Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom Discussion Thread

Im visiting saturday and cant wait! any tips on the best haunt attractions this year?

I work at Talon and usually after 8pm, we become a walk-on because the rush of people from entering the park has moved onto the different Haunt attractions. The first Saturday of October when we were getting hit by the Nor'easter from Joaquin, it was about 40 degrees the whole night and there was a good number of people who came to Haunt that night.

i went last night and LOVED every haunt. chamber of horrors was my favorite again and conrstalkers was my second. i was a little disappointed with how short trick or treat was though.

So as planned I braved the freezing temps and made it up to the Allentown area with the missus, my sister Alison, and bro-in-law Tom on Saturday night for a little double date night of sorts and to check out Dorney's Haunt. The girls hadn't been to Dorney since at least the late 90s so there was lots for them to do here that they hadn't before. It was also the first time all four of us had been riding together since our Kennywood/Cedar Point roadtrip earlier this summer.

We arrived at the park around 5:30pm and were joined by a steady stream of cars entering the lot. We also noticed an empty Stinger train stuck on the 2nd spike, and wouldn't see it operate all night. After a brief wait to be wanded by security - who were everywhere all night on their little bikes - we got in, had a quick stop at the bathroom, and checked out the scene at Talon. The line was almost out to the entrance but we could not tell if it went through all of the switchbacks. We overheard people getting out of line saying that it was an hour wait, which it probably wasn't, but we went ahead and turned around anyway and headed towards Hydra.

We waited about 15 minutes and planned to ride in the front row but once we got in the station we said screw it and jumped in row 3. I've made it pretty clear here that I am not a fan of Hydra but our ride on this was fun. I'm not sure if it was because it was the girls first ride on this and I was gauging their reactions but we all giggled through our first ride of the night. I also had a good chuckle when we hit the brake run and I asked the missus "what did you think" to which she responded "that was cute!" Even though I've ridden this before it still amazes me how quiet this and Talon are compared to other B&Ms.

From here we headed down the hill towards Demon Drop and were happy to see it was running. It was also here we noticed Thunder Creek Mountain was closed and completely drained. I shed a tiny tear for Coasterbill. On our way around to DD we noticed Cornstalkers had a ridiculous wait but lucky for us DD had about a 5 minute wait. The girls hadn't done one of these 1st gen Intamin drops since Stuntmans Freefall @ Great Adv probably 20 years ago and agreed it was insane. My sister specifically pointed out that she lost her ovaries on the ride. I'm not sure exactly what that means but sounds serious and we had a huge laugh at this.

Upon exiting we saw the line for Cornstakers had doubled, and this had us hoping that folks had scattered around to trails and that lines for rides would be short from now on. We passed Thunderhawk and the station looked empty. We were all hesitant to do a lap on this old painful woody but Tom goaded us into the line and we were able to walk right on to the front and 2nd rows. I will not ride this anywhere but in the front of the train. They were running two trains but not sure why since this ride was a ghost town. I have to say our ride on this was a lot of fun - totally out of control but two great pops of airtime before the 1st and 2nd turnarounds. The trims were definitely on during the bunnyhops. Also the crew was painfully slow on this, we sat on the brake run for maybe 5 minutes with a completely empty station in front of us.

From here we walked into the Age of Darkness scare zone to head toward Steel Force. I was a bit let down by the scare zones compared to last year as the actors didn't seem to be using many props like shovels, rakes, chainsaws etc for the guaranteed startle factor. Also many of the actors seemed to be standing around talking to each other instead of engaging the guests.

Once we got back to SF, the missus decided to sit this one out (too fast, no OTSR's) even though we attempted to convince her the name is misleading and its really just the worlds largest mine train, but no dice. The wait was about 20 minutes but the Fun TV's in the queue were playing some really strange interesting music videos that kept us entertained while we waited. We also noticed the op kept saying to departing trains "Enjoy your FREEZING COLD RIDE on Steel Force!" We headed for the 2nd and 3rd rows since sitting toward the front of the train is the only way you'll get any kind of force on this thing and once we were headed up the lift I became very aware of why the ops were saying that. Jesus lord this was easily the coldest coaster ride I've ever taken! Of course because I am an a$$hole I went hands up the entire ride and pretty sure my entire body was frostbitten by the end. Brrrrrrr!

