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Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom Discussion Thread

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I didn't really want to go thru almost 400 pages of the forum but my husband and I are planning on going to Reading, PA for a WWE event on Saturday, June 3rd. While we're there we're wanting to visit Dorney Park on Sunday, June 4th. How are crowds on Sunday? Where is a good place to stay in the area for the weekend? What is worth riding? Is anybody going to be in the area on that Sunday as we'd love to meet up with any fellow TPR members? Thanks!

If you plan on doing the waterpark, be prepared, as lines can get pretty long over there. If not, you likely won't wait long for anything on the dry side except for Wild Mouse (because of low capacity).

 

Ride-wise, here are the ones you should ride, although you'll probably have time for anything you want to ride if it looks fun:

- Talon

- Steel Force (Front Row)

- Hydra (Back Row)

- Possessed

- Demon Drop (last of its kind left in the USA)

- Thunder Creek Mountain

- Thunderhawk (old woodie, ride in second row)

- Dominator

- Stinger (if it's open)

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I didn't really want to go thru almost 400 pages of the forum but my husband and I are planning on going to Reading, PA for a WWE event on Saturday, June 3rd. While we're there we're wanting to visit Dorney Park on Sunday, June 4th. How are crowds on Sunday? Where is a good place to stay in the area for the weekend? What is worth riding? Is anybody going to be in the area on that Sunday as we'd love to meet up with any fellow TPR members? Thanks!

 

You and your husband would have a great time at Knoebels Amusement Resort, which is kind of like Dorney except good. Another great option would be Hersheypark which is a similar distance but also infinitely better than Dorney in every possible way (though not as good as Knoebels, because nothing is).

 

That being said, if you really want to go to Dorney for some reason then expect every single ride to be a walk-on because everyone will be at the 2 much better parks that I just mentioned. I know you think I'm joking, but I'm not. It'll be dead and there's a reason. Seriously, go to Knoebels.

 

PS: Kozmo really needs to start personally mailing me commission checks on a monthly basis.

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I don't necessarily agree with her (I like both parks for different reasons) but my fiancee said she likes Dorney better than Knoebels (granted she didn't have a ton of time to spend there to really take it all in) so take that as you will

 

[patiently awaits snarky comment from coasterbill]

 

No crowds on the dry side. Anytime. Ever.

 

We stayed at the comfort suites across from the park for Haunt last year and we had no issues and it was a fantastic rate especially for seeing the park from our room. I want to say it was only ~$75 which was a steal for the quality. Also it made me laugh that the front desk didn't say a single word while we checked in even though we were covered from head to toe in blood since we went to halls of horror on the way into down (ps: it was awesome)...

 

99ea57471fdb0bed83bb026c527eb087.jpg

 

Dorney can be completed, like, EVERYTHING on the dry side in like ~2-3 hours if you get there at opening. Keep that in mind that it's not a full day park unless you do the water park (which I can't rate because we've never done it) or want to be extremely bored

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^ Yeah but reriding @ Dorney is the worst because they make you walk around every time as god forbid you might get overwhelmed from all the mediocrity. It almost makes more sense to just do a couple laps around the park, hitting everything once and then coming back around again, but then you're trudging up and down all those steep ass hills repeatedly.

 

See? You really can't win with Dorney. Best to go to Hershey/Knoebels instead.

 

* I kid, I kid... I like Dorney. It's clean as sh*t, they have people that will serve you beer and crab fries, there's never lines for rides, and Talon and Demon Drop and Possessed are awesome. Go to Hershey tho

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I didn't really want to go thru almost 400 pages of the forum but my husband and I are planning on going to Reading, PA for a WWE event on Saturday, June 3rd. While we're there we're wanting to visit Dorney Park on Sunday, June 4th. How are crowds on Sunday? Where is a good place to stay in the area for the weekend? What is worth riding? Is anybody going to be in the area on that Sunday as we'd love to meet up with any fellow TPR members? Thanks!

 

Hi. Although I do agree with Bill, that Hershey and Knoebels are better parks - you should still have a nice time at Dorney. We stayed at the hotel across the street from the park on one of the TPR tours and it was very nice and convenient. There is nothing particularly wrong with Dorney park - there just really isn't anything standout about it either.

 

As said, the dry side of the park is very often extremely slow. You should have plenty of time to do everything you want. I particularly enjoy Talon and Hydra. Talon is actually very good and Hydra, although nothing super-spectacular, is really a lot of fun. The water park gets very busy though (if you see a lot of cars in the parking lot, at least 3/4 of the people will be in the waterpark.)

 

The main thing is - have fun.

 

David

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^ Yeah but reriding @ Dorney is the worst because they make you walk around every time as god forbid you might get overwhelmed from all the mediocrity.

It must be a chain-wide policy; when I rode the Boomerang at Knott's a few weeks ago, I had to get out and walk around for a re-ride, even though the station was completely empty.

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Most of us know that their log flume is good, but I feel that Dorney has a very underrated rapids ride. Crazy fast with lots of spinning and waterfalls - there is little doubt that you will get soaked on it.

 

If you're into that sort of thing, I would highly recommend it...and you can hit it and the water park up at the same time before changing back into street clothes.

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I'll be heading to Dorney for the first time in a long time. Hercules was still operating the last time I went. I've budgeted 4 hours here in my coaster road trip.

