Kings Dominion

Kings Dominion was a park I had visited twice before, firstly in the mid-90s before I got into rollercoasters and again on the last East Coast trip. On this trip we actually visited it twice so that we could fit in 2 ERSs, one at the end of the day and then the following morning before the park opened.

Since the last trip the owners of Kings Dominion Paramount had left the theme park industry and sold their US parks to Cedar Fair, owners of Cedar Point and the same guys who'd just sold Googoo Lake park and needed somewhere to put the rides. (It's like a theme park soap opera, rereading that). The upshot of all that is that Dominator, the floorless B&M ride had found a new home in the car park of Kings Dominion.

A good ride but with a poor location, it's a shame they couldn't move over the lake that used to be beside this.

Volcano Blast The Blast Coaster is still as brilliant as ever even with the volcano now letting in light. It's certainly the most re-rideable coaster in the park and we rode it both at night and day. Hard to believe when I first rode this I queued for almost 4 hours to do so.

The main attraction and reason for coming here however was for Intimidator 305, a very large and fast Intamin coaster, like the ride at Carowinds themed around that Nascar chap Dale. To say it's a ride that can't be taken for granted would be a massive understatement. If you're not familiar with the ride prepare to get your face smashed in by the awful restraints (something that's been addressed since our visit). The G-Forces are also very strong on this especially on the first turn which follows the lift hill. I had a momentary black out on one of the runs in the back row. This is also being looked into. It's fair to say this ride needs some serious tuning done to it, they'd already played with the brake configuration from when it first opened and it still was doing this.

Intimidator was still very quick first thing in the morning. On this occasion I rode in row 2.

I'd noticed a spelling mistake on the entry signs that the park have now sorted. It looks like they're taking gs off the signage as well as the ride!

Once we'd learnt the ride and appreciated it was built for speed not grace I think its fair to say that the club really enjoyed the ERS.

The park had also given us Volcano for the morning ERS. Still a good ride that I'm not going to spoil here.

Backlot Stunt Coaster has lost it's Italian Job theming and is now a poor shadow of its former past. The cars are no longer door-opening minis, some of the effects and sets were missing and the ride is more a "tick. next" coaster than a fun re-rideable one.

Darren beats his "most glasses worn" record set previously at Busch. We needed to borrow some pairs from some young kids behind us to get so many on his head.

This is the kiddy woodie "Ghoster Coaster". This has nothing to do with Scooby Doo anymore. It is however still a really good ride!

When soft toys attack!

How are you supposed to get these home?

With Rebel Yell, I was expecting a repeat of Thunder Road but didn't get it. What I got was a coaster that rode pretty well actually with the 50p wheels providing random bursts of airtime on the straights. The park were only running half the ride today though.

The Ricochet mouse has a unique layout being based on a triangular wedge shape. The park could theme it around a piece of cheese!

The test seat is wheeled, so there's an opportunity for a little tomfoolery if you so need.

Hurler was more terrible than Nick's play-posing would lead you to believe. That is all.

Poor Snoopy has gone through a bad patch that has now left him carrying a colostomy bag where ever he goes.

Grizzly was much better with stupid airtime in the back that sent me from my seat onto the seat divide...twice. I can now be found singing soprano at the local choir.

Shockwave is a perfect coaster for contortionists with the most difficult restraint to get into more than any other ride I've ridden. The ride was over quickly fortunately, about the same time as it took to get into the ride in the first place.

The final coaster of a pretty big list was Avalanche, the Mack bobsled. This was fun but too short. We contemplated the idea of stealing one of the cars to take to Knoebel's so that we could ride their Flying Turns.

Next to Boo Blasters is a sex themed attraction educating the people of Doswell on the value in practising safe sex. Whoever is buried here (the gravestone doesn't say) must have got it bad!

For the photographer a trip up the tower is a must. Here's Dominator.

and Volcano. Behind it and sadly overlooked by the public (and some of the club, I had a hard job convincing Nina there was a coaster in there) is the Outer Limits ride which is much improved since they changed the restraint and added a little bit of lighting. ERSs aside it was this coaster we rode the most due in part to us being the only people riding.

The towering Intimidator305 with the now tired Anaconda in front of it. An interesting fact on the new coaster is that the lift hill takes 17 seconds to climb, that has to be the fastest lift hill. There are also rumours that during the initial opening the first turn was being hit at close to 100 miles an hour which may make it the fastest non-launch element on any coaster, but that's not one the park are likely to want to admit.

Overall I was impressed with KD. They didn't run everything to military levels of efficiency but the small crowds meant they didn't need to.

Special mention to the 2 kids in front of us on Anaconda who came up with this little gem.

"This ride is boring"
"So is your face"