1st Kings Dominion Trip! 6/25-27

[Joncars05]

Sorry again for the ridiculously long TR. I always add way too much haha.

 

After my wife and my first trip to Carowinds we ended up heading to Virginia to take our first visit to Kings Dominion. We have heard all about how the park was and we were pretty excited to start the day. We left to each breakfast early and we ended up getting to the park 15 minutes before opening. We headed into the park and noticed that they had everyone walk through security metal detectors. This drastically slowed down the entrance process. We finally got through the line as it took about 10 minutes to get through security. We were told that Volcano: The Blast Coaster was always a long wait so we headed over to the ride for the ERT session. Now at Kings Dominion they have a 30 minute ERT session for those with platinum and gold passes. The ERT list was The Crypt and Volcano: The Blast Coaster. Well it just so happened that neither of the parks ERT lineup was up and functional at all. We walked and waited in line at the entrance for Volcano for almost the entire ERT time. So basically the ERT was a waste of time as we didn’t get to ride it until the park actually opened at 1030. We took a ride in the second row for our first trip around. The first launch was very quick and we were into the turn and out of it in no time. Then the vertical launch was spectacular! Rolling out of the Volcano was really cool then the slow turns and rolls were pretty fun also. I felt like the ride could’ve ended better though. It sped up really well and I thought it was going to give us some speed at the end but it basically stopped right when it was getting really quick. We ended up getting two rides in before leaving to ride Intimidator 305.

Now a funny short story about this was my wife watched all the POVs of the rides at KD and Carowinds before and she said that I305 was a “lame” coaster. I wasn’t really sure if she was joking but she said she didn’t like the layout and that it just didn’t look fun. So I followed it up with it will probably the most intense coaster we have ever been on. I mentioned how the majority of people grayout or blackout on the ride. She said it didn’t look intense enough and that she wasn’t scared. I just told her to wait and see! So we finally were able to hop on I305 after about a 10 minutes wait. Once on we headed up the hill very quickly with the cable lift. After we crested the hill the view was amazing and the drop was great as well. Once we hit the turn right after the drop the forces were just crazy. I grayed out without a doubt. Luckily they altered the ride so I started to clear up as soon as we hit the first airtime hill. The airtime was great on the first hill. The laterals and quick turns were pretty fun but once we got to the second airtime hill it was completely neutered by a heavy trim brake. The final turns were pretty fun as well and we hit the brakes and it was all over. The ride was unbelievable how fast and forceful it was. When we got off of the ride I asked my wife how it was and she said it was scary. She grayed out during the first turn and really didn’t like the feeling. I wanted to ride again so we ended up getting back in line and I was teasing her saying I told you that the ride is intense and she replied I didn’t think it was going to be that crazy. Once we got into the station she stated that she was going to ride this one more time and never ride it again. I really don’t blame her the graying out really does take away from the fun of the ride. It is really scary if you aren’t expecting it or if you don’t feel comfortable experiencing it. So she rode twice and I rode 3 times then we headed out to the next ride. It was BLSC it was pretty much the same as KI’s BLSC except the entire mid ride show with the helicopter was off (no flame, shots, or anything) and the water splashdown was active. We then headed to ride Anaconda and my wife wanted to ride it only once. I thought it was pretty good. The ride going into the water for the first drop as well as the inversions over the water made this ride very fun. I didn’t really like the pretzel turns (or whatever you want to call them) before the final inversion. But it was a fun ride in general. We then headed to Boo Blasters. Which had no wait. It was really fun. They even had lasers pointing to the targets so it made it easier to shoot the targets. I actually like the idea of having lasers on the gun. Finally we headed to Dominator. It is a floorless coaster with ridiculously huge inversions. The first loop and cobra roll are insane. I was really impressed with how smooth it was. It wasn’t too fast but the inversions were great and I thought the ride was paced pretty well. We ended up leaving the park and heading to eat outside the park and take a nap at the hotel. Well that might have been a mistake because it rained when we got to the hotel. We waited until it cleared up around 4 to head back to the park but as soon as we got into the parking lot the rain kicked back up we went into the park and all of the rides were closed and the rain continued so we ended up leaving and head back to the hotel for the night. It ended up being a good decision as the rain never stopped and it stormed pretty bad (lightning/wind) the rest of the night.

