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Dorney Park Allentown, PA Weather: Sunny, pleasant, upper 60s Crowds: None Dorney Park and I go way back. In fact, it was probably the 3rd or 4th park I had ever been to. Much has changed in the 13 years since my first visit, but at a park as historic as this, I was happy to see how much had stayed the same. This would be my first visit since 2002, and a couple of new coasters were the main draw. With the water park half of this “two-for-one” gate closed for obvious reasons, we weren’t facing a huge challenge to see all the park had to offer. I was slightly concerned about growing crowds throughout at the day, as the visit was during their very first “Haunt” event. It’s somewhere between Fright Fest (Six Flags) and Halloween Horror Nights (Universal Studios), but seeing as we weren’t going to stick around for it, my only concern was getting through the park in only a few hours. It would not be a challenge. With the 12pm opening, we didn’t need to get up at the crack of dawn for the 2 hour drive. We left at 9am to be on the safe side, and pulled into the Dunkin Donuts just down the road from the park at 11am. We enjoyed a leisurely brunch where we saw many a park employee come and go with their orders to go. Back down the road and into the lot at 11:30am, we saw it was going to be a quiet afternoon. Parking in the first row always bodes well. They did their patriotic duty by playing the Star Spangled Banner and opened up the gates. A la Disney, they let you into the main midway with the various park sections roped off. Unlike Disney, there really isn’t much to do here. We found a bench and waited the last few minutes of the countdown until noon. The walk to Hydra was negligible, and it was odd to see all that green twisted steel where there once was a mountain of wood. Not about to shed a tear for the late Hercules, we were at the front of the line, and they began testing. Ugh, c’mon Dorney Park – it was already a late opening, you can’t even get your major coaster up and running on time? A short but frustrating 10 minutes later, we were in the front row. From here we could get an eye-full of the pre-lift heartline roll. Wow, I have to say, I was expecting it to be a completely pointless and uncomfortable maneuver. And as turns out, I was exactly right. Climbing the lift I was happy that was behind me and looking forward to what I had heard is merely a so-so floorless coaster. The first drop is nice and steep, but that “banked dive loop” was really odd. Was it an inversion? Was it an overbanked turn? I was not impressed. The rest of the ride was typical B&M goodness, but it shared a lack of intensity along with most of their floorlesses. The pinched cobra roll was an interesting maneuver, on the plus side. On the down side, there was a fair amount of vibration, especially for a B&M, and especially for the front row. Not rough mind you, and there weren’t any ear smacks – but the bumpiness was noticeable. With one of the two “new-to-me” coasters out of the way, we headed right for the second. Actually, there was a quick stop at a gift shop for what’s become a regular dose of ibuprofen to stave off amusement park headaches. We had seen Voodoo testing as we pulled in the lot, so I was psyched to get this one out before it had a chance for technical difficulties. Now I’ve gotten more than used to the angled spike of SFDK’s Impulse coaster, so getting launched straight up on the front spike of this one was quite a switch. Still a lot of fun, as you definitely get more airtime coming back down the vertical drop. But there’s something about the spin being an inversion some 150 feet above the main entrance plaza at SFDK that leaves this short. Just short, mind you, but short nonetheless. Also, that back spike brake hold is nothing but jarring! Pass. Technically, I have ridden this coaster before, as it was (briefly) Steel Venom at Geauga Lake in Ohio. But with the live-and-die-by-RCDB.com approach I take to counting coasters, this was a new one to me, and it put me at 240. That would be only 5 new for the year. A sad number for sure, but better than nothing, especially considering I had to go all the way to France to get two of those! Now it was time for some old stand-bys, classic Dorney Park attractions. I had heard the rumors that Laser would be gone next year and I was thrilled to get one last ride on this rare Schwarzkopf double-looper. Alas, no luck. It wasn’t completely packed away in its 17 tractor-trailers, but there were no signs of life. Must be the low staff or something, but c’mon, it was a Saturday. You can’t scrounge up two or three teenagers to run this? Disappointing. Consolation was not far; just over the creek to the very back of the park is Steel Force. This is a sentimental favorite of mine, as it was the first major coaster I followed from its announcement, through construction, to opening day, way back in 1997. That, and it’s also a great coaster. Not quite the intense airtime of an Intamin, or the graceful maneuvers of a B&M, but this hypercoaster is an all-around fun ride. Great long drops at the start, a terrific high-G turnaround helix, and lots of fun bunny hops on the finale. Not nearly as scary as it looks, but definitely as fun. An empty station found us in the back to start (of course), and then a quick walk-around for the 2nd row. It was one of those days where all but the front row was empty in the station, though no staying on. We even heard a supervisor tell a ride operator that no re-riding is the corporate policy. A little silly, and I certainly would have been annoyed back in my crazy marathon-ing (i.e., teenage) days. Anyway, gotta love that 75 mph wind in your face. Having worked our way to the back of the park, we turned around to hit what