bert425

Yeah. . the rooms really do seem to be bigger. the agent just confirmed for me that my Dad went for the Signature Suites (not the ones that are 1K more than those. . . with the main difference being a King bed instead of a Queen). so our room will have a tub AND a shower (with double sinks). . so yeah, sounds bigger than what we saw on the Celebrity ship.

Glad to hear you will get to do the shows. .they are good. if you are going to insist on "circular" travel around the park, here's what I'd do: Still skip Goliath (near the front) and Boomerang. and go directly to Irat: 1) IRat 2) Roadrunner Express - bactracking just a LITTLE bit, as it's right next to iRat, but you'll want iRat first. 3) continue counter clockwise (Gullywasher Rafts if you want to get soaked), if not, Skyscreamer 4) Superman Krypton Coaster 5) (thru kiddieland, and Topspin & Wave Swinger -- if you're into that..if not:) Hustler in Rockville (teacups themed to pool table). 6) Scream Drop tower 7) right to the Boardwalk for Pandemonium 8) Frisbee 9) Scooby Doo, ferris wheel, or anything else on boardwalk -- if you're into that. If not, then back towards main gates hitting Poltergeist (launched coaster) on the way 10) in German section, hang a left at the fountain for Bugs Bunny Rapids -- a nicely themed flume. 11) Boomerang 12) Goliath (at the front gate). grab a show schedule, and try to time passing shows as they are within a 1/2 hour of starting, so you can get in line. that's how I'd do it (and yeah, I left off some rides, but it's all stuff we typically skip. . so if I don't like it, you won't like it )

Fiesta is a "show" park. you will regret it if you don't take in "Rockville" and whatever show is playing in Zaragoza (the big theater in Los Festivales). If you enjoy Country music, there are a couple of good bands performing in amphitheaters thruout the park, and the group that plays in the beer-hall (in the "German" section) near Bugs Bunny Rapids is quite fun too, if you can time your meal to their schedule. but really. . don't bypass the two big shows.

yep. . he sent me the confirmation info I need to give the travel agent today. they are going with Holland America (I figured). not sure what size rooms he went for (I'll ask the agent tomorrow). . but my Mom was all excited that each bathroom has a tub in it! LOL. oh well. . we'll make our own fun!. .

ah. .my error. I must be mixing up the discount night with all day ride (we were there on a Friday, so tho they were offering the ride bands, there was a sign stating that it did not include the coasters, Flying Turns, or the 3 you mentioned)

the all you can ride didn't seem to include any of the big coasters (or Flying turns). We just ended up using tickets. during the week, the $20 booklets are sold for $18 in the park. and when we were just there about 4 weeks ago, the locals told us that if you buy the tickets at the local supermarkets, you can get the $20 books for $16. hope that helps?

Don't miss the fried cheese on a stick at the pagoda near the kiddie slide. it's amaze-balls!

Thanks! I'm enjoying writing them up. (only 1 left, the big "Culture" day in Philly. . . LOTS of pics to sort thru).

I'll go with Possessed at Dorney. I loved it.

me too. . we were just there last month. . so great to see your pics! (we did Kennywood, HersheyPark, Knoebel's and Dorney) (it was really overcast and drizzly there when we went, so no crowds, but got no good pictures ). I'm in the camp that HATED Skyrush. Rode it once, got off and said "never again" LOL good report and pics thus far!

Fortune Teller, Candy Apple, Popcorn, and "New Spin on an Old Classic" sounds like a dark ride haunted house with spinning cars to me.

I always found the area between thunderhawk and Steel Force to be quite shaded. but there's NOTHING there, except for the Scrambler. the rest of it is all concrete (just look at those pics by Possessed).

if it hasn't been mentioned. . . "Flying Turns" at Knoebel's has a scale at the entrance, and at each gate in the station before you load into the cars. if your weight is too heavy, the person on the load platform, re-arranges the 6 people until the weight is distributed correctly, and he get's a "go" from the computer. it doesn't give a weight, but says "launch delayed" if you're too heavy and he has to move you.

we won't know until my Dad books. but I think for sure it won't be Carnival. Considering how my Mom is pushing for "nice". . I have a feeling most meals would end up being in sit down restaurants, rather than the buffet (that's what we did on our Alaska cruise). hopefully that would help with not getting sick! (and like I said, I'll pack my salt). but like everyone here said, if I had my choice -- and if she'd listen to me?. .I'd do the one y'all are recommending for sure!

