Imhoteps 5 parks in 7 days mini tour! NOW WITH PICS!!

[Imhotep]

First of all, Hello everybody! Ive been a long time 'lurker' of these boards, which is definately my favorite coaster forum to lurk because it seems like everyone has alot of fun on here . Hope to make some new friends!!

 

For our vacation which was the last week of july, my girlfriend Dyneshia and I decided to head to Virginia to visit BGW and take advantage of our Platinum Passports. I figured, why drive 11 hrs and visit one park weve never been to! So after some planning, we decided to hit a total of 5 parks weve never been to, starting with BGW and PKD in Va, Hershey and Dorney Park in Pa and then end it all with SFGAdv in Nj.

 

I will try not to be long winded with my TR, and I plan on adding photos as soon as they are developed, which will be in the next few days.

 

Sunday July 24th- BGW

We got there right when it opened. Very beautiful park!! One thing I loved about it is that it is set in the hills and trees, not smack in the middle of a run down part of town like BGT. That means fortunately I was not able to see one liquor store or hair salon from the lift hills of the coasters ! Dont get me wrong, BGT is my favorite park here in florida, but thats always one thing thats bothered me. Anyways, moving along..

DarKastle Pretty good ride!! Although it seems to be basically a clone of Spiderman with almost as good theming. It seemed like the sleds travelled the same route, moved the same way, and the 3d stuff was set up similar to Spidermans. At least thats what I felt. The 3d quality is top notch, probably the highest resolution Ive ever seen in a ride. It was worth the wait, but we decided it wasnt worth waiting an hour plus for a re-ride.

Alpengeist This ride looks about twice the height of Montu, although its only 45ft taller. The first drop seemed to last forever and the ride was very forceful. the ride seemed much longer than your average coaster. I can say as far as inverts go, this is my new favorite.

Loch Ness The loops looked much smaller than I imagined they would be and I was expecting to feel a little whiplash going through them, but they were quite nice. Infact, the whole ride overall was nice. A little jerky but that to be expected of a 25+ year old coaster.

Apollos Chariot This was my first B&M Mega coaster. Riding in the front was intense, but the back is the place to be on this ride!!

Other than that we rode Escape from Pompeii a well themed but extremely short ride, and flat rides. I really liked Davincis Cradle, it wasnt as tame as it looked.

We had to skip BBW because we were pressed for time. Ive been on an arrow suspended and didnt like it at all, so i didnt mind skipping it. We got 2 back row rides in on AC at night before the park closed, and we headed back to the hotel.

 

Mon July 25th- PKD

The complete antithesis to BGW when it comes to theming. The park was a little on the ghetto side! There were so many great things about PKD that helped the park make up for its ghettoness.

Drop Zone I HATE drop towers because Im scared to death of heights. So I figured lets get this one out of the way first. It wasnt bad! The trip up was quick, and the view was nice. The drop was pretty intense, I thought my body was going to force the restraint open!! Well, I think I semi-conqured my fear of heights, because now I love drop towers! We rode this one twice more.

Hypersonic I really wasnt expecting the launch to be so intense! The best launch in the park by far IMO. It just seemed like the second we launched we were at top speed, no hint of accelleration. I really liked this ride, and Im eagerly awaiting the 2nd generation of the air compressed launcher. Maybe they can work on building a quieter brake run?

Volcano The queue was HORRIBLE for this ride. For those of you who are clausterphobic, you may want to wait for a short wait time to ride. Not to mention it was very hot, no ventilation. And I felt like I was in a chicken coop with all the chicken wire around me.. The launch was good, but the rest of the ride was alright. I really looked forward to this one, and it let me down a little. Ah, so Im somewhat a complainer, no ones perfect.

Tomb Raider Nice ride! didnt really look intimidating, but it blew me away!! we rode this one about 4 times. The restraints were only uncomfortable on my 'cash and prizes' right at the beginning, when the op decided the restraints werent tight enough and stapled me into the seat, surely rendering me incable of creating little Imhoteps for at least a few months.. Once the ride started going, it was fine.

