PKD Opening Day...

The best laid plans...........eventually work out. ;)


So after Media Day, my brother and I drove down to our sister's place in Chesapeake on Friday. (Incidentally, on the way we stopped in Williamsburg for lunch. The Trellis -- http://www.thetrellis.com/ and http://www.dessertstodiefor.com/ -- is an EXCELLENT place, and is worth the stop. I had grilled smoked salmon, and it was probably the best salmon I've had since moving back east from Seattle. For dessert I had a pastry sampler platter that was incredible. But I digress...)

Friday night was our celebration for her 30th birthday. Then for Saturday the intent was to head back up to PKD for opening day. We were PLANNING on leaving early Saturday morning and getting to the park before they opened, getting our season passes processed, and hitting the park nice and early.

This didn't work out quite as planned. We didn't get out of her place until about 9, and given that it's a good 2 hours away, we didn't get to the park until 11:00. By now I was feeling a bit guilty -- I'm the one who'd suggested meeting at the Tower at 11:30, and we were going to be late. Season pass processing went pretty quickly, though, and while I was waiting for my brother to come out with his pass who should approach me but WildOne, having spotted either my rec.roller-coaster button or Son of Beast sweatshirt...

We proceeded into the park, where we met 2Hostyl at the designated meeting place, several minutes later than planned.

After a quick pizza lunch it was off to the coasters. Flight of Fear was not operational (although we spotted a crane and flatbed near it). Hypersonic was tempermental all day. Everything else was running, although we skipped Avalanche Run and Scooby Doo's Ghoster Coaster.

The weather started out nice -- warm and sunny. It cooled off a lot as the day wore on, and occasionally drizzled a bit, but it never got BAD out. Crowds were fairly light, and thinned out as the day wore on. Most coasters had virtually no lines (with the exceptions of Volcano and Hypersonic), and we were able to get rerides without walking around (King's Dominion is great about that :) )


Ride counts are from the perspective of myself and brother, although WildOne and 2Hostyl were with us for most of them:

Anoconda (4 laps total) -- It looks nice, but it still mugs you. We could have marathon ridden this one but chose not to.

Grizzly (12 laps) -- This tally included our first night rides on this wonder, in a light drizzle even. The newly tracked sections ran fairly well, but need some breaking in. Still, the ride was running very well.

Hurler (10 laps) -- Like I've said before, my brother and I love this woodie. While on the ride we noted a 4th Hypersonic train sitting off to the left of Hurler (from the persepective of Hurler's lift), and what appeared to be the chassis assembly to a 5th. (Although it COULD also have been parts of a 4th train -- shell and chassis on separate pallets)

Hypersonic XLC (1 lap) -- They were handing out tickets as we got in line, and collecting them at the station. When we got our tickets we were told it would be a 2-3 hour wait, but we decided to go for it anyway. We were on in an hour. Not bad for one train operation. They were actually using all 8 seats this time ;) Once again, WOW.

Rebel Yell (3 laps, all backwards) -- The one time we tried getting on the forwards side, it broke down. We can take a hint... The backwards side is more fun anyway. It's tracking better, too...

Shockwave (1 lap) -- Tried Once, Got Off.

Volcano (2 laps) -- First time was about a 40 minute wait, 2nd time only 20. This coaster is still an awesome rush.

King's Dominion even put their "flyers" flatride back in, near Grizzly. We took 2 spins in it, and were able to get some decent cable-snapping action out of it, without any nagging from the op :)

We hit the log flume once, and while drying off tried the 7th Portal, the new motion-sim ride. This is actually a VERY well done experience, and I recommend that everyone check it out.


Overall, it was an incredible day. We got a lot of riding in, and hooking up with WildOne and 2Hostyl was a pleasure. Talk about kicking off the 2001 coaster season in style... :)


-------------
--Greg

http://www.pobox.com/~gregleg/
*** This post was edited by GregLeg on 3/25/2001. ***

We were at the park on Saturday too. This was our first visit to PKD.

It was nice of the park to put crowd control goons at the entrance to Hypersonic. Their stories of a 4 to 6 hour wait turned almost everyone away from the line!!!

We managed 2 spins on Hyper and many rides on all the other coasters in the park as well.