Day 8 – Dorney Park (and Whitewater Kingdom) So we got up around 8am, ate a light breakfast in the Concierge suite, and then headed down to get the car from Valet. Dorney opened at 10, and it was about an hour away in Allentown, so we figured we’d leave the Hotel around 9 to be there just after opening. The news was reporting that it was going to be the hottest day of the year thus far (at 92 degrees), so I expected that meant that a lot of folks would be at the Waterpark section of the Amusement Park. The directions once again worked out perfect, and we got to the front gates of Dorney just after 10am. It was more crowded than I expected for opening, but everyone basically had the same idea I had – pull in, park, and COVER yourself with Sunscreen. (since it had been so overcast we hadn’t needed to use much sunscreen thus far, but man was I glad I had it at Dorney). I started chatting with two girls in Bikini tops & shorts who had parked just in front of us, and since it was our first time there, asked for suggestions on how to approach the park. They said that everyone would go straight ahead to the suspended coaster, Talon, and suggested instead we head to the left and go directly towards Steel Force (the giant coaster we had seen the day before from the Tollway), and get in a few rides, as that would be crowded later in the day, and just work our way clockwise around the park from there. I thanked them and we got in the huge bag check line. I swear, this was almost the longest line of the day. . it took almost 20 minutes to get thru the checks, and it wasn’t “official” looking at all – just security guards with some plastic tables glancing into everyone’s bags. I guess what took so long was so many of the people had bags full of towels and snacks (apparently a no-no to bring in your own food). Once we finally got in the gates, we headed to the left, and came across one of the many huge hills (flashbacks to Hershey!). LOL. . .we laughed, and went that way anyways (what else were we gonna do?). My impression of the park? It was by far the most “corporate” looking of the theme parks we visited. It just didn’t seem to have a whole lot of charm, but it did seem to have a whole lot of concrete! Maybe we just noticed it because it was the first hot day, but there was not a lot of shade, or trees to be had. It just looked like rivers of concrete leading to rides. That’s not to say I didn’t like the park, I did, quite a bit. But yeah. . it could use some landscaping to make it a bit prettier. Then again, at least 4/5ths of the crowd had gone directly to the right and into the waterpark, leaving the ride-side mostly deserted, and resulting in very short waits for most rides. We passed a few buildings that looked like at one point they were a restaurant, or maybe a queue for a long-gone ride, but had signage on them. These buildings were fenced off and I wonder if maybe they were/are a dark ride of some sort. My best guess is that these buildings are used for the Halloween Haunt attractions (later on one of the trains, we passed behind one of the buildings and saw some skeleton and zombie props on the back docks). Anyways, we headed down the hill past a bunch of flat rides (the swinging boat we saw in EVERY park, the scrambler, the swinging claw, and a couple of unique flats (such as Apollo and Monster, that we didn’t see elsewhere on our trip)) and passed in front of Possessed (a shuttle coaster with suspended seats), and the closed Stinger (a disappointment, as I was looking forward to riding this – it’s a boomerang with suspended cars, instead of standard. . but apparently there had been an accident in May, and the ride was still shut down, with the coaster-car no where in site L). We stood underneath Steel Force, and took a look up. The first drop is 205’ – it looked *really* high from directly underneath. But there was no line at all. . so after looking at the coaster-car and seeing it wasn’t “exposed” but rather a standard coaster car, Nick said he’d give it a shot (yes, despite having said “hell no” yesterday. . LOL). With no one queued up, we got right up to the station, and bumped into the same girls from the parking lot – who had done exactly what they told us we should do (I think the only reason we hadn’t seen them on the way was due to our quick stop at the toilets). We laughed and per Nick’s preference, we got a middle of the train car. I got in first so I could leave my bag in a cubby, and he sat on the right. Big mistake, as he had a death grip on the lap bar for most of the ride, meaning that I rode with his sharp left elbow digging deep into my stomach/side the whole time! At the end of the first batch of drops, there’s a large helix that turns you back around for the bunny hills, and Nick said he started to grey out there. I quite didn’t believe him, as I didn’t think the ride had that much G-force, but then again, I didn’t get too much air time either, and he said he got a ton on the bunny hills. Needless to say, he didn’t care for Steel Force, but I loved it! And as there was no line, I wanted to ride again, but Nick said no way. So I asked the girls if they would re-ride with me. They said yes, so I handed Nick my bag, and we went