Kings Dominion (KD) Discussion Thread

[smallpox]

FoF's MCBR is just as bad as Anaconda's. It feels like you're coming to a complete stop where in Joker's Jinx, it flies through the MCBR.

 

This is the main reason I prefer Joker's Jinx.

 

i don't understand why KD does that. it seems like both Anaconda and FoF would be smoother with a MCBR that didn't bring the train to a complete stop. the banking on the turns and inversions in the second half of those rides were designed for higher speeds.

[alilstronger]

I love FOF. Mostly because it is indoors in the dark.

[michaellynn4]

I agree, JJ > FoF. This summer, I was disappointed to find out KI's FoF does the same thing with its MCBR. Seems to be a Cedar Fair thing. Anyone know if Poltergeist at SFFT operates similarly to JJ?

[GigaG]

I think Poltergeist and JJ don't have MCBRs, just flat track. I don't know, though.

[coasterfreak101]

I agree, JJ > FoF. This summer, I was disappointed to find out KI's FoF does the same thing with its MCBR. Seems to be a Cedar Fair thing. Anyone know if Poltergeist at SFFT operates similarly to JJ?

 

Poltergeist operates with the faster launch from the Flight of Fear twins and without an MCBR like Joker. I'm pretty sure the only reason Joker doesn't do the same is just to keep costs as low as possible.

[aCoasterStory]

Planning to be at the park next Friday (5/2). Anybody ever go on a math/science day before? I'm planning to get there a little after lunch time. I figure the kiddos will be mostly over near the flagship rides (Volcano, i305, FoF, etc.), so I thought I'd hit up the woodies first. I would assume they would all be leaving around 2 or 3, which should leave a pretty dead park till closing. Does that sound reasonable? Is there something I'm missing or not taking into consideration? Thanks!

 

bump for visibility

[Diamondbacker27]

Just get FastLane. More than likely the school system will not pay $70 per child.

[Password121]

I don't know that you need Fast Lane. They're more than likely leaving well before closing, so unless you get to the park and it is absolutely mobbed, you should be fine. You can wait until you get there to see how lines are.

[Homeboy23]

Planning to be at the park next Friday (5/2). Anybody ever go on a math/science day before? I'm planning to get there a little after lunch time. I figure the kiddos will be mostly over near the flagship rides (Volcano, i305, FoF, etc.), so I thought I'd hit up the woodies first. I would assume they would all be leaving around 2 or 3, which should leave a pretty dead park till closing. Does that sound reasonable? Is there something I'm missing or not taking into consideration? Thanks!

 

bump for visibility

 

What is your definition of "after lunch"? The park closes at six so keep that in mind. Hurler will probably still not be open for the season either so that will cut down one coaster to grab so I doubt you will have any issues grabbing all the credits.

 

Yesterday with three switchbacks full, Volcano suprised me with only a 22 minute wait for the front row.

[gad198]

Planning to be at the park next Friday (5/2). Anybody ever go on a math/science day before?

I've gone on the first Friday of May the last four years in a row and it's a really nice day to go. There are school groups there but it's not bad at all. Typical Intimidator waits are usually 5-10 minutes those days. The Volcano line still stinks though so make sure you ride that first.

 

You didn't mention it in your original question, but if you have a Gold/Platinum pass then there's also Intimidator & Volcano ERT that day from 9-9:30.

Edited April 21, 2014 by gad198

[palmerleeberry]

I just visited the park on Saturday. Here are some comments about that visit.

 

1) The park got crowded sometime after noontime. I was seeing some lines on some coasters ( such as Anaconda and Backlot Stunt Coaster) that haven't been used since opening day being filled up.

 

2) The Rebel Yell was running with only one train per side, but while northside used the red train, southside used the blue train with red train on standby. Southside train would always be ahead.

 

3) I stayed until closing time so I could see them turn on the park lights. Rebel Yell's running lights were amazing!

 

4) I decided to play a game on that day since it was Easter weekend - find the Easter eggs colored to the Peanut characters. I found seven Easter eggs: Snoopy, in front of the Eiffle Tower; Charlie Brown, between a game stand and Boardwalk Fries stand; Peppermint Patty, in front of the Congo Thrills store; Lucy, near the Scrambler; Linus, in front of the Family Care Center; Sally, in front of the Carousel, and Schroeder, in front of the Kings Dominion Theater. Any Easter Eggs I missed?

