Coaster Madness @ Dorney

On Friday May 30th four of us drove up north to Dorney Park for its annual Coaster Madness event. The three were my wife, step daughter and one of my best friends Allen. This was Allen’s first time to Dorney Park. We left Richmond, VA about 7pm on Thursday and drove up to Allentown, ran into some traffic (of course) that slowed us down for about 45 mins. But we finally arrived and got to sleep in a Microtel hotel about five miles from the park. After about 4, maybe 4 and a half hours of sleep we crawled out of bed to a wonderful sunny morning, then drove over to the park and was there about 15 mins prior to them opening the parking lot. We got a wonderful parking spot, which was useful for running in and out of the park during the day, very front row just behind the handicap spots dead center of the park entrance. We went to register, three of us have Platinum Passes for KD so the event was free for us, and Allen only has a standard KD pass, so it was $25 for him, which isn’t a bad deal at all… After we registered we went over to the entrance gate and waited for it to open, it opened a few mins early, time enough for us to get to the coasters at the bottom of the park. Morning ERT was on VooDoo, Thunderhawk and Steel Force. The event was not very well attended, from what I heard it was maybe the least attended Coaster Madness ever, only a few hundred. I am shocked about that since the Great Adventure Coaster Celebration was the next day, I thought people who hit both, and I guess CM being on a weekday stopped some people for going. We decided to go to VooDoo first, it was the first coaster we came too and I didn’t know how long the lines would get (being only one train). I sat in the test seat outside the station and the belt was a little short, by about ¼ an inch. I sighed, but decided to go to the ride and check it out anyway, I find test seats to be wrong a lot, sure enough, this test seat was WAY off, and I sat down and put the belt in and had about 3 inches of slack to spare. So that means the test seat was about 3 and ¼ too short, they should fix that, which could keep a lot of riders off… I rode this coaster back in OH when it was Superman, I didn’t think much of it then and I still don’t think much of it now. It’s just a gimmick and it’s not even a very good gimmick. Capacity is low and it’s not very exciting. I think impulse coasters are a waste of money, I can’t say a waste of space though as they don’t take up any, but that’s part of the problem, not long enough for me. I rode twice in a row and then one more time after ERT ended later that morning, which was enough. Everyone else in my party only rode the first time. After wasting about 5 mins total of VooDoo we went to Steel Force, it was then 8:30 and they were running two trains. We spent the entire 90 mins on Steel Force and never had to leave the train, we just switched seats a couple of times. I have always enjoyed Steel Force and wish Cedar Fair had built a few more instead of switching to Intamin (which I am not a fan of). From what I hear the multi year deal with Cedar Fair and Intamin may be over, so now they can switch back to other steel coaster companies such as B&M (like Behemoth). So maybe down here at KD we can get a hyper in a year or two. We didn’t bother getting off of Steel Force for a ride on Thunderhawk during ERT, we did ride it a few times during the day, and they only had one train on in the ERT and half the day, later as the park got more crowded they finally added the second train. I am not a Thunderhawk fan, I didn’t mind it years ago (pre brake) but now the brake ruins it for me. The coaster doesn’t know what it wants to be, I may have liked it better in its early years as an out and back, but when they redesigned it and tried to make the end (or middle) section a twister, they just failed at it and the coaster is near the bottom of my wood coaster list. For a coaster to be good (in my terms) it has to have a strong finish, bunny hops into a stupid brake takes all the fun out of it and just irritates me I ride it. I simply just don’t like Thunderhawk and now that Hercules is gone, it’s a sorry excuse for the parks only wood coaster. At some point during the day I took a spin on Laser. I am sad to hear it is up for sale, sadly this good little coasters are a dieing breed. Anton S. had so much to offer the coaster world; even his small creations like Laser pack a real punch. I long for rides on my favorite steel, his Mindbender in West Edmonton Mall. They were only running one train, as a matter of fact they only had one train, where is the 2nd one? We took a ride on each tower of Dominator, Allen had never been on one of those, while in line I told him it was made by the same company who made Hypersonic, he wasn’t impressed with that comment, I laughed and told him the Towers were ok and fun, so he rode. S&S should have just stuck with those instead of trying the air coasters… After that it was time for the picnic lunch, the food was excellent, they had all you can drink Pepsi products, fried chicken, baked beans, potato salad, hot dogs and a wonderful pot roast sandwich. They also had ice cream and had several cakes celebrating Thunderhawk. I have to say the cake is MUCH better than the ride. They had some cool door prizes, we were close (one number off) of winning a Statix Hydra train, I have the three B&M trains of BGE, so this would have been a nice addition to my collection. After lunch is when we went to ride Thunderhawk, then we decided to hit the waterpark for a few hours. It was VERY crowded and the water was ice cold. We rode the lazy river and went in the newer wave pool before changing back into our clothes for coasters; the water park just wasn’t what we hoped for that day. Next up was Talon, this is maybe my 2nd favorite inverted under Alpengeist, and this is sort of a “twister” inverted if that makes any sense. I like some of the different style elements it does, like the tilted helix, the low to the ground dirt turn and so forth. They really packed a lot into that smaller style inverted. Next we went down the hill to Hydra, I don’t mind Hydra, but B&M really took all the forces out of this ride, its just too short and a little boring. It’s also kind of slow, after riding KD’s new Dominator a lot recently, this one seemed kind of tiny and boring. I don’t dislike it; I just know there is a lot better out there. There wasn’t much of a line for this; maybe the crowd of GP also thinks it’s not as good as some of the others… During the day we also rode the Zepher, that’s always a must, the Whip and a few other flats you don’t find most places. We ate dinner at the Burger Barn, seemed to be the cheapest place to eat, just got a typical burger and fry combo with a Pepsi. After we ate, Janis and Sarah went to ride the Tilt a Whirl while Allen and I headed down to Steel Force. As we got near SF, the ride went down, and all these people started coming out of the ride entrance, so we quickly went to Thunderhawk (which was now two trains), the big crowd kind of followed us there, but at least we were ahead of them. We got on with about a 2 train wait and the line behind us got pretty long with the SF crowd. This was kind of funny in a way, but also not… While we were on Thunderhawk, it went down, we had just rode and were stopped out the station and the other train was on the bottom of the lift. We were there for about 15 mins before they got us into the station and out of the train. But while we were sitting there, the entire crowd from Steel Force looked to be a bit upset and all exited that line as well, a few swear words were heard, but it was funny to see the same exact crowd have to leave yet another station.We just rode various rides and caught the stage show during the rest of the evening. Finally the park closed at 10pm and the hour of night ERT began, the ert was on the Wild Mouse (which I think is one of the worse mice, so we didn’t bother). Talon and Hydra. We spend the first half an hour on of ERT on Talon, we had the back row and I was on the far left, my favorite seat on the ride. I think we made about seven circuits, then we finished off the night on Hydra, we were on the back row and I was on the far right. The ERT went five or six mins longer than 11pm, so we got about 30 mins total on Hydra. I ended up with a grand total of 52 rides for the day. It was probably my longest park day ever. We were there from 7:15am until 11:20pm. Then it was back to the hotel for a little bit longer sleep than we got the night before, then up in the morning and drove to Hersheypark. Another TR will follow… Danny BiggerstaffCoAsTeRDaN

