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East/ Mid Atlantic Trip thoughts


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Hello everyone, I'm Andrew and I was directed to this site by someone I met at Dollywood over the weekend. This looks like a fantastic site, and I'm excited to be part of it.

 

So let me get to the point, I have been planning a trip to go to different parks for a few months now, and I think it is pretty well planned, but I'd like to run it by the people on here to get some feedback to possibly make it better.

 

The following parks are what I identified as possibilities: Waldameer in Erie, PA, Conneaut Lake Park in PA just down the road from Waldameer, Knoebels, Hersheypark, Dorney Park, Six Flags New England, Lake Compounce, Quassy, Luna Park/Coney Island, Six Flags Great Adventure, Six Flags America, Kings Dominion, Busch Gardens Williamsburg, and Carowinds.

 

I've already been to Kennywood, so that's why it's not included.

 

I'm going to have 9 days to do this where on the 9th day I will have to be home, so obviously I can't fit all those parks into 9 days. It will start on a Saturday and end 9 days later on Sunday. It can be any 9 days up until July 23rd. After July 23rd I can no longer have this time off. So obviously I want to go when parks will be less busy and I was thinking May 26th to June 3rd would be best.

 

So this is the schedule I have planned as of right now:

 

Sat May 26th: Leave Detroit and do Waldameer and Conneaut Lake.

 

Sun May 27th: Knoebels

 

Mon May 28th: Hersheypark

 

Tue May 29th: Dorney Park

 

Wed May 30th: Great Adventure

 

Thu May 31st: Busch Gardens... I understand that it's 5.5 hours between Great Adventure and Busch Gardens, but I figure I can drive 2, maybe 2.5 hours at night after Great Adventure, stay somewhere in Baltimore, and then drive the rest in the morning. I also understand that I am passing Kings Dominion to go to Busch Gardens, but my thinking is that Busch Gardens will not be as busy on a Thursday, and I can always get fast lane at Kings Dominion, and I am not aware of any fast lane at Busch Gardens.

 

Fri June 1st: Kings Dominion

 

Sat June 2nd: Carowinds

 

Sun June 3rd: Drive home to Detroit.

 

The parks I have the most interest in hitting are Knoebels, Hersheypark, Great Adventure, Kings Dominion, Busch Gardens, and Carowinds so I would appreciate any feedback to include those 6 parks on the trip.

 

I'm also looking for some insight on how busy each park could be on the days I have listed.

 

Thanks!

 

Andrew

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Your first day is 9+ hours on the road, not even factoring traffic/construction or bathroom/meal breaks. That is a LOT of driving, even with pit stops at Waldameer and Conneaut. Are you splitting driving duties with someone else? If not, I'd spread this out.

 

You will not need a full day for Dorney unless you plan on hitting the water park. If you don't, plan on the morning there then the evening at SFGAdv in advance of the full day there.

 

Your last day is 10+ hours on the road. See above.

 

Honestly I'd cut out Kings Dominion and Carowinds and build in some more recovery time, especially if you're doing all the driving.

 

As for how packed each park will be on the listed dates:

 

Waldameer/Conneaut: No idea

Knoebels: You can't get a wristband on a weekend. It's also memorial day weekend. I'm sure Bill or Boldikus will comment more here.

Hershey: Memorial Day Monday. Place will be packed if the weather is nice.

Dorney: Crowds? LOL. Not on the dry side.

SFGAdv: Shouldn't be too bad on a mid-week day. Schools in NJ go until the middle/end of June.

Busch: You're right, Thursday will be less crowded.

Kings Dominion: Probably won't need the Fast Lane. Just hit Volcano and Flight of Fear right at opening.

Carowinds: No idea.

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That looks like a pretty good itinerary you have to start off with.

 

Dorney is certainly not a full day park and it might be a good idea to get to Great Adventure that day to get some night rides in after Dorney. I think that you can easily get everything done at Great Adventure on a weekday in May while schools are still in session. Especially if you are willing to get a flash pass. But the biggest reason in my opinion that you should go to Great Adventure the night before is so you can leave as early as possible on your full day there. That brings me to my next point...

