Intimidator 305 at Kings Dominion - Review

A peculiar assortment

In 2010, Kings Dominion finally opened something major. 2008’s Dominator, a relocation from the company’s now-defunct park Geagua Lake, was a welcomed yet far from major investment. And before that, you have to go back to 2006 for the unremarkable Italian Job: Stunt Track.

KD was the first conventional American amusement park I visited. I have local friends who grew up with the place and that has probably shaped my perception to be sympathetic of their nostalgia… But, I honestly do rather like KD, never failing to have a good time there. I'm under no illusion however that the place is not critically good, but it certainly is interesting, and the more coasters I get to ride, the more I value those weirder, interesting additions to my checklist.

Photo by John Cooper

With its odd lineup, visiting Kings Dominion for the first time brings with it unusual additions to one's coaster count, with even most well-travelled enthusiasts acquiring a few firsts here. Until very recently, for example, the park was home to Shockwave, the last Togo standup left in North America. For an albeit brief period in the early 2000s, one of the only two S&S compressed air launches ever built: Hypersonic XLC, lived there too. But KD is still home to a bunch of weirdness today; the relocated Dominator is known for being one of the few (the only?) looping B&M’s to lack a zero-g and have one of the world's largest vertical loops; they have two rarely seen Premiere coasters and the only Mack bobsled in North America. Volcano is the only one of it's kind in the world and they also have one of those awful Mack wild mice found at Legoland parks.

But none of these were world renowned. Volcano came closest and was certainly the park’s signature attraction prior to 2010, but the place really needed a coaster that was undeniably awesome.

The stakes were high

So, the new for 2010 Intimidator needed to be good. It needed to put Kings Dominion on the map. And really, it had no excuse for being anything less than stellar. At 305ft tall, this monster Intamin giga coaster ranks as one of the tallest and fastest coasters in the world. I’ve wanted to take the time to write about I305 since its brief mention in my Skyrush review, because, like Skyrush, I305 is crazy intense.

Audience misinterpretation of hyperrealism in theming…. Or, “why Dinoland USA is interesting but ultimately flawed”.

I was reading what fellow theme park nerd friends had to say about Disney’s Animal Kingdom recently, specifically Dinoland USA. The usual comments: the area is vile, doesn’t fit in or feel very Disney-like in execution and other perfectly valid and true criticisms… But I felt the need to chime in and defend the cleverness of the theme.

Then I thought, wait, what am I doing? The answer: Playing devils advocate, mostly.

See, Dinoland USA is perhaps the most self-representational, metaphorical, hyperreal commentary on the amusement industry that exists as an actual attraction. And that’s kinda cool from an “arty-farty lets have a discussion about theme park theory” point of view.

Park Map Design

A while back during a discussion with friends, I suggested that most guests do not utilise park maps for what you’d think was their primary purpose - navigation.

And so ever since then I have been mocked for the supposed lunacy of my claim...

Here, Cupcakes and Coasters attempts to mock me by apparently demoing using a map to conclude that there are definitely no roller coasters at this recreational park.

General Public Opinion Survey Discussion

I wanted to discuss some of the findings from the General Public Opinion Survey that I posted the results of back in March…

Admittedly, I really did not spend long coming up with the questions, finding the best platform to host the survey or finding suitable candidates to answer it. But the results are still interesting. I recommend having the results open as a separate window or tab to reference whilst you read this post!

There’s this rhetoric that gets flung around fan communities when speculating new rides, aiming to find a gap in the experiences delivered by their current selection. This logic rarely bares resemblance to reality. Canada’s Wonderland best illustrates this, recently adding Leviathan – a taller version of Behemoth, ride they had only put in a few years prior. So I wanted to find out if ride types matter to average guests. Do the seemingly obvious comparisons between certain attractions occur to them?

The 230ft Behemoth (top) and the 306th Leviathan (bottom) at Canada's Wonderland are both the same type of roller coaster, built by the same manufacturer only 4 years apart.

