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Were these visits the earlier or later timeslot? I want to visit so badly and we might be able to carve out a couple hours Friday evening. Curious whether it's much busier in the later slot. It's so wild this place actually exists.

Found the contrast to a 4hr wait interesting. It was a bit surreal to ride a brand new B&M for the better part of a half hour without seeing another guest. Not everyone's preference, granted. I enjoy raucous full trains and Zen solo rides alike.

^That's a tough one to follow! Mine actually surprised me, memory failing. Turns out I hadn't ridden KI FoF, so that was it, couple weeks ago.

Too bad if there’s really no holiday lights? Last Hershey holiday season I went to was 2016 and there was a spectacular lights show set to music in the Hollow. And boy am I glad I visited on a summer weekday this year. Park was empty. Rode Candymonium completely alone 5x. Those wait times are nuts.

I keep my eye out for any unusually short food lines as even on busy days there can be the odd lull. Lucked out at the chicken place last Saturday at like 11:45, just two groups in front of me and it moved fast. An hour later there was a huge line out the door. Brewhouse only had a few people on Sunday around noon. Really nice relaxed stop and the burger/fries so much better than I would have guessed. Food for my trip was A+!

My visit this past weekend was great, even with Saturday being very busy and me missing out on FL until Sunday. I went into Orion not having followed its construction or watched a POV or even really knowing the layout. Also haven't been watching the reactions to it. I thought it was great. No surprise here that the huge new B&M is a smooth, fun, smile-inducing, infinitely-rerideable, gentle giant. I think it packs a little lighter punch overall than Fury or Leviathan, and I actually love it just like that. The setting is beautiful, especially this time of year and in particular just before and through the big overbank turnaround, just a breathtaking view out over a sea of vibrant foliage. Back left was my seat. Something about first drop in the back felt a little more special than Fury or Leviathan to me. Oh and the light package on the ride at night. Holy poopoo it's so freaking nice. Mask compliance was really quite good. Operators were actually pretty on top of asking people to wear or correct how they were wearing, and I saw only one case where such an interaction went sour. Distancing in the queues wasn't always great. Two impressively motivated operators actually forced the line to space out on Banshee and Invertigo. Their efforts were effective and appreciated. Got lucky to get a backseat night ride on Beast. My only previous ride was a front seat night ride. Woah that descent into the tunnel off the second lift, in the pitch dark, just one of the most sublimely out-of-control feelings on a ride I can imagine. Think I actually enjoyed it more in the back. Sunday morning I ended up on a third row ride and found that quite uncomfortable. Speaking of seat selection, operators were actually really friendly about, and generally accommodating, whenever groups asked about preferred seats. FastPass greatly increases your opportunities for front or back seats. Mystic Timbers was a pleasant surprise, more fun than I'd imagined. It makes some cool maneuvers with nice forces, while also retaining that overall terrain/journey feel. It felt a bit like a big brother to Wooden Warrior with the tunneled turnaround. Banshee was absolutely rippin' thru the course and so much better than I recall my one previous ride. Just kept wanting to go again. OK the beer. So look. I'm really not into pumpkin flavored stuff. But I am into coffee, and I have grown to occasionally appreciate dark complex beers, so I gave the Elysian Punkuccino they had on tap a shot. Wow! It's great, really great. Not in a "hmm that's certainly interesting and I'm going to pretend I like it to look refined" type of great, but a genuine "dang I want to chug this and then spend eleven more dollars on another one, immediately" kind of great. The bar between Mystic Timbers and Diamondback was a super relaxed stop off for a decent burger and brew early Sunday afternoon while it was not at all busy. Also tried the Original Sin Black Widow cider. Tart and blackberry infused, really liked it. Great selection of boozin' absolutely all over the park. Oh and the fried chicken and fries by Banshee are solid. Love this park! Clean, pretty, great ride selection, food, drinks, and friendly people. Two-day ride totals: Adventure Express x1, Backlot Stunt x1, Banshee x4, Beast x3, Diamondback x5, FoF 1x, Invertigo 1x, Mystic Timbers x4, Orion x6, Racer x1, Delirium 1x, Boo Blasters 1x, Woodstock Gliders 1x

Saturday was pretty busy, I overheard one ride op say busiest day of the year. Most coasters were consistently over an hour wait and Mystic Timbers was 100min mid-afternoon. I only rode Orion right at opening and waited ~45min. Got a Fastpass for Sunday and still totally worth it even though crowds were much lighter. I’ll post some more thoughts and pics tonight, it was a great visit with amazing weather.

It was cold today. TTD rolled back two of the first three runs they filled the trains on. We were first row for the second rollback, my first. So awesome!

Jake's Place in Ashland less than 15min from King's Dominion. Vintage gas station refurbished as a BBQ joint. Sampled the pulled pork, brisket, and ribs. I often like vinegary BBQ but wasn't a fan of their vinegar sauce so didn't go that way for the pork. Their sweet sauce was simple and solid. Brisket fantastic, ribs and pork decent. Really cool place to check out, great history, friendly people. Nice variety of interesting beers on tap. I will get a few photos posted, they're on my partner's phone as mine wasn't on me. Also just had a KICKASS visit to KD. Park was dead Wed due to intermittent showers. Backrow night ride on TT watching an otherwise empty train was surreal. Thu was a bit more lively but still NO lines.

