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…
It was getting cold so before 7pm I decided to go to the car and get my heavy jacket. Being only like five minutes to 7pm, the girl at the handstamp exit told me to run to get back in time as Dorney has a “no re-entry at 7pm” rule for the Haunt. No problem, my car wasn’t far. As I returned, looking for the handstamp re-entry, I was told by the same girl that I had to wait in the big ass line which had formed to get into the park. Then I thought, “well wait, once I get to the gate, it’ll be well after 7pm! Aw shit!” So I went over to guests services and inquired about the rule. Turns out that as long as you exit before 7pm and have the handstamp, you’ll be let back in afterwards. So wait, why did the girl at the handstamp exit tell me…ah, screw it. I was relieved but I still had to wait in the line which is only there because the park employs police men to manually metal detect every person! Jesus Christmas! The park has no metal detectors during the day, however once the teens come out for the Haunt, the place turns into Fort Knox. /rant
After I got back in, I was really hungry, so I stopped at some burger joint and got an exorbitantly price cheeseburger, fries and soda…but damn it was good. While I ate, a faux fog slowly crept in from an adjacent Haunt attraction. By the time I was done, the seating area looked like this (pic); what do they call that fog? Pea soup?
I decided to get on the Haunt attractions at this point. I think I went for Club Blood first which is a vampire/zombie themed underground rave from hell. The inside seemed similar to last year with dead stuff hanging from the ceiling, undead dancers in cages, lots of strobes and spinner lights. They seemed to have turned the music down from last year however; I seem to remember it being very loud with lots of bass which fit the atmosphere well!
Next I walked down the path near Scrambler and noticed that Thunderhawk was closed with its line being used for Death Trap, a new haunt this year. Death Trap was basically a Saw themed walk through with lots of props inspired by the chain of movies. Some props/stunts included a guy laying on a table being cut in half by a pendulum ax, a revolver attached to a door pointing through the peep hole, I think I even remember some guy ‘sawing’ his leg off. They did a pretty nice job with the theming on this one!
Next up was the Asylum, a pretty long walk through that took place in an asylum full of escaped lunatics. It was pretty good with lots of actors doing their best to be as weird as possible. One ran up to me and asked if I liked his wooden spoon, which had smiley face drawn on it. Of course I did! Definitely a recommended walk through at the Haunt.
I noticed there was a new Haunt near Steel Force called ‘Backwoods.’ The attraction took place in a wooded area behind Steel Force, it looked like it was picnic area or something. The line for this was about 20 minutes, and was enveloped by a thick fog; you couldn’t see more than 20 feet around you at its worst. The haunt started in a school bus with the bus driver telling us the rules, and then told us to go out the back of the bus and enjoy our trip to Camp C U Die; alright! The path took our group past mutilated campers, a trailer camp complete with crazy cannibal rednecks, and other atrocities. There was even a big, creepy looking rabbit sitting in the middle of the path at one point; it sprung up without warning after the first few people, including myself had past. It was an absolutely great walkthrough!
I took the opportunity to ride Steel Force again, and it was flying at night! Super floater air all around. Afterwards I walked through “The Gauntlet” which was just a straight path with ghouls hiding behind barricades and such. I tried to film this short walk through on my digital camera, but was barked at by an employee. It says no flash photography, not ‘no cameras.’ Oh well, Dorney strikes again! The walk through kind of sucked anyway.
I made my way to the other side of the lake and got in line for Headstone Hollow, a walkthrough set up in the gas powered cars’ infield. This one wasn’t too bad and had a lot of actors hanging around. One of them just stood there like a prop and continued to stand there as my group past. Having a guy jump out at you is surprising, but having the guy wait and wait is just as nerve wrecking! And no, it wasn’t just a prop as I saw the dude blink. Haha.
I rode Monster at this point, an Eyerly Monster ride. It’s kind of like a deluxo Octopus ride/inverted Breakdance. However, try as I might, I just could not get my car to spin very much; the centrifugal force was just too damn high! Afterwards I took a walk through Cornstalkers, a hay maze themed haunt. Actually it was pretty straightforward with no real maze portions, but the actors in here are camouflaged in guile suits. They’ll stand in a little nook in the wall and pop out when you waltz by; you never see them even though they’re in plain view most of the time.
Finally I rode Talon and Hydra again, getting a front seat on Talon as there was basically nobody in line. My last ride of the night, and of the year was Apollo, a Soriani and Moser Apoll0 2000 ride. I posted a video of this previously if you want to check it out, or see it again. I left at closing time, 10pm I think, and picked up a Hydra beer mug to add to my souvenir collection…and to drink Blue Moon out of. 🙂
