Intimidator305

Thrilled to have a RMC 5 1/2 hours away from me now - this looks perfect for Kentucky Kingdom and will easily the best ride in the park. Also, I like the name, Storm Chaser, because it fits in with the 'storm' theme that the park has going on with Lightning Run and Thunder Run. I would have preferred a different color track, but the red will pop well on the existing (and added) steel structure!

Just got back in town and decided to skip out on the park today on the way home since the heat index is over 100 today at Kings Dominion. I still plan to travel back towards the RVA for one last ride on Shockwave before it closes on the 9th though. Lots of great trip reports the past several days - thanks to all for sharing and nice photos! It's nice to see what so many different opinionated non-regulars have to say about the park. Also, anybody been to the park lately notice Intimidator 305's merchandise sales? Just curious if it seems like they are trying to clean house of the Intimidator 305 merchandise or if the sale is even still going on.

^ I swear the trims hit harder and harder each and every season down on Carowinds' Intimidator. It's still a fun ride don't get me wrong, but it's definitely the weakest of the Cedar Fair hyper trifecta (Behemoth, Diamondback, Intimidator). Cedar Fair isn't quite as predictable now with Matt Ouimet as head and the new direction the company is going - which is a great thing! Next year's addition definitely will not be a Triotech dark ride, so the question remains is 2016 or 2017 KD's coaster year? If 2017 is KD's coaster year then I'm expecting flats and a SlingShot for 2016.

This is exactly how I feel. All 3 are some of the best rides in the world, but Intimidator 305 still takes the prize for my favorite by a favorable margin. Intimidator 305 has some of the best ejector air I've experienced. It has close to no floater airtime.

It was said that the trees were removed for safety reasons if a firetruck and/or ambulance had to get to the back half of the ride. Not necessarily - KD would probably be one of the easier parks to add a front gate coaster. The only obstacle would be to not ruin the aesthetics and dominance of Dominator. If the park could tastefully add a coaster up front to balance Dominator's look I'd love to see it happen eventually.

Carowinds' "Big Splash" will be announced August 27th. This is something to keep in mind for Kings Dominion 2016 as last year the WaterWorks expansion (later named Soak City) was announced on the same day as Fury 325 on August 21st.

^^ I must say Fury is definitely more intense than Thunderbird (obviously). Thunderbird is about as gentle of a B&M as I can think of actually - which to be honest is a perfect match for Holiday World and their market audience. I think it is a great fit for the park and easily their second best ride. ^ I love B&Ms just as much as Intamins (5 B&Ms and 5 Intamins in my top 10), however, one thing I must say is B&Ms have been lacking the past decade with new rides is the intensity that many of their rides once had (and there are plenty of others that agree). This could and probably is totally due to the parks requests! On the note of Kings Dominion, I believe one more B&M to compliment Dominator would serve the park well. That would give them an impressive 2 Intamins and 2 B&Ms. Dominator packs a good punch too (especially when the MCBR barely hits), so one of these newer B&Ms would do well as they're quite different from Dominator.

International Street opens at 10:00 AM so you can ride Dominator, Berserker, and the Eiffel Tower if you wish before the rest of the park opens at 10:30. Season passholders get the opportunity to ride Volcano and one other ride (it's a daily rotation) beginning at 10:00 through the early-entry rope on the Dominator walkway. I wouldn't consider either of these intense at all. In fact, I believe I'd consider Kumba and almost every older B&M invert I've been on are more intense than these two rides. Even Afterburn at Carowinds is more intense than Fury.

Typically the coasters run in the rain unless its an absolute heavy downpour or lightning in the area. If you get the chance to ride Intimidator 305 in the rain, it's a painful joy. Have a good trip!

Watched for a good while - it is absolutely mind-blowing how slow the Diamondback crew is today.

I feel like with the rumored somewhat low $15 million, we won't be seeing anything too innovative. Where'd that figure come from? Sandusky Register?

^ It would be nice to see KD's Ricochet get a repaint to the new color scheme Carowinds' Ricochet just got. It would look good, pop in the area, and match Windseeker's look well.

With so much work being done to the northern half of the Grove next season with the removal of Shockwave, I'd imagine Drop Tower will finally get repainted. It hasn't been repainted since it opened in 2003 and has needed paint for quite sometime now. KD usually always paints rides around whatever is 'new' for the season. With the chance of it getting repainted, there might be a new color scheme on the way.

