SeaWorld Gold Coast

II have such mixed feelings about the Gold Coast Seaworld, after blackfish I definitely wouldn't go to a U.S. one, but we have a fondness for the one at the Gold Coast... 

Not too many animal enclosures, touching the stingrays, checking shark bay, and the indoor and outdoor penguin enclosures were our favourite... The dolphin show reminded me too much of blackfish, so I was quite sad, but everyone else loved it...  Go 15/20 minutes early to ensure a good seat...

The 3d sponge bob movie is very loud, but a good 8 minutes... We caught the teenage mutant ninja turtles meet and greet and their live action show, kids loved both! Nickelodeon land has some great small kids rides, go there first to avoid queues, they got long!

The Viking flume was awesome, but 45 minutes of queuing time, should probably have gone there first! The creatures of the deep indoor and outdoor exhibit was good, preferred the outdoor...

We spent around 5.5 hours here, the longest in my adult life and the longest with my kids... Definitely their favourite park of the three...

Pancakes on the rocks

I got the chance to catch up with my pregnant sister while away, and she had said she was craving pancakes, so I suggested pancakes for dinner... I'm not a huge pancake person, but have been known to enjoy the odd pancake parkour visit...

It was very reasonably priced, and when they came, the bananarama pancakes were huge! Thick and massive buttermilk pancakes with banana and butterscotch syrup... The kids LOVED the butterfly pancake, not enough for dinner though, they shared mine, and also some of marks chips... Mark had the pizza, don't order pizza at a pancake place! Bless! 

Gringo Loco Cantina

Walking past here the menu looked good... 

On arrival we definitely over ordered, the best thing about that was being able to try a lot of options!  It's not a tex mex Mexican spot, it's proper, delicious Mexican, reminiscent of the spot we went to in nyc, not quite as good, but still damn good... The two vegetarian salads were amazing, pulled pork burrito, spicy beetroot dip and chicken nachos were all so good! Their sangria was delicious too! We spent double what we normally sold on dinner, but we basically had a meal for everyone to take home...

Vapiano Gold Coast

Vapiano is one of our must do dinner spots every time we are in the Gold Coast... They hand make their pasta, and you basically watch them make/cook your dish while you wait... Which is all well and good, but most importantly, it's delicious!  They have a good kids menu, with large kids portions, 1 serve enough for my two kids... And same with the adults serve... Not too expensive, definitely worth every dollar! 

We ate here twice, and will definitely be back when we return to surfers paradise...

Wet N Wild Gold Coast

In the past year wet n wild has made a good effort to give the little kids something to do, with the addition of the junior slides to Buccaneers Bay... Our kids LOVED these! 

Amazing and a lot of  big thrill slides, none of which I was able to try, a combination of fear and opportunity... Family favourite Mammoth Falls is awesome, but queues get long, go there straight away! 

Warner Bros Movie World

Get an early bus! They get packed and the queues to get in are long! Most theme parks open their gates 10-15 minutes before official opening time, it's worth going early!

There is something to do for every age range here, big thrill rides, medium rides, and lots to do for tiny humans... We took our kids (4 and 6) on the wild Wild West ride, I knew it could go either way, and it went pretty badly! Which made the next half hour very chilled...

There are often things happening on Main Street, the batmobile, a live action batman catching the bad guys, Marilyn Monroe singing... Characters around to take your own or get professional pics by... 

The Gold Coast Chevron Renaissance Towers

We came to the Gold Coast for some school holiday fun! Remind me to never come here on the school holidays again! It's crazy... Chaotic... Queues for everything! But it's also warm, and fun, and an awesome holiday is an awesome holiday regardless...

We are staying in Chevron Towers Renaissance, which was completely booked 9 months ago when we bought our tickets! But I remembered a couple on airbnb that had an apartment here, so we not only got a room, but we got it for $100 less a night! Woohoo! The apartments have everything you need and aren't outdated, a pretty good location, and most importantly an indoor and outdoor lagoon walk in (shallow) pool.. With small kids, this is the bomb!

In the school holidays the lifts have their moments of stopping, the maintenance man said there should be 6 lifts in each tower instead of 4... You can hear your neighbors, and if on a low floor, we were 13, the street traffic and on weekends, street drunks...