Six Fla... ooops I meant. PKD 4/11/06

So it's been two years since I was last at PKD. Simply due to the fact of no new rides and a need for a change of scenery. Needless to say the lure of PKD being open during the week when most of the kids are out of school for spring break, but the mommies and daddies are still at work was the main reason of getting me out of the house and on the road to get some early season riding in.

We arrived at the park around 10:40 and was pleased to see that the parking lot was pretty vacant. We also noticed that uhm... no Volcano was running. Immediately the uneasy feelings started to creep in.

Working our way towards the main section of the park, we decided to start off with a tame backwards ride on Rebel Yell, but along the way Drop zone was calling our names. Hmmm.. lets see.. there were 5 ride ops running dz. One at each booth and then two at main control tower, yet they were only loading two sections of the ride? Maybe it was ride-op training day. Hmm. Well after waiting for 5 drops we get on.. amazing still. Everytime I ride dz it takes my breath and gets the blood pumping. :) Off the ride and onwards to RY.

Hmm.. the backwards side has a trash can in front of the line (a site we were going to see all day long). While we were dissappointed that the reverse side was closed, we did enjoy our calm and soothing forwards ride. Next.

So i'm not gonna drag this out for those of you who made it this far, here's the final run down. RY Backwards Closed. Hurler Closed. Flight of Fear - Closed and gone forever, one of the ride ops said the hush hush around the park is that PKD sold FOF to Canadas Wonderland to pay for Italian Job hence the stupidest move they have ever done if true). Grizzly, running just as wild as ever. Anaconda - skipped that pos. Tombraider - great Huss ride as always. Volcano - CLOSED ALL DAY!. Hypersonic - Up and down but did get one ride in b4 we left.. great as always.

So there ya go.. PKD acting like a six flags park with rides closed and slow moving uninspired ride-ops. Glad I only paid for a single day admission online for $35.

Oh and Italian Job looks like it could be fun, but dont plan on a May visit which is the supposed opening date, they are far from being done.

Thanks for the TR C-Bear... :)

I put NO stock in the idea of a re-theming for FOF....that sucker is *gone*, IMO. Maybe they'll send H:XLC elsewhere when they get their NEXT launched coaster? LOL! :)

Those DZs, for my money, are the ultimate in Drop/Shot ride intensity...the 80' *pumped* S&S towers are a close second (think of IB's for an example)...

*** Edited 4/12/2006 6:34:20 PM UTC by rollergator***

Gater, if they continue their trend of removing their oldest launched coaster then Volcano is up next. The park is "on notice" for taking out FOF with me, if they take up Volcano they will become "dead to me."

What intend to do, it may or may not be to late, if file a complaint with Guest Services. It may be to late, but if they get enough maybe they'll think twice before taking the next coaster out, selling it to another park etc.. If you had to sell a coaster, why not sell Shockwave.

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CoasterBearVa said:
Flight of Fear - Closed and gone forever, one of the ride ops said the hush hush around the park is that PKD sold FOF to Canadas Wonderland to pay for Italian Job hence the stupidest move they have ever done if true).

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But Paramount owns Wonderland, do they sell within the park chains? Eh I dunno. It would just sound wierd. Selling to Six Flags or Cedar Fair makes mroe sense. But Paramount to Paramount? Dosn't.

*** Edited 4/12/2006 8:01:51 PM UTC by Colin Fisher***

^ Well, internal accounting often calls for a monetary value to be placed upon an item being transferred within the company...helps keep Enron-quality accountants from hiding assets/liabilities... ;)

This is the second year in a row that they've had a wooden coaster down for the beginning of the season. Last year it was Grizzly which didn't open until May I believe.

Yea, PKD seems to be acting like a SF park this year. We went on opening day, and there were multiple closings/non-openings. Let's see:

-- FoF (of course)
-- Hurler (won't open 'til May)
-- Italian Job (duh)
-- Drop Zone (wasn't open for a decent amount of the time)
-- Volcano (operated a fair amount)
-- Hypersonic (operated a fair amount)
-- Anaconda (didn't open with the park; opened at some point early afternoon)
-- the season pass line was LONG, and when we got in there, they weren't even running all the kiosks.

I like PKD, but I hope this doesn't continue. I really would like it if they kept FoF. If they had to take a launch coaster out, I'd say take Hypersonic. It's so short, the capacity is bad, and the thing is too violent. Volcano isn't going anywhere at this point. It would be nice if they would remove Shockwave and put in something nicer in that spot--maybe even replace it with a Huss giant frisbee like PKI kinda did with theirs. Though they did repaint it again for this season, so it's probably staying.

On a side note (which is fairly unrelated), I wonder what ever happened to the Drachen Fire trains. Those things were so cool-looking, what with the design and the lights. It would have been nice if some park would have bought them and put them on their existing Arrow looper (how cool would they be on Anaconda?)