The basics
The Gold Coast has five main theme parks belonging to two operators. Warner Bros operates Sea World, Movie World and Wet'n'Wild. Sea World is at Main Beach, a few kilometres north of Surfers Paradise, and the other two are about half an hour inland at Coomera.
A few minutes by bus or car away from Movie World are Dreamworld and WhiteWater World. Sea World is mostly about marine creatures, Dreamworld and Movie World about rides and movie characters - although Dreamworld also has tigers and animals - WhiteWater World and Wet'n'Wild are water parks with everything from terrifying near-vertical chutes to sun loungers for relaxing.
Visitors to Sea World can feed the sting rays, but best not try that with this inhabitant.
Buy passes
Unless you're on a tight schedule it's worth buying multi-park passes. For a little more than a single-day entry, a multi-park pass gives you the opportunity to make repeat visits during the same holiday. These passes often have added extras. This time we bought Super Passes for A$79.99 ($86.30) for children and $99.99 (adults), which gave us unlimited entry to Movie World, Sea World and Wet'n'Wild, as well as free entry to seasonal evening shows: Fright Nights and White Christmas.
Our trip coincided with a Fright Night show, where mazes are set up staffed by "the dead, the demons and the psychopathic maniacs". Dreamworld unlimited passes cost $79.99 for kids and $109.99 for adults and include unlimited entry to the SkyPoint Observation Deck in Surfer's Paradise. Book through themeparks.com.au or dreamworld.com.au.
Plan, plan, plan
It's impossible to see and do everything in one day. Even with a couple of days for each park, military precision planning is needed to see and do everything. It's worth downloading maps from the website before going, making a list of shows you want to see and working a plan of attack to ensure you do all the rides you want.
Dreamworld has a day-planner app for smartphones. If money is no issue and you want to make the most out of your days, then pay extra for fast-track passes, which allow you to shortcut the queues.
Extras
Theme parks make a small fortune selling souvenirs that children want but are discarded in days. As well as souvenirs, the parks offer experiences that aren't included in the admission price. As a parent of one fully fledged member of the "I want, I want, I want" brigade, I've devised a system in which everything they want is listed and towards the end of the trip I work out which experiences or souvenirs each child would appreciate the most.
Last time it was bags and hats from Dreamworld. This time, Child One chose to hand-feed the stingrays at Sea World. That was a load of fun. Child Two bought a life-size stuffed polar bear cub and named it after Henry, Sea World's polar bear cub. If it's Dreamworld, you might want to do a "tiger walk" - a one-hour walk with the tigers - which sounds pretty cool, but costs A$695 for four.
Food
Gen up on the food rules before going. Some parks don't allow you to bring your own food, others do. Movie World, for example, has a no-food policy - although there are exceptions for people with special religious needs or those with allergies.
Wet'n'Wild, although owned by the same company, allows you to bring food and even has coin-operated barbecues available. The food available is mostly standard fare of burgers, pies, chips, pizza, ice cream and fizzy drink. If you have a car and passes that allow repeat entry it's possible to pop out for lunch nearby - although the options are mostly fast-food restaurants.
Make the most of the last hour
All of the Gold Coast theme parks can be busy, especially in the Queensland school holidays. Queues for individual rides can take up to an hour - although usually shorter. The trick is that most visitors seem to run out of steam mid-afternoon and the final 60-90 minutes are a great time to squeeze in a few extra rides.
On our most recent trip we were able to take the Batman ride at Movie World four times in a row within the space of 15 minutes.
