---

Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Six Flags Great Adventure and Kings Dominion Trip Report
Sept. 6, 2010

Last stop on the trip was the big Theme Park Review East Coast Bash at Kings Dominion, featuring a little treat called Intimidator 305. There's a whole Ride Review for it right here. But there were plenty of other highlights, too, and here are some of them:

Morning ERT featured Dominator, the transplanted floorless, and Grizzly, one of the park's woodies. Grizzly was not too shabby, a little rough maybe, but fun. (Remember when there were still all those trees around it? Used to be really special...) (Also, Hurler is still not bad, but boy, do I miss the "Wayne's World" safety videos...)

Dominator surprised me.

I thought the novelty of floorless coasters had sort of worn off, but the former Batman Knight Flight really delivered some exceptional action. Woke us all up right, that's for sure.

Massive loopage, wheeeeee!!!!

Again, Cobra Rolls rock it hard.

Couple of corkers finished it up nicely, too. Also, I wanna say how great it was to see that the park layed down grass underneath it all. Didn't have to do that, but it really added to the overall aesthetics. Other parks: do this. Means a lot to some of us. Thanks in advance for your attention to this matter.

"I'm Dominator! Check out my big, stabby typeface and industrial steel plating!!! I'm bursting with Domination! Arrggh!!"

We were also blessed with "first in line" privileges for Intimidator as the park opened to the public. Sporadic rain kept the ride closed for a bit, but then we lucked out and the water stopped falling. Sweet.

Again, read all about it here.

Midday, we did another podcast with a whole bunch of folks including John Pagel, the park's Marketing Manager, TPR's Robb Alvey, About.com's theme park expert Arthur Levine, and other surprise guests. Very entertaining and informative. Click here and listen now!

Then a fabulous lunch (with beer! Good beer!!) followed by a park management Q&A session (also very entertaining and informative) and a game called "TPR Quest." Let's hope this becomes a regular, and alcohol-enhanced, feature of TPR group events because it was hysterical.

The park supplied some amazing prizes and bras were removed.

And there were some wipeouts. As Robb said, "Safety first; accidents a close second."

Then it was time for the Timmy walk-back.

I snapped a quick shot of Anaconda while waiting. One of the oddest of Arrow's custom loopers, but worth a ride for sure.

By this point, all those clouds had disappeared, as if on schedule for us.

Like paparazzi at a Lindsay Lohan trial.

Timmy and her many, many shutterbug fans.

Late afternoon free time was spent checking out some other rides, like Ricochet. Spunky little sucker.

Good twisty bits and dropsy bits.

This was my first Mack Mouse and I dug the non-traditional layout alot.

Nice first drop, too.

Rain picked up again for a short while, but nothing harsh enough to dampen the evening ERT on Intimidator, Volcano: The Blast Coaster and Flight of Fear with the lights on! Actually, it was riders' choice; there were literally no lines for FoF, and just before the launch, the ride ops asked if we wanted lights on or off. So we tried it both ways. Kicks royal hiney both ways.

Volcano at night was also supremely delightful.

The post-eruption section of this twin-turbo inverted may not be super-dynamic, but I still cherish its one-of-a-kind charm (can I get more hyphens into this sentence?)

And for the first time, I noticed the cool skeletons in the chambers underneath the boarding station. Major bonus!

Are these old Haunted River props? Must be, right? Glad they kept them around.

The capper to the day and the whole damned trip was about seven moonlit rides on Intimidator. Heaven.

Totally random shot: wild skunk rustling around outside Volcano!

Thanks again from the bottom of my heart to my awesome trip mates, everyone at Theme Park Review, and our gracious hosts at Busch Gardens, Six Flags Great Adventure and Kings Dominion, for serving up four days I shall never forget.

 

home   random notes   ride reviews   special features   photo shoppe   privacy policy