Dorney 5/12/07

We arrived at Dorney at around 10:30. Normally this is the park where we had gotten our Season pass from, but since Busch Gardens & Kings Dominion is always our first amusement park trip of the season we got our Maxx Passes at Kings Dominion. Dorney’s Maxx Pass is $109.95, and Kings Dominion’s Maxx Pass price is $89.95. Makes it pretty much a no brainer.

When we got to the gate we were told that we’d have to take our season passes to guest services, and they would issue us a ticket for admission into the park. Why can’t they just make it that the Maxx Pass scans at every park just like a season pass issued from that park? We got into guest services, and after waiting a few minutes the attendant took our pass information, and gave us admission tickets to get into the park. Yay! Once that was over with it was quick getting into the park.

We’d brought my 15 yr old son, 3 yr old daughter, 9 yr old nephew, and 10 yr old niece on the trip so we know we weren’t going to run around like crazy trying to get as many laps as we could on the coasters. It was more a leisure day at the park. The park wasn’t that crowded, and most coasters were 10 - 15 minutes wait at the most.

We rode everything except Hydra because that was the longest line, and that coaster really doesn’t do much for me. I know that I might get slammed for this but I’d rather have Hercules(before the brakes) there. I am just not impressed by Hydra.

We did decide to try the Game Day Grill for lunch at the park. I normally leave the park and eat elsewhere for lunch, but we figured with all the kids along it would just be easier to eat in the park. We got in the restaurant, and there were only people occupying 5 tables at the most. It took us about 15 minutes just to get seated at our table. The service was horrible. The server never even brought us place settings. I had to take them from other nearby tables.

The food was ok by park standards, but it wasn’t much more then that. The bill was $75 + the tip for 6 of us. That sounds about right as far as amusement parks go, but given the horrible service we should have just eaten somewhere else in the park that didn‘t have servers. We would have gotten the same food at the other stands in the park. We ate at TGI Fridays after the park for dinner, our food was way better, and it was still $20 cheaper then at The Game Day Grill. It just reminded me of why I always leave a park to eat lunch.

It seems like every time I go to Dorney something else has been altered from what was the original park. The park has lost a lot of the charm it once had, and that‘s my only complaint about Dorney since Cedar Fair bought it. They have made a lot of great additions that have made the park grow into what it is today. In my opinion it isn’t near as good as its closest competition(Hershey & Knoebels.) It is managed better then Six Flags Great Adventure, but I’d rather go there because of their better collection of rides.

If you plan to go to Dorney more than twice, it is actually cheaper to pay the extra $20 for the Maxx Pass at Dorney because of the included parking with a Dorney season pass. With 3 trips, that's $27 on parking so it's $7 extra.

I got my Maxx Pass at Dorney because the parking is included and I do expect to go a few times this year.

When I went to Carowinds for the opening weekend I had to go to customer service to get a ticket also. It seems that the systems for the gates are not totally linked yet. But a 10 minute wait to get a ticket and then get walked back to the line to get in is nothing. At least that's how Carowinds handled it.

I think I might stop at Guest Services before getting in line at any Cedar Fair park to make sure I know how that park is handling Maxx passes.

I thought Dorney was run much more efficiently than Hershey, EXCEPT for the restaurants. We had a problem at a different place the same day as you. The person who took our order had to get help to process a credit card, then they put in the wrong amount, then they cancelled that, then on the next try their machine lost the connection.

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dragonoffrost said:
When I went to Carowinds for the opening weekend I had to go to customer service to get a ticket also. It seems that the systems for the gates are not totally linked yet.

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I suspect the former Paramount parks are linked to each other (based on my King's Dominion pass working at the gate at Gilroy and Great America), but not yet with the older CF parks.

^Yeah, my PCar pass worked in both places too. Small hang-up at PGA due to the ACE comp tickets that confused the one gate attendant mightily, LOL! ;)

IIRC, Paramount's worked that way for a few years now (not having to sign-in or get a comp ticket). Hopefully, this is one area where CF will recognize that paramount WAS doing it better and adopt the PP strategy chain-wide.