 

Although it says it only takes 5.5 hours to get from Great Adventure to Busch Gardens, that is rarely the case and traffic in the DC/Northern Virginia area is absolutely miserable. Trying to get from Baltimore to Busch Gardens by park opening would be a death march. So try to get as far north as you can after your day at Great Adventure, if you wanna hit one of the Virginia parks at opening. I also recommend you do Kings Dominion before Busch Gardens not only because it's closer, but because crowds really aren't too big a factor at Busch. You should be perfectly fine getting everything done on a Friday.

 

Other than that your plan looks great. As long as you're okay with the long drives I really don't think you'll be in a rush at any point park wise except perhaps at Hershey. Definitely try to do a normal Monday there instead of Memorial Day if you can. Especially if you have any interest in getting on the new additions to their waterpark.

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As a person who drove east > west across the entire length of the country a few months ago, driving long distances absolutely reeks. That last day, driving from Charlotte to Detroit, when you're tired of all the park-hopping and you're not looking forward to going to work the following morning, is probably going to be the worst drive of your life.

 

I would dump Carowinds and add Kennywood in its place. It will be a nice "encore" day after Kings Dominion, and it's on your way back to Detroit. Kennywood isn't as much of a coaster junkie park but Phantom's Revenge and back seat Jack Rabbit are not to be missed.

 

Busch Gardens Williamsburg does have a line-skipping system, Quick Queue. They only have info for Christmas Town Quick Queue right now but you can upgrade your ticket the day you get there.

Edited by A.J.
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You know what days are crowded, Memorial Day weekend and all Saturdays -- although Memorial Day Monday itself is more like a Sunday (at least by evening) and should be manageable. Still, swap Dorney to Monday and Hershey to Tuesday. Or even swap again: Sun Dorney, Mon Knoebels, Tues Hershey.

 

Yeah, about the drive from Carowinds to Detroit, this adds a lot of driving to go to that park on a Saturday. If you could save a park from earlier on to go to Sunday (and/or Sat. night) on the way back and drive mostly on Saturday from Carowinds on Friday that might be better. Although I expect you don't want to be late night getting home Sunday and I can't imagine A.J.'s "you're not looking forward to going home" being true by that point. Monday morning, yes, you won't be looking forwards to THAT.

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Hi Andrew. Have you visited Kings Island and/or Cedar Point recently? I would ad those to the trip and stop at Hershey, or Great Adventure if you must ride El Toro. Leave the rest for an East Coast trip, where you could add SFNE, Lake Compunce, NY City or maybe Dollywood. Have you attempted a trip like this before? Theme parks are exhausting and adding long driving hours to those days can wear you down quick. As others mentioned, a 10hr drive home after this extensive trip would be awful, potentially dangerous.

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First of all, I'd take this whole itinerary and move it a week later. Yeah, it's farther in the summer, but it's not Memorial Day weekend, and that helps a lot.

 

Start driving on Friday after work and try to get to Cleveland. That will make Saturday driving much better. Leave Waldameer after a couple of hours and drive to Hershey for their preview. You get to enter the last couple of hours, and people start to leave early. Lines are very short, and you can knock out low capacity coasters like Storm Runner. You'll then spend all day Sunday at Hershey, and it'll make the day smoother.

 

That puts Knoebels on a Monday. This is important because they sell all day wristbands only on weekdays. On weekends it's pay per ride only.

 

Tuesday you can do Dorney in a couple of hours then drive to Great Adventure. They don't have a preview day like Hershey does, but you can make your own with a Gold season pass. Even if you don't have one, just buy one. Watch for sales, and you can end up paying about $10 more than a one day ticket.Then maybe try to take a weekend trip to Chicago later in the year because you'll get in free.

 

The rest of your itinerary looks good. You'll be exhausted, but memories are worth it.

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First of all, thank you everybody so much for all the feedback!

 

Mike240SX- I'm not sure how you came up with 9+ hours of drive time on day 1. Detroit to Erie is 4 hours, it would be less than an hour south from Erie to Conneaut Lake. Then I was going to stay there, or start driving east for a couple hours. So that's 7 hours at the most. Yes, still a lot, but something I could easily do. Waldameer has 2 coasters I want to ride, Conneaut Lake has 1, so I figure I could drive east 2 hours and be in the hotel room before dark.