We decided to get Possessed and on our way spotted insanely long lines for Gravewalkers and Revolution. Tom tried to get us to ride Revolution but none of the rest of us felt like waiting in what looked like a healthy line so to Possessed we continued. I'm willing to queue quite a while for this one since it's one of the best rides in the park, but we only wound up waiting about 15 minutes. We sat in the last two rows and the girls agreed it was very intense and better than Wicked Twister, which they both rode earlier in the season. After our ride I noticed my feet felt tingly.

It was about 8:30 and we were all getting hungry so we headed back up towards Chickies and had a stop at Dominator on the way. We let the girls decide which side to ride since Tom and I had both done each side before, and since we already dropped earlier they wanted to go for the shoot up side. Glad we did as the line for this was considerably shorter than the drop side. We waited about 5 minutes and this was a lot of fun. Huge burst of cold air as we shot up and great ejector air at the top. We all laughed about how much it smelled like BBQ up there.

We headed up the hill through CarnEvil and stopped at Chickies for dinner and had an absolutely awesome experience. Since we are from Philly we always hit up Chickies when we are here and last time we ate here was at Coasting For Kids in June and while the food was good that day the service was absolutely abysmal. This time we were seated quickly, put our order right in and had our food and drinks in no time. Our server was great - attentive but not overbearing and got everything right. I had the Hydra (mixed drink) which was nice and stiff and tried the fried shrimp with some crab fries because crab fries, duh. Ordering the shrimp at Dorney Park was a dicey proposition but it wound up to be so good I was in disbelief I was eating in a theme park. Everyone else really liked their food and it all seemed to sit well with everyone. Also not terribly expensive - four entrees, two orders of crab fries, and booze for all and it was less than $100.

Once we finished up we thought we'd check on Talon again and were excited to find a walk on for row 3. Tonight Talon told me I needed to lose weight! I rode this thing 8xs in under a hour at C4Ks in June and didn't have a single issue but tonight I needed an extra push from the nonplussed op to get the seatbelt to snap! To be fair I had just stuffed my face with fish and fries and compared to just a t-shirt in June I was layered with 2 t-shirts, a sweatshirt, and windbreaker. Anyways, I got in. Butter smooth, perfectly paced, I just can't get enough of this ride. My absolute favorite B&M invert and tonights rides solidified that. So so good. The girls also loved this and were strangely comparing it to Gatekeeper which they also both loved. We snagged the on-ride pic for this one and then ran around for a second ride, this time waiting two trains for the front row. Another frigid ride with no seats in front of us to block the 40 degree wind in our faces! The crew here was hustling, at least compared to the generally lax ops we experienced so far.

After doing a full lap around the park everyone was ready to pack it in when Tom and I gave each other than look that one gives another when they want one more spin on Intamin hotness so we dragged the ladies all the way back down the hill for one last lap on Possessed. 10 minute wait and we went for rows 3/4 and somehow this was even more insane than our earlier ride. Since we were close to the front on the 2nd forward launch it seemed like the front row was less than a foot away from the end of the track on the front spike. It had me wondering if there is some sort of launch boost for when its cold on the impulse coasters? Anyone? The missus was convinced she couldn't do this again so she hung out in Possessions across the midway where we met up with her after our ride and I grabbed a Dorney magnet to add to the ever growing collection on my fridge.

All in all another fun trip to Dorney. I know this park gets a lot of flack and they sure are missing that signature coaster that would really bring them some attention but I like that this park is relatively close as its a nice chance of pace from Great Adventure. The Haunt stuff wasn't as good as last year (tho I can't speak for the trails since we didn't do any) but the best scare we witnessed was an actor lying down in some bushes right near the front as we exited. Would never have noticed him until he suddenly jumped out at a couple of tweens walking in front of us. Made us jump a little bit too.

Both of the girls commented that hardly any of the rides at Dorney have that major HOLY SH!T factor like we have with Toro, Ka, etc but overall everyone had a really good time and I'm looking forward to another visit, probably in the spring for C4Ks 2016. I was really beat up on Sunday and I think it maybe partially because I haven't ridden any coasters in a month but I think it had to do with how cold it was and how I was likely tense and not relaxed while riding. Regardless, I felt like I got in a fight on Saturday night! Anyone else ever experienced this after riding in the cold?