For day 2 since we started the same way a couple of rides on Volcano I was able to get 3 rides in on I305. Also on I305 the first we were there Thursday they only had one train operation the entire day. On the second day Friday it was the same thing single train operation all day. Now I am not sure about how the inner workings of KD works so if anyone has any idea as to why they do this please let me know. Just to me it seems really silly to have your marquee ride that is constantly ranked in the top 15 in the world by Golden Tickets and ranked in the top 4 in the world on the Mitch Hawker awards running one train operations all day. That would be similar to running only two trains on Banshee or Millennium Force and not utilizing its full capacity. It made lines that should’ve been a couple of cycles extend to 30-40 minute waits. If you have been to the park and know how the queues work the line used none of the switchbacks and lead to the entrance of the ride and from what I experienced before might have stretched the ride into an hour wait. I just never understood why they did this. It was intentionally lowering the capacity of the ride just to do it. The only thing I could think of was that it was to either keep wear and tear on the cable to a minimum, keep wear and tear on the trains to a minimum, or the ride was so intense that they don’t want the general public riding as many times as they want. I just didn’t really understand it.

 

 

But after my couple of cycles on I305 minus the wife we headed to Flight of Fear. It was actually really fun. I feel like the ride was much smoother than the one at KI. I don’t know if it was because the ride was a little bit more illuminated or just launched at a different speed but we both enjoyed the ride much more than the one at KI. After that we headed to Avalanche. It is a bobsled coaster and it was the first one that my wife and I have ever been on. It was really unique the riding style allowed us to share a car. It enjoyed the ride and my wife thought it was the best ride they had. I’m not sure why she enjoyed it so much but she loved it. Next we headed back to Drop Tower. This ride was really cool. The employee in the drop box came over the microphone while heading up and she sang “Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye) and timed it up perfectly to drop us as soon as she said goodbye. I was beyond blown away at how low the train got before actually braking. I usually don’t get nervous on Drop Towers but I really said please stop because it felt like we were going to hit the ground. I wish we had this Drop Tower at KI it really pushes the envelope on using the brakes.  I ended up riding DT a couple of more times then we headed to Rebel Yell. We rode in the second row. It was a classic racing coaster that was of course not racing. The airtime on it was a bit more than Thunder Road and just about the same as Racer at KI. It was a fun spin but the queue was a bit longer than it needed to be. We decided to leave the park for lunch and take a nap at the hotel again.

 

 

When we came back we immediately headed for Dominator and then headed back to ride their Flying Eagles. It was very similar to the ones at KI where the tub was just too heavy to snap. We headed to Grizzly where my wife rode it once and I stayed on for a couple of more cycles. I heard many crazy stories about how it is one of the worst wooden coasters ever but I thought it was a great ride. It didn’t beat me up and the woods made it seem like it was completely separated from the rest of the park. We then headed to WindSeeker. Which was a fantastic ride. The view was great and again it seemed like the cycle was longer than KI. We headed to ride Hurler and man was it rough. The trim brake after the first drop was awful. It was almost as if the brake didn’t hit the train the right way so the train just shuffled and bounced (or atleast it felt like it) for the entire first turn. It made the ride unenjoyable. I thought Carowinds’ Hurler was much better. We then went to ride Ricochet and we both enjoyed this one. We went up towards the front to hop on the Eiffel Tower. We then strolled the park taking in the beauty of the ride. Finally we headed to Shockwave and boy it was interesting. First this was the first TOGO I have been on and the restraints were really weird to me. The first portion of the ride was great, then we got to the helix… Headbanging like none other. The rest of the ride was decent. But when we got off my wife said that was the worst ride that she has ever been on. I think she just wasn’t ready for the helix because it really made you go almost sideways so she hit her head on the restraint really hard. She said it was like she got punched. We then headed over to I305 as it was getting dark. I got in 3 rides during the last 45 minutes, including one with the fireworks going off. Overall it was a good day but the way the ride ops worked many of the rides had slow operations all day. Many rides had waits that could have been 5-10 minutes turn into 15-20 minute waits due to the staff working extremely slow. I would’ve given them the benefit of the doubt if it was an extremely hot day like we experienced in Carowinds a couple of days before. But the ops were just super slow even though the heat index was close to 25 degrees cooler than Carowinds. Maybe we just were spoiled by the staff at Carowinds but it seemed as if we went to a Six Flags park instead of a Cedar Fair park. The ride ops were that slow. But we still enjoyed ourselves and decided to head back to the hotel.

 

 

After heading back to the hotel we decided since we didn’t feel like we were able to get a lot of rides in (especially compared to earlier in the week at Carowinds) we came back for ERT on Saturday morning and got some rides on Volcano, I305, and Avalanche before leaving the park an hour after we got in for good to head back to family in Maryland.