Photos by Canada's Wonderland

Observations from Lakemont and DelGrosso’s

My rough plan for this year hasn’t exactly panned out, so instead I thought I’d offer a short review of two rarely visited or talked about parks.

I was in Pittsburg with a friend the other day. With Pensylvania so full of amusement parks, we obviously had to stop by somewhere…

We’d already been to Kennywood a couple of years ago and we were not fans, so decided to try out Lakemont. A tiny park, but it boasts the world’s oldest roller coaster still in operation and North America’s last surviving side friction – Leap the Dips. It’s also home to a Chance Toboggan (a ride type I’d yet to try) and another wooden coaster named Skyliner.

I was expecting the park to be nice enough. Pulling up to the place, the park itself is overshadowed by a contemporary business park that we had assumed was more like an outlet village similar to the one found at Lightwater Valley in the UK. It’s a real shame that it is not, it would perhaps draw much-needed visitors to the amusement park.

The ticket price for entry and a wristband for all rides and the waterpark, with the exception of Leap the Dips, was only $5 on a Friday. That seemed insane. Most ticket-based parks will charge that per large ride. The modest ticket price soon becomes apparent though, there’s nothing at this park. Literally. Well, there is a waterpark, and arguably $5 for any waterpark however awful is pretty damn good, and I suspect that’s what most local people come here for. But this park was completely dead. For a Friday afternoon sandwiched between 4^th July and the weekend, this was crazy quiet. I cannot fathom how the park makes enough money to even cover staff pay.

The Swarm at Thorpe Park... One Year On

One year ago, I posted my review of Swarm. Despite being 4500 words or so, there was a lot I didn’t cover and, more importantly, an awful lot has changed in a year….

Photo by author.

…Which is a point worth noting in itself. A lot has changed. Literally, in a physical sense. Throughout 2012, theming elements were added to Swarm. Effort was made to improve the already better-than-average presentation, some of which are solutions to previous criticism. The open plaza is now home to an ambulance perched precariously on its rear and telephone box turned on its head, pummeled into the ground. Together, those elements help to combat the open blandness of that area, but they also added audio to Swarm’s already impressively chaotic soundtrack.

General Public Opinion Survey Results

I've been wondering what the general public thinks about parks and their rides for years, they have such different tastes and opinions to enthusiasts. And with my increased interest in attractions from a theoretical design and marketing standpoint, understanding the public has become not just interesting, but important to me.

For obvious reasons, attractions keep their research a closely guarded secret, and so my understanding of their audiences has come from observing them on site by overhearing queue-line chatter and talking to friends not particularly interested in the industry. What little information the parks do release ranges from confusing to unbelievable, such as that whole "the British public sees wooden roller coasters as unsafe" idea that Merlin Entertainments have concluded from their research. It was my belief that they must be pre-empting that with loaded questions and such… How wrong I turned out to be.

So, I decided to conduct a little survey. My audience was primarily contacts on Facebook, I have to admit. Though I was careful to only select people I felt were ignorant of the subject matter and who's relationship with roller coasters was normal. Some friends got their friends and family to fill it out, my mother filled it out and I managed to gain some strangers feedback from the helpful folks over at r/samplesize. The majority of respondents are in their early 20s, but all ages completed the survey. More than half of the respondents were in the UK, with the US coming second. 

It's by no stretch of the imagination flawless. There are fundamental problems with any survey, but the results are none the less interesting and I hope you enjoy reading them. 

SkyRush at Hersheypark - Review

Hersheypark feels like a small family owned park… With a number of large, steel thrill coasters. There’s some genuine backbone to the place which evokes an old fashioned, caring company that puts their heart before, or at least in line with, their head. Hersheypark originally opened as a leisure park for employees and families of the Hershey Chocolate Company, which is the most wonderful thought in itself. Whilst the reality today is business, the illusion carried on by the park’s accumulated history is magical.

