YoshiFan

I have been to Haunt at Dorney, Frightfest at Great Adventure 3 times and Hersheypark In the Dark (though they just have decorations up with no mazes or scare zones)

The tigers will never be out again in the park, the tiger show is closed, the trainers were fired and the tigers were moved to the Safari

I was referring to it as any part of the line that is covered and when I heard almost full I figured it meant the line was outside in the uncovered area with the rope on the sides of the queue

Do you mean almost full with the outside part before the cave with people in line? If so that has to be a very long wait.

Friday nights are the least crowded time to go to the park during Frightfest, I have gone twice in 2008 and twice in 2009 on Friday nights and never had any long waits (over 15 - 20 minutes).

I have been to Morey's 4 times and also have never seen more than 1 lane open, it makes having even a few people ahead of you in line a long wait. I like that design with some space in between the drops more than the newer design that is usually 3 lanes and has a bunch of smaller hills but other than that I won't miss the slide.

Sit in the last row of the Wild Mouse, there is more room there since the seats are low. I don't know if you are going to ride Possessed or not but the test seat is not accurate. I can't get the belt buckled on the test seat but on the actual train I can buckle the belt without any help from a ride op.

The top of the park where Talon is doesn't have many trees but the lower part of the park has more. In this picture: http://www.rcdb.com/239.htm?p=637 , to the left of the trees is a really nice walkway with benches that is covered in shade from trees on both sides.

That really only applies to the summer and is true. It is best to avoid summer weekends at Dorney if at all possible and the crowds during the week in the summer are very different than the weekend crowds. It isn't an issue during the spring and fall though.

Great Adventure hardly has any family rides, for non coaster and non kiddie rides this time of year there is: Tea Cups, Houdini, Carousel, Top Spin, Jolly Roger (smaller music express type ride), swinging ship, round up, parachutes and the sky ride. The sky ride and parachutes are very dependent on good weather to run so that doesn't leave much. Dorney has rides for everyone, but some of the tamer rides close at 5:00 during Haunt, like Thunderhawk and possibly Cedar Creek Cannonball. Plus during October, Dorney's ride lines will be much shorter than at Great Adventure. Great Adventure does have better family friendly coasters and more of them but other than that I think Dorney would be a better choice for you.

Nitro last night during Fall Family Fun Night

If you do go to Great Adventure, Friday October 8th is probably going to be the best day to go if you don't mind only 6 hours in the park. The first Friday night of Frightfest is almost always empty, last year there were only around 3000 people in the park and all lines were 0 - 10 minutes so it would be very unlikely you would need a flashpass. If that won't work, a Sunday will be better than Saturdays. I have never been there on a Saturday (I only go on Friday nights for the low crowds) in October but I have seen pictures and one report I remember reading Nitro's line was spilling out of the queue onto the midway and Batman had a line in the garden area and both were reported to be over 2 hours. I am not sure about Columbus Day this year as this is the first year they are also having a fall physics day which means school trips on top of the people visiting who have the day off from work or school so I don't expect it to be empty. Dorney isn't crowded on Friday nights early in October or Sunday. I would try to avoid going on a Saturday. Dorney doesn't have a line cutting system (except a $300 per person VIP tour) but I'd be surprised if the ride lines were long. Except for Halloween weekend, I have never seen any lines more than 5 - 10 minutes for the rides during Haunt but the Haunt attractions can get 20+ minute lines. Having both parks as my home parks I would probably pick Great Adventure on coasters alone but as others mentioned Dorney has a more balanced ride collection. For Halloween events, Haunt at Dorney is way better than Frightfest at Great Adventure if that matters and as mentioned earlier Great Adventure charges $5 for each of their walkthroughs and at Dorney they are all included with admission. The scare zones are also better at Dorney, Great Adventure's have 3 - 4 actors at most in a whole section, Dorney's zones have actors every few feet.

Nice pictures, Dorney is always empty this past weekend since WWK is not open and Haunt hasn't started yet. Once Haunt starts the crowds pick up but ride lines are never that bad (same in the summer when crowds on the ride side only pick up when WWK closes for the day)

If it was 60 when I was there (from January 2nd to the 7th) I would have been wearing shorts and a t-shirt too. I wear shorts and t-shirts until it gets into the 50's and then wear short sleeve t-shirts all year. I would have been swimming too in 70 degrees. The craziest thing I saw was we were at the Grand Floridian for dinner at night and it was in the mid or upper 30's at that time and there was a girl swimming in the pool. I'd go swimming in cooler temperatures but even that is too much for me.

Seeing the people wearing winter jackets and hats reminded me of how cold it was in early January. Kind of crazy to be walking around the parks when it was in the upper 30's and low 40's, when you expect it to be 30+ degrees warmer. It didn't stop me from riding Splash Mountain though.

I live outside of Philadelphia and there are a lot of parks nearby. Dorney and Great Adventure are both 45 - 50 minutes away from me, Hershey is about an hour and 45 minutes, Knoebels is 2 1/2 hours, the parks on the Jersey Shore are an hour and 45 minutes to 2 hours away and Six Flags America is around 2 3/4 hours. The only bad thing as mentioned earlier is that the winters are horrible and the offseason is annoying. November - March is very boring if you aren't into winter sports.

I think Dorney stopped with the haunted train either last year or in 2008 and it now closes for the day at 5:00 during Haunt. One thing I never understood was that they only loaded half the rows of the train causing very long waits.

Talon about 6 hours ago

Looks like the fair isn't single rider friendly, no single riders on the Enterprise or Wildcat? I have never seen that before.

Haunt at Dorney is way better than Frightfest at Great Adventure. Haunt has 11 mazes/walkthroughs all included with admission, Frightfest only has 2 and they are $5 each to go through in addition to admission. The scare zones at Frightfest aren't too great either, some as few as 3 actors like Bone Butcher Territory in Frontier Adventures.

I got my bag on Saturday, very cool and thank you for sending it I got a Six Flags Discovery Kingdom T-Shirt, 1 TPR Pen, 2 Sprint Pens, 2 TPR Mints, 2 Bay Area Bash Cards, a Kennywood Postcard, a VisionLand Keychain, a Canobie Lake Park Patch, a Legoland Button and a Rampage sign

They were removed from Talon last year as well.

There is a Water Parks and more option, I think it's $52 to add to your tickets and you get 1 admission per day of your tickets (so a 7 day ticket is good for 7 admissions), the admissions also work for Disney Quest, Wide World of Sports and possibly 1 other thing. Nice pictures, I have never been to Typhoon Lagoon but it looks better than Blizzard Beach to me.

Looks way more crowded than I would have expected but I guess the nice weather brought in crowds. Was Rollersoaker open? (I know it's part of the Boardwalk now but I wasn't sure if they kept it open until October).

The no single rider rule on the ferris wheel is from Chance, I remember reading on Screamscape a couple of years ago the reasoning was that with no seatbelts or any restraint, Chance was afraid a person trying to kill themselves might try to if they are alone but if others are in the car, they would be convinced not to jump. Hershey and Dorney's ferris wheels also have the same rule.