Dorney - September 4 - Waterpark Focus - Horrible Burger - Ending The Season

This one won't take an hour to read.

Solo - Family watned to sleep in

Weather - cloudy - threat of rain - high near 80 - humidity

Labor Day Weekend Sunday

Got to the park by 11. The lot was about 1/4 full. Didn't eat breakfast due to late start.

I got a private ride on Apollo. I love this thing.

4 cycle wait for the front seat on Steel Force. It was fun, but not too thrilling. It was not as fast as Phantom's Revenge.

Whip - Once you've been on Rye's there are no other whips. I like the porch layout though and the benches on the side of the ride.

Log flume - interesting layout - 5 minute wait. They were holding logs in teh statation waiting for riders, but a few were being sent out empty.

There is nothing left to the monster ride other than the original pilings. It's sad to see that it was not working in June and that it wasn't fixed or replaced yet. When big parks do this I think it "cheapens" the look of the park. If you are going to invest in landscaping and claening your walkways...don't leave dilapitaded rides as clutter.

There were lots of signs and deck out cars promoting the Halloween activities. I'm just not into that aspect of parks...but I understand that a lot of people love it and that it is big business.

Lots of signs up and shirts being sold already for next year's "Stinger:"

Then I headed out to the water section where 4/5 of the people were. While I had been in the wavepool before to cool off...I had never really taken a good look at what is offered. Here is an opinionated report.

Aside from the two wave pools, there is a "lazy river" attraction...most of the water rides are the usual climb and slide variety. There are a lot of slides, but between the entry to some, the exit to others and a few that have a third just to pick up a tube. It's hard to follow.

The wave pool (far end) only had the right half working and it was so crowded in there...that it was hard to stand without bumping into someone or vice versa. The pool water was cold and I noticed a few debris items making their way within the current. I saw parts of plastic bags, hair clumps, some paper...etc.

I had never been on a racer slide and the one at Dorney has 6 lanes. The line moved quickly, but I didn't expect it to be painful to the knees all the way down. My stomach also felt each segment separator. Ouch!

There was an adults - only pool that was closed. I think they serve alchohol on the patio there...but again...it was closed.

While they have a nice collection...it's not anything I haven't really seen before....except this...

The strangest attraction that I saw was Riptide Run. This has to be an older attraction, as it is mostly made from cement and concrete. After an unusual array of slanted walkways...you ride in a tube until you get to the bottom. Sounds simple? It's not. What I didn't mention is that there is no rhyme or reason to how many people can get in at the same time. Each "level" adds to the bottle neck because only one person can decend from one level to the next at any time. That means tehre's a tube jam behind the person scurrying down the little chutes - and there are about 6 or seven different levels. In the middle of the second to last bottle neck is an employee (not a guard) who screems "Use your hand as paddles." To aid her in her quest to clear the tube...she holds plastic cattle prod...to get them little doggies to move down the trail. Unfortunately...she can't prod any catle who doesn't want to go. And she can't use her prod to hit idiotic riders in the head. How does she do it...you signal for her and you hold on the prod while she attempts to pull you through the road block.

In any case...it doesn't work because once she moved me up....I somehow got pushed back to the end of the herd. While this was going on...little kids were crying because they were being separated from their parents and some kid (with his tube) landed in my lap. It was trying to cross the street while driving in mid-town manhattan traffic.

I knew I would be trying to write this up...and I needed a ride to compare it too... Morey's Sky POnd...with narrower ponds...five times as many riders and cement walls.

The rest of the slides were standard issue...

I had lunch at Coasters. They call it coasters because that's what the burger tasted like...a wooden coaster. Forget special requests (no seeds - although they could have given me 2 bun bottoms). I thorally inspected the burger and found so much filler and grizzle that I just couldn't really eat it. AWFUL!The $4 soda put it over the top. I agree with many who post here that I don't mind paying for something if I am at a park as long as it is good. It wasn't. I noticed a lot of people eating by their cars on the the way out and that there are a few picnic tables in the back of the lot near one of the exit signs.

Bottom line - I'm sure the clouds helped bring keep attendence down today.

Well - that wraped up my parks for the 2011 season.

Dorney (twice - once as a Music in the Parks chaperone)

Rye (Twice - once as a camp chaperone and once with the family)

Splish Splash - once on a not too crowded day

Kennywood - once to escape Irene

It was a pretty good year!

Thank you for reading this.

Nice report, Richie. Sorry to hear it wasn't a little more fun. Also, I looked up the word 'cemend' :)

I've only been to Dorney 2 times. Once in 2006 - rode everything then spent the last hour on Laser. And once this month; was in and out in 90 minutes (with a friend who hadn't been there). I would have been much better off spending more time at Knoebel's or Hershey - or heck, even driving for a ride on the Coney Cyclone. But we had the Cedar Fair passes.

About Riptide Run - seems Cedar Fair will try their darnedest to run an older ride as is. It's quite admirable, I think. In some cases.

I hate Riptide Run for the same reasons you mentioned. It's fun on slow days when there is hardly anyone else in the pools though. There even used to be a kiddie version of Riptide Run when WWK first opened but it is long gone.

The 21 and over pool is closed a lot at the beginning and end of WWK's season, even when it is open hardly anyone uses it since they don't know what it is.

Was the 2nd lazy river closed?

Yoshi - - - > I never realized they had two rivers. I would have liked to have done it had I known it was there. Again, I felt the water section layout was confusing and your question seals my point.

There were two wave pools though. The one at the front of the water area where you walk in from the carousel and the one next to Aqua Racer which only had the right side opened.

CoasterDemon - - - > I re-edited my post and corrected it. I'm sure there are numerous typos that are still lurking. Of course I meant "cement"

Also...Steel Force being fun but too thrilling was changed to: "not" too thrilling. Sorry about that.I am also sorry to say that it will most likely happen again.

The thought of summer ending (sigh.....)

Yeah it can be really confusing if you aren't familiar with the layout of the park. A lot of the entrances aren't that clear either. Wildwater Rapids (the 4 body slide complex) has an entrance right near the exit of Aquablast and a lot of people don't see it, which usually means short lines.

The smaller lazy river is located near the speed slides near the 21 and over pool and goes around Island Water Works. The larger lazy river's entrance is near Jumpin Jack Splash and across from the entrance to Aqua Racer.