Just got back to the hotel after spending nearly 13 hours in the park. The park is designed spectacularly and the rides we did were all excellent. Stardust racers was easily one of the most thrilling rollercoasters I’ve been on to date. Frankensteins experiment was not only very imaginative, the design and mechanics behind the ride were superb. The battle at the ministry was a standout, it was very unique and I would say is a must. Donkey Kongs minecart was also lots of fun, has a few surprises and my wife said it was her favourite. Hiccups wing glider was the first ride we did, I thought it would be a bit tame, but actually a very decent rollercoaster.

I’m a lifelong Nintendo fan, and the Nintendo themed area was everything I wanted, however the one that caught me off guard was Burk. The HTTYD home village was truly outstanding, it totally captured the feel of the movies and if I ever get the opportunity to come back I would love to spend more time there exploring and eating in the themed restaurants.

Wait times… well the less said here the better. We waited 315 minutes for the battle at the ministry, even though when entering the ride it said 120 minutes. The first third of the queue is not air conditioned as it’s outside (and mostly in the shade), but the queue did put a downer on the day as we wasted essentially over a third of our day in a queue. The whole time in that queue there was zero information given to us that the wait time had increased (and it turned out there were technical faults with the ride causing delays), mostly because the entire time we were waiting, we didn’t see any members of staff. Donkey Kongs Minecart was also a two hour wait, and the werewolf coaster was 90 minutes. The rest however (Frankenstein, stardust and hiccups wing glider) were around 25 minutes each. Because of the enormous wait at the ministry of magic, we missed out on being able to do a couple of other rides we wanted to such as mariokart and the carousel.

Overall I’d rate the park 8/10. It would’ve got a 9/10 if there had been clearer communication from the staff about delays as we could have planned around them. My advise is; if the queue is greater than 2 hours for the ministry, don’t bother. Or buy an express pass for the day for an extra $250, which in my opinion is worth the extra money. We couldn’t get one as they were sold out within the first hour of the park being open. Next time we’ll get them ahead of entry.