Here's a few photos. My camera is terrible at night so I didn't take too many. Also @DorneyKid14 - I think I saw you working the 3PointChallenge but both times we passed you had a huge crowd of people and I didn't feel like pushing through a bunch of strangers just to be all "Hey! do you post on TPR!?" LOL.

Hydra 1x

Demon Drop 1x

Thunderhawk 1x

Steel Force 1x

Possessed 2x

Dominator (Up) 1x

Talon 2x

Always a nice drive this time of year

The park really went all out with the Haunt decorations at the front gate

Talon was running fantastic

Hydra was fun

but its still one of my least favorite B&Ms

Nice to walk right onto the first car of Thunderhawk

Taken from the Possessed queue

One last ride on Possessed.

Our first of two consecutive rides on Talon

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Great Trip report! Thanks for sharing! It's crazy that there were still pretty big lines (for Dorney) it that weather.

Since we were close to the front on the 2nd forward launch it seemed like the front row was less than a foot away from the end of the track on the front spike.

 

Yeah, it gets /scary/ close. Should have ridden it in the first row, really feels like you're going to hit the bumper.

 

Also fun fact: Maintenance tells me Possessed is cable of launching up to 90MPH by the second launch. I asked if they've ever ran it that high, they claim the highest they've gone is 81MPH, at which point it was hitting the bumper hard enough to /almost/ fully compress it.

Something tells me that if it was launched at 90MPH possessed would be closed for a long time... And they would need new trains. Any idea why they would even think of making that possible? Doesn't seem too safe to be able to be able to do that. I'm assuming that they ran it at 81MPH during testing right?

Something tells me that if it was launched at 90MPH possessed would be closed for a long time... And they would need new trains. Any idea why they would even think of making that possible? Doesn't seem too safe to be able to be able to do that. I'm assuming that they ran it at 81MPH during testing right?

I would assume that's just what it's capable of, it'll never run that fast though for obvious reasons.

Yes, they supposedly ran it that high during testing. That's just what maintenance tells me, I have no idea if it's actually true.

@boldikus I was there most of the night. We always get big crowds at night there since it is the number game in the park.

Great report, glad you had fun. I think the most shocking thing in that whole report was that Thunderhawk was actually running 2 trains.

It was also here we noticed Thunder Creek Mountain was closed and completely drained. I shed a tiny tear for Coasterbill.

A day without Thunder Creek Mountain is like a day without sunshine.

What I like about Thunder Creek Mountain is its "crooked" lift hill. It's the only log flume I know of that has the two sections of its lift hill at two different angles of ascent.

Possessed has a target speed for the launch. By the second one it (usually) hits the target speed. IIRC it's something like 74MPH. It pulses the LIMs to reach this speed, regardless of temp.

 

Yeah, it gets /scary/ close. Should have ridden it in the first row, really feels like you're going to hit the bumper.

 

Also fun fact: Maintenance tells me Possessed is cable of launching up to 90MPH by the second launch. I asked if they've ever ran it that high, they claim the highest they've gone is 81MPH, at which point it was hitting the bumper hard enough to /almost/ fully compress it.

Interesting, thanks for clarifying that. I have ridden in the front a bunch of times, just never have seen it go that close to the bumper. Also, I kind of looked for you around Demon Drop but didn't know who I was looking for. We passed through maybe around 6-6:30.

Great Trip report! Thanks for sharing! It's crazy that there were still pretty big lines (for Dorney) it that weather.

Yeah, we were kind of surprised but we are still not talking GreatAdv level of lines so it wasn't a big deal. We still got to do everything we wanted and my faves 2xs. Longest we waited was for Possessed, and Steel Force, maybe 15-20 minutes.

A day without Thunder Creek Mountain is like a day without sunshine.

You know I have still never ridden it, right? *ducks* I guess I have to make it a priority when I'm there in spring.

Speaking of which, I pointed out TCM to the girls while queuing for Demon Drop and it was one of the only things they remembered from visiting the park while they were younger (along with the Whip, Apollo, Thunderhawk and Sea Dragon). They both said the rest of the park seemed completely different. My other half, who grew up going there, said it feels just like a mini Cedar Point now and she remembered it to be more of a non-corporate park with more old rides and a historic feel, more along the lines of Kennywood, and commented "it feels just like any other amusement park now, not the Dorney I remember at all".

Thunder Creek Mountain is the wettest log flume I've ever experienced. A trip to DP without riding TCM (when open) is a trip incomplete.