 

Overall we had a great time at the park. I think the mix of rides was pretty good. I think that I305 is definitely more intense than it looks on the POVs and to be honest the gray outs happened every time that I rode it. It was almost too intense if that makes sense. I almost had to focus on not blacking out so it took away some of the enjoyment for me. The guy in the drive box was doing spiels and he was giving instructions on how to not pass out on the turn. I just think that if you have to be instructed on how to ride a ride it may be overkill. It was right on the edge for me but I thought it was still enjoyable to me. Now if you ask my wife you will get a totally different answer. They had some good entertainment, the clown band put on a good show. They had everyone dancing during their show. The singing mushrooms were cool too.  I thought the park had very good scenery. The entrance plaza was very similar to KI but I thought the fountains and shrubbery was much better.  In fact I really loved how many trees were in the park. It made the weather which wasn’t hot to begin with even more enjoyable. I think the only complaint that both my wife and I had was the slow ride ops. I think we might have been spoiled by the way Carowinds worked hard in the 108 degree heat index so we just assumed that when it was high 70s/low 80s and breezy that we would’ve been able to get more rides in. It was enough to knock the park down a few notches in our books. We have now been to 4 parks and we ranked them as follows: Carowinds, KI, CP, and KD. We would definitely go back and do this trip a couple of years from now. I feel like both, Carowinds and KD, had extremely small crowds for being the middle of summer. I don’t know why it was but at both parks many of the “smaller” rides were walk ons for the entire week. Even with the big Christian concert they had going on the lines were really short at Kings Dominion. I went to KI the week after on a Wednesday and The Bat had a 20 minute wait. I just think that KI has a central location so they bring in way bigger crowds. But the trip is fun if you ever have the time and the funds to go to either Carowinds or KD I would recommend both parks as they are fun places to visit.

 

Final Ride Count and some photos are below:

I305- 13

Volcano- 7

Dominator- 5

Grizzly-4

Avalanche- 3

Anaconda- 3

Ricochet- 3

Rebel Yell- 2

FOF- 1

BLSC- 1

Shockwave- 1

Hurler-1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Thrill_Biscuit]

Good to see KI's little sis in this beautifully-photographed PTR! Sounds like 305 was a wow! Thanks for posting!

[electricsun]

That is interesting to hear that ride operations were slow when you went on a much cooler day. It was 95-98 the day I visited and I was wondering if the one train and slow dispatch was normal or because it was so hot.

Thanks for sharing your experience!

[TheBEASTunchained]

Great PTR, love all the details! Sounds like you both enjoyed your visit very much.

Thanks for sharing!

[marth555]

Which giga coaster did you enjoy more Fury Or I 305?

[gad198]

When we got off of the ride I asked my wife how it was and she said it was scary. She grayed out during the first turn and really didn’t like the feeling. I wanted to ride again so we ended up getting back in line and I was teasing her saying I told you that the ride is intense and she replied I didn’t think it was going to be that crazy. Once we got into the station she stated that she was going to ride this one more time and never ride it again. I really don’t blame her the graying out really does take away from the fun of the ride. It is really scary if you aren’t expecting it or if you don’t feel comfortable experiencing it.

 

I think that I305 is definitely more intense than it looks on the POVs and to be honest the gray outs happened every time that I rode it. It was almost too intense if that makes sense. I almost had to focus on not blacking out so it took away some of the enjoyment for me. The guy in the drive box was doing spiels and he was giving instructions on how to not pass out on the turn. I just think that if you have to be instructed on how to ride a ride it may be overkill. It was right on the edge for me but I thought it was still enjoyable to me. Now if you ask my wife you will get a totally different answer.

 

This is a really nice trip report.  Thank you for posting!

 

I highlighted the statements above because they showcase perfectly why building coasters expressly to satisfy the hardcore coaster enthusiast - without taking the general public into account - is a bad idea.  I go to KD a couple times a year, and have ever since I305 opened.  I305 nearly always has a very short line, even when there's one train running (which there frequently is).  In all my visits my longest wait has been 15 minutes.  When you talk with locals about the coaster many of them like it, but most of them then add "it's too intense", "I only ride it once a visit", "I gray out every time I ride" or some variation of those.  How much fun can a coaster be when it requires you to use the fighter pilot technique to ward off grayouts?

 

There are a lot of enthusiasts out there that have I305 ranked as their #1 coaster.  I respect anyone who holds that opinion; however, many of those same people will also claim that I305 is a very popular coaster at the park.  Those people are off-base.  There's very rarely a sizeable line for the coaster, and most parkgoers are not riding it more than once a visit.  Dominator and Volcano are much more popular with the vast majority of KD parkgoers than I305 because they're much more re-rideable.  There's a reason why Cedar Fair went with B&M for their next two gigas. 

[Joncars05]

Which giga coaster did you enjoy more Fury Or I 305?

