PKD 5/20

I'm just getting around to typing this up, it's been a pretty hectic week. I had some friends come in from the D.C. area to team up with myself and a few of my friends who were in town from Michigan. Enough about that, on to the park itself.

PKD has always been my home park, and last season I did not make it to the park not even once. So naturally I was looking forward to it. Right off the bat we saw that Tomb Raider was closed for the day, which I was a little disappointed in. However the good news was that Italian Job was supposed to open on the 27th, but they were having a "preview" day on this day. More on that in a little bit.

First up was Hypersonic XLC. Man did this baby used to be my favorite in the park in its opening year, with those sweet trains with the unobstructed view from every seat. These new trains?? They blow....I have very wide shoulders and I got thrown from side to side like a rag doll. The launch is still one of the best out there, but everything after the hill was almost painful. The train shuffled like a badly tracked Vekoma, and only after 5 years. Go back to the first year's trains I tell ya. My friends were impressed with the launch but other than that...blah.

We then trekked across the park to hit Volcano. This became everyone else's favorite. It was running smooth as butter, the launch from the front seat felt a little more intense than I remember, and the hang time is pure bliss in those zero g rolls. We rode this twice.

Anaconda just might be one of the smoothest Arrows out there. I normally skip this just because of my height ( im 6'2). The harnesses tend to really hurt my shoulders. However, we sat in the very last seat, and to my surprise, I had a very pleasant smooth ride. It pulls some pretty good forces in the last seat as well.

We were going to ride Avalance but it was closed. I think it opened later in the day. We decided to skip the Italian Job because the line was monster, and we headed over for a drop on Drop Zone. Believe it or not 3 of my friends wussed out just as we were about to get into our seats. Shame, cuz they missed out on the best drop tower around. After that we decided to head back to IJ and just wait it out.

Speaking of, I'm glad we did wait it out. I was totally impressed by this ride ! The initial launch was actually pretty powerful, and there were some really strong G's heading up into that upward helix into the parking deck. Nice quick turns, a couple of out of your seat moments, and a decent overbank turn. Then it stops for the explosions and the gun fire. After that, you are launched again into the underground part, which was a major surprise. Lots of twists and turns, and that last dip out of the billboard and under the sidewalk literally threw me up out of my seat against the lap bar. Overall, I think its a definite winner, and it moved into the 2nd place slot as my favorite at the park behind Volcano. Yeah yeah we lost Flight of Fear, which is a shame, but overall, its something that definitely most of the family can enjoy.

We managed Grizzly which was running great, and a spin on the Rebel Yell, which nearly jarred my spine out of place. The park was very busy, which was a shock considering it was early in the season. Average line wait was at least an hour. For IJ we waited about 1.5 hours, and the same for Hypersonic XLC. This will probably be my one and only trip to the park, as I plan on doing SixFlagsGadv, Cedar Point, and Busch Gardens Tampa a little later in the summer. Thanks for reading guys !