Louisatsweetlou

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...

could we finally be seeing DC Universe?

I could see the roller coaster from LTSP make its way to the old Safari Tours ride. There is absolutely enough space for it but we will see. As for the other rides, you could put them in the area where the old Enterprise used to be or if not there, I would like to see them spread around the park. Hersheypark has a good mix of rides all over the park so families can stick together.

For me, an East Coast Racers would be where I am happiest and while the size of it is not ont he scale of Nitro, it would be a lot of fun. But I think that Splashdown coaster would be interesting but I don't see myself riding it that often due to the fact you would get wet. I hope that if it ends up being the splashdown coaster, they would have it open during the Springtime Preview and Fright Fest.

I just don't see this attraction being a revamped kids area. We have already seen a lot of signs of upcoming construction and it isn't even August! I am sticking with my guns and saying there will be some kind of coaster whether it be the RMC raptor people have been wishing for or a family coaster (maybe a woodie or a spinning coaster) to fit in with the kids area. But then again, I've been wrong before. I don't want to rush this announcement because that means back to school for me but still.

Typically, if we JUST got into line and they are going in front of like 5 people, I'll let them go through but my past visit, Nitro had about a 20 minute line and a group of people said "our friend is up there" and continued cutting the line until they got into the station.

I will probably bite the bullet and get a gold plus membership for the park next year. It comes out to like $5 more per year than a season pass and dining pass if I did my math correctly. I hope that they have the free upgrade to platinum that I have been seeing because, to me, that will make it much more worth it.

You know I had a hunch you were going to hope that

If it was the new addition for next year, it would make complete sense. Those kids areas by Nitro are in dire need of a refurb