Dorney Park, 5/29/07 my first ride evacuation

I got to the park a little after 3:00 and it appeared to be less than 300 or so cars but about 30 buses. Wildwater Kingdom looked like it had a lot of people but not too crowded. Talon and Hydra had 5 minute waits at that point but Wild Mouse had no one in line at all. Even with no line it still took a few minutes due to the seatbelts.

Thundercreek Mountain was closed and I saw it being evacuated but I later got to ride. I went right back for a second ride since there was no wait but it broke down again and everyone had to exit the ride.

Dominator had no wait even for the Turbo Drop side which is rare.

All the flats were walk ons and I had solo rides on Enterprise and Dominator Red

The coasters were also surprsingly empty in the lower part of the park. I had a solo ride on Thunderhawk and another ride with only 2 other people on the train. I had an Eagles T-Shirt on and was told by the ops that Eagles fans are not allowed on the ride as I was sitting down in the train. I couldn't come up with a good response to that so just laughed but then thought about it during the ride and wished I asked if that was a Cedar Fair rule since with all their strict rules I could have said it wouldn't have surprised me. 1 train was running not that 2 were needed.

Steel Force had a 3 train wait for the front and later had around a 6 train wait for the front despite 1/3 of the trains being sent out empty. Everyone was trying to sit in the back row of Laser but the assigned seating was preventing that from happening despite the train not being full. My 2nd ride on Laser was a solo ride.

I went back to Thundercreek Mountain and got another ride and and again tried for a 2nd ride. This time I got to the middle of the lift hill when it stopped. Within a few minutes the supervisor came and asked me if I was all right. About 5 minutes later the ride was evacuated and I had to walk down the ramp and give my name and zip code to someone who also asked if I needed first aid along with everyone else on the ride. For the trouble, they gave everyone a coupon for a free regular sized soda which I thought was nice of them since it was only a few minutes of time wasted. I am starting to wonder if there are problems with the ride as it wasn't opened when I was at the park during my first 2 trips this year and with it breaking down 3 times today, I hope there is nothing wrong with the ride that would cause it to be closed for a while since it's the only way to cool off without getting totally drenched.

I went back to Hydra and saw no one in the station which meant another solo coaster ride and my first front seat ride on Hydra. I couldn't believe they still had 2 trains running despite the lack of crowds. Talon was closed at around 7:10 and with the park closing at 7:30 they still said to check back in 15 minutes as it might be open. I couldn't believe they were going to try to have the ride open for 5 minutes before the park closed which was amazing. I didn't wait to see and went to the arcade to play some DDR which thankfully has had it's sound turned up so you can actually hear the music.

It was different getting all those solo rides in and combined with the evacuation, it provided some variety to the normal trip to Dorney.

Ride Count:

Talon, 2x

Hydra, 4x

Steel Force, 2x

Laser, 2x

Thunderhawk, 2x

Wild Mouse, 3x

Dominator Red, 1x

Dominator Blue, 3x

Enterprise, 1x

Krazy Kars, 1x

Thundercreek Mountain, 2 1/2x

Whip, 1x

I think if I got stuck on a ride and had to travel down a lift hill, I'd be doing some "evacuating" of my own. :)

sounds similar to my first ride malfunction. i was about 10 years old on a family trip to great adventure and i was supposed to meet my parents @ 9 by the fountain. time for one more ride i headed for the log flume and it got stopped on the elevated channel and i had to walk down the catwalk...was kinda scary for a ten year old.

Nice tr. A friend of mine works on Talon.

I worked at a few parks so I have got to climb lifts of a lot of rides. One time I rode Mine Ride 4 and a half times without getting off. (I climbed up the second lift with a bunch of co-workers to get into the stopped and already evacuated train...lol)