Damn. Asian Mickey knocks it out of the park again - I'm excited to see this project evolve.

Deggeller Attractions' RipTide roller coaster at the 28th Annual Salem Fair in southwestern Virginia (Roanoke) where I grew up. The 12 day fair gets 350,000 visitors a year and is Virginia's largest fair - even larger than the State Fair of Virginia. It has a pretty decent traveling fair midway and I always make an attempt to get back to it (this year twice). This year's new ride was a HUSS Enterprise. Here's a photo that I snatched from the Giant Wheel:

Ask Dollywood, I'm sure they could answer all your questions. #ShotRod

^ George Keeney worked at the front gates for years, and for the majority of the time sat at that exact booth. He always had a smile on his face, welcomed everyone kindly, and was known as 'the oldest person to ever work at Kings Dominion'. The park's staff even decorated his booth for his birthday. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks KD's Planet Snoopy is the best in the chain. Everyone kind of overlooks the 8-9 million dollar investment Cedar Fair did in 2013 by turning one of the weaker kiddie areas in the chain into arguably the best one in the chain. But yes, Treasure Cave is missed. The right side of the Action Theatre is used for The Lost World 3D during the regular season and a 3D show during Halloween Haunt. The left side of the Action Theatre is used for No Vacancy, a hotel-themed Haunt maze... one of the most detailed Haunt mazes in the chain that I've seen. However, when Triotech makes its way to KD in a few years - they'll definitely use the Action Theatre for it. As far as Dinosaurs Alive goes - they seem to have dropped in popularity at all the parks I have been to. If I recall, the rumor was that these were 5 year deals with the parks, so 2016 would be the last season of that contract - so if that rumor was true it at least has one more year in the park. Apparently the park is doing Dinos After Dark like KI now to get some people through there. Thanks again for all the photos!

Not the biggest B&M fan, but the dive machines are their greatest rides they've created in the past decade. In fact, Griffon is my favorite coaster at BGW and Sheikra is my second favorite coaster at BGT. Yes, a dive machine wouldn't be the best ride at Cedar Point no matter how spectacular it is, but I feel like it could very well be the best B&M at the park. This is the only type of B&M I would want to see Cedar Point install to go with their current collection of B&Ms.

This is quite surprising as from my experiences Carowinds has some of the slowest crews I've ever witnessed at a Cedar Fair park. It really seems like the Diamondback crew has been awfully slow ever since Banshee opened up last season.

That color scheme though...

Curious if you rode on a wheel seat or not? For the most part, if you ride on a non-wheel seat (middle of the car) it is one of the smoothest wooden coasters I've been on. The second to last row and second to front row are my favorite seats. Then again, I love Blue Streak at CP so my opinions on wooden coasters are sometimes looked at strangely.

Kings Dominion replaces more and more asphalt with brick pavers each season - it is actually a part of their yearly budget apparently. They usually replace the asphalt with pavers around whatever the new attraction is. This year was in Soak City, last year was around the Singing Mushrooms to Safari Village, 2013 was all of Planet Snoopy, ect. It looks like you hit Carowinds and KD on good days! Not too crowded by the looks of the photos. Keep the photos coming - great report so far!

Don't do drugs. Anyways, I wonder if KD will be doing anything special for Shockwave's departure? Carowinds has been giving out pins daily to the first 100 riders on Thunder Road and has put up some signage commemorating it. Although, I'd argue Thunder Road is both more historical and a much better ride than Shockwave. At least we still have Rebel Yell.

^ If you ride Volcano and Flight of Fear at opening, the rest of the park will easily be manageable in whatever order you want - just hit Dominator later in the day towards the evening or night. Intimidator 305 always runs 2 trains on Saturdays so the line moves quickly, Dominator is a people eater, and Rebel Yell will probably have both sides open. They also run full capacity on Drop Tower, Windseeker, ect. on weekends so you should be fine. You won't have to wait longer than 30 mins on anything.

I'm making my way up to NOVA/DC again for a long weekend, so I'm going take the long way home and stop by Kings Dominion on Monday to get some rides in and a final ride on Shockwave just in case I don't make it back over there before August 9th. Also I'm in the works of planning one more trip down to Charlotte too this season, maybe even before the 26th to get on Thunder Road one last time.