pkdcoaster

WOW! Awesome stuff Shane. I do miss the old landscaping and maintanence crews KD used to have but there is no denying that some things have much improved. The biggest is easiest is International street. No trees anywhere and it just looked like a pool in the middle. Another very strong memory I had of KD from the early eighties is Tons of asphalt everywhere and it COOKED in the VA heat. especially in Candy apple grove. I do miss The red white a blue coasters too. This seems like a small thing that could be done to both Racer and Rebel Yell to bring back some charm to these classics. Did anybody notice on one of the Rebel Yell shots that the North track had a 5 car train but the South side had a 4 car train, Weird. I still think it is funny that some of the footers are still under Anaconda from King Kobra. I am still looking for a pic of Mt. Kilamanjaro that was my Favorite flat ride back in the day. For those that wondered what that mini mountain is next to Flight of Fear entrance is, there used to be a bayern curve that went through that little Mtn. Thanks for the trip (down memory lane) again. JEFF

KD seems to be opening late this year. Drove by the park yesterday and the Sign said opening day is April 4th 2009 Bummer. JEFF

The Sea Dragon at BGE was in the building that is now Apollo's Q house. It was a fun little ride, shame it had to go. BTW Thanks Ray for posting these awesome pics from the past. I love seeing how much has changed over the years. JEFF

Hey Robb I know I have the B roll POV of SOB from 2000 and Drachen Fire somewhere. I can get that on there too if you want. I will try to send it by mid January, depending on work. JEFF

Hey Robb,I can send you some of my stuff of Drachen Fire, Chiller, XLC and a few others. Is there a deadline? cause things are kinda crazy right now. When do you need these by? Thanks, JEFF

If you are going to be there 2 days, there is no reason not to do both the front seats and back seats of each coaster. The front seat of Griffon is something that should not be missed on a trip to BGE. If you get there early in the morning you can have all of Italy to yourself for the first hour since everybody goes to Griffon. Apollo usually has an hour of no lines from 10-11am. JEFF

I thought I heard that the El dorado was in really bad shape and it was getting scraped. I was at the park last night and they have already built a new building for Halloween in the old que for XLC and the XLC station is still there. I would love to have the ferris wheel though. IMO this is still a rumor as alot of CF parks could use more flats so I guess we will wait and see. JEFF

Awesome pics! thanks for the pics of GG, one of my favorite rides back then even though it did not do much. Very funny how most shots of the coasters look like they could have been taken yesterday, not much difference. not so much with Roman rapids though. JEFF

I noticed that Villian was not up for Auction in that list. I wonder if it has already been sold. JEFF

It didn't really bother us that much (cancelling ERT) The last 3 hours (7-10) was ERT, we could stay on and move to empty seats on everything except KK. We were all pretty beat anyway being there from 830am to 10:30pm then getting up early for Hershey the next day. They did give us a free ticket which isn't bad expecially since we did not have season passes, I would be pretty pissed if we had season passes and a ticket was out compensation. I will probably just Ebay my ticket unless somebody here wants to make an offer JEFF

Avalanche originally had 4 trains But the 4th was a parts donor for a while now it seems the 3rd is gone now too. (for parts) Basically the trains are falling apart and they just lost the 2nd one earlier in the year to a mishap. it might be a while till it comes back. Good to hear Grizzly was back up on Sunday. They had projected a few days to repair it but I guess the damage was not that bad. JEFF

Sorry your day sucked. Sadly with CF comes a more crappy rain policy. But that was a serious storm that came through, Grizzly has been shut down since due to Fallen trees same goes for White water Canyon. They should open up soon though. This has been a horrible year for severe weather in central VA. JEFF

Great pics dude! I will give my opinions on the trip too. It is really funny when you think you know your hobby really well then something so amazing happens that it just floors you! That would be the crowds at SFGRTADV on Saturday (5-31-08). 2 years ago we stopped by to ride El Toro on a Sunday in September, weather forecast was stormy most of the day. That day Sucked hard as far as getting rides in. We got maybe 6 rides in the first 6 hours and the park was jammed packed. This was the plan for Saturday with the same forecast. ride alot during ERT and then avoid the rides during the day and take pics when the weather was good. Well the park was just Scary dead! El Toro's line never left the station. Kingda Ka's line was never more than 10 min (we walked on it a couple times) Now with these conditions I said the hell with taking pics, I am riding. The storm did hit and shut things down from 12:30-3:30 but they had things up and running in the rain (minus some trains and KK) We took advantage of the free Safari Tickets and did that, Nobody else had done it and my last time was 10 years ago. and all I remember was people feeding the Animals left and right and the Baboons tearing up cars trying to get the food. Well all that has been put to a stop now (Insurance reasons I am sure). I was very impressed with the operations at 6 flags. Very efficient and Friendly too and they let you switch to empty seats in the station all day long which was awesome! The park now seems to be a marketing Buffet. Ads are everywhere but if it helps with the debt then have at it. I did manage to ride KK in the front seat finally and OMG what a difference it makes! Much Much better! El Toro still slows to a crawl at the top of the lift but did not effect the pure insanity of the rest of the ride. Still IMO the most kickass coaster out there and I am so glad I was able to get about 15 rides in a day with no official ERT. SF did give us free tickets to compensate for the canceled night time ERT. Out of 8 trips to SFGRTADV over the last 15 years, this was easily the best. Sunday we went to Hersheypark and did not have the same luck with the crowds Sadly. First let me say that I am a Big Fan of Hersheypark but there were some things that really irked me about our visit on Sunday. Fahrenheit Had a 1.5 hour wait with NO shade whatsoever in the blazing sun. Only 2 trains running (has 3) But the worse part was most trains had at least 2 empty seats in them. IMO a ride that has a crippled capacity with only 3 cars per train and not running all trains, they should be pairing up single riders as much as possible. Great Bear had the worst operations ever, A train was back to the brakes before they even open the loading gates. horribly slow and the same thing about pairing up riders I saw and took a pic of a train that had 1 guy in the front seat. I think Fahrenheit is a great coaster for the space they had to work with but it really is not all that intense but it is a fun coaster and it fits in well at Hershey. Lines were pretty short compared to Fahrenheit though, the other big coasters had a 15 min wait. Wildcat has always been my one of my favorite Wooden coasters and I was Eager to try it out with the MF trains. I will probably get flamed for this but I want the PTC's back, There was still some airtime but most of the time it limped around the course due to the lighter trains. It was smoother and I think that is what the goal was. But I enjoyed it much better in 2006, anybody else share my view? Here are some of my pics from Hershey. Enjoy, JEFF pic from SFGA needs no caption (I cannot confirm no Baboons were harmed in the making of this pic...sorry) 4 hot chicks in the front deserve a post we travel in herds I still love this ride there it is airtime hill My Favorite pic of the day nice bit of air in the back here It is one cool inversion, please make more they seem to like it It is an awesome looking coaster please make it wee here is that drop ya'll keep hearing about Just pray they don't both break Interesting how the chains are independent and there are 2 catch cars on each chain that push the train up the lift. The line gets a big thumbs down I do love this place