It’s a weird place, certainly not what I expected it to be and far from a perfect park. In fact, despite how much I truly love the place, there are very few obvious positive points to make. It’s pleasantness rests mostly on the atmosphere. It’s very much an amusement park, not a theme park, which surprised me on my first visit. This “family theme park” is dominated by some very large, unthemed roller coasters, and they pay particular interest to dressing them in strings of lights like a classic amusement park of the golden era. Yet somehow, the park feels big budget too, and not just because of it’s high entrance fee and expensive ride hardware. Like a nice Blackpool Pleasure Beach, nice in that it’s clean and friendly and appropriate for contemporary audiences.  The huge rides are cluttered and dance over your head and each other and every path in such a way to really make you feel apart of the place and the carnival fun it promotes. At night, the place truly comes alive. It all feels very honest, very authentic, very friendly and nostalgic.

Walt Disney World… Some Initial Thoughts

Having only just visited Walt Disney World Resort in Florida “properly”, I thought it would be apt to jot down some of my initial thoughts.

Epcot was our first park. We arrived in Orlando fairly late in the day, so it seemed logical to pick the park with the least to actively do. To my surprise, Epcot would be a park we would revisit. I struggled to be impressed with the dull Future World section of the park at it’s entrance, though visiting in January without the foliage displays I’d seen in photos was disappointing. I enjoyed how the landscape doesn’t feel like a theme park in places, but more akin to a resort or recreational park. But I couldn’t get past how dated parts of it look. I gather that might be half the charm for many, or perhaps the entire point – but I find that somewhat unconvincing logic based not on personal taste or experiences, but someone else’s preconceived idea. Like the nonsense of “its classic, therefore it’s good”.  The aquarium especially looks incredibly dark and brutalist, reminiscent of London Zoo’s aged architecture. I always thought of Disney attractions as being timelessly relevant and not appealing to contemporary designs of when they were build, but we found more outdated environments at the Transport and Ticket Centre and in Tomorrowland at Magic Kingdom. I felt like the intentions of this section of Epcot were no longer relevant, and possibly never was? I know little of the park’s history, so my opinions are purely objective to my experience in early 2013. Who in their right mind would pay that much for what is essentially a museum?

True family coasters, trick track and Maurer Sohne

Anyone who lives in Europe will have likely ridden one of Maurer Sohne’s fantastic spinning coasters, but in the US you’re restricted to the off-the-shelf and not particularly exciting Xtended SC 2000 layout. I cannot stress enough how impressive these rides can be, and their skill in entertaining a broad audience is something that should be praised.

Dragon's Fury at Chessington World of Adventures, England

Photo © CoasterForce

Chessington World of Adventures and the desperate search for audience

Chessington is my home park. I’ve been visiting since 1994 yearly at the very least and I have a soft spot for the place. It’s one of the UK’s major parks, and yet around the world not a lot is known about it. For a quick overview, this park started as a zoo and was developed by the Tussauds Group and John Wardley in the late 80’s with nice theming, a suspended Arrow, mine train, dark ride and some other bits and bobs.  The Chessington I grew up with was the only proper theme park in the south east, Legoland never appealed to me as a kid because it’s almost entirely interactives as opposed to rides. Chessington had small rides, big rides, great theming, landscaping and animals.  In ways, a very small and distinctly British version of Busch Gardens.

Busch Gardens Williamsburg and the use of theming to appeal to audience

Busch Gardens Williamsburg is a very well renowned park, and I could sit here and tell you all the things you’ve heard before, but I’m not because that would be boring. BGW is a really strange park that has interested me for quite some time. Even prior to visiting, I could see they do things really quite differently there.  After visiting several times, researching and writing about the park in my dissertation, I only confirmed my initial observations. I’ve faced people telling me I’m wrong or just looking at me confused for years, so I thought it was about time I collected all my thoughts on this strange but brilliant park together in one place, instead of fragmented bits around various internet forums. So here's some theoretical ramblings on Busch Gardens Williamsburg...