Road Trip Day 5, Part 2 - Dorney Park - 7/18/24
If you want to catch up, Day 1 was King's Dominion, Day 2 Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Day 3 was Six Flags America, and Day 4 was Morey's Piers. Day 5, Part 1 was a quick stop at Sesame Place. Reports are in their respective threads. The trip was myself and my oldest son, soon to be 14.
We had been to Dorney Park once before when my oldest son was very young, so probably 11 or 12 years ago. Of all the parks I had been to, Dorney was probably the one I somehow remembered the least. I knew the lineup and knew I had ridden everything in terms of coasters, but my only strong memory was not a true coaster, but Demon Drop, and I was excited to have a chance to get back on it. We stayed across the street at a Holiday Inn Express and had an easy walk to the park across a busy road.
Talon-- As I said, I had no memory of this park for the most part, which quickly showed up when we took a bad route to Talon and ended up some kind of dead end next to what looked like the waterpark entrance. Woops. A backtrack got us in the right direction and we boarded this B&M Invert without much of a wait at all. This is a very good ride! My son absolutely loved it, putting it right up there with his favorite invert in Montu. I wouldn't go that far, but it was excellent. We got front and back and preferred the front. The rattle was almost non-existent up there and I always like seeing the chopper effects coming best on inverts.
Wild Mouse-- I think this is the only coaster I sat out on the trip. I don't care for the ride type and already had the credit. Plus, I knew it would be our longest wait of the day, sadly, and figured I would be happier on a bench. Since I didn't remember the ride really at all, I probably would have ridden it again if it would have been unique to me, but it is the same model as SFNE's. I didn't pay close attention to time, but it was probably close to an hour before my son came out of the exit. He said it wasn't worth the wait, unsurprisingly, but credit achieved.
Hydra the Revenge-- Holy rattle, B&M. Other than the standup conversions, this was the worst B&M rattle I have experienced. Hydra isn't aging well. As I have said in the other reports on this trip, thankfully these generally don't really impact me. Hydra might have if I had tried to lap it though. It was strong. As for the ride, the roll out of the station is fun and the layout is good. The only sit down/floorless I really love from B&M is Kraken, so this slotted in as expected. I liked the ride. It was good. I would expect most people to like the ride if the rattle doesn't bother them too. Unfortunately, it was after Hydra that we walked to Demon Drop and learned it was down and closed. We would not get on to my great disappointment.
Thunderhawk-- I was looking forward to Thunderhawk. I have generally found that if a century-ish old woodie is still around, that is because it is a good ride. The bad ones get ripped out over time. Many of the good ones get to live. Unfortunately, I didn't really care for this one. It wasn't awful or anything, but I was surprised how many twists and turns this thing made. Usually the older woodies stay fun for me largely by not turning. They go out and back with a slow, high turnaround, but Thunderhawk was built to weave its way around its track and the old woodie laterals are not my cup of tea. I am not saying this is some modern GCI twister layout or anything, mind you, but it did twist more than I would have liked and wasn't super comfortable for it. Also, the paint job that looks a lot like new wood made me laugh. No idea if that was intentional.
Steel Force-- This Morgan Hyper was the largest disconnect between my son and I on the trip. For me, this ride was fine, but a little boring. It wasn't rough or uncomfortable. The first drop was good and it started to have airtime a couple times. My son liked it a lot though. He somehow felt a lot more airtime than I did, somehow, despite sitting right next to me. I left the ride largely without thoughts on it at all. It was a thing I did, a credit on the list. He really liked it though, so I am glad for that at least.
Iron Menace-- The new for 2024 B&M dive with a beyond vertical drop was the reason for my long delayed revisit to the park and, with an asterisk, it did not disappoint. Let me start with the note: A ride op was directing what row to enter, so we didn't get to pick. In both our rides by pure luck, we were placed in the front row in the exact middle seat and a seat next to it. I have read this thing has an alarmingly strong rattle for a new B&M and that the shaking is strongest on the outside seats and in the back of the train. Well, that means we got the smoothest seats possible both times and the ride was smooth. The layout was also really great, I thought. Griffon has remained my favorite dive after all these year, standing up to newer challengers like Yukon Striker and Valravyn, and this trip reaffirmed this for me. If Iron Menace was longer, and the ride is as smooth and comfortable as we experienced it, it would challenge Griffon. Alas, it is over in a blink and far too short to truly contend, but I really the short track that is there to ride. Hopefully they sort out the rattle before it gets worse, if it is as bad in other seats as I have read.
Possessed-- We end on a pleasant surprise for me. I had only previously ridden Wicked Twister at Cedar Point for these Intamin impulse coasters and it made me sick, more like a spinning flat ride than a rollercoaster. I was not looking forward to Possessed for this reason, but I ended up really enjoying it! I especially liked putting my arms out and essentially going limp at the airtime peaks on the spike. Fun ride.
All in all, it was a pretty quick and enjoyable stop at Dorney. We went out for dinner and considered going back into the park to see if Demon Drop would open, but we ended up deciding to just rest after going day after day on this roadtrip. Dorney is a nice park and hopefully I am back in less than a decade. Coney Island, Nickelodeon Universe, and Not-Rye's Playland Park were remaining on our agenda at this point.