Flight of Fear I dislike premier trains (mummy excluded). Im only 5'8", but I had ZERO legroom. The ride was nice though, good launch, smooth track. Alot better than I expected. The queue was pretty creative. Didnt get to watch the movie they had playing though.

Anaconda Its a shame they had to go and ruin a perfectly good lake by building a ride like this over it. No further comment.

Rebel Yell we only rode backwards, and man I wish they could do this to all woodies!! It was fun not knowing when we were going to drop or turn. Track wasnt rough either.

The Hurler I didnt get the theme.. a conveyer belt with doll legs hanging from it? Maybe someone can catch me up to speed. Anyway, I didnt get the ride either. It was pretty jerky to me.

Grizzly It seemed a little hard to find, almost like they didnt want you to ride it And I also saw that someone stuck a cigarette in the bears mouth, which I wish I would have got a picture of. Anyway, It was fun to ride a wooden coaster that was intertwined in the woods. My GF thought it was rough but I loved it.

 

 

I also did my first SKYCOASTER here!! Man, Im kicking myself for not doing the Kissimmee one first! The Skycoaster is a must-do ride. I will be doing the Kissimmee one soon. We rode some flat rides and Shockwave before we left, which was not a very comfortable ride.

 

I will post what I thought of Hershey, Dorney and Six Flags and I will be adding pictures later. Hope you guys like the report!

 

[EDIT] Here are some pics of us on the drive up, BGW and KD!! More to come!

Goodbye PKD!! We had a blast. BTW, Whats up with this kid?

Here is a shot of Tomb Raider and Volcano, 2 great rides!

The only thing fun about this painful-as-sin ride was watching it.

Unfortunately this is the only pic we had of Hypersonic. This ride had the best initial launch of all the coasters in the park, hands down!

The Eiffel Tower provides an eye level view of Drop Zone, and a great view of all the other rides.

Here we are on the Eiffel Tower.

Here we are at PKD! The park was not as beautiful as BGW, but that didnt matter. We had more fun here than any park on our trip.

Not a good picture, but here we are after our final ride on AC. What an awesome way to say good bye to BGW.

This picture isnt from BGW, How did it get on here? Seriously!

Heres Alpengeist, man I miss this ride already..

Us in the DK Queue.

DarKastles theming was VERY nice.

Hello BGW!!

Heres Dyneshia infront of the Welcome center. We made it! In one piece and everything!

We stopped at South Of the Border for a bit. It took all I had to keep Dyneshia from blowing all our trip money on fireworks .

Here I am, at 'El Cheapo,' paying out the a$$ for gas. I guess the donkey cannot fix all high price problems just by kicking them.

Look! OMG! a Donkey!!!

[coasterdude5]

First off, welcome to the boards!

 

Great TR. I love BGW and all its theming. You really feel like you're in another country!

 

Nice descriptions of all the rides. Real Organized. Batman's queue is like Volcano's. Once you enter the "batcave", you're dead, just a ticht tunnel with no air what so ever. Glad I'm not claustrophobic!

 

Hope you have fun at the other parks!

[imbordisux]

I remember riding "Anaconda" about ten years ago... I thought it was the coolest thing in the world back then.

[Coasters 4 ever]

That's great for your first post! I remember my first post, people were a lot nicer to me than on a certain other site...

 

Anyways, great report. Can't wait for the other ones!

[Imhotep]

Thanks for the warm welcome coasterdude5 and coasters 4 ever! As far as Anaconda was concerned, It looked cool. But thats about it. Maybe if they did some maintenance on it or something..

 

On with my report!

 

Tuesday the 26th- Hershey Park

We got our tickets at a local Giant supermarket ($10 off admission!) and got to the park around noon. I was expecting good things with this park, I just wasnt sure how good. Man this park looked very nice! And its really cool to see the rides on top of eachother, I havent really seen that before.

One thing that was great about this park was that there was misters and showers EVERYWHERE! and a really good amount of shade. We definately didnt have a hard time beating the 100+ degree heat.

