Kings Dominion openning day.

Will be at KD openning day. Have not been to KD yet or any other park for the openning of a major ride like Intimidator. Just curious what to expect for crowds, assuming the weather is good. Busy? Really busy? Packed? Jam packed?

Also, is there a limited number of "first rider" shirts given out?

Thanks.

Mike :-})

I would expect pretty good crowds for Intimidator but the rest of the park should be pretty slow. I have been to Busch Gardens that early in the season, going again this year, and the lines are non-existent if the weather is decent, and really short if the weather is amazing. Great time of the year to visit those parks from the north.

BGW is typically busy for AP preview (the 20th of this month) if the weather is good. Last year it was busy but bearable. They moved people through the lines fairly quick. Official opening day the following week should be similar, but again not crazy.. It then slows down for a bit till spring break hits for the locals.

Agreed with Eight, this time of the year for the south-east part of VA is typically one of the better times to go.

I will definitely be around for KD opening. Most people will be around i305 and Volcano. Rest of park will probably have way shorter waits.

If opening day at KI last year was any indication... - I dont think I've ever seen as big a turn out for the opening of a new ride, and with this one being as, if not more, spectacular and well publicized I would expect the same.

And good luck. At least here we had the advantage of a B&M high capacity ride with all trains operating and very little if any downtime, and the line went quickly. How this Intamin ride fares in those departments remains to be seen.

I'll never forget opening days for Millenium Force where we waited 3+ hours and TTD where the wait was 6+ hours. (we did not wait) The difference there is that they didn't have either ride running to full capacity and there was down time causing the wait to be abnormally long for that kind of crowd.

Hey.... aren't they both Intamin rides too? Like I say- good luck!

Oh, (edit to add) there were tons and tons of shirts at KI - i think everybody that rode that day got one. Everyone put it on too, and it was fun to see.

One BIG difference is that KD opening day is on a Friday instead of a Saturday like KI was. While a lot of schools are closed on Good Friday, most business are not. I don't see John Q Public taking a day off work to ride a new coaster. For we enthusiast it is almost a given.

Diamondback opened before I became an enthusiast and I was working that day so no T-shirt for me. I was told that they gave out 10.000 shirts. Of course there is no guarantee that they will even be doing a first rider shirt.

Also, you are taking a big risk thinking that a major Intamin roller coaster will be opening on time, please tell me the last time that happened.

MF open on time, and it ran without a hitch, if I recall correctly. The new coaster at KD is simmilar to MF. The park isn't dealing with unproven technology here.

IIRC, when Millennium Force opened, it was not able to run with 3 train operation quite yet. I don't remember how long it took for that to finally happen, but I'm fairly certain it opened with 2 train operation. This of course then made the wait longer. Dragster was similar its opening weekend. It only ran with three trains and each train was a car shorter. The next weekend it was able to run with 5 trains and all of the cars.

That being said, I don't think that has anything to do with Intimidator 305's opening. Like LK said, there isn't really anything new they are dealing with and they still have a few weeks to go.

As of right now, last communictaion I had (a week ago), with the exception of landscaping the ride is scheduled to open on time with both trains. Even with the string of unusually bad weather they have been doing amazing strides to get this thing on time.

Guess we will see in a few weeks, but so far no indication it wont.

On that same thought the auction is kicking butt. I definitely wont be on the first ride.. Theres 4 $1000 bids already! Sheesh!

ridemcoaster said:
Guess we will see in a few weeks, but so far no indication it wont.

It has been testing right? I think I remember seeing a video a few weeks ago.

Testing video? There's nothing posted on YouTube and the park's website hasn't been updated in quite some time. If anyone has testing video can a link be posted?

I bet I am thinking of the Carrowinds' Intimidator. I would be a little worried if I were planning my trip around it opening. ;)

I never thought that much about it, but will two trains be enough for this ride? I guess it depends a whole lot on the time from dispatch to breaks, but if it's got a half decent crew on it, I'd think there'd be a few instances of a full train waiting for the course to clear in order to dispatch.

^ If there is a full train waiting for a clear block, that leans more towards "too many" trains than it does "not enough" trains. An empty station is "not enough" trains.

I can't imagine 2 trains being enough. According to the website it is supposed to have an hourly capacity of 1350 that is 42 dispatches an hour or about 1:30 per dispatch. It also says that it is a 3 minute ride. There math seems pretty fuzzy. 3 minutes per lap would be 20 dispatches per train X 2 trains X 32 per train = 1280. Where are these extra 70 people going to sit?

Even with that I seriously doubt that they can unload, load and check the trains in less then 1 1/2 minutes.

I bet the real capacity will be closer to 800 per hour.

A huge upside of the restraints that everyone hates is that they're way, way faster to check. I suspect they can hit a pretty good interval with a good crew.

But, Jeff, that's true of any ride that doesn't have seat belts!

Kings Island had an interesting situation on Opening Day last year. The line for Diamondback literally extended all the way around the pond that surrounds the station and lift hill. Park officials were estimating wait times of six hours or more.

The longest anybody waited for Diamondback was a little under two hours.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

You're right, Rideman. I did the first rider auction last year, so we were back there for the morning rush. And about 15 minutes after the gates were open we saw the line wrapping around the pond twice and I figured it would be at least a 4 hour wait. But maybe an hour or two later it was all the way down into the queue area. Nonetheless that line was a sight to behold.

RideMan said:
Park officials were estimating wait times of six hours or more.

The longest anybody waited for Diamondback was a little under two hours.

Based on where my wife and daughter were and how long their wait was, I still say the people at the end of the line as it peaked waited closer to three, but we disagreed on that last year too.

Was a line like I've never seen though. :)

eightdotthree said:
I bet I am thinking of the Carrowinds' Intimidator. I would be a little worried if I were planning my trip around it opening. ;)

The video you are referring to is Carowinds. They havent put any video (that Im aware) of the I305 that show the trains. They have done some testing already though. The clearance test has been run a few times. I havent asked as of this week if they ran the full train, but its sitting on the track so I imagine its really soon.

As far as the 2 trains on track, there is the lift hill, a set on trims on last bunny hill, and brake fins at the end. So I imagine no dispatch of train 2 until the 1st train is near the end of the run. As the only stopping points for trains out there are the lift and at the end of the run near the station.

Btw.. Last bit of photos I took last week. Another yucky cloudy muddy walk through i305..