They just told me at Sky Snacks that I can walk around with my beer. No more beer prison!! Got four straight rerides on Toro earlier too. Really nice day at the park.

In front of me..... Behind me.... Beside me... Life is good

When brakes bite hard

Coasters are open. Crowds are light to moderate, weather dependent. Generally a good time to go if you don't mind the possibility of a chilly day.

This is just tooo frickin' funny. The first thing that comes to mind, as a comparison, was an old B&M documentary that claimed their track dimensions are stringently QC'd to something like +/- a millimeter or so. ^ Umpteen potential points of failure for this sort of thing. My guess would be poor engineering controls of CAD data at S&S. And yes, I do sit behind a CAD workstation in the professional world every day.

Sure... we just bought the tickets at the park. I think the event started at like 5:00, and IIRC we got in maybe 1/2h earlier with Platinum Passes, so there was no wait. As long as you showed up towards the beginning, getting tickets on site was no sweat.

Thanks, and that's great to hear! Will definitely get us back to the Point.

Well at this point they may as well just give the ride a better layout. In all seriousness, well done LC. This is what needed to happen; hopefully it's done right and holds up well.

I hope they do Beer & BBQ again this year. It was an INCREDIBLE event. We couldn't eat and drink our way through all our tickets. Most of the food bordered on outstanding, and I ended up sporting a very solid buzz thanks to some outstanding craft brew samples. Riding afterwards was a lot of fun, though slightly hazy to the memory. My partners don't do beer but there was enough excellent hard cider and sodas to keep them very happy. Of course that meant I also *had* redeem all three of our Rougabrew/Valravn beer vouchers...myself. Some random pics from our visit last year, never got a chance to put together a proper TR. (This was two days after the big storm that closed the park for a day and we got some additional interesting weather):

Quassy: 1. Wooden Warrior. It's....wood. 2. The kiddie coaster. I don't recall its name, or what color it is. Mostly grease, I think.

That's true, but it's also quite affordable and if you end up there on a very busy day, worth it IMHO. In the past they have had a few different packages - full day, half day AM or PM, and offers of different "groups" of coasters. Not the ideal system, but not a bad value.

^/^^ You do realize that's ridership over the entire lifetime of the ride? Dragon Fire didn't give 40 million rides in one year. Since it's about thirty years older than Behemoth/Leviathan, I don't find it surprising at all.

Looks like they did OK with the auction. The three '40's Dodgem cars went for $950, $1025, and $1500. Two of the old fixed-restraint (Vettel?) Blue Streak cars went for $1300 and $1400 (honestly this was a steal!). And, amazingly, this torched Century Flyer emblem brought.... $900! Looking quickly through some of the other lots... I'm pretty sure they brought in $10-15k all together. Photo from the auction site linked above

Two I haven't seen mentioned that are way up there for me - the drop after the turnaround heading back toward the road on RVII, and the last drop in the tunnel on Seabreeze's Jackrabbit.

Rode Batman front row on Friday afternoon along side a family of three -- none of whom, to the best I could tell, had ever been on any kind of coaster whatsoever before. The shrieks of genuine terror were impressive. It's a tremendous privilege to experience such a machine running so furiously.

I had a pretty awesome time at SFA on Thurs. Have never seen a park so dead ... I don't think there were more than a few hundred people in the whole place. It was actually kind of eerie after dark, walking through some sections that were absolutely deserted. Got fully solo rides on all the open coasters except Ragin' Cajun. Unlimited re-rides without getting off were the order of the night. At one point I stopped in at Mind Eraser ("Reindeer's Flight") and the op said she hadn't had a rider in over a half hour. I sat in the front and asked if she could just keep sending me around till I asked to stop. Now, I actually kind of like SLCs but this one is really bad and I only made it four laps. Roar, on the other hand, as has been reported, was running great! Wow! I definitely noticed a bit of fresh track in some areas and new reinforcements bolted to the track in others. Did about eight consecutive laps in the back row as the sun set, and it was a really fun and pain-free mini-marathon. Rides in the pitch black were also fantastic. Had so much fun getting lot of rides in on Wild One. It's very smooth and an excellent candidate for extensive re-riding. My last visit to the park saw 1/2h waits for this ride and it was the one I really wanted some more time on. Front left seat was the sweet spot for me, awesome pops of air and the most comfortable through the outstanding helix finale. Definitely my favorite helix! The other standout feature on Wild One was the lighting. The hill before the turnaround was lit in a purple-blacklight range and the white paint absolutely glowed. It made for fantastic on-ride effect as well as looking stunning off-ride. Caught the stunt show which was cute, but my main focus was scratching the itch for some late season riding. The lights and decorations, especially in the North Pole area and main entrance, were stunning. That's an unpopular opinion for a theme park enthusiast community, lol. Trolls will be trolls.