Trip Report for Dorney
5/28

“You wanna get on my line? ‘cause I’m accepting rides!”

Crowds/Weather: Medium (mostly school groups)/Sunny

Mike: Dorney was our third park in 3 days, so some wear and tear was starting to show. I woke up with coaster head before we even arrived at Dorney. As with every park up to this point, we arrived later then we wanted and so entered the park with the rest of the masses. However, at Dorney this proved to be not such a big deal as lines were kept to a minimum by efficient operations at the front gate and multiple train operation on all rides.

In addition, the last 2 hours we spent at Dorney has been the highlight for me of the trip so far as I write this on June 4th.

Cla: [Cla's Summary of Trip/Day]

Park Rating
Mike: 4.5 out of 5
Comments: What I first described as “all that sucks about a big park with a small park’s size”, Dorney turned me around by the end of the day.

But first, the bad. For a park with a great history, Dorney Park shows none of it. This is a park completely lacking in character, very similar in this way to the other Cedar Fair property I’ve visited, Cedar Point. Concrete as far as the eye can see with generic, cheezeball Cedar Fair establishments like “Coasters Drive In” and “Red Garter Saloon.” Cedar Fair does what Six Flags wants to do 10 times better, but that doesn’t mean what Six Flags wants to do is completely good. Completely robbing a small, regional park of any charm or flavor to make it “a Cedar Fair brand” is to me a bad thing, but Cedar Fair does it quite well.

Worse, the park seems to draw large park crowds while having a small to medium parks number of attractions. This led to some uncomfortable lines on an off-season weekday on all attractions mid-day. I’m definitely more scared of visiting this park in the prime season then other parks.

Now on to the good – four of Dorney Park’s coasters I consider fantastic. Plus, I rated one of them a 5, meaning I consider it at the top of the pack so far.

That evening we had 3 train waits or less for all four of these rides and the 2 hours we spent riding them were simply amazing.

The beginning of this park review contains small quibbles indeed with coasters this good.

Clarisse: 4.3 out of 5
Clarisse’s Park Comments:

Lazer

Mike: 4.9 out of 5
Comments: Holy shit! Riding in the back seat of this compact monster makes my whole life strobe on certain turns. Intense? This oldie but goodie bends over many of the latest B&M creations and makes them it’s bitch. Oh yeah, and OTSRs are for pussies!

Clarisse: 4.8 out of 5
Comments: This baby is a multilooper with no over the shoulder restraints. Upon first glance, this ride looks like it will suck, but it really doesn’t! This coaster is compact enough that it could fit in your back yard, but it’s so intense that during one of my rides on this puppy, I grayed out! (quasi black out). Graying out isn’t unpleasant, but it is a bit startling.
To speak emotionally, I love Schwarzkopf! (The coaster designer) I want to have his baby! As far as the ride is concerned, the back seat is the place to be. The back seat makes this ride go off the intensity meter, in a good way. Even in the front, this ride is so intense, I held on!

Steel Force

Mike: 4.8 out of 5
Comments: My jaw is dropped that I’m rating 2 other attractions at Dorney higher then it’s hypercoaster, but here I am doing it. Steel Force’s ironic problem is that it doesn’t have enough force to make it fantastic. Not that I’m snoozing through it, this is a thrilling, full-featured coaster that is a ton of fun.

Clarisse: 4.5 out of 5
Comments: This ride it very similar to Cedar Point’s Magnum XL. I would deign to say that this one is slightly worse. Steel force is placed very close to another coaster, Thunderhawk; this adds to the beauty of it. The ejector seat is the money seat, giving airtime on each hill (1st car last seat). They break the Force in the middle for no apparent reason.

Thunderhawk

Mike: 4.5 out of 5
Comments: In the third seat on this beautiful, wood classic, there are two pops of air that are so strong you feel your kidneys crushes by the belt as your intestines rearrange. In the back seat there is a turn so wild it snaps your head into your shoulder out of nowhere. I’m rating this woodie as high as the CI Cyclone and that should tell you something.

