Theme Park Discussion / [TR] King's Dominion 21-06-'17 (lots of pictures)

Yesterday I popped my American coaster cherry in Busch Gardens Williamsburg, to great satisfaction. Today was all about King's Dominion, a park less oriented at families, with less theming and focus on atmosphere, dominated by (twelve) roller coasters in sizes ranging from insignificant to top tier monstrosity. A very different experience from Busch Gardens, for sure.

 

After visiting Busch Gardens the day before, my girlfriend and I drove to a hotel that is right across from King's Dominion. Looking out the window, we could admire a good portion of the King's Dominion skyline. We had a great sleep, and woke up early to loot the breakfast that was included in our stay. Poorly dressed people queueing for their turn with the waffle machine, and frantically looking to find the muffins before they're all gone, complaining about the quality of the orange juice, it was an amazing experience.

 

 

 

After breakfast, we went to visit the park. I smuggled muffins in my bag. We were too late for the anthem that they play when the park opens, but early enough to do the rides that supposedly get the largest queues first: Volcano, Flight of Fear, and Back Lot Stunt Coaster.

 

#100: Volcano, the Blast Coaster - Because the coaster looks absolutely retarded, I did not think Volcano would be as awesome as it turned out to be. It seems retarded and awesome are not mutually exclusive! The launches (plural!) are very powerful, the barrel rolls high up in the sky are a ton of fun, the ride is smooth and comfortable, and even though the interior of the volcano consisting of nothing but a steel support structure is an anticlimax and ugly as fuck, the supports serve as effective leg choppers and also give you a good sense of orientation and scale. The ending is very abrupt and it seems like they ran out of money to add more track - with the speed here, the ride could've been longer. The ride being themed on the outside and around the queue (very nice theming actually) and being maximally minimal on the inside also hints at the money well running dry. Doesn't matter, we had a blast with Volcano. Pun kinda intended but not entirely.

 

 

 

 

#101: Flight of Fear - An indoor spaghetti bowl coaster (a knot of track basically. Whenever I put my earbuds in my pocket and then take them out, they always look like the layout of Flight of Fear. That's how the people at Premier Rides may have designed this coaster.) with a science fiction/aliens theme. The queue is very nice and spooky, with UFO-like interiors, men in protective suits, neon lights and and aliens in glass tubes. The ride launches (not very powerfully) from the station into the spaghetti bowl. King's Dominion ran out of money again and the coaster's hall is nothing but steel and coloured lights. Still fun, and frankly I lost track of what was up or down and whatever. It was a very nice coaster overall, but it left us a bit dizzy.

 

#102: Back Lot Stunt Coaster - Another lauched Premier coaster! This time the ride is more gentle and family-oriented. Trains are shaped like mini cars, in reference to the Italian Job movie that this ride was originally themed after (I recommend watching the movie! The original with Michael Caine that is, I wouldn't bother with the remake). First element of the ride, after a fun launch is an upwards helix that never seems to end. The ride them takes you through a parking garage, a metro tunnel, a harbour area evading police cars and a helicopter, and through a billboard. Nothing too exciting, but definitely fun!

 

 

After these three, we took a short break and walked to another area of the park. Here we found three coasters: Rebel Yell, a racing wooden roller coaster, Ricochet, a wild mouse, and Hurler, a wooden coaster that is currently being dismantled/under construction. I say both because the track is literally being dismantled on one side while RMC is already laying down new track on the other. They're not wasting any time with this transformation it seems. Hurler did not seem very interesting on the videos I've watched, so it didn't feel like we missed out on anything. We can always come back in a few years to do the RMC.

 

#103 (Blue) & #110 (Red): Rebel Yell - Sadly, it appeared that only one half of the coaster would run today, so no racing. There isn't much to say about Rebel Yell. What you see is what you get: a lot of hills. It was fun. The one thing that stood out was the tunnel at the end: it's loud. Later during the day, the other half of the coaster opened anyway and we rode it too.

 

After Rebel Yell, we went on the ferris wheel to get a nice view of (this portion of) the park.