Great Bear Ive been looking forward to riding this one, mainly because of the helix before the drop. I was hoping the helix would push you into your seat and then the drop would throw you out for some unexpected airtime during the drop, but it didnt happen. The helix and drop were too spread out. It wasnt a bad ride, but definately not the best invert Ive ever ridden. I got to see the funky support work over the stream, which I thought was cool. I guess you know you are an enthusiast when you are like "the rides ok, but look at those supports!"

Sooperdooperlooper Pretty fun ride. Crazy to see that there is a coaster build practically on top and around it! Had this odd vibration though that felt really good. We decided to ride this one twice because of the short lines.

Comet Pretty good woodie! I think I remember the lift hill being weird, like one of the sides appearing to 'sag' a little. I thought that meant the ride was going to be rough, but it wasnt that bad.

Storm Runner I was really looking forward to riding my first Intamin rocket coaster. dragsters big cable snap incident happened the day before I went to CP last year . The launch was nice!! I felt IMO it wasnt as good as hypersonic, which kind of let me down. I could tell it took more time to accellerate to the top speed, but good launch nonetheless. The unique inversions were a breath of fresh air. The OSTRs hurt my arms pretty bad when I had them up, so on our rerides I had my arms down. I really like the smooth magnetic brake run, S&S should steal this! Definately my favorite ride in the park!

Sidewinder This is my first Vekoma boomerang. Ive always wanted to ride one. The good thing about this ride: riding front seat. The bad thing: riding anywhere else. The front was a smooth ride, but the other places we sat really banged my head into the head rest, especially backwards. I wouldnt ride this again unless it was in the front seat.

Lightning Racer I believe this was made by the same people that made Gwazi. I had alot of fun on this ride , especially because we won!! We totally stomped Thunders a$$es!!! Anyway, It felt a little bumpy to me, but nothing I would call rough.

Wildcat My favorite woodie in the park! I had alot of fun on this one. The drop was interesting, and I was getting some good airtime.

 

We rode some flat rides (the claw was awesome, I can only imagine what MaxAir is like now!) , saw a show called Trash Time which was pretty good, ate at the Wok and Roll, which was probably the coolest name for an asian resturaunt ever, and took off towards Dorney.

More about Dorney to come!! And hopefully soon some pics!

 

-Imhotep

[SharkTums]

I'm really enjoying reading your reports...my favorite so far "cash and prizes"!!!!!!! Never heard that analogy before!!!

[Sir Clinksalot]

FYI - the "theming" at Hurler goes back to the Waynes World movies. My memory of the Waynes World movies is cloudy at best - was a cupie doll factory ever utilized in the films?

 

Either way, the remnants of the theming are much creepier than they're intended to be...

[Imhotep]

I dont remember a doll factory in the movies.. But I do remember as I left the ride I saw the emergency glass case with the cups and the first thing I thought of was Waynes World... " If you are going to speeeeeeeew, spew in this!" Well, its cool that it turned out to be themed to WW , but at the same time its weird..

 

Im glad you are enjoying it SharkTums, I was worried I wasnt keeping it interesting!! I got to give credit where credit is due though, I got cash and prizes from Dane Cook, possibly the best comedian ever

[Coasters 4 ever]

Another great report! Keep up the good work!

[Imhotep]

Pictures are coming soon I promise! Fair warning: Im no photographer, and I dont think I got any original angles. But its better than just reading a bunch of text, right?

 

Alright, On to the next report.

 

Wednesday the 27th- Dorney Park

We arrived in Allentown about 11, and had a quick stop to eat at the Rock 'n Roll McDonalds (actually it was nascar themed, left turn 4 LIFE!) across from Dorney. What a nice view! You can really scope out the park while you eat. Dorney didnt appear that big, but it was packed full of stuff.

Talon Wasnt the most forceful invert, but I enjoyed it. It had quite a few foot choppers, and it was smooth and enjoyable. I know my GF enjoyed it alot, I believe it was her favorite in the park.

