Me and my friend Jackie drove from Richmond to Paramonts Kings Dominion on Saturday, 04/28/01. Arrived at 10am and went across the street to Burger King for discount coupons :) Park was pretty crowded already :(
Went to Hypersonic but it wasn't running :*( It looked smaller in person! Noticed they had a machine giving away ride time tickets for Hypersonic so we snagged two for 12:30-1:00.
Went back to Rebel Yell (forward) for first ride of day! Waited only about 5 minutes. Liked this coaster a lot! Tunnel was a nice surprise.
Went over to find FOF. Snagged a 2:30-3:00 ticket for Volcano while over there. Waited about 30 minutes for FOF. What a great coaster! I have never ridden it with the old restraints so I can't compare it. It certainly didnt seem to need any OTSRs, that's for sure! I thought the coaster was in complete darkness so I was surprised at how light it was in the building. Great ride though! Bought the onride pic too!
Ran back to Hypersonic for our time to ride but was told that they aren't using the tickets for the ride! D'oh! Then why give them out???? What a bummer. Hypersonic still wasn't running and the line looked long. Oh well, I was hoping it would go down later in the day.
Went to Grizzly and waited about 15 minutes for it. Really liked this coaster alot too! Nice tunnel. Wish we would have rode further back in the car, though. Noticed that Hypersonic was running empty cars now.
Went to Hurler next and had about a 5 minute wait for it. Didn't care much for this one. Kinda reminded me of Mean Streak. Bought onride pic anyways.
Went to look for coffee and had a hard time finding any :( Wish theme parks had coffee more readily available! I like to be caffeinated while riding coasters! It was 1pm and Hypersonic was finally running with people on it.
Line looked way too long for Shockwave so we went and waited 15 minutes for Rebel Yell backwards. This was better than I had expected! I have never ridden a coaster backwards so it was something new.
Went and ate some crappy cheese pizza and then on to Volcano! The line was loooooong but we showed a girl at the ride door our ticket and she told us to wait there. About 5 minutes later they were letting us on Volcano! And the front row was open! What luck! Man, this is one of my favorite coasters! It was even better than I had imagined! Loved the two LIMS and the blast and the 3 inversions. Bought the onride pic, of course!
Went to Anaconda next. Line was way out in the midway but went quickly. Only waited about 15 minutes for this one. Ouch! OTSR should be taken off of this coaster! The only thing I liked was the two corkscrews over the water. They didn't hurt like the rest of the ride.
Went to the kiddie land and took some pics. Waited 15 minutes for Scooby's Ghoster Coaster. Rode in very back and bought pic. Nice small coaster!
Next we waited 45 minutes for Shockwave. I have only been on one other stand up (Mantis) so this coaster was rough and short. Jackie liked it though.
Hypersonics line was still super long :( Jackie decided she really didn't want to go on it either so I didn't want to make her wait hours for it for me :( So I skipped it. Yes, I came all the way from Michigan to ride this coaster and skipped it! Oh well, now I have a reason to go back ;)
Went and bought a big bucket of fries and searched again for coffee and finally found some :) Went over to Avalanche and the line was long and after waiting in line for about 5 minutes and not seeing any movement we decided to skip it. Went back to Nickolodeon land. Waited for the ride that goes up high in the air and goes around but it broke down :( So we left.
Jackie didn't like this park. Granted, after BGW, it wasn't as nice. Going on a Saturday was super nice weather didn't help either. Oh well, hope to make it back to this park in the future for my ride on Hypersonic!
*** This post was edited by Catherine on 5/2/2001. ***
By the way, the "Racer" you refer to is actually called Rebel Yell. Not to be picky, or anything.
Oops! I must have been reading about the Racer at PKI before writing the trip report! I'll correct it in my TR--thanks!
It's a shame you missed Avalanche Bobsled. It's the only Mack bobsled in the US and it's a great ride. There's plenty of gourmet coffee available at SFA:)
I experienced Rebel Yell for the firs time last June. Took numerous rides over 3 days...backwards, forwards, front, back, you get it. Yet now I can't for the life of me remember a tunnel. Did they add one since then?
Grizzly has a great tunnel.
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oh well a touch of grey kind of suits you anyway
Looks like Kings Dominion denies another person the chance to ride Hypersonic. Oh, well I know the feeling too.
MABRider..... the tunnel is at the end of the ride, the last drop sends the train into a tunnel, then the track goes up and levels off for the brake run. The tunnel has ben there for as long as the ride
thanks xtraxtreme. I had mentioned this to my 14 yr old twins who rode it with me and they looked at me like...well never mind. THEY remembered the tunnel.
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Mother, did it need to be so high?
*** This post was edited by MABrider on 5/5/2001. ***
Rebel Yell has had the tunnels for some time. The tunnel really surprises you when riding backwards. You should try Scooby Doo some time, it may be the best Junior coaster in the world. Unfortunately, the food at PKD is expensive and not very good. There is a little hot dog stand called Dominics though that has a good dog and is reasonable. You were in the right row for Volcano. It's fantastic from the front row.