 

For me, it is Fury 325 without a doubt. Fury is my second favorite coaster I have ever been on. Being able to re-ride Fury constantly plus the elements (sideways airtime, 90 degree turn around, tunnel, and first drop) was the big difference to me. I felt that (minus the graying out) I305 had a great drop and first airtime hill after that the speed in the turns was fun but not enough for me to rank it higher than Fury. Me being an airtime junkie, I feel like it is missing more airtime moments. I would put Fury above Millennium but just barely. Millennium in the second row is great but I felt that Fury in the back row was just absurd.

 

 

 

When we got off of the ride I asked my wife how it was and she said it was scary. She grayed out during the first turn and really didn’t like the feeling. I wanted to ride again so we ended up getting back in line and I was teasing her saying I told you that the ride is intense and she replied I didn’t think it was going to be that crazy. Once we got into the station she stated that she was going to ride this one more time and never ride it again. I really don’t blame her the graying out really does take away from the fun of the ride. It is really scary if you aren’t expecting it or if you don’t feel comfortable experiencing it.

 

I think that I305 is definitely more intense than it looks on the POVs and to be honest the gray outs happened every time that I rode it. It was almost too intense if that makes sense. I almost had to focus on not blacking out so it took away some of the enjoyment for me. The guy in the drive box was doing spiels and he was giving instructions on how to not pass out on the turn. I just think that if you have to be instructed on how to ride a ride it may be overkill. It was right on the edge for me but I thought it was still enjoyable to me. Now if you ask my wife you will get a totally different answer.

 

This is a really nice trip report.  Thank you for posting!

 

I highlighted the statements above because they showcase perfectly why building coasters expressly to satisfy the hardcore coaster enthusiast - without taking the general public into account - is a bad idea.  I go to KD a couple times a year, and have ever since I305 opened.  I305 nearly always has a very short line, even when there's one train running (which there frequently is).  In all my visits my longest wait has been 15 minutes.  When you talk with locals about the coaster many of them like it, but most of them then add "it's too intense", "I only ride it once a visit", "I gray out every time I ride" or some variation of those.  How much fun can a coaster be when it requires you to use the fighter pilot technique to ward off grayouts?

 

There are a lot of enthusiasts out there that have I305 ranked as their #1 coaster.  I respect anyone who holds that opinion; however, many of those same people will also claim that I305 is a very popular coaster at the park.  Those people are off-base.  There's very rarely a sizeable line for the coaster, and most parkgoers are not riding it more than once a visit.  Dominator and Volcano are much more popular with the vast majority of KD parkgoers than I305 because they're much more re-rideable.  There's a reason why Cedar Fair went with B&M for their next two gigas. 

 

 

Thanks! I know what you are saying. I305 was the only coaster that I have every grayed out on. To me you shouldn't have to ride rides in a certain way (special seat, breathing technique, eyes looking in a certain spot) to make them enjoyable. From what I saw If it was two train operation the lines might have been a 20-30 minute wait at most. I305 wasn't the extended line that I was thinking it was going to be. I figured it was going to be similar to Millennium Force in terms of the longest line in the park but for the reasons you stated the line was far from what my expectations were. It makes me think that those are the reasons as to why they were only running 1 train on I305 for all 3 days we were in the park. 

 

 

That is interesting to hear that ride operations were slow when you went on a much cooler day. It was 95-98 the day I visited and I was wondering if the one train and slow dispatch was normal or because it was so hot.

Thanks for sharing your experience!

It was very interesting. Almost every other ride outside of I305 had 2 train ops. Some crews were very slow though. We still had an enjoyable time but felt that the crews could've been quicker at most of the rides. It definitely cut our ride count down. If you look at the shot of the fountains that was the majority of cars in the lot at around 5-6pm on Friday. The park was pretty empty but lines were extended due to slow ops. That really is the only knock we had for the park. Other than that KD was fantastic.

[marth555]

So now im curious as to which coaster you liked more then Fury as I also greatly enjoyed it

[Joncars05]

I have Voyage as my number one coaster. I think it has more of a sentimental edge for the #1 spot for me as well because it was my second non kiddie coaster I have ever been on. But like I said I am an airtime junkie and I love terrain coasters as well. Its almost as if its 3 coasters in one. First 4 airtime hills, spaghetti bowl, then the terrain coaster heading back. For me the little bunny hops of airtime throughout the course make it so much fun. I think because it utilizes the terrain so well and is like a 3-in-1 coaster it takes my #1 spot. But Fury 325 is a very close #2 and if I make it down to Carowinds again soon (sadly it doesn't look like it will happen for me) it might take over the #1 spot for me.

[marth555]

I am also a fan of Voyage