Dorney Park 8/6/07...they ruined the Sea Dragon now!!!

Arrived at the park around 1:15, my first time visiting the park since I stopped working there about six weeks ago.

First ride was on Lazer, my first ride on it since they put in the seatbelts....ugh, horrible efficiency, and only one attendant! Still great ride, but even worse capacity this year with the seatbelts.

Went to Steel Force next and it closed for a vomit clean up, they took about 30 minutes to reopen. Front seat ride, very good ride.

Then we rode the Zephyr, it was nice to talk to George for a minute...good ride as usual.

Next was the Sea Dragon, I had been looking forward to a good swinging ship for a long time. Dorney's was one that I actually thought gave a very good ride cycle....which it did previously. We rode to be very dissapointed....it seems they messed with the cycle, and now it's even worse than the short cycle on the Pirat at Hershey. It started out very slow, only reached about 2/3 of it's normal height, gave a few weak swings, and then started to break again.....the op said they changed the cycle recently and it always runs like that now. I was disgusted and very disapointed. Why must CF ruin every ride in the park?

After that we were so frustrated we decided to leave pretty soon. The park just wasn't worth our time. We went to the Ferris Wheel and got our very short ride....then we rode the CCC and then the Apollo and headed for the exit. We stopped in at Carousel Gifts and Carousel Emporium before leaving, hoping to cool off a bit from the heat....to find that they seem to be cutting back on A/C in the gift shops, it was hotter inside than out.....I guess Dick Kinzel needed another ivory backscratcher, so they need to save money on the electric bills.....

Then it was out the gates, and over to McDonald's for a snack....

guess the only consilation is that I didn't spend a dime in the park today (free addmission with my Knoebels ID, and free parking since I went with a friend who has a season pass)

This park frustrates me more each time I come....I really wish I was a little closer to Hershey and Knoebels....I love those parks...had a great time at Hershey last week.

And again, I can only hope that CF ends up selling off parks instead of selling the whole company....I would love DP to end up with a better amusement park company, like Hershey Ent. or KW....just seems like CF is constantly changing things for the worse in this park.

I guess I'm not stretching it by saying I thought Apollo was more enjoyable and longer in cycle in the past. This time on July 23rd this year I felt the cycle was too short on Apollo.

Yeah, I rode the Apollo, it seems like it's shorter than before. I hate this, the park doesn't have long lines, I don't know why all the flats need to run so weak and short....I use to think they had a great selection of flats, but now they all seem to be getting dulled down even more all the time.

I was with scraperguy99 and another friend, and I do agree the Sea Dragon, once a good ride, is now ruined.

My first visit to the park was 23 years ago when I was 11 years old, and it's just amazing the changes in the park from then and now. Dorney used to be a lot like Knoebels with blacktop walkways instead of gravel. My parent's weren't big amusement park fans, but they took us because they were curious about the new biggest waterpark on the east coast. Wildwater Kingdom. :)

They used to have a very unique collection of rides. A few of them I had never seen at any other park. The arcade, and rides that used to sit over Thunderhawk was really unique. I remember the one ride was go karts that ran off electric(almost like a slot car, but you had complete control over them) on the oval tracks floor. Anyone know who made those?

In that same area was one of the biggest midways of the park. A bunch of rides were removed from that area. Especially after Cedar Fair took over. Thunderhawk(then Coaster) used to be so much more intense then it is now. The laterals were really insane, and there was plenty of airtime compared to the braked ride it is today.

Some of the changes were necessary, and others weren't. A few locals that I have talked to feel that the big corporation came in and destroyed their favorite local park. :)

Personally I think that Cedar Fair has made a lot of good additions to the park since they bought it, but they could have preserved more of the history in the process of growing the park. I know they try to preserve some of the history(buildings, etc) at CP, but I wonder why they didn't use that same care when adding to DP?

There are a few websites with history of the old park if you do a search on google. Some of them have some really good pictures of Dorney back in the day.

After what happened with the ferris wheel, I thought you were going to say no single riders on the Sea Dragon now since that's also a Chance Ride (I hope I don't give CF any ideas).

I agree about the seatbelts on Laser, it makes the capacity worse than ever. A 2 train wait can be 10+ minutes easily now. Someone on Dorney Online said Laser is getting new trains next year, if that's the case I hope it's not OTSR's because that is the only thing that could make the ride worse. It's a shame because if they got rid of the seatbelts, had more than 1 person checking restraints and gave the ride a proper station with no assigned seating, it would probably be my 2nd favorite coaster in the park.

Did you not ride any of the other coasters?

I'm not sure what the weather is like, but I think Dorney is a great park. Water Park is great, but if you only do the Dry Park, then it won't be as fun. Especially if you worked there recently.

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YoshiFan said:
I agree about the seatbelts on Laser, it makes the capacity worse than ever. A 2 train wait can be 10+ minutes easily now.

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I'm sorry, but that's quite funny. Does Laser ever get over a two train wait? I went to a park that had a 2 hour wait yesterday. A 10 minute wait is nothing.

I agree that the cycle on Apollo felt shorter. Waiting ten minutes for a line doesn't bother me at all(i.e. Laser). Come on. What bothers me is the heat, so I went to the water park as well! I like Dorney, but not a favorite of mine.