back thru the queue and this time we sat in the front car. I also sat on the right this time. Wow. .what a difference the side makes (tho to be fair it could also have been where in the car we were sitting). .but this time? I felt the G’s in the Helix, and boy did I get a lot of air time on the bunny hills. Great, Great coaster. We had wanted to ride Thunderhawk, the wooden coaster from the 1920’s that the park still has (it’s only woodie), but it didn’t seem to be running, and as we had heard it was rough, it wasn’t a good idea right then anyways. The intensity of Steel Force had made Nick a bit wobbly (terrible thing from the first ride in the morning!), so we decided to get some water and hydrate, and see if that helped. There didn’t seem to be any stands selling just water in the section we were in, but as we were walking, I spotted one near Possessed. Which just happened to have no line! I had been eyeing this coaster since the front gate, as it looked pretty intense. In particular the back spike where it randomly “holds” the suspended seats face down towards the ground before shooting you back down. Nick had absolutely no interest in riding, so I gave him cash to go get water, and I got in line for the back seat. Needless to say, it was AWESOME! I didn’t get much out of the twisted front spike, as the back seat doesn’t go too far up that side. But the back seat on the rear spike? . . wow. . way, way up there. I rode this twice too, and then joined Nick on the bench out front to watch it cycle and drink some water. Around this time we saw Thunderhawk start to cycle, and even tho we weren’t feeling really up to the shaking, we decided since we were in the section that was down that giant hill, we likely wouldn’t be back this way, so we’d just try to hit most of the rides here. So we rode the Scrambler, the Zephyr Train, and the Monster – which I had been so looking forward to, but none of the other parks had one. Seriously, it had been almost 30 years since I last rode it (the Ocotopus at Astroworld). . I was in heaven. I felt bad for the poor operator, as we brought our “crowd karma” with us: Wherever we go, it always seems that a crowd follows us: Empty store? We go in, tons of people suddenly show up. So even tho we got in line for Monster with only two little kids in front of us (and he had been running it with only one “arm” loading). .the moment we got in line? About 25 people showed up behind us, and the poor guy had to load 3 of the four “arms”. . . by himself. I completely understand why this Tilt-a-Whirl-on-steriods type ride got pulled from most parks – it’s a thruput nightmare, as it takes forever to load/unload! I guess here’s a good place to mention the operations. They were pretty terrible for the most part, but I think that’s not the fault of the staff, but rather of the staffing. The coasters all had at least 3 folks working the stations, and the coasters loaded/moved quickly. But almost all of the flats? Had a single operator. And the load/unload times reflected it. I completely understand, on a slow day (and we were there on a Monday), you don’t really need two operators. But some of the rides? Kinda do. Scrambler, Tilt-a-Whirl, Apollo, Monster – all took way too long to load/unload. And that was due to only one person being staffed there. They not only opened/secured the lap bars, but also checked them after they were all secured, and then went to operate the ride. The worst offenders were Musik Express (where we didn’t ride, but sat and watched and it took them almost 7 minutes to get the ride loaded!), and the Enterprise – where the ride took almost 8 times as long to load as the ride lasted! Seriously. It took almost 9 minutes for the young lady to get the ride loaded, and it ran for ~50 seconds. Don’t even get me started on the Wild Mouse – a coaster that *did* have 3 operators. . one of whom sat on her butt in the shade sending groups thru (slowly, so the majority of the line was in the sun), but that’s a low capacity coaster anyways, seeing as each car only sits 4. They were sending out tons of ½ empty cars. Nick and I rode alone in the car – me in back, him in front. Luckily, it’s a pretty decent Wild Mouse, so it was really fun and worth the wait in the sun. . but sheesh. Anyways, back to the bottom of the hill section of the park: We also rode the Whip – meaning it’s one of the handful of rides we did at all stops. How did it rank? Pretty good: 1) Knoebel’s Whipper 2) Dorney’s Whip 3) Kennywood’s Whip 4) HersheyPark Whip. We then headed over to Thunderhawk, and tho I wouldn’t rank it as my favorite wooden coaster, it was OK. Despite all the warnings, it was not nearly as rough as some of the others we had been on (Wildcat at Hershey for example). That could have been that it was “just long enough” to enjoy and not start hurting. We were starting to get hungry, but I noticed that what was left in this section was an Intamin 1st Gen drop tower (called Demon Drop) that I really wanted to ride, as it brought back memories of Astroworld. Nick sat this one out too (drop ride + someone who’s not a fan of heights?. . yeah, he went on “bench: the Ride” while I rode Demon Drop). It was great and I even remembered to lift