Trip Report for Paramount’s Kings Dominion
6/2/04
Crowds/Weather: Light/Sunny

Park Rating
Mike: 4 out of 5
Comments: After Six Flags America, Paramount’s Kings Dominion was a breath of fresh air. None of the unpleasantness at SFA was present at PKD.

Even better, like SFA, PKD had 3 excellent coasters present and operating, with Grizzly, Rebel Yell backwards, and Volcano all offering amazing experiences.

Theming was pleasant and the park was clean, but really this park is about rides. While not necessarily a thrill ride capital, PKD delivers the goods and does so the right way.

Clarisse: 3.5 out of 5

Anaconda

Mike: 2.75 out of 5
Comments: Painful multi-looper in a pretty setting. Like many older, sit-down, multi-loopers, this ride aesthetically is the centerpiece coaster of the park, while as an experience it’s nearly the worst.

Clarisse: 2.7 out of 5
Comments: This coaster has a green train with an orange stripe, and its situated above a giant greenish pond. It kinda does look like a snake if you squint your eyes and use your imagination.

The amount of headbanging makes this ride tense and unpleasant. If it didn’t hurt me so much I would have rated it higher. This multi looper has corkscrews, during which teenagers spit, upside-down and sideways into the pond below; which was cool, albeit nasty.

Avalanche

Clarisse: 3.35 out of 5
Comments: The weight of this restraint system, stapled me in and when opening the restraint, the grab bar barked my shin (I will bruise as a result). This bobsled ride isn’t bad, but its also not thrilling. The sloshy turns are fun. However, the straddling required to ride, along with the vibration of the coaster, will please lonely women.

Mike: 3 out of 5
Comments: A little more fun then I thought it would be, this bobsled coaster should be given added points if you are going on with a girl or boyfriend.

Flight of Fear

Mike: Closed – RATS!!!!

Grizzly

Mike: 4.6 out of 5
Comments: A scenic coaster in the woods, Grizzly makes up for its lack of oomph with its length and beautiful forest visuals.

Clarisse: 4.1 out of 5
Comments: With a disappointing beginning, this ride endears itself like an ugly child. But it will never be a favorite, because its and ugly child. It lives in a pretty house though, the coaster is set in the forest, which is very pretty; even the walk up to the coaster is like a walk in the woods.

Hurler

Mike: 3.75 out of 5
Comments: Hurler is a great coaster that’s just way too violent. This incredibly mean wood coaster gives me roller coaster smile, but I have to ride it like it’s a wild bull.

Clarisse: 1.5 out of 5
Comments: This ride SUCKS and its time for it to be torn down. Neither the front nor the back gives a marginally comfortable ride. Its very rough and violent, if you have big boobs secure in a sports bra, you still may want to hold onto them. This coaster also features vicious jackhammering; it would be severely painful if the seats weren’t padded. The lateral forces are also so violent, that around a turn, my head was whipped to the side so that my ear collided with Mike's shoulder rather brutally. I probably should have complained to guest services at that point. Instead, all day, I snapped my fingers next to my ear to ascertain that my hearing wasn’t damaged. I also periodically stuck my finger in my ear to check for bleeding from a ruptured eardrum. It hurt for at least 2 days afterward.

Hypersonic XLC

Clarisse: 4.89 out of 5
Comments: This coaster air launches you faster than sound! Ok, not really but you virtually have no time to scream. The first hill seems 90 degrees up and then 90 degrees down! Suh-weet! I noticed oopsie breaks on the launch hill up. Rollbacks on this thing would probably be unfortunate.

It’s a very good thing that this coaster doesn’t have Over the Shoulder restraints, it’s a rough ride and your head will get banged. The seats are wide and comfy for ride seats. But the restraints have problems. It’s a thick lap bar restraint with ankle shackles. The bar itself is really heavy, its staples you with its own weight. There is also an awkwardly placed bolt that nibbled at my inner thigh.

On one of our rides, a passenger in the front thought that she could ride with her sunglasses on her face with no strap. At the crest of the hill, in the back seat, we were amused by her glasses spinning in the air, high above our heads in (seemingly) slow motion. They landed outside of the area of the coaster and she got them back (miraculous). If the coaster weren’t so short I’d say it’s worth the wait it will almost invariably have. Instead get there as soon as the park opens, when the least # of people are there, and marathon on it until the crowds come.

Mike: 3.9 out of 5
Comments: The launch is quite simply crushing and shocking. The giant hill that follows is fun, the turns after that are violent and unpleasant. Warning – this ride is a capacity nightmare. Get on it first thing in the morning or seriously consider skipping it.

Rebel Yell (forwards)

Mike: 3.5 out of 5
Comments: Rebel Yell is everything Rolling Thunder should be and isn’t. An older wood coaster that’s not the most exciting on the planet, PKD has resolved this by continuing to run both sides – one forward and one backward.

I appreciate the forward one simply as a compliment to the backwards side. Though they don’t dispatch simultaneously, more often then not you’ll be able to shout at the other car during your ride.

The forward ride itself is fun with a bit more air then Rolling Thunder but not THAT much more.

