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Showing content with the highest reputation on 12/14/2020 in all areas

  1. Now, Bill. . you have to search for the clinical term: "Blueprints shaped like penis"
    4 points
  2. Yesterday, after my brief stop at SFA, I fought through the perpetual Northern Virginia I-95 traffic to check out Kings Dominion's Taste of the Season event - a COVID-blamed Winterfest-lite. And believe me, it was "light" indeed in every way, from rides, to food stands, even holiday decorations. The only thing not light about the day was the crowd; I blame going on the best weather day the region has seen in months: High 60s when I arrived at around 4:30, high 50s when I left around 7:00. The place seemed more packed than when I went for Winterfest-regular last year. Anyway, on with the TR. After arrival, I kinda just did a lap to confirm what was open and how things were laid out. In the area that used to be a smoking zone (KD, like all other CF parks, has removed all smoking zones from inside the park and replaced it with one just outside the main gate), they had some local craft booths set up: And around the Eiffel tower, were some makeshift games booths: As for the Tower itself, it was unfortunately closed, despite appearing on the app as being operational. I continued my trek towards the back of the park, and thought I might grab a tasty adult beverage, but here was the line: So yeah, that didn't happen. Glanced over to Twisted Timbers, and lamented what could have been. This was actually open for last year's Winterfest and was awesome in the brisk December air. Continuing my lap around the park, and saw that they had just parked a food truck in front of the entrance to Safari Village. Sorry, no shots of the Tiki Twirl construction site (no, they haven't announced the name of the 4D but that's what I'm sticking with!). A note about the holiday decorations: They were severely cut back from what they had last year during Winterfest. For example, last year they had thousands of jumbo-style lights hanging from all of the trees in Planet Snoopy, covering over walkways, and making it it an awesome experience. This year? Just some regular lights strung up in the ground-level bushes. At least they lit up Snoopy. And the stage was active with a variety of music-and-dancing shows, running basically continually throughout the night. There was also another small stage with singing acts, again seemingly continual, near Racer's entrance. Speaking of which, this was the queue at 5:20. Yes, that is backed all the way out onto the midway. Why was this? Much like Dorney Park, the park's COVID-protocols were to blame - only seating every 3rd row, which results in a maximum of 10 riders per train. At least they were running both. A nearby employee estimated the wait at an hour and a half. Wave Swinger was also similarly capacity-limited. Maybe hard to see in the photo, but that is about 25% of the seats actually installed. A note about food service: Most stands had been converted into Tasting Stations for the main theme of the event, food tasting. As I have the food preferences of a 5 year old, I passed on all of these (the only one I wanted to try was the minty ice cream sandwich, but the line was 15 people deep when passed by). I was slightly disappointed to not be able to get any MacBowl glory, as it was serving only the holiday menu. I did like how they lined the Candy Apple Grove midway with the decorations from the "12 Days of Christmas" that was done last year on Blue Ridge Tollway (it was closed this year, along with the rest of Old Virginia), complete with synchronized lighting to the lyrics of the song, which would play about every 3 songs in the area. You can also see in this picture that none of the trees were lit up; last year they were all extremely well lit with pixel-mapped mutli-colored lights that were synchronized to the ambient music. Outside Buccaneer, there was a cool "mystery jelly bean" tasting game that reminded me of the "guess what's in it" shot game from Haunt a few years back when they did the Skeleton Key rooms. Right before snapping this picture, I took my only ride of the night on Dominator (36 minutes on-and-off). They were skipping every other row, one group per row but allowing a full row of 4 if your group had it, and were loading the station from the back of the train first. I managed to luck out with my line positioning and got the front row. It was good to ride perhaps the best floorless after riding what is easily the worst at SFA early in the day. They were also doing a kid-friendly scavenger hunt cell phone game based around finding a Santa's stolen sleigh. All in all, it wasn't a terrible event. I'm glad they were able to open at all this year, and being included in my Platinum Pass, it was a good time and definitely worth the three hour drive from Delaware. Yeah, I wish more rides were running, but its better than nothing for locals who had no other amusement park options without wanting to take a four-hours-or-longer drive to a park that had been operating fully over the summer. I may make another trip back later in the month, hopefully for some lower crowds. I leave you with plenty of photos of the decorations. No singing mushrooms, sorry. They didn't need these fire pits tonight, but it was nice that they were lit anyway. And to close things out, a video of the pixel-mapped "tree" that they make of the Eiffel Tower. No matter how may times I see this I think it's awesome. MOV_0364.mp4 I hope you all enjoy my report. Sorry for the blurriness on some of the photos, my phone is nearly 5 years old and doesn't work as well as it once did.
    4 points
  3. What a weird post. My Google search for “Blueprints that are just shaped like dicks” let me down so I guess rather than making a joke I’ll answer this honestly... No.
    2 points
  4. I was at the park last Sunday and the weekend prior. The forecast was sunny and 60-65ish on both Sundays. Iron Rattler got a rush right at rope drop, but by mid-afternoon, there were only two rides with long waits were Joker and Wonder Woman. I think Pandemonium had a decent line at points, but that one was a one and done for me. In several cases, I was able to stay on the coasters without getting off. My recommendation is to go straight to Wonder Woman at opening. And if you want to ride Joker, I'd get in line right before closing.
    1 point
  5. I saw the picture first and my inner enthusiast saw a hidden Mickey first and then I read what you wrote and now I'm seeing.....
    1 point
  6. I miss the Intamin reversing log flume. Better use of the space for sure!
    1 point
  7. 1 point
  8. Take a look at the "beauty marks" on the parks maintiance vehicles and that will show you why a drive through event is a bad idea
    1 point
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