my back off the seat when it drops back to return to the station, avoiding the big “Ker-Chunk” that used to always hurt at Astroworld. We headed towards the food court, and saw it was just in front of Dorney’s Flume ride, Thunder Creek Mountain. If you’ve been reading my trip reports, you know we love flumes, so immediately we got in line. This one was a bit of a disappointment. It had a good final drop with a bit of a splash, and it was kind of cool that some of the flume trough is concrete. . . but way, way too short. Good thing there really was not a line for it, despite the hot day. Heck, Dorney didn’t even offer pictures on the flume (the only park we went to that didn’t). There was a space where at one time they sold pictures, but the operators had no idea when or why it was taken out. (I would guess they simply weren’t selling). A bit moist, we decided we had to eat something by this point, but first I discovered a small stand alone store (that looked like it had been repurposed from something else) near the toilets that was selling discounted Dorney Merchandise. So here I stocked up on magnets for co-workers, postcards, and even a Posessed T-shirt for me (only $5). . score. . so even if I just sleep in it it’s a good deal. We didn’t see anything in the food court that looked the least bit appetizing – and I could see now why folks had warned me to eat before coming to the park. It was already almost 1pm tho, and we had to eat something. I had been recommended on place, “Chickie and Pete’s”. . so we looked on the map and headed over there. While standing in line (and yes, there was quite a line, which I took as a good sign, since most of the other food places had no lines). . I recalled that I had been told that there were two “Chickie and Pete’s” in the park and the better one (better menu) was the sit down one. So I asked someone about it, and they pointed us thru “Planet Snoopy” – the kid’s section of the park. This part of Dorney was pretty amazing. . themed wonderfully, with a good mix of rides, from rides for toddlers, to ones that looked like adults could ride. Nick did not want to ride any kiddie rides, and we were hungry, but I regret not pushing Nick to go back and ride (or at least try to ride) Linus Launcher or the Snoopy Monorail. Oh well. It’s a great section of the park tho – check it out: https://www.dorneypark.com/things-to-do/planet-snoopy Right on the other side of Planet Snoopy was the sit down Chickie and Pete’s – as well as a bunch more rides including Hydra – a floorless coaster that starts off the ride with an upside-down roll right out of the station! It didn’t seem like a good idea to ride these after eating, but we were too hungry to wait, so held off on the rides and went into the restaurant. It was like being in a sports bar. Really, you would never know that you were in a theme-park. All dark wood, and booths/tables, with a 2nd level balcony, tons of TVs all tuned to different sports, and a full menu. It was quiet and cool (A/C yay!), and the waitress was friendly, and offered recommendations. We got the Crab Fries (which they are known for, and were really good, tho Nick couldn’t eat many of them due to the spices on em), and I got the Buffalo Chicken Cheesesteak (spoiler, it gave me the craps something awful overnight), and Nick got the chicken tenders sandwich – which was good, but had way too much breading on it. . . the waitress even said that they hear that complaint a lot. It wasn’t “bad” food, but it wasn’t great. . still, apparently we had the best there was to offer. LOL. I commented on how dead everything was, and she said they were slow in the restaurant as it was a weekday, but that the park will really pick up after 3pm when the kids get out of school and come to the park for the evening. We took that as a heads up to get back out into the park and get the rest of the big rides done before the place got busy. We left the restaurant and headed right to Hydra. Nick didn’t want to ride it, which surprised me, since it’s similar to Superman at Fiesta Texas (at least in coaster-car and restraints) and he likes that one. But he was adamant, so I left my bag with him, and went to get in line. I was pleasantly surprised to see signs pointing to “seats for larger guests” in rows 4 & 5. Now, even tho I had fit in every other coaster seat on this trip (including the other coasters in Dorney, having just eaten, I went for the “big boy” seat. WOW. . what a nice, comfy ride! Not squished in at all, and because there was some “wiggle room”, I got a ton of air time. . .tho that first sloooooow jelly roll out of the station felt like it kept me upside-down for at least 20 seconds. I got off and told Nick he would love it, and that I would ride it again with him if he wanted to. . but he decided he did not want to ride this coaster, so we moved on and went to the wave swinger. He did tell me later that night that he kinda regretted not riding that, as he probably would have liked it. Again tho, another great coaster. Dorney seems to have quite a few good ones! We didn’t want to get soaked, so didn’t ride the “shoot the chutes” tho we did watch it for a bit. And then we went ahead and rode the other train that Dorney