It's been almost 2 weeks since we headed south to check out the new coasters, so I thought I better get this posted now or I never will.
The kid & I hit the road early Saturday morning before the break of dawn (4:30am) in order to get to Kings Dominion before the park opens so we could have time to process our season passes. As it turned out we could have slept another hour because we made excellent time due to the lack of traffic in Baltimore & Washington DC. So after a 4 hour drive & waiting about 45 minutes just to get into the parking lot, we quickly made our way to the season pass processing center. Once there we were told that we had to go to guest services because our forms were for Cedar Point & we needed Kings Dominion paperwork. Luckily we were there so early, as no one was at the guest services window yet & it only took a couple of minutes to get the forms swapped out. Then it was back to the season pass processing center to get our photos taken & within three minutes we were at the front gate with passes in hand. Another 15 minutes later & we were inside the park.
Like most American parks, Kings Dominion let's you in the gate at 10am, but you don't have access to the rides until 10:30am. However, at Kings Dominion they do let you ride Dominator from the get go. So we headed straight for Dommy & were on the first train out of the station, which provided us with our first glimpse of Intimidator 305 from the lift hill.
After three rides on the world's best floorless coaster (IMO) we went to wait for the rope to drop with the rest of the crowd that had started to gather. The roped off area by Dominator is the closest to I305, so we were a bit surprised that the crowd there wasn't much larger. Once they dropped the rope & started walking us to I305's entrance we could see another huge crowd being walked there from the observation tower that was three times the size of the crowd we were walking with. But that crowd was a good 100 paces behind us, so I knew we'd be the first to ride until we got the the coaster's entrance to find another group already lined up ahead of us. :shock:
(The people on the right in this photo.)
So I asked the security guard who walked us over to this point where the people came from & he explained that they were Platinum Pass holders, who are escorted here 10 minutes before everyone else. I showed him our passes & he said that next time we should go just behind the right side of the observation tower to be included with the pass holders group (which we'll be doing for the CF-Live kiddies :wink: ). He then made a joke about it not mattering anyway since we were the first in the regular group & therefore with all the pass holders anyway.
A couple of minutes later & they opened the ride.
The closer we got the more impressive the coaster looked. As we waited our turn, the ride ops kept announcing that there is only assigned seating due to the loading gates design.
However we lucked out & we were assigned to the front row for our first ride!
I wasn't sure what to make of the coaster after my first ride. I anticipated the sharp transactions to keep from getting any neck-chopping, so no complaints there. It just didn't quite blow me away as I expected it to & Aidan agreed, so we decided to go for an immediate re-ride. We were assigned to the 4th row, so I decided to ride with my hands up & not anticipate what was coming next. This time I had some spots in front of my eyes in the banked turn after the first drop & felt the ejector airtime on the hills a bit more, but I also got chopped in the neck a couple a times on the transitions.
We decided to ride it again to see if we could get the back row to see what that was like. We were lucky enough to get the back row on our very next ride & this time I put my hands up on the first drop & the hills, but held on to the restraints while anticipating the transactions. This seemed to be the best way of riding, but it was easier anticipating what was coming next from the front row. We got in a couple more rides in the last car & I started liking the coaster more with each ride, even though I started getting used to that first drop & curve so the black out feeling dissipated more & more each time.
Dave had asked me to get some photos of the transitions, so we decided to take a photography break.
Here is the last one:
And the first:
The second is a little further away, so this is the best I could do:
I also don't think the train is as ugly as everyone makes it out to be.
So I decided to take some more pics of the transitions with the train going through them.
Here's the first:
And the last:
A different angle of the first without:
And with the train:
Here another angle of the last without:
And with the train:
Lots of airtime there:
But not so much here due to the trims:
Still this baby cruises right along:
We wanted to go to Volcano next, but we noticed that it had been down & was still testing, so we headed back around for another ride. The queue also kept getting shorter as the morning wore on.
Papa, mama & baby hill all in one shot.
By now I had chatted up the ride ops quite a bit & I was able to get the front row again to make a POV.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEyY_lO-xwA[/youtube]
With that out of the way it was definitely time to move on & with Volcano still testing, we decided to go up the observation tower to get an aerial view.
After some photos & filming from on high, we headed over to Volcano to find it still testing for almost 2 hours now. So we took a spin on the Crypt, which is right across from the troubled invert.
As luck would have it, they opened Volcano right as we were in the middle of our spinning cycle, but it didn't take too long before we were blasting out of the man-made mountain.
By now we had ridden I305 nine times, but we still wanted more. So it was back for two more rides & some photos of the entrance area...
...and the gift shop ride exit.
Now it was late afternoon & we still had a long drive into North Carolina ahead of us. On our way out of the park we went by Drop Zone to get one last look at I305.
After a fun drop from the skies it was time to hit the road, but we only made it six miles before stopping to chow down at our favorite Cracker Barrel. After filling up on some southern fried steak (the kid had chicken fried chicken) & dumplings, we hit the road for our hotel in Durham, NC.