 

 

 

 

 

#104: Ricochet - The first wild mouse I've done with a layout that is not rectangular: this one has a lift and drop separate from the usual stuff. Didn't make for a very distinctive ride anyway, but it's nice I guess. The ride was very smooth, and we both enjoyed it very much.

 

 

For a view superior to the Ferris Wheel's, the park has its own Eiffel Tower semi-replica. Not quite as tall, but still almost 100 metres. We would climb it later during the day.

 

 

We got deeper into the park and found another wooden roller coaster: Grizzly. We tried to walk the dinosaur trail 'Dinosaurs Alive' first, but it turned out that you had to pay 5 dollars per person. For a fucking walking trail. No. We also contemplated going on the log flume which seemed to be not very wet, but that decision was made for us as the ride broke down in front of us.

 

#105: Grizzly - A mediocre woodie that became bad because of one little bump somewhere that my ribs did not appreciate. It's no surprise that the station was almost empty - which did not keep the ride operator from beat boxing and singing to his stoic co-workers and wishing the few riders a great ride on 'Dominator'. I don't like obnoxious ride operators but this one brought genuine good vibes.

 

 

As we did all the mediocre rides the park has to offer, we started moving to the area of the park that has all the major roller coasters. First, we would encounter the smallest roller coaster that we were still able to ride, situated in the Planet Snoopy area of the park.

 

#106: Woodstock Express - Very nice woodie for children.

 

 

Behind the Woodstock Express, the park's sole B&M can be found: Dominator. It has a nice layout with not just a string of inversions, but lots of (high speed) turns as well. Its looping is I believe one of the biggest loopings in existence. I expected this coaster would be among my favourites of the day.

 

#107: Dominator - Tall, fast, powerful inversions, quite smooth, some airtime, this coaster is a quite traditional looper but does it well. The first drop and the looping are especially awesome. This is a coaster I wanted to do and did multiple times in a row!

 

Since Dominator is built on what seems to be the former parking lot, there are literally no trees around, making the track look extra sexy against a clear blue sky wherever you look. Half the pictures I took in the park, I took here.

 

 

 

I think it's great how the looping is yellow, with the rest of the coaster being orange. Beautiful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three coasters in a row!

 

 

Despite Dominator's awesomeness and it being the most visible coaster in the park (at least from outside the park), the true main ride in the park is Intimidator 305. A truly intimidating coaster that we heard intimidating stories about. Since we weren't a huge fan of Alpengeist the day before, with similarly a lot of abrupt direction changes, we were kinda intimidated. It's good that before boarding it, after the quite intense Dominator, we got to rest for a bit in the well hidden shooter dark ride Boo Blasters. Perhaps hidden too well, as there were barely any people despite the ride being fun. It was cheaply made though, all the scenery in the ride was two-dimensional. Probably not cardboard, but it was cheap for sure. We did the ride twice, and I scored the most points every time! Tip: aim for the bottles, ignore the rest.

 

 

And then... we mustered all our courage and got to THE ride.

 

#108: Intimidator 305 - Insanity. Notorious for bringing each rider at least close to blacking out, its impressive statistics and the super fast transitions between turns. The view from Intimidator is incredible, but there is little time to process it as the ride throws you 90 metres down into a very wide flat turn, curving up towards the end. This takes multiple seconds. During the first few seconds I was disappointed that I did not feel myself blacking out, but surprisingly this came during the upwards curbing part. I did not lose my vision or consciousness, but things definitely got a little blurry. What then follows is a few hills big and small, but mostly a collection of flat to the ground turns with very tight transitions that throw you from left to right in the blink of an eye. Remember that the train just came from a 90 metre drop, and you can imagine why I called this ride 'insanity'. The transitions are... intense. Once the ride hit the final brakes, I was slightly relieved. I felt dizzy for a few minutes after and the other rides seemed to share the same sentiment. Funnily enough, if you pay attention, you can see people bumping into each other and into poles and fences more than usual around the ride exit. Everyone is dizzy and it's a good thing that the fences have railings here. YET, I wanted to do the ride again. And again. And again. The ride does not become incomfortable anywhere. The huge drop and the quite insane airtime on the hills are super addicting. The unthinkable happened, and after twelve years of no changes, my top 3 coasters has finally been cracked by Intimidator. I don't think I've done any roller coaster that I loved more than Intimidator, except for Air. Intimidator now sits at my #2 spot, in front of my old pal Nemesis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