 

kiNGS dOMINION - BETCHA YOU CAN'T DO IT ALL!!!

[redfoot12]

I agree, JJ > FoF. This summer, I was disappointed to find out KI's FoF does the same thing with its MCBR. Seems to be a Cedar Fair thing. Anyone know if Poltergeist at SFFT operates similarly to JJ?

 

Poltergeist operates with the faster launch from the Flight of Fear twins and without an MCBR like Joker. I'm pretty sure the only reason Joker doesn't do the same is just to keep costs as low as possible.

 

Although I haven't ridden the FoF at KI, Poltergeist definitely is my favorite amongst the ones I've ridden.

[CPSFMMCW]

Ill rise jokers jinx over flight of fear. Ridden both.

[aCoasterStory]

Planning to be at the park next Friday (5/2). Anybody ever go on a math/science day before? I'm planning to get there a little after lunch time. I figure the kiddos will be mostly over near the flagship rides (Volcano, i305, FoF, etc.), so I thought I'd hit up the woodies first. I would assume they would all be leaving around 2 or 3, which should leave a pretty dead park till closing. Does that sound reasonable? Is there something I'm missing or not taking into consideration? Thanks!

 

bump for visibility

 

What is your definition of "after lunch"? The park closes at six so keep that in mind. Hurler will probably still not be open for the season either so that will cut down one coaster to grab so I doubt you will have any issues grabbing all the credits.

 

Yesterday with three switchbacks full, Volcano suprised me with only a 22 minute wait for the front row.

 

Probably sometime in the 1-2 range, depending on when we get up and make it on the road. We'll be at Dollywood on Thursday, and we're driving partway Thursday night and the rest Friday morning.

 

I hadn't heard about Hurler. What's going on with it? Retracking?

 

We're also likely to be back Saturday night (from dinnertime to closing, I'm thinking), so I won't be too stressed if we miss anything Friday. For me, the only KD credits I lack are Anaconda and the 2 kiddie coasters.

[eddie200330]

This weekends NASCAR race is Saturday night in Richmond......should be a good time to hit the park.

[CPSFMMCW]

Thought you guys would like this video. Its all of the songs that the mushrooms sing in one video!

 

[smallpox]

just got back from KD ... what an INCREDIBLE day at the park!

 

- the landscaping looks great and the whole park is gaining flavor and character from the 40th celebration and related improvements. it really is becoming more reminiscent of the KD from my childhood, and that rules.

 

- the singing mushrooms nearly brought me to tears. i grew up watching them and i am thrilled that they're back.

 

- floral clock was broken -- not running.

 

- no lines all day in the kiddie section. i guess parents are all at work!

 

- lines for the big-boy rides were also pretty short -- i305 was 2 trains. most coasters were walk-ons.

 

- Volcano was of course the exception. it looked like it had an hour wait at least. i don't think the new configuration is doing anything at all to help throughput. something more drastic needs to happen there; it's just unacceptable for every ride in the park to be 5 minutes or less and Volcano to be over an hour.

 

- i305 was just as i'd remembered it -- the greatest ride on earth!!

 

- in dinosaurs alive (which my kids loved) there was an ear-peircing high pitched squeal at a super loud volume being periodically projected by some of the big speakers. it was a high enough register that some people couldn't hear it, but the ones who could (me included) were made extremely uncomfortable. it was instantly headache-inducing.

 

- the day was perfect. 70 degrees and cloudy. comfortable but no sunscreen required. could not have been better.

 

- outer hanks, country kitchen, and juke box diner were all closed today, creating a bit of a frustrating situation as we wasted time walking to all three looking for a decent lunch.

 

- my daughter was heartbroken that she was a half-inch too short to ride ricochet. bummer! maybe by the end of the summer...

 

minor quibbles aside, the park gets a solid "A", this is the nicest i've ever seen the place and i cannot be happier that it is regaining a measure of its old school charm.

[Rollercoaster Rider]

just got back from KD ... what an INCREDIBLE day at the park!

 

- the landscaping looks great and the whole park is gaining flavor and character from the 40th celebration and related improvements. it really is becoming more reminiscent of the KD from my childhood, and that rules.

 

- the singing mushrooms nearly brought me to tears. i grew up watching them and i am thrilled that they're back.

 

- floral clock was broken -- not running.

 

- no lines all day in the kiddie section. i guess parents are all at work!

