Dorney Park, 7/28/09

I haven't been to a park in almost 3 weeks so I decided to take a trip to Dorney today. Getting to the lot at 5:00 I was shocked to see the 1st part of the main lot full and the 2nd part of the main lot about 80% full. Another 200 cars and the overflow lot would have been needed. I have never seen the lot so crowded on a weekday before.

There was a huge line to get into the park since only 2 turnstyles were open and I saw WWK was packed. Slides had lines longer than I had ever seen.

The first ride of the day was Talon, the line was just past the stairs so around 10 minutes. So many people got in line, turned around and exited when they saw the line. That happens all the time when the line is past the stairs. I walked past Wild Mouse and saw a line that looked to be 45 minutes to an hour.

Hydra was a station wait. Dominator and Thundercreek Mountain both had long lines so I went to Thunderhawk next. It was a little over 10 minutes since only 1 train was running. The sky was starting to get cloudy and the wind was picking up so I was afraid it was going to storm and went to WWK to get some slides in before it rained.

Lines had died down a lot in WWK, most slides were around 5 minutes except Aquablast which looked to have a 30 minute line. It never rained and I got 15 slides, the lazy river and Island Water Works in a little over 90 minutes.

While I was in WWK, I saw that the crowds from there went into the ride park. Talon was using the switchbacks! In over 50 visits to Dorney in the past 4 seasons, I have only seen them use the switchbacks on Talon twice, once on a Sunday in August in 2006 and on a day with a lot of schools in late May last year.

Possessed was closed and a mechanic was working at a box over one of the rows of the train. Steel Force also had 2 switchbacks full and it was just under 10 minutes to get into the station but a few minutes later they announced the ride was down for routine maintenance and they didn't know how long it would be. I left the line and tried Possessed again but they said it would be closed for at least another 20 minutes and it already had a line of at least 50 people waiting.

I stopped at Talon on the way out and had a 2 train wait and decided to leave after that.

The Martini Toss game is now a Guitar Hero game. $5.00 to play and you have to get a perfect score (which isn't exactly clear but I guess they mean 100% of the notes have to be hit) to win. That is very difficult. Some Six Flags have the same setup and only require 85% accrucary to win on the easier difficulties. The skee ball machines near Possessed have been removed and are now a golf putting game with an upward slope that also looks very difficult.

I was never expecting it to be so crowded today, and with WWK closing at 7 starting next week, I guess I'll have to get there at opening until after Labor Day to avoid crowds.