Clarisse: 3.5 out of 5
Comments: Rebel Yell is a racing coaster that they don’t run simultaneously anymore. But they do run each side in the opposite direction from the other. Frontwards is nothing to write home about, but it is something to give a chance. It’s a nicely rough woodie that means wear a sports bra or be forced to hold your titties. It also has great airtime.

Rebel Yell (backwards)

Mike: 4.7 out of 5
Comments: This thing rocks! We rode both ends of the train backwards and both were fantastic.

What a unique and fun experience this was.

Clarisse: 4.6 out of 5
Comments: As far as I can tell, backwards is the same track as frontwards, except you start out at the end of the track and go backwards and its much more fun! The added sensation of not knowing what’s going on and what’s going to happen next is cool! I love the feeling of wind blowing through my hair; feeling it being shoved back and flown up on coasters is cool. Feeling it and seeing it being blown frontwards is a nice thrill too!

Shockwave

Clarisse: 3.5 out of 5
Comments: This stand up coaster has a moderate amount of headbanging. I was close to being too short to ride, I imagine a large amount of kids get turned away or ride ‘unsafely’ anyway. This ride is a one trick pony with only one loop. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it.

Mike: 0 out of 5
Comments: This was very unpleasant for me. The restraints were on my ribs, and the ride op tightened them so tightly I discovered mid-ride I could not draw deep breaths. The restraints quickly moved from discomfiting to panic causing as I hyperventilated while instinctively trying to draw deep breaths. The interminable wait at the end of the ride with the trains stacked was quite the opposite of fun.

As for the ride itself, there’s not much to it past the novelty of standing up, which isn’t so novel anymore.

Scooby Doo Haunted House

Clarisse: 3.75 out of 5
Comments: YAY! I love attractions that give me something to do besides sit there. This one gives me a gun. COOL! There’s a laser pointer on this gun, which made this ride slightly soft…ok yeah I know it’s a kid’s ride really. You shoot at targets in the ride. Some of the targets activate and animate as a result of being shot, which is quite rewarding. Besides that the theming in here is great. On the queue there are bios on all the characters, which I didn’t get to read, cause there was no queue.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, I kicked Mike’s ass: 1920 to 900!

Mike: 2.25 out of 5
Comments: Whatever. Cla likes these Sally dark ride things. I’ m not such a big fan of these shoot ‘em up, arcade, haunted house rides.

Eiffel Tower

Mike: 2.5 out of 5
Comments: The landmark of the park, it’s still a great way to see the layouts of all the coasters.

Clarisse: 2.3 out of 5
Comments: La Tour Eiffel made me think of the movie Rollercoaster. There are no benches up here and there should be. It would be fantastic to sun up here, but you can’t. The view is really nice, but it’s only on one side, so I imagine, that that’s the packed side. Maybe due to my previous obsession with GTA3 I cant help but think that this attraction would be really fun with a sniper rifle (modified to shoot paintballs of course).

Drop Zone

Mike: 4 out of 5
Comments: This was our first drop tower of the trip as it’s our first non-S&S tower. I loved it. I like this more then the S&S towers though I couldn’t tell you why.

Clarisse: 3.8 out of 5
Comments: This was fun! I like going up and down, a few times though, this ride is much too short and I would be annoyed if I had waited on line for a long time for this ride.

Space um… Something (Nickolodean Space Coaster)

Mike: 2.5 out of 5
Comments: The notion that you can control your ride in any way like flyers is absurd. Still, it’s fun to go up and spin with the wind in your face.

Clarisse: 2.4 out of 5
Comments: This is a high version of flyers, except it doesn’t really work. It consists of 2 seats to a car suspended from a centerpiece that raises you really high and spins you around and around. There is a lever that theoretically is supposed to make your car go up and down; it kinda works but not enough to really make a difference. So really this attraction is like super high swinging chairs. The view up here is really nice but it made me dizzy to watch it all spin by, so I closed my eyes, leaned my head against the Over the shoulder restraints and enjoyed the wind.

Ricochet

Clarisse: 2.8 out of 5
Comments: A mouse coaster with a unique (I think) layout that should be good, but they ruin with a myriad of brakes

Mike: 2.75 out of 5
Comments: Wow, this is a very, very braked mouse – almost comically so. Still, it’s better then Rye’s mouse.

Volcano

Mike: 5 out of 5
Comments: I hear a lot of raves about this coaster and discovered they were well deserved. Originality, theming, and surprise turn an ordinary launch coaster into a top 10 steel.

Clarisse: 4.94 out of 5
Comments: This ride is heavily, fantastically themed for a national park chain. The ride incorporates a giant volcano that intermittently spews a burst of fire. The theming on the queue is charming, to the level of
Dollywood. The automated voice has an unplaceable accent that I assume is part of the theming (I have a strong suspicion its supposed to be African, based on the one outline of the continent in the queue).

This ride begins and ends in the dark, inside the volcano. You are launched, unsuspectingly, from inside and around the volcano. Then shot out of its mouth into the sunlight, which is quite spectacular.

This is a suspended coaster, so by its nature it has over the shoulder restraints, and I’m sorry to say that head banging was not absent, but it doesn’t detract from the ride. (Won’t somebody develop adjustable or seat belt over the shoulder restraints. Please.)