These guys were waiting for this trip report...
Yeah…this is only a month and a half in the making! We’ll see if I’m able to remember it all accurately and if I can’t, then I’ll just start making crap up. I got to the park at like 12pm or so, paid the $10 to park, got a space in the 1/5 filled lot. At the gate I found out that the admission was $20 as a last day special; that’s $10 bucks off, and no I’m not making stuff up just yet!
First ride was Talon which had station wait due to running one train. Talon is probably my favorite inverted coaster of the mediocre number I’ve been on. It has a nice custom layout but is still kind of compact, I like that. As I left Talon I saw some ride op fishing a hat or something (pic) out of the basin beneath Hang Time. Considering that it was a bit chilly that day, it would have sucked to fall in.
I walked to Hydra next but stopped at Meteor, a slightly themed Chance Hawk on the way. I noticed that they were using the front seats, so I took the opportunity to ride there which thanks to the floorless, open air seating is a really neat experience.
Then I finally hit Hydra which again had one train running resulting in a stairway wait, a stairway wait! I’ve never seen a line so long at Dorney Park! For anyone who doesn’t know, a stairway wait on Hydra amounts to a measly 5-10 minute wait; hardly complainable. Hydra ran pretty nice on that day with little roughness.
Following Hydra, I went over to the parks only wooden coaster, Thunderhawk, which also had one train running but only a few people in each row. I rode in the back car which has a lot of nice air until the train is caught by the trim brakes toward the end. Without them the train would surely rocket through it’s final set of small bunny hops.
After Thunderhawk, I walked down the nondescript path to Steel Force which again had only one train running. Now this kind of sucks since Steel Force is like a mile long and has a slow ass lift hill. The wait was probably around 15 minutes; unheard of at Dorney! I made sure to snag a seat in the back car to get some air. Steel Force has pretty much no ejector air but like perfect floater air on most drops.
While maybe 1/6th up the lift on Steel Force, the train stopped and rolled very slightly back before catching onto the anti-rollbacks. “Great, we’re stuck up here” I thought, however the stop was simply to confiscate a camera from someone who had decided to take it out on the lift. This is one of the things I don’t really like about Dorney, they are absolutely nutso about cameras on rides. Yeah, sure I know it’s for safety(and to avoid a nice fat lawsuit) but do you really need to stop the train on the lift and have some guy trudge up there?
After Steelie, I stopped by Laser’s previous stomping grounds, which are now…nothing (pic)! It is just weird not seeing that old ass looper sitting there! I guess it’s onto better places now however…although its lift is slower than hell now.
Next I went over to Possessed which had an incredible queue line (pic). I went right for the second seat, known that I’d be denied some twisting action on the far spike if I sat in the back. Possessed was its usual self; it’s almost like a flatride the way it operates. It’s fun, but kind of nonplussing…yes, that’s a good word for it.
I stopped by at the Possessions store (get it? Get it?!) to see if I wanted anything. They did have a cool Possessed hot sauce but for $15 bucks I’ll pass; plus I’d probably end up breaking it and having hot sauce all over my cameras. I rode Whip next, which always has a line because it’s a damn fine ride. I made sure to shift my body weight around the turns to make the car swing out as far as possible.
Following Whip I headed up to the park’s Ferris Wheel to get some video from it. The wheel had a modest line due to them using like 5 cars (the ride has 20 for reason!) Of course I was also slapped with a no single rider rule (probably because they were using 5 cars, gah!) Luckily a couple behind me didn’t mind sharing the car…although I guess I did kind of cock-block the guy. Oh well! I also hopped on Enterprise although it left me a bit nauseous at the end.
At this point I decided to take out the video camera and start filming which killed a big chunk of time while waiting for the Haunt attractions to open…
… Extremely Late Trip Report: Dorney Park 11/1
Being a webmaster, and also being moderately addicted to web surfing, I stumble across a lot of interesting content. Some of them are so good, so weird, or so ‘full of win’ that I feel they need to be showcased for others to see, and that’s what this new section is all about. Lynx Full of Win will feature amusement related links, videos, pictures, and whatever else I find in the deepest recesses of the Internet!