Hypersonic is simply incredible.

Greg, I agree with you on Volcano. I thought the ride looked kind of slow and lazy from the ground. Boy was I wrong! Great ride. The Hurler is quite snappy as well.

The coaster gods fixed it so we could ride in March, who could ask for more.

Worst part of the weekend was returning to snowy Ohio.

Only 13 days till opening day at PKI!!!

I was there on Saturday. Me and a friend waited 2 1/2 hours for HyperSonic, then CLOSE! It had some problems. They didn't hand out Get in Front passes either. You could've waited in line, but we were hungry, tried of standing, and had to use the bathroom.

We were only 5 Trains away!

We went back Sunday with his family. It was GREAT! We were on the second train of HyperSonic of the day! That was great! Later on, we got back in line and waited an hour or so to ride again. It was just as good as the first time.

I'm sticking with that coaster for a LONG TIME! :D
-------------
"Lets shot Spitballs at Al Gore and make him all Confused!"-Brain

Favorite Park: Paramount's Kings Dominion!

Favorite Coaster: HyperSonic XLC!

Yes, saturday was an awsome day. Not only do my Terps get to the Final Four, I get two rides on HXLC, one in front and one in back. What a ride! Also, hanging out with GregLang and 2Hostyl all day was the most fun I have had in quite a while. Everything in runing all out at PKD and it was only the first day on the season. It is looking like a very good year for PKD!
-------------
2001- the year of flight!

I was there Saturday....literally stuck in line for H:XLC. Sorry I didn't get to see you guys. (But then again, maybe I did and just didn't know it.)

I was in line for Hypersonic as soon as the rope was lifted. After I got my ticket, my wait started at the bottom of the steps to the loading station. Like idiots, we decided to go for the front car. Three hours later, we were still waiting because of a breakdown. We stuck it out after the breakdown because we were so close to our turn. Finally, we could not wait anymore and got complimentary passes. (Big deal when you have a season pass.)

I talked to a maintenance man later about the first breakdown and essentially what happened was a small $5.00 elbow joint had a hairline fracture in it. That is what took so long to replace.

We spent the next 3-4 hours riding the other coasters. As mentioned, hardly any waiting at all. Volcano was only about a 30 minute wait.

At 5:00, we decided to take one more chance at Hypersonic. We were told the wait would be 2 hours. I didn't care. 1 hour later, we were about third in line for the next ride. I had once again gotten myself worked up and really excited when I looked at the next launch only to see the shuttle shoot out at the green light...and leave the train behind! I waited about another 45 minutes while they tried to fix it. The shuttle kept launching without the train. Only one time did it work with an empty train, but the next time would be same trouble as before that. It was time to give up. Got more complimentary tickets and went to ride Grizzly. When we were leaving, Hypersonic was still not working.

I am going to try again next Saturday. I will not give up until I get on that ride! It is the most incredible thing I have ever seen. (Hope to change that last word to "ridden" by next weekend.)

Taunted and Rideless,
Lorrie

HEY! I ate at that restaurant too. Very good. I won't visit PKD this year but I hope all of you luck who venture out to ride it, it sounds like another SOB (pun intended).
________________________
"The end of endings is coming," PHILMORE - Our Finest Hour

Can someone tell me how far apart PKD, SFA and BGW are from each other in term of driving? I'll be there in July, and I only have four days to spare. Thanks!

I rode Anaconda 17x in a row starting @ 7:00 PM....That is deffiantly a re-ride-ride. Hurler was a bit snappier than I remember. Hopefully something good can come out of what they are doing to OL:FoF

-------------
Drachen Fire, Will it be swimming with the fishies?

DWeaver:

What I usually do is look up exactly where a park is located by using the fine database they have here. Then I head on over to www.mapquest.com and type in both of the cities in the "driving directions" portion of that site. It then gives you an approx. distance in miles and hours/minutes it is from on park to the other. I am pretty sure that PKD to BGW is an hour or so from what I remember driving. I am pretty sure that SFA to BGW is fairly long, though, maybe 4 hours or so?
________________________
"The end of endings is coming," PHILMORE - Our Finest Hour

Thanks Punk, your absolutely right. I've always had a hard time with Mapquest, but your suggestion worked. Thanks!