Dorney Park 5-6-12

I arrived at the part around 1:30pm and saw a fairly empty parking lot. It was cloudy and a little chilly so that may have deterred people away from the park. Let's start with coasters-

Steel force (one in front and one lap in last row) Great floater air as usual. Loved being yanked from the last row. Always delivers a great ride. two trains were running. At one point in the afternoon steel force was stuck in the midcourse brake run...odd to see but it happens.A

Stinger-Stinger was down at times during the day but I managed to get two rides on it. It actually was smoother than I expected. The quque has row numbers and arrows telling the rider which way they would be facing (left or ride) for that particular row. B+

Talon-(once in front and once in last) This is my fav coaster in the park. Great ride op's with no stacking between the two trains. A+

Hydra-I sat in the middle and this is hit or miss for me. I got a little ear bashing through the first half coming out of the cobra roll. Hydra was also stacking every once in a while. Hydra was down later that afternoon. A train was stuck on the lift hill and the ride ops actually have to evacuate the riders down the steps. They did a great job from what I could see. Two trains were running. B-

Thunderhawk-I sat in the second row and I have never really sat in the front half of the train before. Great ejector air going up the first hill. Not really bumpy. I took two laps on it and each time was great. Thunderhawk was also down earlier in the day. Not sure what the issue was. Only one train was running A

Dinosaurs Alive-Since the dino's were new I decided to pay the five bucks and take a walk through. About 30 life sized dinosaurs were on display. The person selling the tickets explained once you leave you cannot get back it but, you can walk around the path as many times as you want. I then met another cast member decked out inexplorer gear and he said if he would like to take me around the trail (a la tour guide) I said no thanks and moved on. Some of the dino's are interactive allowing people to press a button to move a certain body area (tail, make their stomach move in and out, head, paws) You can only push one a time so no dino hokey pokey for you! There are senors set up by each dino and when one walks by, the dinos move and/or growl at you. A little kiddie area called dino dig where kids can dig up fossil parts was a nice touch along with a gift store on the way out. B+

Flats-Ferris wheel was ok. Got nice views of the new coasterline with stinger thrown into the picture. The whip always gives a thrill for me.

Food-I ate at game day grill I think it was..anyway service was nice food not so great. My fries were kinda mushy and my grilled chicken sandwich wasn't as great as I thought it would. BUT their new item artichoke and spinach dip was excellent. I highly suggest that as an appetizer.

Overall -Walk on coasters.... though odd to see so many of them go down at various points in the afternoon. But good operations as the park got them up and running again as soon as they could. Did see some stinger t-shirt's as far as merchandise goes, but a lot of the same nik nacks as last year. They have a new 80's show opening soon and a new snoopy theater show called "Snoopy's Bow Wow opening in June.

Dorney Park managers must have been reading about the Fast Lane conspiracies and decided against reducing capacity for the time being... :)

I'm glad to hear Talon and Hydra were running 2 trains, I was thinking they are now going to run 1 train on slow days but hopefully that was just for opening weekend.

Sounds like Hydra is having some problems this year since last week they had to evacuate riders from the brake run.

We were there Apr 30th and it was walk-on everything. The park really looked nice. But I still find myself unsatisfied when visiting the park. Not enough stand-out rides.

Steel Force was running good. Luckily, CF hasn't ruined it like Mamba.

I really liked Talon. But it is weird riding a quiet B&M. To me, it takes away the experience. But that's just my opinion.

Hydra was good after a few rides. Something I noticed was it didn't hit my ears as much with full train. The first couple of rides was almost empty and rough. Then film crew showed up wanting people on the train. It did run smoother with full load and I really enjoyed it. I LOVE the Jo-Jo roll! I laughed everytime through it!

We lucked out on Stinger. It was down most of time. It happened to be running when we were in that area.

We also ate at Game Day Grill and was very disappointed with experience. Food was good. But, going into a sit-down restaurant and getting plastic silverware and disposable cups for drinks set a bad tone. Then when we got the bill, I asked about a couple of 99 cent charges. "oh that is for the refills". Well, thanks for telling me now! I was irritated with that! Luckily I got a free shirt with the Triple Play Burger I had. So wasn't a total loss!

We left after that. Wife had all her credits in and we were bored. So we headed to hotel.

CoffinBoy said:

Then when we got the bill, I asked about a couple of 99 cent charges. "oh that is for the refills". Well, thanks for telling me now!

Same thing happened to me when I was there 2 years ago. I'm surprised they've kept that scam going for this long.

There are senors set up by each dino...

For the Spanish-speaking guests?

OhioStater said:

There are senors set up by each dino...

For the Spanish-speaking guests?

Yep The one Dino has a sombrero on it and does the Cha Cha. the other dinos have the normal sensors for the English peeps.