 

The 10 hour drive home from is something I have done many times. Just last Saturday I left my house at 2 AM and arrived at Dollywood right as the park opened at 11 AM. Stayed at Dollywood until 6 or 7 PM and drove another hour back to Knoxville where my hotel was. Went to Dollywood the following day all day, and drove back to Detroit on Monday. Went to work on Tuesday... Not 10 hours, but close, and I was fine. 10 hours with a lunch and dinner stop is easy for me.

 

Carowinds and Kings Dominion would be the last parks I want to cut out because I305 and Fury325 are the 2 coasters I want to ride the most. And I have a Cedar Fair platinum pass...

 

prospekt88- I did plan on getting a flash pass at Great Adventure. I want to ride the best coasters multiple times, and El Toro 4 or 5 times. Would I get to do that on a Wednesday with a flash pass? Thanks for the heads up on the DC traffic. As I am typing this it's 8:00 AM and mapquest says that it should take less than 4 hours from Baltimore to Busch Gardens when taking traffic into consideration. It also gives an alternate route that would take less than 4 hours by taking 301 the Crain Hwy east of DC and getting on 95 north of Richmond. Is that realistic?

 

I definitely don't want to do Hershey on memorial day so I'm thinking of doing Dorney on Sunday, Knoebels on Monday, and Hershey on Tuesday.

 

A.J.- I've already been to Kennywood. Thanks for the info on the line skipping system at Busch Gardens.

 

bill_s - I like the idea of doing Dorney on Sunday, Knoebels on Monday, and Hershey on Tuesday. Thank You! I'm going to switch that up.

 

ArgoZ - I'm at Cedar Point and Kings Island all the time, (I have the Cedar Fair platinum pass) and I was at Dollywood last week. Next year I will be at Cedar Point opening weekend to ride Steel Vengence! I've been on road trips before, but never one where it was strictly about amusement parks. I went on one where we went west and visited a bunch of national and state parks where there was a ton of walking/ hiking involved. There were some 8-9 hour drives on that trip after long days of hiking. Then I went on a trip to see a bunch of baseball games. That included a drive from St. Louis to Dallas, and then 2 days later Houston to Atlanta, and the next day Atlanta to Baltimore. I did all the driving. I also went to college in Minnesota and drove the 11 hours to and from school many many times in the 4 years I was there.

 

ytterbiumanalyst- I thought about moving it back a week, but aside from Sunday, and Monday would it matter in terms of crowd size? Plus I'm now planning on hitting Dorney on Sunday, which puts Knoebels on Memorial Day like you suggested, and Hershey on Tuesday. Maybe Dorney will be busy on Sunday, and if really busy I don't mind getting fast lane. As for this gold pass, is it like the Cedar Fair platinum pass where you can get into all Six Flags parks? Because I am also planning on going to Great America in Chicago at some point next year and I will going to Atlanta for work in July. So I figure I can make some time for Six Flags Over Georgia.

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Only part I'll mention is the Detroit to Waldameer/Conneaut Lake Park. It is doable, but it is still 4.5 hours of driving to get from Detroit to Erie, which isn't the worst thing in the world. Waldameer is busiest on Saturdays from my experience, but should should be fine as long as you're not doing the water park. Unless it's really warm that day I wouldn't recommend the water park anyway, Erie in late May can still be quite cold. Glad to see that you planned for Conneaut Lake Park on a weekend, they're only open Friday - Sunday last I knew, so if this is your plan it could work for that leg of the trip.

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People have different preferences and tolerances when it comes to driving, and often I tell people that they're being too aggressive but giving yourself an entire day plus (if you drive even 45 minutes from Carowinds to your hotel) to Detroit is a cake walk for a lot of people, including us. If anything, I'd take a 50 minute detour and go to Camden Park that day since you have time to kill, it breaks up the drive and when the hell else would you ever be in the area with the opportunity to actually go there? It's not a park worth going out of the way for, but you don't really have to.

 

That said... you know what drive I don't have the tolerance for? As others have said, the one from Great Adventure to Busch Gardens. I used to do this drive weekly and still do it all the time (unfortunately), so trust me on this... it's the worst.

 

If you leave Great Adventure at park close on a Wednesday night and drive to Baltimore, that in itself is a late night. Don't do that.