Clarisse: 4 out of 5
Comments: This ride hurt me! The first time I rode in the back, a violent right turn whipped my head so hard that my ear touched my shoulder! I was worried because there’s a lot of the trip left, so I can’t get a permanent disability yet! I also rode the front and the ejector seat. Riding in the front is a million times better than the back; I refuse to ride anywhere else but the front, it’s the smoothest ride! Even in the front, its still a pretty rough ride with all of the jackhammering. It’s a boobie giggler girls! This ride has severe lateral G’s and sick airtime. It’s such a rough ride I held on for the entire ride, every time - though that could also be residual fear from my ear (neck) injury. The airtime is such that the coaster really does need restraints, while riding, you will rise up to meet your seat belt or lap bar if your belt is on that loose

Whip

Clarisse: 2.3 out of 5
Comments: This whip has retained its old school charm. Wow, I’m really running out of things to say about rides like the whip and carousels. They’re not thrilling, but I still like them and plan on going on as many as I can.

Mike: 2.25 out of 5
Comments: A classic whip that has some real punch to it is hurt slightly by a silly rule and a short ride cycle. Still fun, though.

Wild mouse

Mike: 2 out of 5
Comments: Worst. Ride Operations. EVAH!!!! Seriously, it’s painful to see a ride’s line move this slowly, then discover it’s the park’s own fault. Dorney runs the ride with 2 ride ops, both checking restraints, and the slowest loading and unloading I’ve seen since Rolling Thunder at SFGadv. It’s not the ride ops fault, however. There’s clearly a painfully slow safety procedure here that’s creating a capacity nightmare. Watching the way practically the same mouse was run so well at Hershey is infuriating. Cedar Fair may be the King of pointless corporate policy – I’ll need a few more visits to Cedar Fair parks to be sure. The ride itself was disappointing and much more braked then Hershey’s mouse.

Clarisse: 2.9 out of 5
Comments: This mousie coaster is exactly the same as Hershey’s, except that the cars are painted like kitties and mousies. This coaster doesn’t give the same ride as Hershey’s mouse because of the copious braking. This ride creates a fair amount of centrifical force around the turns, but then again it’s supposed to.

Talon

Mike: 5 out of 5
Comments: I thought 4.75 was my rating ceiling for floorless and suspended coasters. I was wrong. This suspended action monster is flawless. Simply flawless. I truly look forward to another floorless or suspended being able to top this. Phenomenal ride experience in every seat, but the back seat was my favorite.

Clarisse: 4.998 out of 5
Comments: This ride is so intense that I grayed out in the back seat. I really have nothing bad to say about this coaster, but it didn’t give me an orgasm to I’m reluctant to give it a 5. The ride has over the shoulder restraints, but the ride is so smooth that my head gently pushed against them. The night rides were the best! There’s nothing like seeing the illuminated Ferris wheel and the other rides on the horizon flipping by and upside down!

Krazy Kars

Mike: 2.6 out of 5
Comments: These are much more fun then I thought they would be. Skidding out and backwards bumping seemed to be the most fun. Still, you’re on a ride that travels at around 1mph, it’s not Magnum or something.

Clarisse: 3 out of 5
Comments: This ride is similar to Knoble’s bumper boats, but on land. I’m fond of attractions where the rider is active and involved. This ride has 2 levers for the rider to control which direction she’s going in, left right frontwards and backwards. The rider has to straddle the engine, and of course I was wearing a miniskirt that day so I gave a show. The engine is really warm, smells a lot like fuel and vibrates. Lonely women will ride them over and over.

Thunder Creek Mountain

Mike: 3.75 out of 5
Comments: Holy cow this was fun and surprising! After riding 5 or so log flumes, it’s great to now understand how a log flume can be GOOD! What a great addition to our day.

Clarisse: 3.86 out of 5
Comments: This ride has a really high lift hill. It’s kind of violent for a flume. Its really nice that the steel force track is really close to part of the flume. Unfortunately it didn’t whiz by when we were on it. We got surprise soaked by the current of water. The hill down is really steep. We weren’t holding onto the silver handrails on the way down (were there silver handrails?). There is no seat separation on this puppy and we slid all the way forward, which was fun, surprising, and a little painful.

Carousel

Mike: 1 out of 5
Comments: This carousel doesn’t even look pretty. The horses are generic without real tails, the center is unexceptional, it’s run really slowly and there’s no ring toss. It gets 1 point, however, for being over 80 years old and for looking really pretty where it is in the park at night.

Clarisse: 2 out of 5
Comments: This carousel doesn’t go that fast nor do the horsies go up that high for added thrill, I let go of the bar and held on to my feet behind me. It does have a lion and reindeer though.