VekomaRulz

It's my favorite coaster in the park, my #5 ranked steel coaster and my 2nd favorite B&M invert of the 9 different ones I have ridden. I like everything about the coaster, the comfortable restraints, unique layout with the dive loop and it's just an overall fun coaster.

90 minutes for Firehawk

The slides are from WhiteWater. I have ridden a clone of the same slide structure at Dorney and none of the slides caused any back problems for me. The only thing I don't like about the trap door slides is that water hits your face the entire slide and I have to keep my eyes closed.

I really don't understand why SFA, SFNE and La Ronde would put VR on their star attractions. The more reports I hear about it killing capacity, the more I am against it but if they had to add it to a coaster, maybe something like Roar would have been a better choice?

Lake Compounce, Boulder Dash is amazing and they have a nice variety of non coaster rides as well. Dorney Park, it is in a tough location between Hersheypark and Great Adventure but they have a decent coaster collection and Wildwater Kingdom is one of the best water parks in the area.

Poor sales in China was mentioned as a reason. I guess all those Golden Horse knockoff spinning coasters hurt their sales a lot since it seems like they really took over that area (RCDB lists 80 spinning coasters from Golden Horse). I thought they were doing ok with 4 coasters opened last year and 2 opening this year.

Yes it is true that the ride side of Dorney rarely has any lines with a few exceptions. Wild Mouse almost always has some kind of wait, even on a slow day it can be 25 minutes because they rarely run more than 4 cars and have a policy of only 2 teenagers or adults per car. Thunder Canyon also can get long lines since it is right next to the water park and loading is slow compared to other rapids rides. The other coasters are almost never more than a 5 to 10 minute wait unless you go on a Friday in May (lots of school trips), summer weekend or a Saturday during Haunt. The water park can get extremely crowded as seen here (5th picture): http://newsplusnotes.blogspot.com/2015/07/dorney-park-christmas-in-july-haunt.html This is a better deal than the offer they had last year where you got regular Fast Lane for a pass renewal and it had to be used by the end of the season. I ended up using it on the last Friday night of the season during Haunt and for most of the rides I didn't even need it because they were walk ons anyway.

I have heard they toned down the flipping since this happened with some rides on the purple side of the track getting no flips at all. I am hoping to get to the park to try the coaster before it goes back to regular flipping since I'm probably one of the few people that would like to try the coaster without all those flips.

As much as I like Great Adventure they really are not good at enforcing cell phones being taken out on rides. Anyone who takes a phone out on a coaster is supposed to be kicked out of the park but it never happens. It has been really bad last year and the few times I have been there this year. Even when someone is caught I have never seen a person get in trouble, they just get a warning even if it happens multiple times by the same person on a ride like Sky Screamer.

i just hope VR isn't added to that many more coasters even though it seems like it will be. I would hate to see one of my favorite coasters at a local park no longer possible to ride without waiting in a line that could be 2 or more hours when on a slow day it could be 15 minutes or less.

What's nice is too that if you have leftover days from a ticket when you were a kid and even if you are over age 9 when going back to Disney and go to guest services, they will exchange ticket for an adult ticket with the same amount of leftover days.

The only issue I have with size restrictions is lack of consistency. The Cedar Fair B&M Hyper coasters require 3 clicks (I am not sure if that is the correct term or not) yet other chains only require 2 clicks. I can sort of understand it since its within the same chain of parks with the requirement although if someone is safe with 2 clicks on some of the coasters 2 clicks should be safe enough for all of them. The Impulse coasters are worse. Wicked Twister has a reputation of having much shorter belts compared to Impulse coasters in other Cedar Fair parks like Steelm Venom and Possessed.

Banshee, last row Diamondback, anywhere but I prefer the last row of any car with the single seat on each side since it feels more open. Racer, middle row of any car to get a non wheel seat Beast, last row The Bat, front row Backlot Stunt Coaster, front row Vortex, first half of the train, front row of one of those cars Flying Ace Aerial Chase, anywhere Woodstock's Express, anywhere Adventure Express, middle row of any car to get a non wheel seat Flight of Fear, last car either row

I also liked Sheikra, probably my 3rd favorite coaster in the park after Montu and Cheetah Hunt. Valravn looks really great and I'm hoping to get back there sometime in the next few years.