has. The set up is “odd”.. they have two trains (zephyr and cannonball), but neither one really goes around the whole (or even ½ ) the park. Still, we like trains, so we rode it, and it was pleasant enough, and we saw the folks getting absolutely soaked on the rafting ride, and passed by the Waterpark areas, to see how crowded those pools were. As we were back near the front section of the park again, I decided to go on Talon, the suspended coaster, but Nick came with me in line because the line is “hidden” so we couldn’t tell how long the wait was. Turned out that it filled in behind us (crowd karma) pretty good, but I only had a 1 train wait. I again noted the signs for the “larger guest” seats, but when I got in that row, there wasn’t one of those seats – the give away is the double seat belt. So I just told the attendant to “push.” He asked, “are you sure?”. . and I said “yes”. .so he pushed down hard to get the restraint to click. (and yes my ribs just throbbed in memory when I typed that. . LOL). But hey, I fit. Talon is an intense ride, and has several tight helixes close to the ground, in addition to a few inversions. I got off it feeling pretty light headed, and told Nick he would *not* like that one. . . I liked it, but felt absolutely no need to re-ride. A bit dizzy from Talon, we headed for something low key – the grand Carousel at the entrance – which again, only had 1 operator and took way too long to load, but at least the ride was long-ish, and had pumped music from speakers rather from the central organ. Dorney has a 2nd smaller, and older, carousel, but that one didn’t look like it was worth going on so we bypassed that. We did a little bit of shopping, and looked at some of the midway games, but by now the heat was really getting to us. Remember, not a lot of shade in the park. If we were into waterparks, we might have wandered over that way, but really, we have little/no interest in that, so didn’t even bother with that section – other than what we saw from the train. The park was starting to get a bit more crowded, the waitress was right and I was noticing more teenagers coming in. We sat and watched a few rides cycle (the Musik Express, Tilt-a-whirl, Enterprise), and I determined that I really wanted to ride Apollo, as that was a unique ride that we hadn’t been on yet for this trip. It was fun, but that did me in. . . too much spinning, resulting in some dizziness. After that I was done with rides. So we wandered around for a little bit, and around 4pm, I said to Nick – it’s going to mean we hit rush hour, but if you want to head out, we can head back to Philly. I really did like Dorney Park, despite the lack of “charm” (and shade!). . it had some really good rides, and I felt that we had a full day, despite never doing anything in the waterpark. We made it back to the car – I remembered we had parked by “Sally”, and tried to find the exit from the parking lot. Silly me had not printed directions from Dorney back to Philly.. stupidly thinking we could just backtrack. Surprise, the toll-roads don’t go back the exact way they go. So we missed a turn to where we wanted to go and got stuck going at least 5 miles in the wrong direction before being able to turn back around. We actually went back to Dorney’s parking lot, and tried again, and the 2nd time was the charm, as we eventually got onto the tollway leading to Philadelphia and started to head back. We made good time until we hit the SAME traffic we had hit the day before. . .really crawling along at 7-10 miles an hour for almost 40 minutes. We got back to the hotel just in time to miss the Reading Terminal Market (again). . so decided we’d grab a snack in the Concierge suite, and just finish our El Vez leftovers from the night before. We checked out he Marriott pool and found it was just a 4’ deep lap pool (boo). . so ended up not swimming, and I think we just spent the rest of the evening either hanging out in the room, or in the concierge suite just relaxing. I don’t think we turned in too early, but we were tired from a full day, and the next day we had to be up and out fairly early, so we could be at the Visitor’s Center by 8am for tickets to tour Independence Hall. From the Thunderhawk exit ramp. . Thunderhawk's lift hill, and Steel Force's train on first drop. looking the other way at the the 2nd drop and rest of Steel Force, as well as the parks 1st Generation Intamin drop tower, Demon Drop. Sign for Posessed with a peek of Steel Force's 2nd hill on the left. Posessed's rear spike. Posessed's front spike (with the twist) Nick waiting for me to finish riding. Steel Force's lift hill (205 feet) in the background. car going up twist on front spike. (it's a suspended shuttle, so you hang under the track). that's the track for Stinger (the blue one) on the right. Car held on rear spike before dropping down. me and the zephyr train (with the Dominator drop tower in the background) Zephyr without me (or the engineer) blocking the view. View from the parking lot just after 10am. (yeah, it was crowded, but most everyone went to the waterpark). that's Stinger on far left, Posessed (the two yellow spikes), and Steel Force (the big lift hill) walking towards the front gate

