Dorney....crowded? 6/29/08

I was bored again today, and I'm dead broke, so I hit Dorney Park with the season pass. Again. First thing I noticed when I got into the season pass lot was...it was crowded! I thought I was going to have to park in general admission it was so crowded in the pass lot, but luckily, the very first spot by the gates was open. I must admit I got a little chuckle of satisfaction out of that.

I hit Talon first, and I expected there to be a long wait due to the packd parking lot. I had to wait. On the seventh step from the platform. What's up with that? I'm joking around, but this is actually crowded for Dorney. Usually, Talon's a walk on for every car but the front. Talon's my favorite B&M again. I can't make up my mind. The forces are much better on Talon than any other B&M inverted I have ridden though, I must say. Gotta check out Alpengeist eventually though, as well as...what's it called? Raptor at Cedar Point? I get Raptor and Mantis mixed up.

Anyway, I headed over to Hydra next and walked on the third car. This is the second time I noticed the vibration and roughness on this ride. I have a feeling this ride definitely depends where you sit because I've only noticed heinous bumping around on a few seats.

Did Enterprise next. Ridiculously short ride, but still a nice, mildly thrilling flat ride. I really like how comfortable it is, especially if you're a single rider.

Determined to take my time tonight and ride some coasters at nighttime instead of during the day, I ambled along to Thunder Creek Mountain and waited a good 20 minutes to board a boat. This ride is so unpredictable with how wet (or not wet) you get, but this time, I got pretty drenched. I didn't even make it to the drop without getting totally drenched on one side of my body, and then the splashdown covered half of my other side. Pretty cool, no pun intended. People were laughing at me because apparently I was one of the wetter ones coming off the ride.

I actually debated getting on the down side of Dominator, but past horrors of crying after getting off the ride still haunt me. I skipped it and did the upshot. As usual, it was a fun little shock to go flying up that tower at 60 miles per hour. Hey, that rhymed! Hehehe...

I wanted to go on Monster next, but three kids puked. Count them, not one, not two, but THREE. I've never found that slowa$$ version of Monster to be any problem, but I guess I'm pretty tough with the spin and pukes.

I headed to Voodoo, but shocker here, it was closed for technical problems. I have been to Dorney six or seven times this year, yet I've only managed Voodoo five times before today. What's up, Intamin?

Got on Steel Force and decided to ride in the back seat. I thought I was over Steel Force, but riding in the back, we hit that drop and I couldn't even scream I was so shocked into silence. Backseat put this coaster back on the map for me at first. Then we did the rest of the ride, and the lapbar was digging into my stomach so bad that at one point, I felt like I was going to die. It HURT!!! Never again for the back car.

Got off of Steel Force and checked Voodoo to see if it was running yet. It wasn't. The ride host recognized me from previous visits though, and we started chatting for a while. A group of really rude, irritating guests started harrassing the ride host, screaming at her that this was effing BS and they traveled all the way from Kentucky to ride the ride and all this stuff like that. They even called her a dumb b**** and got right up in her face. I was actually worried the one guy was going to hit her, and she was looking really scared, so I said, "Actually, the company that made this ride is known for having technical difficulties with their coasters, and this ride had more downtime than uptime at its former park." They stopped yelling at the girl and said, "Really? Is it safe then?" I said, "I don't know. This company has a really bad track record." They were like, "Oh, man! I don't want to ride this anymore anyway!!!" And they ran off. The girl thanked me and said I should work at Dorney. LOL

I was told Voodoo wasn't going to be operational any time soon, so I went over to Thunderhawk and rode the back seat. The ride host for this ride was exceptionally nice as well. I had a slightly better time on this ride than I have had in previous years, but it disconcerted me a little that I could see the ground through a gap in the floor panels. Freaky. I only noticed one truly TRULY rough spot, but other than that, this wasn't too bad until the brakes at the end. Man, brace yourself for those brakes!

I rode the Whip next. Boring, but totally nostalgic. I swear it used to go faster. It had seatbelts! Those never used to be there before, I know it. Then I rode the Scrambler, and that too had seatbelts. WTF? I had so much fun on the Scrambler, half due to the fact that some of the kids waiting in line would go, "Helllloooo" every time my car would come near them. Next time I came around, I leaned my head over closer to them and yelled as loud as I could, "MAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" They dissolved into giggles. It cracked me up, and I decided to ride again just for fun.

Voodoo was running a few test runs in a row, so I knew that meant they were almost ready to open it. I hovered as I am known to do, and I was the seventh person in line. I sat all the way in the back this time. I did NOT like the back seat. Scared the bejesus out of me with the holding brake. LOL

I ran around for a second ride, got line jumped by five people (more tried to get around me, and I replied ABSOLUTELY NOT), and that's when it happened: A kid got locked out of the gates because someone stole his seat and stood outside of them when they started the next ride of Voodoo. Luckily, as I said in another post, the ride ops saw it immediately and stopped the ride. I'm kind of jealous because they got another launch or two, but in light of what just happened at Georgia SF park, all's I could think about was, "What if he had tripped? What if the ride ops didn't notice he was there and he just fell over or something as the train was blazing through the station?" Could have been a serious traumatic event. Glad nothing became of it.

