CoasterMadness-Dorney Park 6-28-02

Thanks to an east coast horse show series I was able to plan a CoasterMadness trip for my daughter Sam and I. A funny note here. On the way to the 1st showgrounds last week we pasted through Allentown. My daughter saw Talon from I-78 and said "Mom, can we stop just to ride Talon real quick?" My b/f was behind us hauling our 2 horses, I called him and asked if we could stop for a sec..."bathroom break?" he asked......"uh...no, Talon break?" After some choice words he agreed that my daughter and I could stop, he simply pulled into the McDonalds parking lot while my daughter and I ran into Dorney and straight to Talon. Happily Talon was a walk on, then stacked (shock!) we did our 1 ride then off to the showgrounds. My b/f kept busy at McDonalds thanks to a family asking him about the horses and where he was heading. He was shocked when he saw us pull back into the lot, thinking we would be gone longer than 35 minutes.
6-28 CoasterMadness time! Sam and I left NYC and made it to Dorney in 2 hours. While on line for our buttons,
meal tickets and admission tickets we met up with couple of GTTPers and the rest of the day would be seeing people
I knew, or people who knew of me. AM ERT was on Talon for us. (Hercules was open too) A small suggestion for Dorney would be next ERT-be sure to have BOTH trains running. By the time they finally transferred on the 2nd train, ERT wasn't exactly ERT. We only managed 6 rides during that time. The high point of AM ERT was finally meeting 2hostyl, even joining him for a couple of flights. General public in, time to take on the park. Without specific details (BORING!!!) let me just say that Sam actually got me on "Dominator" 4x! (3 up-1 down) for those of you who know me, you KNOW I dodge Power Tower, but since Dominator is so small I handled it quite well! Sam rode "Meteor" 2x, this Mom watched. NO way I was getting on that, can you say Vomit Comet? My daughter really liked it! The CoasterMadness lunch was really good. I liked the give aways (our own 2hostyl won himself a Talon hat!) and the trivia questions for Dorney prizes. Announcement made that they had a "record" CoasterMadness crowd of 300, which I thought was pretty funny considering I am used to the 2-3k crowds CoasterMania packs! Sam and I managed to ride EVERY ride in the park we wanted to, some more than 1x, (SF we rode 6x) the longest wait being the "Wild Mouse". We went to the hotel for an afternoon break, a note of thanks here to a fellow Coasterbuzzer who hooked me up with the hotel we stayed in, it was awesome, very very nice!! Sam is used to the shacks we stay at in Sandusky so she was QUITE impressed! :)
We returned back to Dorney early evening and noticed Talon was a walk on so Sam and I hit it up again. We managed another 20 flights before off to PM ERT, that was a total of 26 Talon flights for the day!! One of the ride
operators noticed my tattoos and asked me if he had seen me on Discovery Channel..... of course he did! He said he was honored meeting me! :) As with my beloved Raptor, Talon really rocks at night! :) Parked closed for the night, off to Steel Force we went for ERT. We had ridden Thunderhawk earlier in the day and decided we would stick with SF for the ERT. There, I introduced myself to Dorneys PR person who knew exactly who I was-gasp again I know ;) I knew the Talon power riding had taken it's toll on Sam by this time, and the more we rode SF the more
obvious it was she was getting "coastered out". We both really enjoyed our front seat ride, and we ended up with 11 ERT rides before Sam finally said "Mom, I'm done-you go." Instead of having her sit watching me ride, I told
her we could leave. At that time there was only 15 more minutes to ERT anyway and I was so proud of her holding out as long as she did. The weather was wonderful, not too hot, and the evening was perfect coaster riding weather! CoasterMadness was a great time for my daughter and I, it
was especially fun being unfaithful to my baby Raptor with his baby brother Talon! It was nice seeing Flora, Jeff and their sons, Cory from CP, and nice meeting 2hostyl (and his friends too!) Pete and Chris, and the group of people who remembered me from CPs '00 CM. The one thing that kept getting on my last nerve was the CONSTANT Talon stacking, how do you stack where there is only 2 trains? CPs ride ops obviousely have me spoiled, and being an ex Raptor op myself I know we were constantly husseling to get people on and out, the frame of mind at Dorney is NOTHING like that!! Out of the 26 total flights I counted a total of 3 intervals! Thank you to my wonderful, understanding b/f for taking care of the horses for me while we were playing. Thank you to Dorney Park for a wonderful time, we definitely do plan on returning next year!

Jo
2000 Raptor Crew
Gemini 100 "Survivor"
Who is NOT an enthusiast, nor guilty by reason of association--
Just a Raptor and CP freak!!!! :)

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Cowboys dig cowgirls in trucks
Cowgirls dig cowboys in Wranglers! ;)

Nice Trip Report! Sounds like fun.

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-Sean Newman
84 coasters in Track Record!! Hypersonic XLC # 100 in July. Waiting for the 305 foot drop tower in 2003. Thank you PKD.

Glad you liked the hotel, Jo. My wife will be glad to hear it. :)

Sorry we missed you.

...and yes, Talon at night is probably the best B&M inverted ride you can take.

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www.coasterimage.com
Dorney Park visits in 2002: 12

Hey Jo - nice TR, but I have to ask, what is a trip to a park without telling at least one or two people to "shut the $%^& up!?" ;) I'm hoping to get down to Dorney before the end of the summer seeing as how I'm only like 4 hours away, but next week it's back to CP for a day or two on Thursday! :) It's been like a month and a half! I can't take it anymore! :)

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-Matt
2001 Magnum Crew

Funny you should mention that Matt. That night there was this group of "aren't we just too hot?" young teen females riding Talon in front of my daughter and I. As soon as the train left the station they started SCREAMING. At first I thought they were really scard but as soon as the ride started you could tell they were just being stupid and screaming just to be stupid. Well of course I have to scream to "shut the *** up", the funny thing was by the time we got back to the station (where they were STILL screaming) EVERYONE on the train was screaming to the to shut the **** up. My daughter and I passed this group of idiots on the ramp and I said real loud to my daughter "come on honey, let's run so we don't get stuck riding with those idiots again". My kid was cracking up, and lucky for us we never "heard" them again during the rest of our power rides :)
Funny thing Matt I DID think of you and the Gemini 100 when it happened!! :)

Jo
2000 Raptor Crew
Gemini 100 "Survivor"
Lifetime Raptor flights: 568
Lifetime Talon flights: 37

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Cowboys dig cowgirls in trucks
Cowgirls dig cowboys in Wranglers! ;)

We went to the hotel for an afternoon break, a note of thanks here to a fellow Coasterbuzzer who hooked me up with the hotel we stayed in, it was awesome, very very nice!! Sam is used to the shacks we stay at in Sandusky so she was QUITE impressed!

Have you stayed in the “cabin” (I use the term loosely) place? That place would definitely generate that type of opinion.

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“If you give a enthusiast a footer.......He’ll want a coaster!!!"