 

First of all, staying in a city if you're not actually visiting the city is a waste of money since the hotel probably won't have free parking, check-in will probably be a process in a large hotel (and you'll be exhausted with no patience for it) and the room rates will be expensive. Don't stay in a city. Stay between Baltimore and Washington if you go this route.

 

If you do this as you're planning to, you'll accomplish nothing by doing it because the worst part of the drive will be ahead of you in the morning (though DelDot seems to be taking that as a challenge and f*cking up the section of road between the Delaware Memorial Bridge and I-95 in an amazing fashion so I guess you'll have at least bypassed that).

 

Anyway, with this plan you'll wake up on a Thursday morning traveling with Washington DC rush hour traffic which is some of the worst in the country. Once you pass DC, you'll be on I-95 with the Express Lanes closed in your direction as they'll all be headed into the city that time of day which will leave you on a 3 lane road with no option to use the EZ Pass Express lanes in an apocalyptic traffic hell-hole longing for the sweet embrace of death.

 

You probably won't get to Busch Gardens until the afternoon and you'll be super pissed off when you get there.

 

I have 2 thoughts on how to fix this.

 

1) Flip Great Adventure and Dorney. This adds about 60 miles of driving and you backtrack a bit, but you can leave Dorney mid afternoon and drive to at least Fredericksburg without issue. Make sure you AT LEAST get to Fredericksburg.

 

2) Go to Great Adventure Sunday (and get a Flash Pass), go to Dorney on Monday (it'll be dead even though it's a holiday), go to Knoebels on Tuesday (which is a wristband day... with your plan it would not be and you would have dropped a ton of money), go to Hershey on Wednesday (which won't be nearly as crowded as it would have been on Monday) and go to Kings Dominion on Thursday.

 

Hershey closes at 8:00. If you want to drive a lot that night, drive to Fredericksburg via 81-70-270-495-95. You'll be there by 11:00 and then you can sleep in since you're only 40 minutes from the park. If you don't and you'd rather get up early and do a lot of driving in the morning, take 81 to Winchester, then take 50 to 17 to 95. It's a longer route if there's no traffic going the other way, but there will be if you don't plan to get to Fredericksburg Wednesday night. This route bypasses all of the DC traffic so you can just get a hotel whenever. Map them out a little though since a lot of that drive does take place in Bumblefucktucky.

 

PS: You can also switch Hershey and Knoebels. That means more driving, but more time to do it since Knoebels closes at 6 (and it's still a wristband day). You would also then be able to take advantage of the Hershey preview plan on Monday if you leave Dorney early which you might as well... because I mean... it's Dorney.

 

You won't have a problem with crowds at Kings Dominion or Busch Gardens on a Thursday or Friday. Don't backtrack like you had planned. There's no reason to do that. Don't buy a skip the line pass at either park. Go to Kings Dominion on Thursday and Busch Gardens on Friday.

 

At KD, ride Volcano, Backlot Stunt Coaster and Flight of Fear as soon as the park opens. After that, lines won't be an issue.

 

At BGW, ride InvadR early and save Loch Ness for later. Aside from that, lines won't be an issue unless you ride Le Scoot (in which case, ride it really early or really late).

 

You have a long drive to Carowinds, but it's fine if you don't get there until the afternoon or late morning so take your time. It's a Saturday, but lines probably won't be that bad. They rarely are at Carowinds except for the mouse and the flyer. Fury is a capacity monster.

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ytterbiumanalyst- I thought about moving it back a week, but aside from Sunday, and Monday would it matter in terms of crowd size? Plus I'm now planning on hitting Dorney on Sunday, which puts Knoebels on Memorial Day like you suggested, and Hershey on Tuesday. Maybe Dorney will be busy on Sunday, and if really busy I don't mind getting fast lane.

Whoa, wait a second. Don't do Knoebels on Memorial Day. The suggestion was for the Monday after Memorial Day. Knoebels doesn't sell wristbands on Memorial Day, and you want to visit it on a wristband day. Trust me on that. Don't go visiting the best classic amusement park and shortchange yourself.

 

And don't get Fast Lane at Dorney. There are way more entertaining ways to pointlessly blow a wad of money.

