First time visiting Dreamworld today (Thursday) and overall had a good day! A few thoughts from someone visiting from the UK.

Jungle Rush: Unfortunately closed for maintenance today, which was disappointing as I was looking forward to riding it.

The Giant Drop: Absolutely terrifying! I'm normally pretty comfortable with big rides, but this one genuinely got me. The long hold at the top and the tower swaying in the wind were a little unsettling!

Steel Taipan: Really fun coaster! The launch felt a little weak to me, although I guess that's partly the nature of a multi-launch ride. I paid extra for the spinning seat and rode by myself, and honestly, I thought it was well worth the money.

Operations and queue times: This was probably my biggest frustration of the day. Across the rides I went on, there was only one train operating, with around 4–5 minutes between dispatches. Queues that didn't look particularly long seemed to move incredibly slowly.

It was a Thursday outside of school holidays and I wasn't expecting everything to be a walk-on, but I was surprised to see queues reaching around 45 minutes for no good reason. Coming from the UK, where I'm used to visiting places like Alton Towers, which generally seem to do a good job of getting people through the rides, the throughput here felt unnecessarily slow.

Is this fairly typical of Australian theme parks, just a slow day at Dreamworld? I'm curious to hear how operations compare across the parks here.

Heading to Movie World tomorrow and have already bought a Fast Pass, partly because I don't want to spend half the day standing in slow-moving queues (maybe that's the business model!?). Hopefully the operations are a bit better there regardless.

One final positive: The host operating Gold Coaster around 1 pm was an absolute vibe and clearly loved the ride. I don't know who she was, but she had so much energy and enthusiasm. She was one of the few ride hosts I encountered who really brought some personality to the role, and it was great to see.

Overall, a good day, but the operations definitely left me with questions. Interested to hear if this is the norm in Australia?

Stop 3 of the trip was Djurs Sommerland, and on entry to the car park it was immediately distinctively different to Fårup but still had that lovely danish charm and atmosphere. It’s so odd to actually have free parking for a theme park!

Djurs is much more of a themed park than Fårup, with distinct lands and theming all round the rides which is a big win for me.

Coasters:

Dragekongen x2 - the only suspended Intamin I’ve ridden and a surprisingly fun ride! Before going I barely knew about this one but was pleasantly surprised by the level of theming and enjoyment from the ride in general. Similarly to Orkanen while still a family coaster this one does have some decent forces at points and really looks the part, with near misses around theming and even a small indoor section at the start. The first of an excellent trio of intamins here.

Thors hammer x1 - I believe this is the first Gerstlauer bobsled and may be the weakest I have been on, however it’s one of their oldest coasters, is still a fun ride and is better than most wild mice and similar models.

Juvelen x2 - Juvelen has one of my favourite sequences on any coaster in the world. The second launch into those first turns and s-bends is crazy, even more so in the quad bike seated position and is way more forceful than expected. Aside from that section this ride is still a great family thrill coaster with good theming throughout really adding to the experience. It reminded me of a less intense version of maverick and was the biggest sleeper hit of the trip.

Skatteøen x1 - this is a pretty standard Mack water coaster, enjoyable but a little rough. I don’t have much else to as say water coasters are generally pretty similar experiences, I prefer water rides to be more focused on being a dark ride with some coasting like Flying Dutchman at Efteling, or just more to experience than one drop.

Piraten x3 - another Intamin which has similar traits to an American counterpart, in this case similar to Pantherian/i305. Having now ridden both the first drop and turn are so similar aside from the obvious 200ft height difference, with this also being very forceful and intense. The rest of the layout has good airtime, intensity and really fun, almost violent lateral forces from the snaps side to side. This is such an underrated coaster that deserves more credit, I assume mainly due to its location in Denmark being a lot less visited than Germany or netherlands. If you love Pantherian and intensity you will love this, this ride absolutely slaps and is worthy of contention for the best in Denmark alongside Fønix.
For me Piraten is the more thrilling and intense coaster, and definitely the more forceful. However I do think Fonix has such a good blend of elements and reridability that it’s the most fun coaster in Denmark. It’s very hard to choose between the two as they are so wildly different despite similar stats, and my opinion would probably change on any given day. Objectively I’d say Fonix is the better ride, but I prefer Piraten as I love speed and intensity.

Ranked:
Piraten
Juvelen
Dragekongen
Skatteøen
Thors Hammer

Other rides:

Tigeren x2 - Loke at liseberg is my favourite flat ride so Tigeren was probably my most anticipated ride here after Piraten and didn’t disappoint. Absolutely excellent ride model which offers so much airtime and force without leading to any queasiness. As with the rest of the area it is well themed and offers some great views of the park at the right angle. I still prefer loke due to the area around that ride but that’s just my liseberg bias, this thing is awesome and is a must do at any park they’re in.

El Grito x1 - it’s a drop tower, nothing crazy different like ikaros or extra notable like highlander but still fun with good theming.

The atmosphere at this park is brilliant, still feeling relaxing while (on our visit) having a bit more energy than Fårup with manageable crowds. I forgot to mention in my last report but the staff at both of these parks are some of the friendliest I’ve experienced, feeling very welcoming and just adding to the great vibes of the park, as well as having good operations to keep lines quickly moving.

I realise this report has consisted of me just complimenting the park the entire time and believe it’s fully justified, this is easily one of my favourite (smaller) parks in Europe, I’d consider it to rival Hansa Park and fall just underneath Liseberg. I can’t really think of any faults with this place, I only prefer other parks due to them being bigger in scale and some ride quality rather than anything wrong with Djurs. I think a dark ride would go a long way, but with the addition of Midgårdsormen (the 2027 Intamin hot racer) this place will have a brilliant lineup and variety of coasters, and I really hope it continues to thrive. I consider it a must do park in Europe and would recommend to anyone who can get feasibly get there.

Highlight coasters
1- Piraten
2- Fønix
3- Juvelen
4- Monster
5- Dragekongen

Parks ranked:
1- Djurs Sommerland
2- Fårup Sommerland
3- Gronalund

Doing some papers to prepare for uni, this is a TSA 2016 past paper

Got my 100 on Whizzer, renamed Biohazard during Fright Fest. What a fun family ride! It actually freaked me out a little bit to zoom through the fog on that thin little track. It's very smooth for its age and incredibly comfy. I will make it a must do in future visits!