 

It's sad to see that this thread is filled with people talking about how awful it is here. I grew up in Philadelphia, and going to Dorney was always a treat. I assume it was a more popular park back in those days, as I remember it often being crowded.

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Dorney is in no way, shape or form a bad park. The problem is that it's surrounded by infinitely better parks. Knoebels, Hershey and Great Adventure are all really close by and absolutely blow Dorney to hell but at the same time there's no way you could spend a few hours at Dorney and not have a great time.

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Dorney is not awful by any means. There are just better parks nearby. In fact all of the nearby parks - Hershey, Knoebels, GreatAdv - are better.

 

edit - Bill took the words outta my mouth.

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my fiancee said she likes Dorney better than Knoebels (granted she didn't have a ton of time to spend there to really take it all in) so take that as you will

 

[patiently awaits snarky comment from coasterbill]

 

So... have you put the deposit on the venue yet? Is it nonrefundable?

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Dorney is in no way, shape or form a bad park. The problem is that it's surrounded by infinitely better parks. Knoebels, Hershey and Great Adventure are all really close by and absolutely blow Dorney to hell but at the same time there's no way you could spend a few hours at Dorney and not have a great time.

 

#eastcoastproblems

 

I look at what's within a ~3 hour drive of chicago and there's obviously the biggie, SFGAm, but outside of that, the secondary day-trip roller coaster parks are Michigan's Adventure, Indiana Beach, and everybody's favorite whipping boy, Mt. Olympus.

 

There are certainly much worse problems to have than having a place like Dorney as your fifth option "local" park.

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The best part of Dorney is that they never have any lines (outside of the Wild Mouse and water park). So you can stop in on a Saturday and have basically walk-ons on a hyper, Intamin impulse, and two B&Ms. The park is clean and well-run too. I agree they are just surrounded by superior parks in all directions.

Dorney is in no way, shape or form a bad park. The problem is that it's surrounded by infinitely better parks. Knoebels, Hershey and Great Adventure are all really close by and absolutely blow Dorney to hell but at the same time there's no way you could spend a few hours at Dorney and not have a great time.

 

#eastcoastproblems

 

I look at what's within a ~3 hour drive of chicago and there's obviously the biggie, SFGAm, but outside of that, the secondary day-trip roller coaster parks are Michigan's Adventure, Indiana Beach, and everybody's favorite whipping boy, Mt. Olympus.

 

There are certainly much worse problems to have than having a place like Dorney as your fifth option "local" park.

 

When I'm in Chicago next month, I considered Holiday World a day trip away since that park is on my bucket list and it's the closest I'll be to it for a while.

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When I'm in Chicago next month, I considered Holiday World a day trip away since that park is on my bucket list and it's the closest I'll be to it for a while.

at 5.5 hours away, I don't consider HW to be a day trip from chicago. That's a total of 11 hours of driving AND going to an amusement park in between all in one day? No thanks, that has hotel stay written all over it for me.

 

Chicago doesn't have a ton in that 3 hours or less range, but stretching it just a bit further to 5-6 hours, you can get to valleyfair, adventureland, SFStl, holiday world, Kentucky kingdom, king island and cedar point, so it's not the end of the world, the really good parks just require a bit more time and money.

 

But the east coast is still where it's at for park density, which directly stems from the fact that it's the most densely populated region in the country as well. As you move west through the country, things gradually get pulled further and further apart until you get to the Pacific Coast and all of the milions of people piled up there.

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When I'm in Chicago next month, I considered Holiday World a day trip away since that park is on my bucket list and it's the closest I'll be to it for a while.

at 5.5 hours away, I don't consider HW to be a day trip from chicago. That's a total of 11 hours of driving AND going to an amusement park in between all in one day? No thanks, that has hotel stay written all over it for me.

 

 

A 20 year old can handle more strenuous day trips. I used to not bat a eye at a 5-6 hour drive each way to Busch Gardens Williamsburg or Kings Dominion for a day trip.

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Dorney will be flying the Hersheypark flag over their park!

 

For those of you who haven't been following the Phantoms/Bears playoff series (which is likely all of you but I digress), tonight the Bears beat the Phantoms in Game 5 of the five game series and are going on to the next round of the playoffs.

 

So, in the near future, Dorney will be flying the Hersheypark flag over their own park! Not sure when it will take place just yet.

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As expected the bumper cars were just ok. The cycle is very short and the small driving area combined with the metal island in the middle caused a lot of people to spend most of the ride cycle stuck. Stinger was closed with some mechanics working on the ride but it never opened (not that I would have ridden the coaster anyway).

 

IMG_2086.JPG.6c52c4eae3ba3637a2a853232bbf548c.JPG

I also noticed this when walking around the park today.

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Ugh... I can't stand it when Bumper Cars have that island in the middle...

Neither can I. I don't know if it's intentionally supposed to clog things up or if it's to make everyone drive in a circle, but it's annoying.

 

Today, I was looking at the newly-designed park website when I came across this: the background of the Food Truck Fridays page is of Shambahala and Dragon Khan at Port Adventura. Am I missing something?

 

https://www.dorneypark.com/play/events/food-truck-fridays

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No, they just pieced together two stock photos. Sometimes if you don't have a photo that works you have to buy one from a stock image site. I'm sure that other image appeared under a site search for "Roller Coasters" or something along those lines...

 

dp-foodtruckfridays-banner.jpg

 

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