I rode Dominator one more time on the upshot, rode Sea Dragon (don't remember this ride swaying back and forth AND up and down before this year), hit Apollo 2000 (I swear this used to be louder and go higher as well), and then I rode the Musik Express. They REALLY should not have put seatbelts on this ride. It doesn't need them, and try wearing a too-tightened seatbelt as your body is shifted all the way over on one side from centrifugal force. It sucks. I'm surprised my intestines weren't squeezed out my butt. Horrible. I still hurt from it hours later. I rode the Tilt-a-Whirl after that, and I had the best car I'd had in years. I did nothing but spin for the entire ride cycle.

I hit Hydra again, and I waited in line for the second set of seats instead of the front because I don't like sitting on the left outer seat (I don't know why....I have a theory that because I am left-handed,I don't like my dominant hand exposed). However, as the gates opened, two guys pushed me out of the way and hopped into the second row with two other people. I got PISSED. I yelled, "WHAT THE HELL!!!????" and they just looked at me and pulled their harnesses down. The ride hosts did NOTHING about this. I was heated. Turns out the seat I rode in this time though was probably better anyway, as it was butter smooth and I experienced none of the vibration or headbanging that I experienced on my previous ride. I rode Hydra again right after that, and the seat in the second row actually was shaky again. I hope the jerks that pushed me out of the way had as bad of a ride as I did on my third and last Hydra trip of the night. Hehehehe....

I rode Wild Mouse next, although I don't know why. I always think I'm going to like it, but I never do. I don't like the hairpin turns and slamming my knees into the restraint. Plus, I'm pretty heavy, so I always think that this is it, that my weight is going to push me over the edge and the car's going to go flying. I noticed something vaguely amusing though: the cars had cats and mice painted on them. That's not what's funny though...all the cars' back ends had actual butts painted onto them. I said to the lady next to me, "Is it really necessary to paint buttcheeks onto the cars? Really?" Her husband replied, "ABSOLUTELY." We all cracked up and went on our ride.

Finally I hit Talon. Did the front car. Saw spots again. This ride pulls some serious G's, I swear. I love it. I rode again right after that, still saw spots, but not as bad from the middle of the train.

And that's it! All in all, my longest wait was probably for Voodoo (first line of switchbacks), and I really only waited for that for about 15 minutes. I truly enjoyed hitting the flat rides this time, and Dorney has a surprisingly high number of these. Line jumping is still a problem, and I DID witness an altercation between some guests (apparently two guys were hitting a little kid on the head and trying to scare him, and he went and told his mom, and the mom confronted them. Some park employees came over to see what the problem was, and the lady and these two guys were SCREAMING at each other. The park employees ran to get a manager, but the guys were already walking away from the lady. I understand she felt the need to defend her kid, but I SAW these two guys and I don't understand how they could have been smacking the boy around...they were in the front seat. Then they rode again, and there was no little boy in front of them. I think the kid got his people wrong.) The guys didn't get into any trouble, and I don't think the kid was too sure these were the right guys anyway because he was dragging his mom away from them.

We're getting a bad element at Dorney, it seems. It concerns me a little.

Ride numbers in 6 hours:

Talon: 3
Hydra: 3
Wild Mouse: 1
Scrambler: 2
Dominator: 2
Whip:1
Thunder Creek Mountain:1
Steel Force: 1
Enterprise: 1
Musik Express: 1
Tilt-A-Whirl: 1
Thunderhawk: 1
Voodoo: 2
Apollo 2000: 1
Sea Dragon: 1

22 rides in 6 hours!! Still a great park for actually RIDING things and not waiting in line.
*** Edited 6/30/2008 3:48:44 AM UTC by bunky666***

Yeah, something doesn't sound right. I never saw that much line jumping at Dorney, and they've always been good about dealing with it when it did happen. I can understand that there might be groups of idiots in the park sometimes, but I don't understand why security isn't cracking down on them.

My thought on the line jumping at Dorney is just that people have such minimal waits for the rides that the ops just don't think it's worth the hassle to correct these people.

I forgot to mention one thing: I only had two dollars to spend at the park, and I bought a taco by Hydra. It was tasty, and the staff was friendly. I would have eaten a few more if I had the money. Two dollars didn't seem too bad for a taco when I had earlier spent two dollars on a teeny-tiny bag of M&M's. :)

I discovered that taco shop in the spring this year. It's got to be the best food deal in any park anywhere except maybe Knoebels. (Their prices are a little higher, but the portions are usually a little larger too.) I can't believe it exists in a Cedar Fair park, as their food is generally mediocre and the staff incompetent.

Yeah: For everyone: two-dollar tacos at the taco stand by Hydra!!! They're spicy, salty, the taco sauce they give you is tasty, and the people are really nice. I didn't think I had the 12 cents for tax, and the girl told me not to worry about it (I found the 12 cents and gave it to her). I must have looked sad and pathetic. ;)