Louisatsweetlou

For next year, what I would love to happen would be a season of celebrations/festivals or whatever. I really want a Mardi Gras festival, no matter the season they put it in. If they were to put the festival starting the last weekend of April, they could run it until the weekend before Memorial day, giving the festival 4 weekends to run. This would be incentive for people to come to the park during that early time frame when people are not quite thinking Summer yet. Then, the following weekend would be Memorial Day, and the park could host fireworks, or not, and the crowds would still come. Starting in June, I would love to see something along the lines of what Dorney is doing with their Summer Nights/Grand Carnivale. Just some reason that folks would want to spend the night at the park. We could make Dream Street (both left and right of the fountain) a party zone, fitting in the same area that is considered the Bloody Fountain for Fright Fest. It wouldn't take much to do this; add theatrical lighting, a DJ on a platform, and play the music out of the surrounding speakers. Six Flags already has some Six Flags Dancers that do the Block Party at night so just hire a few more and have them be part of this event for the time being. I would say have this event go on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays as well as other select days throughout August. Then, at the end of August, host an Oktoberfest event that runs until the beginning of Fright Fest. Then you would have Fright Fest, the Bonus Weekends and Holiday in the Park.

With JD, people should not be waiting to ride together, if you get split up, your friends will be on the next train. It's not like you are riding next to them anyway. Every single seat should be full.

Fright Fest shows are popular too! I would say have a show in the Spring and a different one in the Summer! I like how they brought a magician in a few years back

I like the other wish that says to refurbish Congo Rapids- I think that needs to come first before we introduce another water ride to GA. It would be cool to see what Over Texas is getting with Aquaman but right now I don't see Six Flags buying another one of those.

With Jersey Devil opening up right beside it, this is the PERFECT time to revitalize Congo Rapids! I think a refurb of the rockwork- at least paint would be nice. I would also reintroduce the fountains that have been turned off and, if we want to get greedy, add a waterfall that goes straight down over the entire boat so everyone is guaranteed to get wet!

I cannot think of another major Ferris Wheel that keeps the lights turned off. It would make the area look so much nicer as right now it is pretty dark there during every time except HITP

I can see a cool new exhibit of the baboons in a new enclosure on the Golden Kingdom path. This way, the people get to see them and we do not have to worry about them destroying the trucks!

I love that they added the bacon wrapped kebabs over by Macho Nacho in the Carnavale section!

I think all indoor locations should have Coke Freestyle machines. Yum Yum, Granny's, and Best of the West could benefit from this and reduce the amount of staffing needed so there is less time that they are understaffed. Plus its much faster. There should also be a line in the indoor restaurants for just drinks so you do not have to wait in line for just a drink.

Pricing is ridiculous. For me to go, there will need to be a student discount or a coupon in general. I will not pay more than $40 for the park when I can go to Six Flags with my season pass or Dorney for $30 student discount.

I was shocked to see that the majority of guests were well behaved. Dorney also had a lot of security around all day. The best part about their security was they were not stationed at specific locations but rather they were out and about walking.