 

As for this gold pass, is it like the Cedar Fair platinum pass where you can get into all Six Flags parks? Because I am also planning on going to Great America in Chicago at some point next year and I will going to Atlanta for work in July. So I figure I can make some time for Six Flags Over Georgia.

It's basically like the CF Platinum Pass except that instead of all the perks chainwide like CF does, Six Flags won't give you discounts or anything outside the park where you bought it. Just free admission and free parking.

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I did plan on getting a flash pass at Great Adventure. I want to ride the best coasters multiple times, and El Toro 4 or 5 times. Would I get to do that on a Wednesday with a flash pass? Thanks for the heads up on the DC traffic. As I am typing this it's 8:00 AM and mapquest says that it should take less than 4 hours from Baltimore to Busch Gardens when taking traffic into consideration. It also gives an alternate route that would take less than 4 hours by taking 301 the Crain Hwy east of DC and getting on 95 north of Richmond. Is that realistic?

 

Under 4 hours seems very optimistic, but I'm not gonna say it's impossible. Obviously it all depends on traffic that particularly day, and you won't be leaving at 8am I assume, you'll be leaving right around the 6 or 7 AM rush into DC. I still really think you should do Kings Dominion before Busch Gardens. Yes you can easily do what you're asking at Great Adventure on a Wednesday with Flash Pass. But if you are doing a full day there after getting in late the night before from Hershey, then driving to Baltimore that night, then leaving the hotel at 6am to even have a shot at getting to Busch by 10am, that seems pretttty brutal. It is your trip though haha. Plus you will literally see KIngs Dominion on the side of I-95 and drive past it while knowing you still have an hour plus to get to Busch Gardens if there's no more traffic. When i305 pops up over the trees and Kings Dominion is already open for the day good luck driving right on past it haha.

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... and you'd be driving past it for no reason since neither park will be that crowded on a weekday regardless of whether it's a Thursday or a Friday. Even on a busy day, Busch Gardens is loaded with high capacity coasters that rarely get lines. Only 3 of their coasters will get lines unless you ride Loch Ness in the morning, and 2 of them are fun but sort of forgettable so if you knock them out in the morning you'll be fine. Verbolten is the only coaster where you might have to suck it up and wait... but even then the line won't be THAT bad.

 

I'd be more worried about lines at KD anyway. I305 won't be a problem, but rides like Volcano, Backlot, Flight of Fear, Avalanche, the Flyers, Delirium, the fan-f*cking tastic log flume, Dominator and most likely Twisted Timbers can build up sizeable waits on busy days.

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I did plan on getting a flash pass at Great Adventure. I want to ride the best coasters multiple times, and El Toro 4 or 5 times. Would I get to do that on a Wednesday with a flash pass?

 

I wouldn't be surprised if you could do that without a Flash pass the following Wednesday, although I don't know what June crowds are like there. Most of June is often dead on weekdays at parks here.

 

That said... you know what drive I don't have the tolerance for? As others have said, the one from Great Adventure to Busch Gardens. I used to do this drive weekly and still do it all the time (unfortunately), so trust me on this... it's the worst.

[...]

Anyway, with this plan you'll wake up on a Thursday morning traveling with Washington DC rush hour traffic which is some of the worst in the country. Once you pass DC, you'll be on I-95 with the Express Lanes closed in your direction as they'll all be headed into the city that time of day which will leave you on a 3 lane road with no option to use the EZ Pass Express lanes in an apocalyptic traffic hell-hole longing for the sweet embrace of death.

 

You probably won't get to Busch Gardens until the afternoon and you'll be super pissed off when you get there.

 

While it wouldn't meet the goals, you'd be better off in that situation just waiting out rush hour, hit the Beltway around 10:00. You'd still be noon getting to KD and later to BG but wouldn't be pissed off. But to meet goals, yeah you'll want to be anywhere south of the Beltway with a reasonable hotel before morning. (I wouldn't worry about going the opposite direction than Express lanes though, that's preferable.)

 

go to Knoebels on Tuesday (which is a wristband day... with your plan it would not be and you would have dropped a ton of money),

Seems to me it would be better to do that than go to a Six Flags park on those days.

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^ Preferable to what?

