boldikus

Relax, it has nothing to do with knowing more about the park than someone else. Its about the parks reputation. You can pull up any number of trip reports about Dorney on here or other any coaster forums, and 9 out of 10 of them are going to say the coasters were walkons. Personally, I have only been to Dorney a handful of times but its always been on weekends, and two of those were on Saturdays during Haunt. Its never been crowded, the coasters were either walkons or a 5-20 minute wait. Compare that to 30-90 minute waits I'm used to seeing at Great Adventure, where I'm at much more frequently, and Dorney then gets lumped in the "never crowded" group of parks. For me, so does Moreys. It is what it is. No need to take it personally. Also, I love JLaw and that gif.

There are certain moments where this gif is just the perfect response.

Came in here to post El Toro and Hydra, too late. I've lost track of how many times I've been waiting for Toro and watched something come flying off a train. The thing rips womens weaves out. Honorable mention: S:UF pretzel loop. Also, I wonder how many cell phones are at the bottom of the creek under Skyrush.

^ Nice. Also, is there a such thing as putting up a tree and not drinking?

First thing I noticed.

Whoa. Creep alert. Montgomery County man accused of recording children changing clothes in Dorney Park

Basically this.

^

^^ It comes down to the fact that we're more or less spoiled with 5 solid B&Ms so its just a matter of picking out the worst of them and laying on the hate.

Friday was my eighth visit to the park this year and I didn't ride Green Lantern or The Dark Knight once in 2015. Actually TDK I haven't ridden since 2013.

Wait aren't those Talons? LOL Are all bird claws called Talons? Just hawks? Whats with all the bird coasters?

I have no idea why but this just made me laugh so hard.

^^ Supermans pretzel loop is downright maniacal in the back row. I'll also add I prefer floorless coasters in the front. Since Bizarro never has a line I've started waiting for the front. I also liked Hydra better in the front. The front or back of floorless coasters are usually most forceful imo, but the floorless aspect is only really apparent up front.

I always go for the back on coasters, though I do believe there are plenty of coasters better enjoyed in the front seat. Most B&M inverts (hell, all inverts) I like in the front, Steel Force and Thunderhawk are considerably better in the front, but the majority of my favorites that I have ridden in both front and back (El Toro, Nitro, Skyrush, Maverick, etc) I prefer the back. I will almost always go right for the back of the train - its routine at this point. Not to mention the wait is always less. edit: how long until this turns into a Skull Mountain back seat appreciation thread? LOL

Most intense coaster is difficult to me because different coasters are intense at different spots and for different reasons. For a short burst of insane intensity: Kingda Ka Dragster Superman clones pretzel loop For a relentless ride of many consecutive moments of intensity: El Toro Maverick Skyrush Storm Runner Batman clones Raptor Phantoms Revenge

^ My sisters husband, who I go riding with a lot was out of town which is why he didn't join us, so I hope to pop up with him one day before the end of the month for some (hopefully) heavy riding. And yes, we'll get there well before it gets dark, ideally at opening, to take advantage of shorter lines. I'm not in a rush to ride GL but I love Superman and I'll ride it if there is a small line (or I have a flash pass lol), not sure how the temps will affect the ride for me. I didn't mention that we walked down the Old Country path to the theater with the stained glass, which looked really nice. We only stuck our heads into Movie Town so I missed out on the bar by Dark Knight.

I suppose what also confuses me about why inversions are still so impressive to some people is the fact we've had inverting coasters for going on 40 years, and with the exception of rides like The Smiler and the Intamin 10 loopers, most inverting coasters have about the same amount of inversions (4-7) as the big loopers from the 80s. Why is it still so impressive to people to go upside down when we have rides like Ka/Dragster, dive coasters, etc. Obviously I'm a bad example as an enthusiast but I never find myself saying "I won't ride that, it goes upside down too many times", but I find that to be quite common when talking to the GP.

^ But, for arguments sake, a coaster like Gatekeeper has what 6 (7?) inversions and it's pretty forceless compared to Dragster which is just across the park and has no inversions.

Growing up in the 80's and 90's I personally always felt the big bad steel coasters with inversions were the best, most badass coasters you could ride. Now that I'm older and have a different appreciation for coasters, I find while I don't mind inversions, and do enjoy them, the majority of my favorite coasters do not have them (though my #1, Maverick does, and they are my favorite inversions on any coaster). Over the past few years I've found myself overhearing or talking to younger folks (teens, 20s) in lines or whatever and found many young people feel the same way I did - that the more inversions a coaster has the better, which I think is especially interesting because I feel records (tallest, fastest) or variations of seating positions (flying, wing, etc) would stand out to people more as making it "better" or "cooler" nowadays. I wonder if its an age thing or just general preference? If there's a thread about this, my apologies - I couldn't find any, please merge, thanks.

