Dorney Park, 8/20/08, An IQ test should be required to enter Wildwater Kingdom

I got to the park a little after 2:00. The lot was the most crowded I have seen it all season. Both parts of the main lot were almost full, another 100 cars or so and it would have been full and they would have needed to open up the overflow lot.

Not surprisngly, Wildwater Kingdom was packed. I decided to try it later and went to Talon. I was shocked to find a station wait. I got 2 rides, 1 train wait for the back row, 3 train wait for the front. Hydra was 10 minutes for the last row. Thundercreek Mountain and Dominator had about 30 and 20 minute lines, so they were skipped today.

Thunderhawk had 1 train running, looked to be around 15 - 20 minutes, another ride skipped today. Steel Force had 2 trains running, the line was almost at the bottom of the stairs to the entrance, no switchbacks being used. I expected a 15 - 20 minute line, it was 10 minutes.

Laser was a 2 train wait so that means 10 minutes, by the time I got off the ride the line had doubled. I really hope I can power ride Laser in the fall because it is tough to get more than 1 ride in a visit now since it's not worth a 20 minute wait it can easily get.

While in line for Laser people were pointing out how Voodoo's sprial tower shakes and how they are glad they rode it before they saw that. Someone else said they are going to ride in the back so if the front of the train goes off the track, they will be safe. Then I hear other people hesitant to ride Laser because it doesn't have OTSR's.

Voodoo had the longest line I have seen all season, probably around 25 minutes. I didn't feel like waiting and decided to go to the Whip and then head into WWK.

It was 4:15 at this point and the waterpark was still very crowded but not as bad as it once was. I just tried to stick with the slides that had shorter lines (no Aquablast or Aquaracer today).

It was fusturating to see the way slides were loaded. On Wildwater Rapids which has 4 slides, the yellow slide is the most popular. If someone wanted yellow and the next person wanted yellow, they only let 1 person at a time in and let the other 3 slides go unused even if people in line would have taken empty slides. This made the line crawl at points.

Here is where I ran into some of the craziest thing I have ever seen at Dorney

Not so bad at first, in line for Patriot's Plunge, people thought the Wildwater Rapids slides were for Patriot's Plunge (the stairs run parallel to each other) and were worried how the tubes would fit in the slides. Then someone was afraid the real Patriot's Plunge slides were too small and they would hit their head in the slide.

At the platform of Wildwater Rapids, there are 2 fathers each with their kid. One was around 7 or 8, the other 9 or 10. Not only did one of the kid have socks on, both kids were crying and didn't want to go on the slides. One father was pushing his son to the slide and the kid was going crazy. Meanwhile, no one else was able to slide while this was going on. The lifeguard told them to get to the side while the line started to move so I don't know what happened.

Then in line again for Wildwater Rapids which are body slides, I see 3 kids jump from the Patriot's Plunge line and get into the line for Wildwater Rapids, with their tubes! Then 2 adults follow them and another group of 4 kids also jump the fence and get in line. They weren't together so 3 seperate groups get up to the platform and are surprised when they find out you can't take tubes on the slides. They left them up on the platform.

Now for the worst, about 20 minutes later (I kept alternating between Patriot's Plunge and Wildwater Rapids), I see 2 kids coming up the stairs for Wildwater Rapids with tubes. They must have jumped the fence as well. They see no one else has tubes and one of them asks me if you need tubes for these slides. I tell them no, and I thought they would just leave their tubes at the slide platform when they got to the top.

Well these 2 idiots decide to throw their tubes over the staircase and they could have easily landed on a walkway and hit someone since they were about 30 feet up. Both of the tubes land under the slide complex where supports are and of course is a restricted area. As if that isn't bad enough, I see another kid maybe their friend jump the fence to get into the area under the slide complex to get the tube. I didn't see what happened next but one tube was still there at closing time.

I was really disgusted at how stupid people were acting today.

Since WWK closed at 6, I was going to take the back entrance out of WWK where Thunder Canyon is to get to my locker and White Water Landing. They had that gate chanied shut already and no one was there to tell you that so everyone had to walk through the waterpark again to the main entrance which was backtracking to get to Thunder Canyon and WWL. Since it had no line, I rode WWL twice and called it a day since the park was closing at 7:30.

I hate to say it because we always get into these arguments about whether or not people are stupid, but their BEHAVIOR certainly is at least stupid. Again, I don't think kids are taught the right things by their parents anymore.