 

- lines for the big-boy rides were also pretty short -- i305 was 2 trains. most coasters were walk-ons.

 

- Volcano was of course the exception. it looked like it had an hour wait at least. i don't think the new configuration is doing anything at all to help throughput. something more drastic needs to happen there; it's just unacceptable for every ride in the park to be 5 minutes or less and Volcano to be over an hour.

 

- i305 was just as i'd remembered it -- the greatest ride on earth!!

 

- in dinosaurs alive (which my kids loved) there was an ear-peircing high pitched squeal at a super loud volume being periodically projected by some of the big speakers. it was a high enough register that some people couldn't hear it, but the ones who could (me included) were made extremely uncomfortable. it was instantly headache-inducing.

 

- the day was perfect. 70 degrees and cloudy. comfortable but no sunscreen required. could not have been better.

 

- outer hanks, country kitchen, and juke box diner were all closed today, creating a bit of a frustrating situation as we wasted time walking to all three looking for a decent lunch.

 

- my daughter was heartbroken that she was a half-inch too short to ride ricochet. bummer! maybe by the end of the summer...

 

minor quibbles aside, the park gets a solid "A", this is the nicest i've ever seen the place and i cannot be happier that it is regaining a measure of its old school charm.

 

 

How's Karaoke? Do you just sign up and go; Or do they put names in a fishbowl?

[aCoasterStory]

I was also at the park today. We got there early & bought our passes. Apparently, if you buy your pass beforehand, you don't have to pay the $15 for parking, but if you buy it at the park, you have to pay the $15 to get in and they won't refund it, even with same-day receipts. I was quite surprised at this and figured it would be a reasonable request. Apparently not. They also didn't start letting people into the park at 9:00 (even though that's when passholder ERT was supposed to begin for Volcano & i305). It ended up being 9:10 before they started the national anthem. By the time we made it back to Volcano, it was nearly 9:20. Fortunately, it wasn't a busy day at all, but I could see how this could really throw people off on a crowded weekend.

 

Anywho, on to the rides:

 

We hit Volcano first (once in the front; once in the back). The launches & vertical section are great. But the rest of the ride up above the mountain leaves a lot to be desired. Why doesn't it do anything else besides just meander slowly above the mountain & go through 3 slow inversions?? We didn't go back after those two rides because my buddy didn't really enjoy the slow rolls & I didn't really care enough to ride it by myself. I just feel like this coaster could have been so much more.

 

Next was i305. We hit it first in the front row. My buddy is scared of heights, but I somehow convinced him to try it. He loved it, and it's now his #1 coaster ever. The big thing that helped him was how fast the lift hill gets to the top. It's a crazy good coaster, and the best description I ever heard is that it's the love child of Maverick and Millennium Force. The positive G's are crazy intense (I got tunnel vision almost every time we rode on the first turn), and the airtime is pretty great too. I was surprised that it had a trim break on one of the hills. It seemed like it could have gone through the last chunk of the ride without that speed getting bled off. It didn't kill the airtime on that hill for the front of the train, but it definitely did in the back. All-in-all, though, i305 is a top-5 coaster for me. I always really enjoy it, and I think it does the Dale Earnhardt theming justice (unlike i232 down the road).

 

We rode i305 2 more times in rapid succession, but then when we were trying to get off after our third ride, my buddy couldn't manage to get his buckle unbuckled. By the time I realized what was happening and went back to help, the restraints had already been relocked, so I just said screw it and jumped back in (as did the two people in the row behind us). (the four of us were the only guests in the station besides the two people in the front row). That was our accidental free ride. And it was awesome.

 

After i305, we both had to go pee, but shockingly, there is only one bathroom in the entire Safari Village area of the park, and it's over past Backlot Stunt Coaster. How is there only one bathroom??? Seriously???? (There's also no bathroom anywhere near Dominator.)

 

BSC was down, so we went and rode Anaconda. I was expecting it to super suck, but we rode in the magic seat and had no problems. The 2nd half of the ride crawled, and I have no idea what Arrow was smoking when they designed the layout, but we avoided getting punched in the head, so all was good.

 

We tried to ride Flight of Fear, but right as we were about to get on, they told us they were going to be down for a while. Immediately after that, they announced over the loudspeaker something to the effect of "we know you're there; we're working on it", which I took to mean that the previous train got stuck somewhere on the ride. I never was able to get a straight answer as to whether it just stopped at the MCBR or stalled out somewhere after that, but they were down for several hours.

