Trip Report/ Kings Dominion
Kings Dominion: The crowds were pretty light, of course we still had to wait for Volcano, hypersonic, and Italian Job, but overall I had great visit.
This is my trip report at PKD, just went yesterday 9/10/06. The crowds were pretty light, of course we still had to wait for Volcano, hypersonic, and Italian Job, but overall I had great visit. The park was very clean, most of the staff was very nice and helpful except for one incident when we first got there. MY boyfriend had accidentally left his pocket knife in his pocket so the man at the medal detector told him to see security and pointed the security man out. Well when we got to him, he didnt even acknowledg that we were even there, then when he did, we could barely understand him, his english was so poor. But other than that we had a great time. Here's my opinion on all the rides I rode.
Anaconda- Little rough, it shows its age and seemed unbelievably SLOW. This ride was a walk on with no wait.
Flight of Fear- Definatley a great ride, good launch 0-54 in 3secs- smooth, I really like the theming to this one by entering a UFO type thing. The ride op had some good humor he said "All clear Goodbye" lol I thought that was neat wait time about 20mins
Volcano- All I can say is this is by far the best ride in the park. This is a must ride. Its so smooth and a good rush, 0-70 in 4secs. Wait time about 45mins but it was worth it!!
Avalanche- A good relaxing ride, good for the kids too. This was my first ride on a bobsled like ride. Wait time about 10mins.
Italian Job- This is a neat little ride, I really enjoyed it, good family ride. Wait time about 30mins but that was first thing in the morning the lines for this get really long.
Shockwave- I personally love this ride, no one else seems to thinks so tho, the only problem with this one is toward the end it gets a little rough on that last hill. wait time about 20mins.
Hypersonic- WHAT A RUSH!! This one is awesome 0-80 in 1.8secs. The only bad thing with this one is- its over too soon, the ride only last like 15secs i believe but was a great thrill, wait time about 1hr.
Ricochet- Another good family ride with some good little twist and hills. wait time about 5mins.
Hurler- little rough but fun and some good speed. wait time about 5mins- walk on.
Rebel Yell- Classic- good airtime not very rough either wait time 5mins-walk on
Grizzly- ROUGH, ROUGH, ROUGH- I gaurantee you will have a headach and backache after riding this. Wait time walk on.
Spongebob 3D- good way to cool off from the heat, good for the kids too, it was pretty neat. wait time about 15mins
that park needs an intamin giga or its gonna get pretty ugly n sad quick....
Great review. I'm glad you had a great time! I can't wait til WE go again! You made me miss it all over again! ;) *SIGH* Ryan, why does any park need a giga coaster? Not everyone will ride one, namely me & my husband, we can have big thrills on something else. Hypersonic could be longer but it's still high-thrill. I don't see them putting in a 'giga' coaster anytime soon. No offense but MF hardly stays open from what I hear often so what's the point of spending the money?
From steve lee
Posted September 12, 2006 at 3:29 PM
MF's record has improved dramatically. I got really unlucky this year and managed to miss it both times. It made for good tape, though, so in a way I'm glad it happened the FIRST time (the second time, however, was kinda teh suck).
Ultimately, I think a lot of people are badly mistaken if they think Cedar Fair has a pocket full of gigas to drop on parks. Considering how much they just spent on these parks (and the additional $21 million for Maverick), it'll be a while before they really start giving back to the parks in a "major attraction" way.
Don'y believe me? Go see what's new at Geauga Lake.
Good report - I agree with you on Shockwave. I was there in 2004 and I really don't remember Shockwave being rough at all. I actually liked it, even though I think 95% of people don't.
MF is open 99% of the time the park is open, cracks me up where you people get your info from. Yall just mad cuz ya never been on it
Ummmm no, I'm not mad, I don't WANT to ride it. If ya wudda read it thoroughly that's what I said. I don't care anything about it or CP. Now that Maverick is built or being built, however, I may visit the park to ride Maverick & Mantis. I don't know which coaster, then, that ppl's been referring to being closed if it's not MF then EXCUSE me. I'll try to remember to research more thoroughly before posting. Then which coaster exactly was it, Ryan, since you seem to know all, that was closed when that accident occurred w/Wild Thing at Cedar Fair some months ago. Did the parks not close coasters related to Wild Thing--made by Morgan? What Morgan coaster was it? I dunno if MF is a Morgan coaster. Was is Steel Force I'm thinking of? I know there were others that were closed for inspection after that happened. I have no way of knowing when the coasters are reopened other than spending time contacting the park or visiting the websites which I have better things to do than surf websites or calling amusement parks all day. I just want to know now which one I'm thinking of so I don't get my information wrong again, Ryan.
huh huh huh huh
The next step for Kings Dominion will be something breaking the 200' mark (my guess something around 250'). If Cedar Fair Inc. wants to create a big draw, they need to build something that will be bigger than anything BGE has. Also, King's Dominion already has a great collection of coasters of pretty much every common style. Of course there isn't anything official about this, I just have a feeling that in the next couple of years you might see some stuff pop up about it.
yea i'm pretty sure that CF wants to get people's attention away from BGE any way they can. A huge coaster will do just that. I pray 4 a giga 4 KD every night lol....
I'm glad to hear you had a good time at this park. Good concise ride summary. I went to this park for the first time ever the week before Labor Day. The lines were practically non existent on the Monday I was there. I think it is a good park. I thought that their coaster line up was pretty good as is. A hyper coaster might complete their collection, though. I think that the park needs more thrilling flat rides, as well.
Volcano is definitely a unique ride and worth a trip to PKD by itself. I wish that more was done inside the volcano to mask the internal structure and the equipment that they appear to store inside. Also, their toboggan coaster was the first that I have ever ridden and I thought that it was definitely a fun family friendly ride. Rebel Yell was another first for me. A dueling wooden coaster where one train goes forwards and one goes backwards. I liked Flight of Fear, but I feel that the one at King's Island was a bit less rough than the one at Kings Dominion. However, I thought that Italian Job felt like it was run faster here, making it better than the one at King's Island. Although, it is my home park, I have yet to try the Italian Job at Canada's Wonderland, but I hope it is run like the one at Kings Dominion.
PS Adrienne, I think that you are thinking about Top Thrill Dragster as the ride that you hear is being repaired frequently at Cedar Point. Although, when I went there last summer. Dragster ran the whole day and Millenium Force was only open for a couple of hours.
Hypersonic did have a lot of problems when it first opened. They closed the ride for the first part of the 2002 season to 'increase reliability' (so it would stop having so many roll backs). They changed the trains so instead of the nose piece having it's own seperate axle, they formed it to the very front row of the train. Pretty much they shortened the trains so they wouldn't have to cut a row.
Original Trains
http://www.rcdb.com/ig729.htm?picture=2
Newer Trains
http://www.rcdb.com/ig729.htm?picture=8
Just another fun fact, Volcano also had similar problems. I can't find the information on that right now but they used to not be able to run full trains and they had to remove the piece of track right as you come out of the top of the mountain. Reason being for removing that was they had the burner's mis-positioned for the explosion and they had twisted the track supposedly.
Sorry, I meant Valley Fair, not Cedar Fair, but I'm sure everyone else knew what I was referring to.
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