Even though I've ridden this before it still amazes me how quiet this and Talon are compared to other B&Ms.

Both Talon and Hydra have sand in its tracks to make them quiet. Dorney has a sound restriction that doesnt allow the beauty of the B&M roar, which upsets me because the midway at the entrance would be amazing with talon if it had the roar.

Yeah I know about the sand, its just still weird to stand next to/under them and not hear that roar.

Also, I kind of looked for you around Demon Drop but didn't know who I was looking for. We passed through maybe around 6-6:30.

Yeah I was looking for you too but I realized after I got in to work that neither of us had any clue who we were looking for

I was at Musik Express from 5:30 to roughly 6:30 then went on break anyway.

It is weird. Hearing how awesome CP and even Hershey abound with the roar, I really wish talon and hydra had it.

^ I think Bizarro @ Great Adv is one of the loudest I've ever heard. On quiet mornings you can hear it on the other side of the park.

^ I think Bizarro @ Great Adv is one of the loudest I've ever heard. On quiet mornings you can hear it on the other side of the park.

Pretty sure your just hearing the roar on nitro, superman, green lantern, or batman when on the other side of the park

^ LOL We definitely have the B&M roar on lock at Great Adv but Bizarro is definitely the loudest of them all (with Batman a close 2nd). It's not hard to tell which direction its coming from.

The best was Chiller when it was still around. You could hear it clear as day from HH, and the exit tunnel was deafening when a train would be launched

Great pictures and report, I would have thought coaster lines would be worse.

I agree about Bizarro being loud, they even shut it down when there are certain events in the Northern Star Arena because of the noise.

Thunder Creek Mountain is the wettest log flume I've ever experienced. A trip to DP without riding TCM (when open) is a trip incomplete.

I rarely ride Thunder Creek Mountain unless I am going to the Wildwater Kingdom the same day because of how soaked you get. I usually will go ride Thunder Canyon and White Water Landing and then walk down to Thunder Creek Mountain right after that. It's one of my favorite log flumes.

Speaking of which, I pointed out TCM to the girls while queuing for Demon Drop and it was one of the only things they remembered from visiting the park while they were younger (along with the Whip, Apollo, Thunderhawk and Sea Dragon). They both said the rest of the park seemed completely different. My other half, who grew up going there, said it feels just like a mini Cedar Point now and she remembered it to be more of a non-corporate park with more old rides and a historic feel, more along the lines of Kennywood, and commented "it feels just like any other amusement park now, not the Dorney I remember at all".

I haven't been there since I lived in the area back in the 90's, and out of curiosity I watched one of the trip vlogs that Kevin from TPM (RIP) posted a while back... and yeah, the park looks completely unfamiliar to me. I remember the entrance being on the complete opposite side of the park, near Thunderhawk, and I remember being sad when they completely changed that entrance as well (taking down the giant clown head and getting rid of the bumper cars in the middle of the station). Out of the attractions I saw on the video, the only ones I remembered were the Wave Swinger and White Water Landing. But even the layout looked a lot different, and it seems that the only coasters that have survived since the last time I was there are Thunderhawk and Steel Force.

I'll have to try and make a trip back at some point next year and check out everything that's changed since the last time I've been there, but I've been avoiding it until my oldest kid hits 48". Hopefully he'll hit that threshold next summer since he's a total beansprout already

Yea, one of the common complaints is the park lost a list of its individual charm in the last twenty years or so from the various additions / removals by Cedar Point. I never experienced any of it (my first visit was 2001 and I didn't go back until 2013) but you can find a lot of info and photos of the past eras of the park online. Pretty interesting stuff.

My first visit to Dorney was last year so I have no clue what it used to be like. Once we did Cedar Point and then I went back to Dorney in June I definitely noticed they had a similar feel. My aunt is a casual enthusiast and grew up there and always bitches and moans about how the park sucks and its not what it used to be, I was interested to see what my other half thought since she went a bunch as a kid too. She was a fan of Lazer and is mad they got rid of it. This is not to say she didn't have fun, but she said more than once "this park is not what it used to be".

My first time visiting the park was the year they introduced Hydra so I don't really know what it was like in the early days. I can say that I like the atmosphere at Knoebels much better than Dorney Park, although that might have something to do with the fact that Knoebels doesn't blast bland pop music throughout the park.