On 10/27 myself and two friends from college decided to head down to Dorney Park. The park is in the midst of the last few operating days of the season and were offering a great student discount: For $30 you get entry into the park, and for those of you unaware, this also includes Dorney Park's Haunted Attractions. I think that this is the first great thing about Dorney's Haunt as opposed to Fright Fest. If you are going to a Haunt event then most, if not all of your attractions should be included in the gate fee. Anyway, back to the trip. We made the wise decision of heading to the park for opening since none of us have been to the park in at least five years, we wanted to be able to make the most of our day. They had several parking attendants and we got there at 10:40, 20 minutes before the park opened (Season pass holders appear to be able to have early entry and ride time which is cool). We were directed to park in the second row of the lot, with only about 20 other cars already parked and not many behind us. We thought that maybe these crowds would last but there was plenty more people arriving later in the day to make it a moderately crowded event. We purchased our tickets at the booth with our student IDs and waited for the 11 AM official welcome and opening. I like how they play the national anthem and say good morning to everyone. Once the gates were open it took between 2-5 minutes to enter the park as there were not that many people in front of us. Our game plan was simple- we had no game plan. We just wanted to go on as much as we could so we could enjoy the Haunt at night. We headed for Hydra and I liked it just as much as I remember. The inversions are fun, especially the roll right out of the station. It is a floorless coaster, like Bizarro at GA but is much shorter (both in height and ride time). Despite this, I think that I enjoy Hydra more than Bizarro. Side note we were the only people on the train and we decided to ride twice without getting off. Great re-ride policy! We then headed to the left through one of the scare zones set up for later in the night. We rode Steel Force front row, no line and we re-rode in a separate row. I have heard a lot about this coaster, dubbing it "Steel Forceless" but I liked the ride overall, especially the second half of the ride which delivered some great airtime. Then we doubled back towards Thunderhawk, their wooden coaster. I really enjoyed this coaster and makes me wish we had a family wooden coaster at GA. Somehow, I don't see it happening anytime soon. With Jersey devil coming next year, I don't see us getting another coaster for a while (but side note: JD looks like it will be so much fun). Again, great woodie, loved it. Then we hit Possessed, which I remembered being very afraid of when I went when I was 13 but this time it was just a lot of fun. No wait, front row, I have trouble re-riding shuttle coasters so this was a one and done for the day although the line was short all day so we could have gotten on. In the Possessed plaza, they were having a Monster truck special event which was really neat. A highlight was you could actually ride IN the truck. We ended up skipping the ride because of the consistent 1 hour line throughout the day and did not feel like spending the $30 to skip the line. Then we hit a bunch of flat rides which were so much fun. Flat rides like the Whip, Music Express, Tit-a-whirl, and more is why I love Dorney Park. It has such a great family vibe. In the area by Tilt-a-Whirl, there were some skill games which I never feel tempted to play but today, they got me. They put a Stacker game near them and I blew $15 on it. It is a really addicting game and they had prizes like Airpods in there. I always get to the top row and, since its rigged, I never get it. Anyway, I had fun wasting my money so that's what counts haha. Moving on. Demon Drop. Is. So. Much. Fun. I love Zumanjaro but Demon Drop gives me a fun amount of anxiousness that no other ride does. I wish we still had it at GA, although I do love Wonder Woman which eventually took freeFall's spot. Even though none of us were kids, we decided to walk through Camp Snoopy and I love how cute it was. The atmosphere was great, there were so many rides, and the kids were having a blast. (So were the parents). This is a kids area done right and I think GA should take a nod to Cedar Fair and theme their kids area this nice with photo opportunities and great rides, etc. I suspect we will be seeing a new kids area in 2021 so GA, take notes. Somewhere in between all this, we got lunch at the counter-service Chickie's and Pete's. I am not a fan of the kiosk ordering at the locations around the park. Especially paying cash. People paying cash have to go to the cashier anyway so why not just have them take your order as well? Food was good, the wait was a little long (probably like 20 minutes) and my biggest complaint was that most places around the park ran out of ketchup. They close for the season next weekend and I assume they are looking to cut costs but a lot of people were unhappy about it. As for clientele, I found almost everyone we ran into being super friendly and having a good time. The employees were good too. Special shoutout to the operating running the two main drop towers. For those unaware, one shoots you up and one shoots you down, so they are different. Dorney Park must be short staffed (as most parks are this time of year) so this one ride operator was hustling and rotating between each of the towers. 2 cycles on one and 2 cycles on the other. Although the line was a bit longer than I expected it to be, I give kudos to this man for hustling through the day with a smile on his face. At around 4 in the afternoon, rain started falling heavily and so we got a hand stamp and retreated to our car to take a rest even though the rides were all still running (good on Dorney for this as there were people still riding them in the rain) I have some work to do so I will be posting part 2 (Haunt) at a later time. For now, just know I was very impressed.

So, at this point, if BBNP will be open for HITP, all that will be closed is the Golden Kingdom (the one by KK and Zu) Plaza del Carnaval and Frontier Adventures. I wonder if they will have the food places open like the Pizza place, Go Fresh, and Mama Flora's Gyro place. It will also allow for better park flow to the Boardwalk because the lake path by joker (where the graveyard is now) will be open all the way to the four tents area. With this, I also imagine the two shops in the tent will be open in addition to the arcade which is yet another place to go to if it gets cold.

For me, selfishly, I would much rather have two floorless because Lord knows we are not going to be getting any new major coasters after JDC opens- earliest I could see a coaster after that is 2023, and that'll probably be a smaller one which is understandable- but if the options are keep it as it is or convert it and move it to another park, I'll keep it with us.

My GP friend refuses to ride another roller coaster after riding Green Lantern- and will not go to Six Flags- seems like a good idea to convert it...