we had missed. We took in some of the Haunted scenery, lots of wooden headstones perfect for creatures to jump out from behind of. Granted, it was about 1:30pm and they wouldn’t come out until dark, but some of us were paranoid anyway. We would be gone long before dark, make no mistake. I’m up for a little of that scary stuff, but that’s certainly not why we made the trip. As we saw drivers on the car ride go by, we decided to go on for some reason. It would have been a quick tour, except for the pair of stupid kids who thought it would be hilarious to stop in the middle of the track and sit there. But these ride operators wouldn’t stand for it. They quickly realized they had not returned to the station after about 5 minutes (it’s a 90 second ride), and when to hunt them down. Boy, I don’t know what they said to those guys, but they sure had their tails between their legs. Impressive. Time for a spinning ride, we found the Scrambler about to start running. I had no interest in waiting even a whole cycle (which would have been the longest wait of the day). A quick spin had us exiting right in front of Thunderhawk, where they had one train running with the back half of the train roped off. It was that quiet. I was pleasantly surprised by this one; it’s running fantastically despite its age. (84?) Hardly the most thrilling wooden coaster out there, but still a nice ride, not bumpy at all. The trim before the final few bunny hops was a buzz kill, but I imagine they want to keep it running for another 84 years. We made our way to Dominator, where we enjoyed first the Space Shot, then the Turbo Drop side. Kind of lame they can’t convert this into combo towers, but it didn’t take any more than walking back around to the entrance to get the combo ourselves, so I shouldn’t complain. One of the oldest attractions at DP is the Whip, which is an old-school mix between bumper cars and a scrambler. The age of this thing is definitely the main draw, though the ride itself wasn’t all that tame considering. Hard to believe, this was the first time I had ever been on this. Another classic that I certainly have ridden before was the Enterprise, or whatever Dorney Park calls this installation. These are become so rare, so I never pass up on one. That and they're about as fun as spinning rides get. Having had enough spinning for a while, we found a snack stand up the hill above Camp Snoopy. We had pretzel bites and a soda. The service was slow as heck, but the food hit the spot. Next was nearby Wild Mouse. Here we found the longest wait we would encounter all day, probably a solid 7 or 8 minutes. We boarded, got locked in, and then waited. I noticed a car stopped on one of the mid-course brakes. That’s not a good sign. We were eventually asked to leave, but not before we saw a series of suits and security guards headed up the stairs to retrieve the stranded riders. Damn, another missed coaster. I half-jokingly asked for an exit pass from the supervisor, and she looked and me funny, then looked at the queue, and said, “Sorry, not today.” Oh well, worth a shot! Consolation this time around was Talon, front row and center. Again, only the front had a wait, so we looped around and settled in the back for another spin. What a fun little ride. A lot of the thrill of the compact Batman clones, but with a very unique layout. It doesn’t quite have the brown-out, blood rushing to your feet forces, but it still holds its own. Figuring we had time to make another loop before leaving in time to be home for dinner (and then some), we retraced our morning loop, or tried to, anyway. Hydra was up again, but this time in the back, and this time by myself. Definitely more going on back there than up front, but nothing overwhelming. We tried to hit up Voodoo again, but it had just gone down. I was not surprised one bit. Back to Steel Force instead, and we got a couple of back seat rides when we saw Voodoo going again. By the time we got there, it was down again. My one ride was sufficient, and I should probably consider myself lucky for having gotten that. Thanks, Intamin. At the top of the hill, we enjoyed the Ferris Wheel. We had a single rider behind us as we loaded and were surprised when the operator asked him if he wanted to join us, as single riders were not allowed. Having no interest in a third wheel (no pun intended), we acted all couple-y until he decided to ride with the family behind him. Sweet. We enjoyed the ride by ourselves as we discussed how likely it was that this policy was in place to discourage “jumpers”. Pretty likely, we decided. A big 50% off sign at a nearby candy store was too awesome to turn down. We loaded up, Nerd, Tear Jerkers, Gobstoppers, Sour Strips, all for around $3. I should have gotten more. Not wanting to end the visit on the lame old Ferris Wheel, I gave Talon one more ride, back seat, left, before calling it a day. It was only 4pm, and we had only been in the park for 4 hours, but considering there was nothing else we were interested in riding, we called it a day. That, and we had already had 18 rides, a good haul any day of the week. Besides, we had officially spent more time in the park than we would in the car, so that was good enough for me. It was weird leaving so early, especially when it meant we’d be missing out on all the after-dark festivities, but seeing as dark wasn’t for another 2 hours, we gladly headed for the car. I can’t say this is the best park out there, but I’ve always enjoyed its charm. They’ve come a long way in adding coasters and thrills, without sacrificing the history of the place. It was definitely worth the trip, and I’m sure I’ll look forward to going back again some day, even if we’re not the only ones in park next time. Back to Trip Reports
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