Nothing, He was just referring to it as the last Intamin product the park bought. JEFF

IMO I do not see Busch buying anything Intamin (that is intense) just because of the safety record. They seem pretty set with B&M. I would love an intamin prefab an hour away but I just do not see Busch doing it. JEFF

Sadly Avalanche is having alot of problems, It is going to run one train for a while (no other operable trains). Due to other problems, expect the MCBR to be hard for a while. FOF takes alot of Staff and they are just short right now during the week with high schoolers still in school. But when there are less than 5 min waits for Volcano and Dominator, I am not complaining. JEFF

Dominator opens at noon during the week for the next couple of weeks so they can finish painting the rails and supports. on the weekends it opens at 10am. It looks fantastic now with the rails painted silver. It really looks brand new. Also their dispatching has iproved tremendously since they allow glasses now and spiel more about the loose articles. JEFF

I know your always gonna have 1 train back there but with 3 train ops and such a long coaster with 4 employees working the floor, It is kinda crazy to stack all 3 trains everytime. Like I said this stems from them not informing the riders of what is a loose article (glasses). I passed 3 employees (plus a DJ) that were working the ride before I even stepped into the station. They could have the employees tell people with glasses. or have the DJ make an annoucement other than "I cannot play lollipop!" whatever that song is. The line did move fast, way faster than any Kings Dominion line ever has, but if it was Cedar point everyone would think the line was slow. I am just saying there is room for improvement, especially on Saturdays. JEFF

Kingsmill complained alot about how loud Drachen Fire was, I am sure a wooden coaster would please them. JEFF

Me and Chris (Griffon) and his 2 brothers are going Can't wait to get lots of rides on El Toro. (I only got one 2 years ago) We are doing Hershey the day after too. JEFF

BGE B&Ms do not roar, they just Scream. Like chuck said too noisy for those with their nose pointed skywards. I think also they look at long term popularity too and Woodies just do not maintain that with the GP like Big smooth Steel. JEFF

/\ KD4me- did you stay all day? do you know what time they opened it back up after the evac? JEFF

I use a Sony Cyber shot DSC H7 Chris (Griffon) uses a Canon SLR JEFF

Opening Day Report 5-24-08 Well I would be lying if I said it went perfect I will start with the good: They have painted all the track and a lot of the rails too which was a good surprise (no rust spots in plain view) 1st 1000 riders got Free Dominator T shirts with "First rider" on it They did a nice job with the Q and security, Also had a DJ entertaining Also had a ride op on the stairs explaining which riders were waiting for the front. Opened the ride 30 min Early (but that is normal with I street rides) OK onto the bad Bad dispatching times, Stacking almost every time and I noticed a common reason for this. They will not let eyeglasses on the ride period! and there is nobody or sign telling you this ahead of time. Usually they would wait until the rider sat down or they were checking their restraint. They really need annoucements and signs about this crazy rule. if they plan to keep it. The employees were trying to be fast but kept having to unlock the restraints to send people to the bins. Line for the front went all the way down the stairs (Seriously) and I constantly saw 2 empty seats on the front row. not the parks fault but the ride had a serious shut down at about 2:30pm and was down for at least 2 hours (they had to evac the brake runs) Everybody thought the ride was awesome (that got to ride) Th GP was really Jazzed about the ride and the ride seemed to be a very big hit. I did not take any pics due to the break down (we left after waiting an hour) Hopefully they can get these minor issues worked out but they really have a winner and a crowd pleaser on their hands. BTW wait times were about 45min in the morning about an hour around noon and about 35-40min mid day JEFF

The on ride photo takes your pic while exiting the Cobra roll. The thing you see at 25sec mark was some kind of media day antenna to send video to the main truck. It was removed at the end of the day. JEFF