 

We went back and rode i305 a 5th time. We wanted to do the front row again, but they were only running one train and there were quite a few people waiting for the front row, so we sat elsewhere. They were only running one train on many of the coasters, but based on the crowd levels, that was actually quite reasonable.

 

We hit Avalanche next. It was more fun than I remembered. Then we rode BSC. They had all the effects running, but it's not exactly the most thrilling coaster ever built.

 

Shockwave sucked. I challenge anyone who thinks B&M stand-ups are rough to take a lap or two on a TOGO.

 

Rebel Yell was fun. They were only running one train on the red side. I thought it was better on our rides later in the day.

 

After that, we hit Ricochet. My buddy was not happy with that one. Hurler was still closed for retracking, and you could see stacks of old track from Grizzly's lift hill.

 

Grizzly was the opposite of Rebel Yell. We enjoyed it more on our first lap than the subsequent ones. It seemed to get rougher as the day went on.

 

After that, we headed back over to see if FoF was up (it wasn't); so we started heading back towards the front of the park. We crammed ourselves into Woodstock Express and then hit up Boo Blasters on Boo Hill before riding Dominator.

 

Earlier in the day, I had seen someone wearing a t-shirt from my old middle school in GA. Turns out they were there as the last day of the annual 8th grade DC trip, and I was able to catch up with several of my old teachers that were there. Small world, right?

 

We left the park to get lunch, and when we got back we hit Dominator again. I enjoyed it better the 2nd time than I did before lunch. FoF was back up, but it had a 30-45 min line, so we decided to do other things and hope it would drop down later (it did).

 

We re-rode Rebel Yell twice and Grizzly once. RY seemed to ride better than it had in the morning, but Grizzly was worse.

 

Next we crossed back over to i305 to get one last epic ride in the front row. It was really flippin' awesome.

 

FoF was next, and it was a walk-on. We rode it twice, and it was pretty fun. I think the back might be a bit better than the front.

 

Finally, we ended the day with another lap on Woodstock Express to bring our coaster count up to 25 for the day (and that was even with taking a couple hours off in the afternoon).

 

 

I will say, though, that it does feel like this park is still lacking something ride-wise. It needs a fun, re-rideable people-eater that is thrilling but maybe not quite as intense as i305 (like Diamondback, perhaps?). I also don't understand why they need 3 woodies right next to each other.

 

All-in-all, it was a really good day. There were a bunch of school groups there, but it was still fairly dead all day. I don't think we waited more than 15 min for anything, and that was for the front row on a couple of rides.

[smallpox]

How's Karaoke? Do you just sign up and go; Or do they put names in a fishbowl?

 

...?

[smallpox]

We went back and rode i305 a 5th time. We wanted to do the front row again, but they were only running one train and there were quite a few people waiting for the front row, so we sat elsewhere. They were only running one train on many of the coasters, but based on the crowd levels, that was actually quite reasonable.

 

yep, only one train operation on i305, but i only had to wait two cycles to ride, so no complaints here. if they'd been running two trains, there would have been a lot of empty seats throughout the day.

[aCoasterStory]

We went back and rode i305 a 5th time. We wanted to do the front row again, but they were only running one train and there were quite a few people waiting for the front row, so we sat elsewhere. They were only running one train on many of the coasters, but based on the crowd levels, that was actually quite reasonable.

 

yep, only one train operation on i305, but i only had to wait two cycles to ride, so no complaints here. if they'd been running two trains, there would have been a lot of empty seats throughout the day.

 

Yeah. I was fine with just one train, but when there are 0-4 people in line for most rows and 16 in line for the front on a day w/ 1 train, I'd rather not wait for the front row. We ended up coming back later in the day and only having to wait 2 cycles for the front. (Immediately after us, though, a ton of people got in line for the front, so our timing was quite fortunate)

[cfc]

^The back row is more fun, anyway.

[aCoasterStory]

^The back row is more fun, anyway.

 

I think both have merit:

 

The front is awesome because of the view & the wind in your face & the fact that you still get airtime on the trimmed hill.

 

The back is awesome because of the massive airtime you get on the first drop.

[cfc]

 

The back is awesome because of the massive airtime you get on the first drop.

 

Yep--that's why I prefer it.