#109: Avalanche - A good coaster to cool down from Intimidator; a Mack bobsled coaster. I hadn't done any Mack Bobsled before, and the Bobbaan at the Efteling does not seem to be very similar. A new experience, in short. And I must say that it positively surprised me! The lack of drops and interesting elements always looked boring on POV videos, but in reality the ride was faster than I expected and sliding through the turns was a lot of fun. Another positive surprise!

 

 

We got chicken from Panda Express and ice water. Whatever you order, you can always get a cup of free ice water, One of the great things about this country. Sadly my girlfriend knocked one of our cups over. Gave me wet pants and a pretty scene.

 

 

We had done almost all the rides we wanted to do by now, so we took the elevator up the gigantic Eiffel Tower knock-off that sits in the centre of the park, offering us a great 360 degree view of the park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is Anaconda, the last coaster we hadn't done yet. We would go there after re-riding Ricochet (secretly my girlfriend's favourite!), the ferris wheel, and the red half of Rebel Yell which I covered earlier.

 

 

#111: Anaconda - Again, we had been scared off by tales of this coaster giving you terrible headaches. One of the tips I received for the park was that there is a store near the ride exit that sells aspirin. The ride actually wasn't bad though! The only truly uncomfortable part was the final brake, which felt like coming to an instant stop by hitting a brick wall. We both enjoyed the coaster and even considered riding it again, were it not for our remaining time in the park being limited - time I'd rather spend on some more rides on Intimidator.

 

 

 

My girlfriend politely refused more rides on Intimidator, but I went for it. The queue was very short and I even managed to get the front seat in mere minutes by negotiating with the other people in line. What surprised me about the front seat was the wind. It was LOUD and uncomfortable. Intimidator definitely is a back-seat coaster.

 

After saying goodbye to my new #2 coaster, we headed for the park exit passing Dominator. I took more pictures of the coaster against the start of the sunset, Seeing that the queue was insanely short bordering on non-existent, I went for a final ride as well. And then two more, sneaking past my girlfriend who was more than ready to drive back home at this point. No regrets though. Dominator also deserved a proper goodbye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The couple pictured is not us, hence why I censored their faces in a innovative way.

 

 

Bordering on nausea and a headache, as a result of the very high temperature and the coaster marathon at the end, we left the park around 8:30. I could've stayed longer, but I was satisfied anyway. King's Dominion exceeded my expectations a bit, its ugliness and minimal style was compensated by the park being very neat and clean, and very green in places too. The people were not as trashy as we expected, the staff was fine, and the food kept us happy.

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I forgot to do this in my Busch Gardens trip report, but it's not too late to start doing it now: my coaster rankings and how they changed during my trip. My top 10s have been stagnant for a huge amount of time, but now they're full of new coasters and I still have two parks to go. It's very exciting!

 

Top 10 Steel

Air

Intimidator 305 (NEW)

Nemesis

Goliath

Apollo's Chariot (NEW)

Griffon (NEW)

Black Mamba

Speed Monster

Dominator (NEW)

Superman / la Attracción de Acero

(Notable exclusions: Volcano (#11),  Verbolten (#14), Alpengeist (#15))

 

Top 10 Wood

Troy

Rutschebanen

Joris en de Draak (Water)

Joris en de Draak (Vuur)

Thundercoaster

InvadR (NEW)

Coaster Express

Rebel Yell (Blue) (NEW)

Rebel Yell (Red) (NEW)

Robin Hood

Great report! Glad you had fun!

Interesting new top 10. And love that you snuck past your girlfriend, would so be a thing I'd do to get in an extra couple of rides. Did she find out?