I'm glad they were banned for 5 years. I have noticed cell phone use on rides has really been worse than usual the last couple of years of visiting parks. Even after told by a ride operator to put away a phone most people ignore it and take out the phone a few seconds later.

That's one concern I always have when riding a B&M Flying coaster. It's uncomfortable waiting on the brake run with your head tilted town just for a few minutes waiting for the other train in the station to dispatch.

Great report and pictures. Friday sounds like it was a great day to visit especially compared to Wednesday where Superman and Green Lantern were an hour for much of the day. Skull Mountain has some more theming but for some reason this season they haven't been using all of it. There are some masks that should have lights on them but don't and the bottom of the first drop has some blacklight painted track that hasn't been used this season at all and was replaced with an orange light. There is also another pumpkin in the middle of the ride that doesn't have any lights on it either. It would be nice to see Zumanjaro and Kingda Ka run at the same time but that seems unlikely. It has cut Kingda Ka's capacity in half and sometimes worse than that like when Zumanjaro has one of its many breakdowns and Kingda Ka can't run until the gondolas are in the station and covered with the retractable roof.

I thought no re rides was a chain wide policy, but it sounds like some of the parks used to allow it. It wasn't allowed at Cedar Point last year when I was there and at Dorney it hasn't been allowed for as long as I have had a season pass.

Longer operating schedules. I don't think Cedar Fair would have Holiday In the Park in cold weather areas like NJ. Even for the regular season their parks open earlier, Great Adventure opens as much as 6 weeks earlier than Dorney each year depending on when Easter is. Six Flags allows re rides on the coasters and often encourages it. There is no limit either unlike some other parks that only allow 2 consecutive rides if there is no line. Lower height requirements on coasters. Season Pass is less money, no extra cost for access to all parks. The dining pass also is less money, and includes free soft drinks all season with the gold pass and a snack each visit. You can also exchange a meal for a snack. Less strict weather policies. They will run the coasters in under 30 degrees, even the B&M coasters.

Reading the last couple pages of this thread I am really glad it isn't going to be at Great Adventure this year and I hope they never add it, especially because I could see it going to a ride like Nitro that has such great capacity where the line rarely stops moving with all 3 trains running.

I'd love to have this problem since it would mean I lived close to an amusement park and would gladly put up with noise from a park to be able to drive over to the few times a week for some coaster rides. I seem to have the opposite problem of living near parks that closed. I spent my entire life less than 10 minutes away from a park that closed 6 years before I was born and I just moved to a new area that had a park 5 minutes away and closed in the late 80s. I guess I can't complain too much though since I'm now 75 minutes from Knoebels.

Cedar Fair seems slow removing attractions from their website. This one was removed from the park after 2013: http://dorneypark.accessomobile.com/Home/Page/1521018

I was considering trying it last year. I didn't feel like getting soaked and skipped it. I also skipped Thunder Canyon and Snake River Falls for the same reason. I don't mind getting soaked on a water ride if I am going to a waterpark before or after the rides (like at Dorney Park, Thunder Canyon and White Water Landing are right next to the Wildwater Kingdom and you can wear bathing suits and don't have to wear shoes). It would have been nice if they still had a traditional log flume that gets you cooled off but not drenched, like Race For Your Life Charlie Brown.

The cars are free spinning. I would have liked to have seen the coaster built in Movietown where the other 2 Batman themed coasters are rather than the Lakefront although I like the new track colors compared to the original red and yellow rails.

I feel the same way. I am not a fan of screens on all the rides and then to make things worse some of the rides without screens such as Men in Black and Cat in the Hat had spinning making them dizzying as well. I was only able to ride Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey once because of the combination of the ride movement and all the screens.