Cyclonic
Posts: 2636
Registered: 7/19/2002
Rank: Experiment 626
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 3/29/2003 4:40:00 PM
This was my first visit to King's Dominion, and I had been really looking forward to it. It had been a long winter, very cold with a ton of snow this year, and I was more then ready to get back to riding. King's Dominion is the closest park that is opening this early.
I got to the park at about 9:45, well before opening, and got a great parking spot right up near the entrance. This was convenient since I had lunch in a cooler in the car, and did not plan to eat in the park. The parking lot had several picnic areas scattered around, but without tram service and the fact that small parks seem to have not problem with free parking, I have big issues with the seven dollar parking fee.
I get myself together and head over to the entrance where I meet up with niteride, AKA Joe, from Coasters2k. He lives in nearby Ashland, thus he has a season pass. He gives me a coupon for a sweet nine bucks off. We get through the gates with a good deal of security (metal detectors, lots of rent-a-cops) and head to meet up with the Drop Zone walk back. They are already headed out, so we make a dash and catch up with them.
The walk back was uneventful as far as I am concerned. We all got the Drop Zone promotional CD, and everyone got the first official ride on it. What a ride it is too. It has a huge capacity, and easily held everyone in the walk back. The ride is smooth and quite, and just a bit scary. The drop is unexpected and the brakes bring the car to a smooth stop without any jarring. The only issue with the ride is turnover time. Not all of the seats have been modified to fit larger persons, and if someone has to switch seats, the entire ride's restraints have to be released and rechecked. Also, they have dots on the ground inline to indicate where on the ride to go, but people don't really understand this, and since the dots aren't numbered, the general public has no idea where to go.
At this point we had gained another enthusiast, ApolloAndy from Coasterbuzz. Andy is going to school at Princeton and was down for the day. We headed over to Volcano, where there was just about no line. We were on in ten minutes.
Volcano is a neat ride, but to me a bit disappointing. The launch is great, at the inversion at the top of the vertical spike is fantastic, but that is the highlight of the ride. You go through a series of heartline inversions, three total, as you speed around the simulated mountain. And that is is. The ride comes to a sudden stop as it re-enters the mountain. I don't know, I guess i was hoping for a bit more, possibly the ride going in and out of the mountain some more, and maybe a bit longer. I also found that the ride was rather difficult to photograph, lots of supports and not really any good spots to take pictures.
We next headed over to the Scooby Doo Ghoster Coaster, where we were to meet up with Joe's mom. She had dropped him off, and he was going to meet his father later to get a ride home. She begrudgingly got aboard the Ghoster Coaster with us. This is a nice PTC junior. I think it is the first coaster I have ridden that uses flanged wheels, which is pretty cool.
To get the whole 12 coasters you have to ride Taxi Jam, a little Miler kiddie coaster which is right next to the Ghoster Coaster. So, Andy and i waited by the entrance and hijacked some kids in order to ride, since you have to have a kid to ride. It, of course, was nothing spectacular, but none the less counts as a credit.
We now made our way to Flight of Fear. The ride was a walk-on. I've got to say, it is a great ride. I can see just how painful it must have been before with the OTSR, as it really can toss you around. The one thing I really didn't like about it was the midcourse break run, it really seems to slow the pacing, but at least that pacing picks up again. The helix at the bottom just above the ground that leads into a corkscrew is amazing.
Nearby is Anaconda. It is an Arrow, which I really am not too fond of, but it is a neat l
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Cyclonic
Posts: 2636
Registered: 7/19/2002
Rank: Experiment 626
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 3/30/2003 3:40:00 PM
Yeah, you got to do what it takes to get those credits 
I know Hypersonic was a two hour wait becuase I set my stop watch to check it. It had really nothing to do with the crowds, they were very light, but everything to do with it breaking down. They were running just one train, which sucks, and it takes ten times as long to load/unload then it does to actually ride it. I also waited probably half an hour longer to get the front seat, which also was made worse by a breakdown. Hopefully it will be good to go for the ACE confrence in June.
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Cyclonic
Posts: 2636
Registered: 7/19/2002
Rank: Experiment 626
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 4/4/2003 12:19:00 AM
You may want to do that. Like I said in the report, it was such a long wait because they were have a lot of trouble with the ride, which seems to be the order of the day for it.
Drop Zone has such a high capacity that I would wait to hit it later on in the day, the wait won't be that bad. Most of the GP will probably be going right for the ride first thing, so that will leave Hypersonic wide open early on.
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