sorry everyone, I took the time after I pasted this in from microsoft word and put spaces between each paragraph, but it seems to never work for me...

Danny

Interesting to hear about the Voodoo test seat. I can get the belt almost to the buckle at the test seat and if all the seats on the actual train have longer belts I should be able to ride. Maybe I'll try it on a day when not many people are around.

Danny, the trick is to first copy and paste your TR from Word into Notepad (its in the Aps folder) then recopy (don't forget this) and then paste here. Notepad still reads the formating from Word, but removes it once it has. That way when you recopy onto this site, no formating is screwing up the system.

Wow, lots of Dorney love lately (except for the Mouse). So many TR's in one week. Each one an interesting read in its own way.

YoshiFan, as far as I could tell all of the seats had longer belts than the test seat. Pick a slow day (which isn't normally a problem to do at Dorney) and just go for it. If by chance you don't fit, you won't be the only one, because I never see *anybody* using the test seats *anywhere*. (I once saw a woman who probably would've had trouble fitting in a *beltless* wooden coaster seat try to get on El Toro -- with an hour-long line!) *** Edited 6/9/2008 3:40:53 AM UTC by Jim S.***

Ok, I'll try it next time I am at the park if there is no line. I really hope I am able to ride.

I was curious, did your Platinum Passes scan at the turnstyle or did you have to go through Guest Services?

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WOF Guy said:
I was curious, did your Platinum Passes scan at the turnstyle or did you have to go through Guest Services?

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Well, it was an organized event that we had to register for at GR, we showed our Platinum passes there for free entry to the event. I don't know what they would have done had it been just a normal operating day. I do know last year when the season passes were set up slightly different, we had to take our Cedar Fair Max Passes to GR to get a day ticket.

When I was there over Memorial Day weekend, we ended up having to go to Guest Relations to get into the park. They only have one scanner at the turnstiles that is connected to the chainwide system, and it happened to be down that morning.

At Carowinds had to go to Guest Relations first..

According to the Q&A at Coaster Mania, your Platinum Pass (from WOF) should be able to be scanned at all of the "former Paramount Parks" and WoF, VF and CP. The rest of the "Legacy Parks" will receive the upgrade in time for next season.

With that being said, this year so far:

• Worlds of Fun - worked
• Oceans of Fun - worked
• Kings Island - no work
• Cedar Point - worked
• Cedar Point's Soak City - worked
• Geauga Lake's Wildwater Kingdom - no work
• Canada's Wonderland - worked
• Michigan's Adventure - no work
• Valleyfair - worked