Its never gonna get repaved unless one of us starts ponying up some dollars

I always wonder why everyone says Nitro's helix is so intense. I suppose compared to the rest of the ride it is this moment of relentless positive G's but its nothing like what I feel during Superman's pretzel loop. Lately on Nitro I've been trying to slap the supports during the helix. I probably shouldn't be able to but it feels like I can. No luck so far, but I'll let you guys know if my arms grow.

OK so I know all of you have been waiting with baited breath to hear my detailed observations about Great Adventure's new Holiday in the Park event, but there's not much to tell. It was pretty fun, and I am looking forward to another visit before the end of the season. There were some pros and cons, but overall I think the park did pretty well. We (that's me, my sister, my 2 yr old nephew, and my Mom and Dad - who were in town for T-Day and hadn't been to the park since the days of GASM and Shockwave) visited on Black Friday with the hopes everyone would be annihilating each other over iPhones or comatose from tryptophan but with the freakishly warm weather I can't say I was surprised it was a bit crowded and got more so as our afternoon carried on. We arrived around 3pm and I decided to splurge on the preferred parking since we never pay for parking anyway and with the kid and folks in tow, less walking the better. That turned out to be a good decision. One we got all sorted in the lot, made our way to the entrance, through security, purchased our BAFF $19.99 tickets my folks would use, and through the main gate when we hit a snag: the "jogging" stroller my sis had brought instead of the usual old school lightweight model she normally brings, had a flat. Sad faces all around. I suggested we hit up Guest Relations to see if maaaaaybe there would be some sort of assistance offered in the form of air pump or something. Our problem, I know, and I should not have been surprised by the prompt reply of "Sorry, can't help you with that! You can rent one right there for the bargain rate of $20! *points* Have a Six Flags day!" This is where that preferred parking came in handy - I offered to run our gimp stroller out to the car, but at least I didn't have to go to Guam to do so. Anyway, crappy start to our visit, but on to the fun. Once we got sorted with our so-very-1980s rented stroller, I was able to focus on the park and how great Main Street looked. And it wasn't even dark yet. Very strange to not make the normal left hand bee-line to El Toro, instead we headed right at the fountain (read: MASSIVE CHRISTMAS TREE) off into Adventurrr - the North Pole? The park felt busy, but not in a normal summer day kind of way. Lots of people just sort of hanging out. Taking photos, talking to characters, snacking, looking at the lights. Here we saw Santas House had a very extended and very full rope queue. My nephew really dug the nutcracker dudes on stilts. We were all genuinely creeped out by the Poinsettia Princess wandering around - bad makeup job, Fright Fest holdout? LOL As much as I would have preferred to ditch the fam and go off solo marathoning what my nephew calls the "big boy" rides, we took our resident toddler into Whimsical Wonderland aka Safari Kids and got him on a bunch of rides. Entire area overrun with parents, kids and strollers. Loads of them. He got his coaster ride in on Road Runner Railway, which again, had an extended rope queue and he then did the Air Safari which also had a healthy line and took forever to load. I noticed all of these kid rides had seriously decent lines with only one operator on each, so it got me wondering about the lines for Nitro and Batman and since we were so close I told my folks I wanted to go check out the line for Nitro while they waited for my sister and nephew. It was backed up to the 60 minute sign and from what I could tell two trains were running. I gave it a shot. If it felt like the line wasn't moving I'd back out. But in usual Nitro fashion, it was eating people right up and spitting them out the exit so I waited a little over 20 minutes. A group next to ride noticed I was a solo rider and let me jump ahead of them so I had one less train to wait for. I got train B in my magic seat - last row, right side, at sunset, and it was glorious. When I ride with strangers I tend to stay quiet cause I'm a nerd but I was hooting and hollering like it was my last ride ever. The ride was hauling ass, butter smooth, I was getting great floater air throughout the ride and loving every second. (Sidenote: I'm not one to brag. Ok maybe I am LOL but anyway I don't get a ton of vacation time at my job, however I've hardly used any this year so in an effort to get rid of some of it I used Friday as a paid day and as we crested the lift my last thought before the drop was "I'm on the clock right now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Great feeling.) After I checked the line on Skull Mountain - I asked the greeter and she told me 30 minutes but I wandered inside to see how far back the line was and it was almost at the entrance