YoshiFan

Unless you are spending a lot of time in the waterpark, I wouldn't be concerned about getting everything done in Dorney. I go almost every week to Dorney and in early June, one visit after going to the waterpark, I only had an hour and was able to get on every major coaster once and Talon twice. Then I think it was around June 7th last year, the park was so dead I was the only rider on Hydra, Thunderhawk and Laser. Other than the Wild Mouse, it's very rare during the week if anything at Dorney is more than a 2 - 3 train wait. Plus their operations are great, even with me being the only rider on Hydra they still had 2 trains running. I have never seen Hydra and Talon run only 1 train except when they had to due to weather (40+ mph gusts)

I agree the website is horrible, the height restrictions are all messed up. It says for the kiddie bumper cars you either need to be 37" or 42" or be with an adult to ride. I don't think there is a kiddie bumper car ride that exists that allows adults to ride (due to safety), plus how would an adult or anyone over 54" even fit in those cars? I guess the $250 is there way of not wanting to sell season passes. Unless I lived less than 15 minutes away, there is no way I would get one. $150 would have been a much better price. A large increase of $50 but still reasonable enough that most would still get it.

A 4 tower S&S complex would be great, I don't see a giant frisbee being added since they already had a regular one that got sent to SFGAM. That would be a nice addition as well though. I am also worried about the lines in the summer, especially the water rides. They removed Movietown Water Effect as well (I forgot to mention that in the other post) and with only 2 water rides, they are going to be 60 - 90 minutes or more easily. I think TDK will be 2+ hours too. That's why I am going to try to visit a lot in April and May and once lines get bad, I'll just stop going until September.

Even at 1 soda a day, at 20 trips a season, the $1.98 refills at Dorney are $20 more than the $0.99 refills at SF. I usually have 1 - 2 sodas a day on average when I am not at a park. I drink diet soda (I know that has bad stuff in it as well).

A ton of rides have been removed, it's almost all coasters and kiddie rides now. They added I think 25 new rides in 1999, other than the 3 coasters, only 2 or 3 rides are left from that expansion. Non Coaster Rides In the Park: Log Flume Congo River Rapids Flying Wave (maybe, if it's not removed), they are swings Big Wheel Tea Cups Merry Go Round Tango (Rockin Tug) Twister (Top Spin) Parachutes Jolly Roger (Zamperla Regatta) Bucanner (Swinging Ship) Sky Ride Last year they removed Stuntman's Freefall and the 2nd log flume This year they are removing Fantasy Fling (round up), Bumper Cars, Music Express, Space Shuttle and Houidini (Haunted Swing) is rumored to be SBNO

Even though I think SF is a ripoff on food and drink pricing except on these 99 cent refills (I too eat outside the park to avoid the pricing), they aren't as bad as some other parks. I don't know if all Cedar Fair parks is like this or not, but at Dorney they charge $5.98 for the cup and $1.98 for each refill. That extra dollar adds up quick. The only difference is I think you can re-use last year's cup since they were selling Voodoo themed cups last year and I'm sure they will be using the same cups this year.

^ Since it's after Memorial Day, there will be more school trips to deal with and the park is only open until 6 and if they don't leave until 5, it might be kind of crowded. Thank You! I now know to avoid the park on those days, I hope nothing is going on the 8th or 15th of May but it seems strange they would be open on a Thursday otherwise.

That might be physics day, I'm not sure though. If it's not then it shouldn't be too crowded as it's kind of early for school trips. Pricing is here (it says 2005 so it's probably higher than that): http://www.lo-qusa.com/flashpass/sfgaps.html

Plus at the larger parks, the lines would be crazy to use the free soda fountains and seeing the crowds a park like Great Adventure gets, I would be worried it would cause trouble such people trying to break the fountains, throwing soda at each other since it's free they wound't care about wasting it by having a soda fight etc. I like the idea a few posts up about paying a certain amount for a wristband. I'd be willing to pay even $40 for a pass that entitled me to free soda all season. The problem with that is how do you stop one person in a family from getting a soda if it's not in a reuseable cup, and not just getting a bunch for everyone in their family.

This will probably surprise everyone but I agree with the policy. It's a new season so I wouldn't had thought they would honor the old cups. Having to put the cup in a locker for $1.00 each time I want to ride a coaster (other than the small ones that don't have the locker requirement), makes it not worth it anyway for me.

The railroad in the Magic Kingdom at WDW, I like how it's a really long ride and you get to see inside of Splash Mountain and see some of the backstage areas like the roads. Plus it's a nice form of transportation unlike the trains at my local parks (Dorney and Hershey) where all it does it take you on a round trip. Dorney's used to take you to Wild Water Kingdom but when they built Talon, they shortened the track a lot and got rid of that stop. Same with the Zephyr, it used to stop at Tot Spot now it takes you on a circuit. edit - didn't realize I posted in this thread with a different answer in 2005.