 

I've never once driven on that stretch of road without the express lanes and not sat in traffic. In theory it sounds good since that implies that most people are heading the other way, in practice it means you only have 3 lanes now and you're in for a world of sh*t with no option to pay your way out of it.

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^^-- I'm talking about south of I-495 express lanes, can't speak about north of DC mostly except 270 is fine late morning and my Sunday day trips to Great Adventure have been good due to getting off the road early until late. The problem is it doesn't work if you want to get through all that and arrive at KD or BGW around 10 AM. But I'm sure you could do it it from Dumfries.

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Again, thank you everyone for the comments and suggestions.

 

For those of you questioning the 4 hour trip from Detroit to Erie, I live about 20 minutes south of Detroit. So a 4 hour drive from the actual city of Detroit to Erie is probably not possible, but from my house it is, I've done it...

 

This is the updated trip based on all of your recommendations.

 

Saturday June 2nd: My house to Waldameer Park and Conneaut Lake. Drive 2 hours (or further) east after Conneaut Lake and find a hotel.

 

Sunday June 3rd: Dorney Park, and stay in Allentown.

 

Monday June 4th: Knoebels, then drive back to Allentown hotel.

 

Tuesday June 5th: Allentown hotel to Great Adventure. After Great Adventure drive towards Hershey and stay somewhere off I-76 past Philly.

 

Wednesday June 6th: Hersheypark, then drive to Frederick, MD and stay the night.

 

Thursday June 7th: Frederick to Kings Dominion: yes your warnings about DC traffic have been well received... Mapquest gives me an alternate route west of DC to Kings Dominion... the directions are the following:

 

coasterbill... I'm hoping you can give me some feedback here as you seem to know the area very well...

 

South on 15 through Leesburg

 

Right on Lee Hwy

 

Left on Vint Hill Rd

 

Right on 603 (Greenwich rd). That turns into 806, and then 616.

 

Right on Hartwood Rd

 

Left on 17 (Warrenton rd)

 

Then merge south on I-95 toward Kings Dominion

 

Mapquest says that will take about 2 hours and 35 minutes.

 

The other option is to drive the 3+ hours from Hersheypark to Fredericksburg and then have a short drive to Kings Dominion in the morning. Which I could do as I have drove to Kings Island, stayed the whole day, and drove back home the same night many times...

 

Friday June 9th: Busch Gardens

 

Saturday June 10th: Carowinds

 

Sunday June 11th: Home with a pit stop at Camden Park... yes I love that idea!

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Yes, I can confirm that you have the correct "avoid Washington" route to Williamsburg from Frederick MD. Follow US-15 Southbound all the way to Warrenton, then follow US-17 Southbound to Fredericksburg VA.

 

If you do decide to go from Hershey to Fredericksburg VA in the evening and you have some money to spare, you can take the fast route through Washington. In the evening, the I-95 HOV / express lanes that go all the way to Garrisonville VA will be open in the southbound direction. The tolls on those lanes, as well as those that go both directions on the I-495 loop, vary depending on how much traffic there is. Heck, if you leave Hershey in the early evening, you will likely end up around Washington after rush hour, and you might not even have to use the express lanes at all.

 

Also, don't use Mapquest, use Google Maps instead. You'll get real-time traffic info too.

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^^-- I'm talking about south of I-495 express lanes

 

Me too.

 

It's currently well after rush hour, with most traffic headed into DC so you should be sitting pretty if you're headed south right now but instead it's an absolute disaster zone per usual because the HOV lanes are closed in that direction.

 

lol.thumb.jpg.9347543aacde4f91959f08cbd28a1428.jpg

 

This is the updated trip based on all of your recommendations.

 

I like it! You basically avoid the busy times at every single park with this plan since you're spending your weekend days at Waldameer (where it doesn't matter), Conneaut (which is an abandoned wasteland), Dorney (which is Dorney) and Carowinds which gets crowded, but not THAT crowded and the longest lines are for rides you don't care about anyway.

 

The only rough part of this is really that drive from Hershey to KD assuming you don't try to get to Carowinds at park open (which you really don't need to worry about... take your time).