to the cave. I turned right around. The greeter laughed as I chuckled "maybe next time!" I have to say Skull Mountain looked great! Love the lights on it. But I will have to get my coveted Poinsettia Peak credit another day. I met back up with the crew and waited for my nephew to finish his own little ride marathon. You have to pull him off some of them, he's begging to go again. My mom pointed out to me that very few of the rides back here have any sort of lighting package - which is not surprising since she lives in Wildwood and Morey's lighting packages are so in your face and elaborate, even the smallest of rides. But its a shame - Air Safari literally has one spotlight on the ride, not even lights on the queue. It was now almost totally dark out so we took the long way around by Jolly Roger, Swashbuckler, etc just checking out the lights. Here my Dad pointed out how long the lines for food were. At both Panda and Grannys the lines were out the door. But not all of the tables were full. Good thing we were not hungry as it became apparent here on out the food service for this event is severely understaffed. No Totemay construction to see, but an empty Flash Pass HQs was staffed with 4-5 kids bored out of their minds. As we came back around to Main Street we caught a little bit of the tree-lighting show. The midway here was packed so we continued on into Peppermint Houdini Land, which looked fabulous, as did the Carousel and Yum Yum Cafe. All covered in lights and garland. Sad face to see nothing but darkness off beyond that in the direction of Toro. Walking from the fountain through here we all commented on how LOUD the music had been everywhere all night. The holiday music is great but at points two or even three very loud, totally different holiday songs were bleeding into one another. Just turn it down, Six Flags. The Boardwalk area felt like a weird dead zone to me. All of the midway lighting was on but half of the games were fenced off which was weird, and a lot of the food places back along there toward Golden Kingdom were closed. It made sense when they announced the event and listed Superman and Green Lantern as open coasters since the Boardwalk has so many opportunities for the park to make $$$ between the food and games but I don't know it just felt like this weird dead end. More ridiculous lines for the food places that were open back here - Nathans, etc. I didn't even check the lines for the coasters back here. The "tree" they made out of the Parachutes tower was cool, albeit simple. Back out toward Main Street where we caught some more of the tree-lighting show, and popped in a few of the stores where I managed to snatch up some of the great ornaments they have - one for Nitro, another for Toro, and an old school Great Adv logo. So cool that they have these. High quality and very nice. Lots of other fun/funny merch we checked out like ugly Xmas sweaters w/ Superman on them, etc. I should have gotten pictures, some were good. As about 6pm, we were all kind of pooped. Tough to do more than a few hours with the kid and folks in tow, definitely not a day of non-stop riding. But I'm so happy we got over to check out HITP, its an event the park will excel at if it adds to and improves it in future years. And I hope that they realize, like has already been discussed here, this event should be focused on the food and the kiddie rides. It's great that they have some of the big coasters running, and I hope they continue that but they need more food servers and more staffing on the kiddie rides. I would liked to have tried some special event food (waffles, funnel cake, cocoa, etc) but I wasn't waiting in those lines. I see no reason why they wouldn't continue to do Holiday In the Park, barring that it doesn't snow every weekend from now until January, but I think its more of success that they anticipated (so far). I bought my 2016 season passes today (cyber Monday, yo) and was informed my purchase included HITP 2016. Looking forward to getting back this year and seeing what they do next. Ride count: Nitro 1x (LOL) I had no camera on Friday so my Mom and sister took a bunch and told me I could share them here. I take no credit. Enjoy. "Dad, it's nothing like it was in 1991" Coaster time! Air Safari's incredible lighting package Me after my sunset ride on Nitro. Skully's back there saying hello. Sis taking close ups of the neph Sky Screamer had a nice healthy line Crowded. Houdini's gone peppermint! Gingerbread Junction Really looked great. Boardwalk dead zone. Ka and Zumi wave hello in the distance. Throw some trees on it Overall its a very fun and promising event. Ornaments I snagged. Very nice. Stats on the back. (Apologies for the hideous yellow desk, I won't let it happen again.)

Batman: The Ride

Lately anytime I post in this thread its the same thing. Friday afternoon/evening @ Holiday In The Park. The always lovely sunset lap.

I will only ride this thing in the front, in fact my last ride at Haunt was row 2 and the ejector air before both turnarounds delivered. Bummer about the buzz bars if they are in fact getting rid of them.