In the last picture, it looks like park guests might fill their own sodas from the soda fountains. I guess that might mean free refills which is always nice to see at a park.

Reminds me a little of Expedition Everest in terms of themeing (I know they are different concepts), very nice pictures

They better run 2 trains if they only plan on keeping 1 side oepn most of the time. Everytime I went to KD in the past 12 years, each side of Rebel Yell is only running 1 train

Yeah it looks like a lot of fun especially for an offseason type visit, even if most of the rides are small.

Supposedly, but I don't know for sure since I bought a new SP and didn't have the option to add parking but some people on GADV.com, claimed the parking pass is valid for all parks. I think SFKK is the exception though because it's not a SF owned parking lots (something about fairground people owning it), so the SF parking pass won't work there and I guess they don't sell a SF parking pass.

Yeah $15 is bad, $25 for preferred is worse but it's not as bad as it used to be in comparison (since I plan to go at least 3 times this year, I'm going to pay the $45 for a parking pass). Dorney is $10 for parking (up from $8 in 2006) and unless you can find a metered spot at Wildwood, parking will be around $10 there as well. I don't know if they plan to have it in 2008 or not but at Morey's on Tuesday during the summer, they usually have a great deal on wristbands (amusement rides only), in 2006 it was $19 instead of I think $41 or $43.

I don't understand why most of these waterparks don't offer day passes especially if they only offer them on slower days like weekdays and only sell them in limited numbers so the park doesn't get to crowded. At least the one opening near me (Mt Laurel NJ), is going to offer day passes for $20. Looks like a cool themed park.

There was a huge family indoor entertainment area about 2 minutes down the road from Sesame Place. They had some kiddie flats, bumper cars, batting cages and all other stuff and did the exact same thing. People showed up for birthday parties one day and the place had shut down in the middle of the night with no notice. I feel bad for the kids that had parties planned Also nice of their website to not even mention they are closed: http://www.wonderparkusa.com/main.asp I guess they don't care if people just decide to show up and find out it is closed (and if the website lists the hours, I wouldn't think someone would think to call to find out if they are still open)

Any weekday should be good, but crowds can really vary especially if a lot of schools or camps are there. I'd avoid a concert day too since those big in huge crowds.

I didn't realize they had school trips in mid May (thought they were mostly in June). I hope at least of the beginning of daily opeartions this year, it will be empty, since I was planning on going a lot then.

During the week unless you go in the spring or fall, then lines won't be too bad on a weekend Thunderhawk had some bad lines this year (bad for Dorney but still not bad in terms of wait time), because they kept chaining off the back half of the coaster and with 1 train running almost all the time, the capacity was horrible (since it was only 12 riders maximum a train). It was being discussed on Dorney Park Online and it was said the crew just didn't want to keep having to buckle the belts on the empty rows. Hopefully this season, all rows will be open all the time

^ That's exactly why the park is so great, you can go knowing you'll have plenty of time for lots of rides and not worry about having to rush. I usually visit the park for 3 - 3 1/2 hours and average about 15 - 20 rides a day. My best record is 19 rides in 2 1/2 hours on a Friday night in May (would have been more if I didn't have to go through the empty line each time I wanted to ride a coaster, but it's better than waiting in a line). Yeah the park is always dead during the week, I had some solo rides in June on Hydra, Thunderhawk and Laser. In 20 trips last season, I think my longest wait was 20 minutes for Talon once (and 90%+ of the time it was a walk on). I also agree about September, too bad there are I think 5 buyout days in September this year so those middle weekends where the park was dead, are gone with. Even Halloweekends on Sunday was empty every week this past year but with the Haunt, that might change I guess. If it wasn't for the Wild Mouse and their policies of seatbelts and 2 adults per car, I don't think any coaster in the park would average over 10 minutes over the course of the season even with weekends factored in. I'm only worried about it affecting Laser's line. It always has bad capacity with around a 5 minute cycle because of the seatbelts added last year and usually 1 person checking lap bars, and with it so close to Voodoo, it will probably make the line worse. I just hope they run 2 trains on Laser more often this year as I have never seen that before.

I love me some Johnny Rockets veggie burgers. Do the Six Flags parks have a decent, regular Johnny Rockets menu or is it a limited menu? http://www.amusementpics.com/SFGAdvNotesSpring07/050407-030.jpg http://www.amusementpics.com/SFGAdvNotesSpring07/050407-032.jpg It's very limited

It is, most kiddie coasters are more than that. The only place I know of that has a coaster for less than $2.50 are some of the piers on the Ocean City, NJ boardwalk and that's only if you buy tickets during a half price holiday sale (and paying $1.75 to ride a Pinfari looping coaster still isn't worth it)