Here's a few of our best ride shots:

Backward

Behind the Superman Ride was the Arkham Asylum ride (with optional VR experience). This was closed so we couldn't ride it, but we got some pictures of theming:

After finishing up in the Thrills area, we headed to Main Street, where there were rows of shops and the main plaza for character photos. I'll put the character photos at the end.

Main Street

Also on Main Street was the Roxy 4D theatre, but it was showing the same Lego Movie as Lego Land, so we gave it a miss.

Main Street

Tomas and I bought Joker shirts on the Monday

One of the food places - Gotham City Cafe

At the end of the Main Street and Plaza there were two directions, left lead to the Supervillains Unleashed and Wild West, and right led to Kids WB. Having ridden the fastest, tallest, longest coaster in the Southern Hemisphere, the kids were up for something crazy - so we went to Kids WB.

Kids WB

Looney Gardens

Cam and Bugs

Road Runner and Wile E

Cam and Taz

Mimicking Porky

Wile E Coyote

There were several kids rides in the area, Bumper Cars, Junior Driving School and a Looney Tunes Carousel.

There was a Looney Tunes Splash Zone water area:

Speedy Gozale's Tijuana Taxis (which Kris initially thought was a taco restaurant):

Sylvester and Tweety's Cages (closed for maintenance):

Sylvester's Pounce and Bounce (a mini drop ride) and the Yosemite Sam Railroad:

The kids, true to form, decided to ride the super scary Road Runner kids coaster:

It was too scary for Cameron and he needed Alana to comfort him

My brave boys

And courageous girl

After kids WB, there was the Stunt Show (located just outside the plaza). I took Cameron, while the others (who didnt want to watch) went on some rides. The Stunt show was a driving show themed around making of a movie:

The had a Dance Cam to start - I joked it was an instruction for Cameron, so when it focussed on him he did the "Orange Justice" dance and got the camera on him for a couple of minutes while the crowd cheered him


What movie would be complete without an explosion?

After leaving the plaza to the left, we passed some shops and then the Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster: Next Generation. This was a fun little ghost train with a mad-mouse style rollercoaster at the end, but the line was massive the whole time we were there. We finally braved it and waited almost an hour.

Outside the ride

We also passed the Aquaman - The Exhibition, which was a limited time display, showcasing items and set pieces from the movie:


Kristine's highlight of whole trip was the fact she had the same sized hands as Jason Momoa (who played Aquaman)

Statues from the movie

Weapons from the movie

Submarine Control room

Kids in the submarine

Submarine without the kids

Boat

Mera's outfit

Cam and Aquaman's outfit

As part of our photo package we got a free greenscreen session at the end of the exhibition, here's out photos:

The final areas of the park were the Wild West (every park seems to need a Wild West section) and the Supervillains Unleashed.

The main Wild West ride - the Wild West Falls Adventure ride was closed for maintenance (it was a log flume like Splash Mountain), so that area was pretty quiet:

Heading towards Wild West and Supervillains Unleashed

There was one ride in Supervillains Unleashed, the Doomsday Destroyer, a suspended twin hammer ride:

Buckle Up

Kris and the kids upside down

The rest of the Supervillains Unleashed section was dedicated to a series of games where you had to help the Supervillains - either pipe matching, jumping on a plate or pressing a plunger. Originally these required you to buy a wrist band to play, but now they have a free play card hanging from them:

Killer Croc

Completing his game makes water spurt up from the ground

Gorilla Grodd (an enemy of the Flash) has a game where you have to jump to cause earthquakes to wreck a diner

The Joker and Harley have a strength testing plunger game to blow up a bank (the Joker is voiced by Mark Hamill)

The explosives

Press the plunger

Blow up the bank

Kris and Cameron ignore the explosion behind them

Bizarro destroying the poker place

Poison Ivy

Captain Cold's game involves rotating pipes to complete a circuit and unleashes a burst of cold air

Lex Luthor is rewiring the electricity supply, his game involves completing circuits

That completed all of the areas of the park. Since we had the photo pass, we aimed to get pictures with as many characters as we could. Here's some of our shots:

Batman

Batman and Robin

Bugs and Lola Bunny

Bugs and Sylvester

Catwoman

Cyborg

Daffy Duck

The kids got photos with Green Lantern, but later when both Superman and Wonderwoman were posing, Tomas noticed that the Green Lantern "looked a bit sad, because no one was getting photos with him", so he went and got a stack of photos with him.