Hydra I couldnt believe the short line for this! actually, so far this whole trip we havent really waited in long lines. On this one though, we walked right on the front row The jo jo roll is hard to explain. I guess you could compare it to the heartlines on volcano, but much slower. They take your picture twice on this ride, and one of those times is while you are upside down in the jo jo, which is a nice touch. We were excited, arms up making a face for the camera. Its a cool way to kick off the ride, and I hope B&M does this more often. The rest of the ride let me down which I hate to say about a beemer. It was so bumpy! not rough like it was hunting for the track but bumpy like the track was made out of gravel. It caused this odd bounce in the train. I tried to keep my head back but I kept hitting my head against the head rest. The second picture is me just trying to get through the ride. We decided to ride the other rides and then ride this again to get a second opinion, but it started to rain and we couldnt so it sucks I had to base my opinion on one ride. Overall , the layout was cool and original, just I found it to be one of their bigger letdowns. I hope the odd bounce is in just that one train.

Steel Force I totally forgot Dorney had a 'hyper'. I was pleasantly suprised to see this thing as we pulled up to dorney , This monster towers over the whole park! We boarded our first ever ride on a Morgan hyper. It was nice! the drop wasnt as intense as I imagined, but it was great and we got some good POVs of it, hopefully it wont be a problem for the site if I post them. We got this weird section of airtime before entering the helix, and then the train basically just slammed back down onto the track which was actually kind of fun . The helix was intense and the camel backs were smooth. I definately do not think this coaster was as great as Magnum, Millenium Force or Apollos Chariot, but it was pretty damn good.

Thunderhawk My first Stand-Up Woodie!! Ok ok, Im not that much of a n00b, seriously. But I got so much airtime on this ride I felt like I was standing up. This coaster was such a plesant suprise, by far my favorite coaster in the park! and so far my number 1 woodie! Im itching to ride it again. Anyone else like this one?

Laser Yay, scorpion with 2 loops!! at least thats what it felt like. Scorpion is such a good ride and so is this. I found it very strange how they made you bring everything you had on the ride with you.

 

Being the credit whores we arent (no offense to those who are ) We decided to skip the little laser and the wild mouse. It started drizzling by this time anyways. Man I wish I would have had more time at Dorney, its such a nice little park! If we ever plan a trip to PA again Dorney is definately on the must visit list.

 

The next day was supposed to be our 'break.' So you know what we did? We drove to NJ and took a ferry into Manhattan! We were there from probably noon until 9, and we walked the whole time. No taxis, didnt even take a subway which we should have. We didnt get to do a whole lot.. but some things we did get to do were: we walked through Time Square, went up to the observation deck in the Empire State Building (longest queue the whole trip so far!), and went to the worlds largest Toys R Us and Macys. The main thing I couldnt get over was Time square, how parts of the buildings themselves were huge tv screens. We wanted to see a bunch of other things, but we decided to save it for a hopeful trip back sometime in the future. It was crazy how we walked so much, but covered so little distance.

 

Later, our last park on our trip.. Or is it? More on Six Flags Great Adventure a little later!

-Imhotep

[CoasterFanatic]

My memory of the Waynes World movies is cloudy at best - was a cupie doll factory ever utilized in the films?

 

They lived in an old doll factory/warehouse in the second movie.

[Imhotep]

Ah gotcha.. Makes more sense now.. Maybe they could have made it more ovious?

[AllisonY2K]

cash and prizes..lol..that's awesome!

great TR! I love your commentary thus far.

I'm looking forward to pics since, though we all may visit the same park, we each have our own perspective of the park. plus seeing where you went and who you went with is always enjoyable.

[Coasters 4 ever]

Your number 1 woodie? Have you ever been to Knoebels? Phoenix is AMAZIMG, and has 10 times the amount of airtime that Thunderhawk does! You'd be blown away!

[Erik Johnson]

I have enjoyed your TR so far, I can't wait to see the photos. It is also cool to see another Floridian leave the state to go visit some great parks...

[Imhotep]

Thanks Erik, your trip makes me feel bad that we decided not to go to carowinds. I have added some pics on the first post, so now its officially a PTR. Ill have that sfgadv tr after I get the other parks pics updated!

 

-Imhotep

[Erik Johnson]

Nice photos...BGW really is the next park I really want to go visit...not sure when I will get the chance to though. Leanne has been but that was many years ago, she still has her Big Bad Wolf T-shirt.