Kings Dominion (KD) Discussion Thread

When we were at Sea World last year for Bands, Brews and BBQ we were absolutely in love with it. I couldn't be happier that everyone else is ripping off this awesome idea.

I think Kings Dominion is too focused on food festivals and should be more focused on the park's "normal" food options.

I'm also disappointed with Bistro 75. It's a good idea, but it blocks off so many seats by the royal fountains.

I hope Kings Dominion adds a nice, casual sports bar grill in the near future and improves Victoria Gardens Pizza, which in my opinion, was decent before the 2014 season and has been awful ever since.

^I honestly thought Victoria Gardens was pretty good this year. I do agree that they should focus on some of the food at the park. I wasn't too impressed with Juke Box last month.

The park has a new executive chef since last season (Chef Paul), and I'd say food quality and offerings have steadily increased since his arrival and he has big things planned for the park, such as the Spring Bloom and this new festival. Take a look around at the wide range of food offerings in the new Soak City, it's much, much better than before. I expect each season, an area of the park will be focused on to enhance the food offerings.

As far as Bistro 75 goes, it only takes up 1 of 6 'coves' along the fountains, there's still plenty of room to sit next to the fountains if you aren't dining at Bistro 75 (especially on the non-busy west side of the fountains).

Some of these "this proves a coaster for [insert year here]" posts are getting to be more ridiculous than those Illuminati confirmed joke videos on YouTube.

 

Says the guy who told everyone that we were getting a new coaster because of an artists mistake in a KD website banner, then said it was your grand discovery and anyone else talking about it must credit you.

I retracted my statements about that a while back (pretty sure, anyway). I apologize if my now-proven-invalid discovery is offensive to you.

As far as Bistro 75 goes, it only takes up 1 of 6 'coves' along the fountains, there's still plenty of room to sit next to the fountains if you aren't dining at Bistro 75 (especially on the non-busy west side of the fountains).

I've never seen it open.

The hours of Bistro 75 are subject to change, but last I heard it was open Saturday and Sunday beginning at 2 PM.

The rest of the week, when the restaurant is not open, the area is open to anyone wanting to sit down in the area next to the fountains.

Planning to go to the park soon, how is the best western hotel across the street? I only plan on spending one night and then going to the park in the morning.

The park has a new executive chef since last season (Chef Paul), and I'd say food quality and offerings have steadily increased since his arrival and he has big things planned for the park, such as the Spring Bloom and this new festival. Take a look around at the wide range of food offerings in the new Soak City, it's much, much better than before. I expect each season, an area of the park will be focused on to enhance the food offerings.

 

As far as Bistro 75 goes, it only takes up 1 of 6 'coves' along the fountains, there's still plenty of room to sit next to the fountains if you aren't dining at Bistro 75 (especially on the non-busy west side of the fountains).

I agree, Chef Paul has done quite a bit for the park food service in the year that he has been at Kings Dominion. I think he started late May or early June of 2014. The food department has been a thorn in the side of the park with dismal customer reviews; really since Paramount took over. The Chef and his small culinary team have focused mainly in the Surf City water park and a few places on the dry side (Country Kitchen - last time I visited, they had pork spare ribs back on the menu for the 1st time in several years). They have tweaked things across most food locations including a whole new menu for the Wayside Grill in the Old VA section.

Given how many food locations are in the park, Chef Paul can only do so much in the short time he has been there. There are things that still need work in many locations. Mainly relating to the food service and methodology of getting food orders out in a timely and efficient manner. That will take some time to get a good methodology/system in place and better training for the workers.

As far as the food festivals go, The BBQ & Brew event is the only the 2nd food festival at the park. Both food festivals at Kings Dominion are way scaled down versions of what has been going on at Carowinds this year. The "Taste of the Carolinas" spring event was 3 times the size of The Spring Bloom event at KD. In any case, I am glad SOMETHING is being done to shake up the stale food service at the park and I am glad to see Chef Paul trying out new things and working toward a better food department for the park.

