My Experience

This year, I took my first ever trip to Dorney. I had been to Wildwater Kingdom, but never to the actuall park. I had thought that I pretty much knew what to expect. The only real reason I was at the park was to ride Talon, which I had heard was a superb ride. So... here goes...

We arrived at Dorney Park at around 9:45am. We grabbed a parking space right near the front gate. As I walked up to the main gate, I was immediately reminded of Cedar Point. The set up is fairly similar -- that's a good thing. After grabbing my free ticket from Guest Services, I headed into the park and headed immediately for Talon.

Talon's queue wasn't open when we got there, but a line had begun to form anyway. Needless to say, we hopped right in. At about 10:05am, an empty train made it's way up the lift hill. I watched it run it's course -- it seemed a bit slow. But, boy, is this thing quiet! I knew people had said it was pretty silent, but I had no idea that it would be THIS quiet. Finally, at 10:15pm, Talon was ready for its eagerly awaiting guests.

Only one train was running and that made the wait for the front about 20 minutes. When we asked one of the rideops why they were only running one train, he said that maintenance had to grease some of the wheels on the other train. Hm.... well, at least he gave us a reason!

Finally, we were on the front row of Talon. The lift hill, drop, loop, and zero-g roll are all pretty standard for an invert, but after that, Talon gets independent. Immediately after the zero-g roll, the train dives into a trench -- it's a very cool effect. Right back up into an Immelman and the into a swooping helix turn. After that we take a sharp dip and then an extremely banked turn below the lift hill before rolling into a corkscrew. An intense helix followed by a nice dip and we're into the brakes. Overrall, the best inverted coaster I've ever ridden.

Next, we walked to the other end of the park to ride Steel Force. The park has a great layout and we were able to get to the 'Force in a matter of minutes. The entrance sign to Steel Force is nice, but seemed a bit old. The queue is nicely laid out, but nothing really special. We walked right on Steel Force to the very back row. These Morgan hypercoaster trains rock! The retracable seat belts were an awesome idea. The seats are also quite comfy.

We began our slow ascent of the 205 ft. lift hill. It takes about a minute to get to the top. The drop is awesome, the second "floater" hill is nice, the turnaround is quite boring (compared to Magnum's), but the bunny hops back to the station are much smoother and more enjoyable than the ol' XL-200. Overrall, this ride is nice, but I still thought the transitions were a bit sharp. Not a bad ride, though.

Laser was right there, so we decided to get on. The color scheme is ok, but I wish they would have gone with a yellow as opposed to the "puke green" color they have right now. I liked the little pockets of water that around around the loops -- you can't see them when you're on the ride, but they look nice for the people in the station. After a one train wait, we hopped on to a middle seat on Laser. All in all, not a bad looper at all. The transitions are smooth and it keeps it's speed up for the entire, albeit extremely short, ride.

We headed for Thunderhawk which was right around the corner. We snagged a front seat and were on our way down the small hill right out of the station. Thunderhawk has a few pockets of intense airtime. In fact, it literally threw me into the lap bar! This is a fun wooden coaster -- definitely the best wooden coaser in the park.

We made a quick bathroom stop before my cousin and I rode Dominator. This was my first time on a S&S vertical tower. I had wanted to ride "Power Tower", but the lines were incredibly long, so I had opted to skip it. Dominator had a 2 minute wait so I hopped right on to the space shot tower. At this point, I was more afraid than I had ever been on a ride -- except for Ferris wheels ( I despise those). I pulled the harness down as far as it would go and held on as tightly as I could. We moved up a foot -- I tensed up. We moved down 6 inches and up another foot. I relaxed. WHOOOSSSHH!! We were all the way up the top of the tower. Holy #$%!#$!!! That was definitely one of the most intense and fun non-coaster rides I've ever been on.

After a great ride on Dominator, we all headed up towards Hercules. I had heard some pretty negative things about this coaster, but I ridden Mean Streak (and enjoyed it!) so I thought I knew what I was in for. They only had one train running, which made our wait for a middle seat about 45 minutes. Finally, we were seated and ready to go. The best part of this ride is staring at the turnaround over the lake before dropping. After you drop, the ride goes to hell -- in a bad way. This is the roughest piece of junk wooden rollercoaster even constructed. If it was smooth, it might be ok, but gosh -- this thing is waaay worse than I remembered Mean Streak being. Oh well, I learned my lessen -- "DO NOT ride Hercules!"

We were all getting hungry at thing point, so we got our hand stamped and headed out to the car for some pretzels and snapple. After relaxing for about 45 minutes, we headed back into the park. My sister wanted something sweet, so we bought $5 or so worth of fudge. It wasn't that great, but it wasn't too bad. It tasted a bit bland.

Somehow, we ended up at the ferris wheel. (Didn't I mention I hated these?) My little sister wanted to ride it. It was similar to the one at Hersheypark (which I can almost tolerate) so I thought "ahh... it won't be too bad". Wrong. We headed up only to be stopped at the top. AAAHHH!! We were up there for about a full minute. I was VERY afraid. All in all, though, I had fun getting the crap scared out of me (not literally ;).

We hit Steel Force again, this time, we rode in the second car. This ride really redeemed itself. It was 200% smoother in the bunny hops and I really enjoyed the airtime. I can now see why people think that it's a quality coaster. I enjoyed it much more than the Magnum.

We rode Dominator again -- another great ride. We then headed back up the Antique Carrousel -- my little sister requested it. It's a nice carroussel, but it needs to be restored, like the one at Hersheypark. The paint and carvings are beginning to look very old and worn.

After the carroussel ride, we saw the Wild Mouse was running so we headed over in that direction. Dorney park loads this ride in a God-awful manner. They stop three cars in the station to load while 2 are on the run track. Capacity is just terrible. They also have a seat belt which is just unnecessary. The actual ride itself is smaller, more heavily braked, version of the one at Hersheypark. Nothing to get excited about, but nice for people who aren't expecting the turns at the top.

I convinced my mom to try Dominator, she did, but it really freaked her out =). She and my sister decided to head back and relax for awhile before we left (they had a long drive back home). They decided to pick us up at 8:00pm. The three of us that were remaining were quite hungry, so we stopped at the Taco Bell. Two soft tacos and a medium mountain dew was only $4.50! Not a bad deal at all considering how much it filled me up.

At this point, it was 5:00pm and we were supposed to meet my cousin and his girlfirend. Bottom line -- they never showed up. We wasted about an hour total waiting for them, but after the first 30 minutes, we just kept riding Talon, waiting for them a little bit, go ride Talon, etc... We ended the day with an awesome front row ride on Talon.

The Bottom Line

Dorney park is a great park. The employee's are nice and the influence of Cedar Fair is obvious. The park has two great steel coasters in Talon and Steel Force. Talon is a simply outstanding ride. However, the park is sorely lacking in the area of wooden rollercoasters. Thunderhawk is nice, but the park could really use a good CCI or GCI twister. Hercules is just awful.

The food prices were acceptable, considering that we were in an amusement park. The rides had, virtually, no lines (but keep in mind that it was a monday). Overrall, I had a fantastic time and I'll be sure to try to get to Dorney park again next summer.

Score:

Coaster score: 8/10 (two great steels, but lacking a good wooden coaster)

Food score: 9/10 (some of the best prices around)

Atmosphere score: 8.5/10 (nice, but not quite as nice as other parks)

Park score: 7/10 (Great park, but it needs more flatrides and a good wooden coaster. Admission price was also a bit steep for what seemed like a fairly small park. There's very little theming, but that's never required. The fact that the park really has only two awesome coasters coupled with the moderate admission price is enough to make me only want to go there once a year.)