PKD 3/24/2002

Day 2 of the Opening Weekend escape.

I made my way over to the park early, to get my season pass processed before any potential line built. I needn't have worried -- when I walked over to the season pass center around 9:30, I wasn't even sure they were open yet! I was in and out before you could say "Welcome to Paramount King's Dominion" -- very fast system there.

Wandering over the main gate while flipping through my coupon book, who should I spot by the ticket windows but Dan, along with his girlfriend Maria and GTTP'er Brandon (neither of whom I'd met before). Realizing that I had a coupon for discounted admission in my season passholder book ("bring a friend"), I darted on over. ShiveringTim (Scott Short) was already getting his comp ticket for his PKI season pass. With that, our group was set for the day.

I'll let Dan extoll the virtues (or lack thereof) of the CLASSIC skeeball machines at PKD. For the rides, Hypersonic and Avalanche were down for the count, and FoF wasn't open at first but would open later. Lines were short to nonexistant for most of the day, except for Volcano (which still only had a 10-20 minute wait)

Anaconda (1 lap) -- I took one lap on this near the end of the day, having parted with the Ohio crew. One lap was enough to remind me why I don't ride these Arrows more. This coaster has an interesting layout with the underwater dive, and indeed the first half of the ride is quite fun, but after the HEAVY midcourse it gets painful, at least for those of us short enough to have to work to clear the OTSR.

Flight of Fear (1 lap) -- this baby opened relatively late in the day, sometime after 2pm. This was my first lap on it since the refit. The midcourse was on pretty heavy (I could have sworn the train came to a complete stop in the dark), but this coaster is still VASTLY improved.

Grizzly (1 back, 3 total) -- This monster was HAULING all day. Good, out of control fun.

Hurler (1 back, 3 ejector, 6 total) -- We took two laps early in the morning, immediately after Ricochet. As many people know, I love this little woodie, and think it's highly underrated. However, it was running a bit slow at first on Sunday, and it seemed to be shuffling quite a bit. When I returned later in the day, it had suitably warmed up and was running pretty well. My back seat lap was with a little kid who walked up and asked if he could ride with me. This little guy was 7, as it turned out, and was FEARLESS -- hands up the whole way. Great fun, and it led to my special bonus coaster, which I'll get to in a minute.

Rebel Yell (1 lap backwards) -- I much prefer the backwards facing to the forwards on this and its near-twin Racer at PKI.

Ricochet (1 lap) -- We opened the day with this. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what a wildmouse should be. Only a few of the trims were active at all, and those were on rather light. The first drop is a LOT of fun, as is the rest of the course.

Taxi Jam! (1 lap) -- The secret bonus coaster I referred to above. I hadn't been expecing to get on this, but when the little guy jumped on Hurler with me, I had to ask his dad if he minded letting me ride another coaster with me. The father understood completely. As we walked over, he told me that he didn't ride, but his son was unstoppable, and he was considering joining ACE in a few years for him if that interest continues.

Volcano (1 front, 1 back) -- This coaster is worth the trip from Pittsburgh all by itself. Yes, I love Volcano. I know some people think it moves too slowly once past the launches, but I just always have so much FUN with this. This ride had the longest line of the day, but it wasn't anything horrible.

We also ride the Flyers, which were running very well. We'd been informed to "not rock the tubs", which was a shame, because they SO very much wanted to. Without even trying, I felt a few decent shakes -- had I been working at it, I think I'd have gotten some really good SNAPS. I know that Scott and Dan were talking about going back before they headed home, but I'm not sure how well they did.

I left around 4:30pm, having not quite had "my fill" (I could've gladly taken some more laps on Grizzly ) but knowing I had a fairly long drive ahead of me, AND had to work the next day.

Overall, this was a very good weekend. 3 new-to-me coasters (including one unplanned) at two great parks, while riding with some good people. 2002 is looking good...

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--Greg
"Wow, [in your life] when it rains, it not only pours, it floods the basement and causes thousands in damage!" -- Vicki Redcay
My page

*** This post was edited by GregLeg on 3/25/2002. ***

I'll tell you we did on our second spin on the Flyers. We figured that this was our last ride of the day, so we figured it was no big deal if we get in trouble for snapping. I was really close to "tearing it up", but my better judgement kicked in and I backed off a bit. I still think that without that rule PKD's could give PKI's or Knoebel's Flyers a run for the money.

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Scott W. Short
mailto:scott@midwestcoastercentral.com
http://www.midwestcoastercentral.com

Sounds great, I may finally have a chance to visit this park sometime this summer. I hope I have as much fun as you did.

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I can't think of a good signature.

Of course,the Grizzly would still be running strong even after 20 years as for Hurler I agree with you on it being rather sluggish,when I rode it last year it was running terribly slow where as Grizzly was just flying through it's course from start to finish.

Aw Scott..... you should have let into snapping those babys!.....Or at least complained at the Guest Relations booth.

Was Avalanche running? I've heard it's down??? Also, how about Shockwave? Thanks, I'm going next week!

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-DJ
www.djsauter.com

Avalanche was down. Shockwave was running, but I didn't want to subject my bum knee (which was already a bit sore) to a standup.

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--Greg
"Wow, [in your life] when it rains, it not only pours, it floods the basement and causes thousands in damage!" -- Vicki Redcay
My page