Next up: Day 2 at Carowinds - so ya'll come back now, ya hear!
The kid & I hit the road early Saturday morning before the break of dawn (4:30am) in order to get to Kings Dominion before the park opens so we could have time to process our season passes. As it turned out we could have slept another hour because we made excellent time due to the lack of traffic in Baltimore & Washington DC. So after a 4 hour drive & waiting about 45 minutes just to get into the parking lot, we quickly made our way to the season pass processing center. Once there we were told that we had to go to guest services because our forms were for Cedar Point & we needed Kings Dominion paperwork. Luckily we were there so early, as no one was at the guest services window yet & it only took a couple of minutes to get the forms swapped out. Then it was back to the season pass processing center to get our photos taken & within three minutes we were at the front gate with passes in hand. Another 15 minutes later & we were inside the park.
Like most American parks, Kings Dominion let's you in the gate at 10am, but you don't have access to the rides until 10:30am. However, at Kings Dominion they do let you ride Dominator from the get go. So we headed straight for Dommy & were on the first train out of the station, which provided us with our first glimpse of Intimidator 305 from the lift hill.
After three rides on the world's best floorless coaster (IMO) we went to wait for the rope to drop with the rest of the crowd that had started to gather. The roped off area by Dominator is the closest to I305, so we were a bit surprised that the crowd there wasn't much larger. Once they dropped the rope & started walking us to I305's entrance we could see another huge crowd being walked there from the observation tower that was three times the size of the crowd we were walking with. But that crowd was a good 100 paces behind us, so I knew we'd be the first to ride until we got the the coaster's entrance to find another group already lined up ahead of us. :shock:
(The people on the right in this photo.)
So I asked the security guard who walked us over to this point where the people came from & he explained that they were Platinum Pass holders, who are escorted here 10 minutes before everyone else. I showed him our passes & he said that next time we should go just behind the right side of the observation tower to be included with the pass holders group (which we'll be doing for the CF-Live kiddies :wink: ). He then made a joke about it not mattering anyway since we were the first in the regular group & therefore with all the pass holders anyway.
A couple of minutes later & they opened the ride.
The closer we got the more impressive the coaster looked. As we waited our turn, the ride ops kept announcing that there is only assigned seating due to the loading gates design.
However we lucked out & we were assigned to the front row for our first ride!
I wasn't sure what to make of the coaster after my first ride. I anticipated the sharp transactions to keep from getting any neck-chopping, so no complaints there. It just didn't quite blow me away as I expected it to & Aidan agreed, so we decided to go for an immediate re-ride. We were assigned to the 4th row, so I decided to ride with my hands up & not anticipate what was coming next. This time I had some spots in front of my eyes in the banked turn after the first drop & felt the ejector airtime on the hills a bit more, but I also got chopped in the neck a couple a times on the transitions.
We decided to ride it again to see if we could get the back row to see what that was like. We were lucky enough to get the back row on our very next ride & this time I put my hands up on the first drop & the hills, but held on to the restraints while anticipating the transactions. This seemed to be the best way of riding, but it was easier anticipating what was coming next from the front row. We got in a couple more rides in the last car & I started liking the coaster more with each ride, even though I started getting used to that first drop & curve so the black out feeling dissipated more & more each time.
Dave had asked me to get some photos of the transitions, so we decided to take a photography break.
Here is the last one:
And the first:
The second is a little further away, so this is the best I could do:
I also don't think the train is as ugly as everyone makes it out to be.
So I decided to take some more pics of the transitions with the train going through them.
Here's the first:
And the last:
A different angle of the first without:
And with the train:
Here another angle of the last without:
And with the train:
Lots of airtime there:
But not so much here due to the trims:
Still this baby cruises right along:
We wanted to go to Volcano next, but we noticed that it had been down & was still testing, so we headed back around for another ride. The queue also kept getting shorter as the morning wore on.
Papa, mama & baby hill all in one shot.
By now I had chatted up the ride ops quite a bit & I was able to get the front row again to make a POV.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEyY_lO-xwA[/youtube]
With that out of the way it was definitely time to move on & with Volcano still testing, we decided to go up the observation tower to get an aerial view.
After some photos & filming from on high, we headed over to Volcano to find it still testing for almost 2 hours now. So we took a spin on the Crypt, which is right across from the troubled invert.
As luck would have it, they opened Volcano right as we were in the middle of our spinning cycle, but it didn't take too long before we were blasting out of the man-made mountain.
By now we had ridden I305 nine times, but we still wanted more. So it was back for two more rides & some photos of the entrance area...
...and the gift shop ride exit.
Now it was late afternoon & we still had a long drive into North Carolina ahead of us. On our way out of the park we went by Drop Zone to get one last look at I305.
After a fun drop from the skies it was time to hit the road, but we only made it six miles before stopping to chow down at our favorite Cracker Barrel. After filling up on some southern fried steak (the kid had chicken fried chicken) & dumplings, we hit the road for our hotel in Durham, NC.
Next up: Day 2 at Carowinds - so ya'll come back now, ya hear!