 

The only thing is, why would you stay in Allentown on Monday night? I know people don't like hotel hopping but just hotel hop. It takes 5 minutes to check in and less to check out. Keep your stuff in the car. Knoebels closes at 6:00 that day. Why would you leave yourself with a 2 hour drive in the morning for no reason? Just drive to Jackson, you'll have an early night and you can sleep in (or you can be a whore and go to iPlay America and ride the SBF Spinner and then still sleep in in the morning).

 

The other option (and what I would probably do) is to flip Monday and Tuesday. You don't need to stay at Dorney until park close. You can leave mid afternoon and have time to ride everything with a metric f*ck ton of re-rides since the park will be empty and you'll get to Great Adventure at a reasonable time, then the next day you could take advantage of the early close at Knoebels to go to Hershey using their free preview plan and get some rides in since they're open 4 hours later than Knoebels is and that would mean your next day would be less stressful and you could leave an hour or two before they close to make that drive to KD more manageable.

 

If you do that, that would be a good time to ride Laff Trakk. Get in line right before close. If you're not a credit whore, just skip Laff Trakk. It has an absurd line all day that's usually around 60 to 90 minutes and it's a clone of a ride you would have just done at Waldameer that you probably waited less than 10 minutes for. Don't bother rope dropping it, it will already have a huge line in the morning because of Early Entry.

 

PS: The only park where you'll need a skip-the-line pass on this trip with those dates is probably Great Adventure. You'll be fine with regular Flash Pass. Hershey's pass sucks but it might be worth getting if you're a credit whore who wants to ride Laff Trakk or if you just want to get in a bunch of re-rides. It's not essential though.

 

If you do decide to go from Hershey to Fredericksburg VA in the evening and you have some money to spare, you can take the fast route through Washington. In the evening, the I-95 HOV / express lanes that go all the way to Garrisonville VA will be open in the southbound direction. The tolls on those lanes, as well as those that go both directions on the I-495 loop, vary depending on how much traffic there is. Heck, if you leave Hershey in the early evening, you will likely end up around Washington after rush hour, and you might not even have to use the express lanes at all.

 

Agreed. This is great advice if you end up driving to Fredricksburg late at night. Late at night or early afternoon on a weekday is really the only time I would suggest going this route though. PS: You need an EZ Pass. Otherwise you'll have no option to jump in the express lanes.

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I like your idea of flipping Monday and Tuesday, I'm going to do that. I am not a credit whore and couldn't care less about riding Laff Trakk. I believe it was you who said I should ride Backlot early at Kings Dominion, I wasn't even planning on riding it. I've already been on it at Kings Island and and I've been on some merry go rounds that are more fun. Maybe some people would think I'm a credit whore because I'm going to Conneaut Lake, but I love sketchy wooden coasters. Which is also why love your idea of Camden park. But back to Hershey, if they have a preview and it's free that is definitely something I will do. Then I could possibly leave Hershey early on Wednesday and get to Fredericksburg that night. And if Hershey is really busy on Wednesday I can still drive to Frederick. MD and then take the 2.5 hour trip around DC traffic to KD. I like both options.

 

Now I have some concerns about the Six Flags Flash Pass system. They have 3 levels, regular, gold and platinum. You say I will be fine with the regular but all that does is reserve my spot based on the actual wait time. I don't see how that helps unless I'm allowed to make multiple reservations. If that's not good enough can I upgrade to a higher level?

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^^-- that map's not fair, Friday before Christmas. I wouldn't try Friday afternoon either. Anyway my point was indeed moot for this trip because I assume he wants to get to the park at opening and yet not get up at 5 AM or earlier (I don't need that stretch of road to know that). If for some reason someone wants to get through the DC area at a more reasonable day time I'm still convinced it's possible, of course night (short, 8 PM - 6 PM or so) is best.

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Maybe some people would think I'm a credit whore because I'm going to Conneaut Lake, but I love sketchy wooden coasters. Which is also why love your idea of Camden park.

 

Don't set your expectations high for Camden

Do not skip the Whip at Camden Park, one of of two left in the US that run as they were intended to run. Devil's Den (at Conneaut) and Haunted House (at Camden Park) are the only two gravity powered dark rides in the US. Although it was done 6-7 years ago, the facade of Haunted House was repainted in traditional Bill Tracy style.

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