I believe this. I did a Holland America cruise and I would say 97% were 60+ on board. 60+??? Wow, you had a young Holland America cruise! HA!

and just got off the phone with her. even tho they haven't booked yet, she really, REALLY wants to go to Aruba and Curacao and my Sister-in-law told her Carnival is a non-starter (yay, I don't have the be the "bad" guy). . LOL but it certainly sounds to me like we're gonna end up on Holland America. oh well.. l'll make sure and pack salt so our meals will have some flavor (and to be fair, there are a good number of excursions that look like they are for the younger crowd -- ziplines, biking, speedboats, and such). regardless, it's a free cruise, so I'll smile and we'll go wherever they take us.

Is the one at Dorney the last one left in the US? we lost the one closest to me when Astroworld closed (Skyscreamer). . and then when Six Flags Over Texas pulled theirs out (Cliffhanger) for Pandemonium dunno if the Dorney one is the last one, but was thrilled to see it! (they were also the only park we went to that still had a working Monster. . so two for two with Dorney)

oy. . and of course, this is her first choice! she was going on about how Noordam is a 5-star ship.

just rode one at Dorney a few weeks ago. LOVED it, and I even remembered to brace myself for the Ker-CHUNK! when it goes back underneath!

Thanks. tho keeping in mind it's my elderly Mom wanting to treat us, I guess that's why her first choice is the Holland America line good info that I'll pass along to them!

So my elderly (and very sick) Mother is insisting that she wants to take "the whole family" -- minus my druggie loser sister, but that's a whole 'nother story -- on a Cruise later this year while she is still able to make a trip. they want to go all out and get suites for them, myself/partner, and Brother/Sis-in-Law. So it's going to be an expensive trip. we have gone back and forth for a few weeks, and today, my Dad presented me these 3 options. I know what my "gut" is telling me, but figured I'd get an opinion from folks that have maybe been on these ships? the choices are: 1) "Noordam" (Holland America). Leaves from Ft Lauderdale (so flight from Austin to FL before boarding). Caribbean 10 day with stops in Grand Turk, Aruba, Dominican Republic, and Curacao 2) "Freedom" (Carnival). Leaves from Ft Lauderdale (so flight from Austin to FL before boarding). Caribbean 8 day with stops in Grand Turk, Aruba, Dominican Republic, and Curacao. 3) "Navigator of the Seas" (Royal Caribbean). Leaves from Galveston, so a drive from Austin to Houston, then go with parents/family down to Galveston. 7 days, with stops in Cozumel, Georgetown, and Falmouth. I think option 3 is least likely, as we are pretty well traveled in Mexico, and my Mother really, really likes the idea of going to Aruba and Curacao. So I'd say we REALLY are looking at between option 1/2. My gut instinct is that #2 is Carnival. . . ew. But it's a much bigger ship than the Holland America one, meaning more options for things to do (as well as more people on it). so . . . opinion? Is my gut correct and we should go with #1?

Done! Thank you Sir. personally? VERY much appreciated

Great TR, w/ some beautiful pics. looks like y'all had great weather too!

Nah, (deleted link) is a much better solution I realize you're in a Country other than the United States, so it might not be too big a deal in your Country . . but that particular thing you linked to? has really terrible connotations here in the USA. it's very uncool, and tho I won't report, I would appreciate if you delete? Note: I'm asking as a fellow poster, and participant here at TPR -- not in any kind of Moderator, or Site Capacity. I'm simply a participant. thanks, bert