Planning to go to the park soon, how is the best western hotel across the street? I only plan on spending one night and then going to the park in the morning.

You really can't get any better for the price and location. We stayed there in June. It's not high end by any means but it does have some features i like including the pool staying open until midnight. Seriously this has always been a pet peeve of mine that these hotels and waterparks attached to hotels close pools at ten when the park closes. I along with many other people would like to go relax in the pool after a long day at a park. You also get to leave your car parked at the hotel so you don't have to pay for parking.

heading to the park on Monday. Anything in particularly people want to hear a report about or have me look for?

I think I've posted my pipe dream about a B&M flyer taking the place of Anaconda 4 or 5 times in this thread.

 

I get that a lot of enthusiasts hate Arrows, but I'd rather see Anaconda stay and have another coaster interact with it. It's a huge lake, and Anaconda doesn't really take up much space of it. I suppose that's an even bigger pipe dream than it being replaced with a flyer though! I really don't find Anaconda a bad ride except the jerk between the two helix's. People talk about how weird getting into the corkscrews is, but that's how 100% of Arrows enter their corkscrews. They just carbon copied the elements coaster to coaster.

I think I'm going to change my pipe dream from B&M flyer to a Maverick or iSpeed-style coaster. Either one is just as (un)likely.

Has it been confirmed that Shockwave will be removed after it is closed, or is it just confirmed that it is closing, and everyone assumes being removed directly? I'm just curious.

^yes we are assuming, but since CW removed theirs we can only expect the same outcome here. What would they do to it to consider keeping? I don't think converting it to a floorless/sit down would be all that great.

Has it been confirmed that Shockwave will be removed after it is closed, or is it just confirmed that it is closing, and everyone assumes being removed directly? I'm just curious.

...what else would they do with it? B&M stand up coasters can be converted to floorless because B&M is still around to engineer new trains that work with the heartline and track type of the ride. None of that can be said for a 1980's TOGO stand up.

And it's a piece of crap. Cedar Fair isn't known recently to leave inoperative coasters SBNO.

Cedar Fair isn't known recently to leave inoperative coasters SBNO.

-Hypersonic XLC

-Son of Beast

-Geauga Lake coasters

But I still expect Sh*twave to be dismantled as soon as possible.

Cedar Fair isn't known recently to leave inoperative coasters SBNO.

 

-Hypersonic XLC

-Son of Beast

-Geauga Lake coasters

 

But I still expect Sh*twave to be dismantled as soon as possible.

recently

^Well SOB was fairly recently so I'd count that one. The others, not so much. Shockwave will definitely be dismantled.

Has it been confirmed that Shockwave will be removed after it is closed, or is it just confirmed that it is closing, and everyone assumes being removed directly? I'm just curious.

...what else would they do with it? B&M stand up coasters can be converted to floorless because B&M is still around to engineer new trains that work with the heartline and track type of the ride. None of that can be said for a 1980's TOGO stand up.

 

And it's a piece of crap. Cedar Fair isn't known recently to leave inoperative coasters SBNO.

Good point. I didn't really think about that. I guess it would make more sense to ponder that if this were a SF park, but CF is pretty good at avoiding SBNO attractions.

Only 8 more days of Sh*twave!

Anyone make it out for the bbq event today

They should replace intimidator's trains with Shockwave's trains

^yeah, then when you're legs get all the g's from the first flat turn it will turn to a sitdown coaster again!

(jk, standup trains on I305 would be a crime XD)

I booked my plane tickets to the east coast for Aug 22nd, so looks like I'll miss out on the Shockwave credit lol.

I booked my plane tickets to the east coast for Aug 22nd, so looks like I'll miss out on the Shockwave credit lol.

Just go to Japan instead. The have a TOGO standup somewhere. You might as well because they are both equally painful.