Park 5: Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom

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Day 10: Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom

Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom in Allentown, PA was the 5th stop on our roller coaster adventure tour. Our friends Carissa and Taylor live in New York City and drove down to spend the day with us at the park, which was really awesome. We had a great time getting to hang out with them, and it was cool that they could be a part of the Coasters for a Cure adventure.

Chuck Hutchison in the PR department at Dorney was extremely helpful and excited to help promote Coasters for a Cure. Chuck even went as far as to send a press release to some of the local news stations to tell them about what we were doing. 69 News in Allentown decided to pick up our story and asked for an interview, which we were happy to do. The story can be found here. While I’m not sure this will lead to fame and fortune, I do hope that those who saw the interview took a couple minutes to learn more about pancreatic cancer and how terrible it really is.

Sunday morning we arrived to the park just before it opened where we were met up with the news guy (sorry, I can’t remember his name!), and Chuck and Melissa from PR at Dorney. At this point we were given some VIP treatment as we were escorted to the front of the line to the front row on Talon, Hydra, and Thunderhawk. This was certainly unexpected, but was pretty awesome.

While we waited for the rides to open up and for the news guy to setup the camera, I had a chance to talk with Chuck and ask him questions about the park, particular rides, and even Cedar Fair as a whole. It was really cool getting some inside scoop, and we were very grateful for the effort that he put forth on the behalf of Dorney’s to help promote Coasters for a Cure.

Talon was our first ride of the day, a B&M inverted coaster. As one of our Facebook fans said, it is a cousin of Raptor at Cedar Point, designed by the same company and installed seven years later. With our VIP treatment, we were on the very first train of the day in the front row! The ride was smooth and intense, flipped us upside down four times, and flew us what seemed to be incredibly close to the ground and foliage surrounding the ride. Talon was really cool, and later on in the day we rode it another 3-4 times.

Ride #2 was Hydra: The Revenge, and once again we were lucky enough to walk through the exit gate to the front of the short line. Hydra offers two very unique features: the first is the fact that it is a floorless coaster (maybe this is a missing feature?). Before the train leaves the station the floor drops, leaving your feet dangling as you sit in your seat. The second crazy, ridiculous feature of the ride is the Jojo roll. The Jojo roll is the nickname given to the inversion that riders experience right out of the station before the lift hill. That’s right, before the lift hill! A simple, slow speed barrel roll right out of the station, something that I had never seen before and was excited to check out! Hydra was a really cool coaster that we rode more than once. If you get a chance to experience the Jojo, do it! CoasterRadio.com has a pretty detailed review of the ride that you can check out if you like: http://site.coasterradio.com/hydra.html

One ride originally built in the early 80’s that I was really looking forward to riding was Demon Drop. Demon Drop opened in 1982 at Cedar Point, and after 28 seasons of dropping riders, it was removed from their grounds and transported to Dorney where it was reconstructed. I was excited to ride it one last time so we could have a final goodbye…but unfortunately when we were there the ride was having mechanical issues and was closed all day! Bummer!

While we were at Dorney, something happened to me that hasn’t happened in at least 15 years…I was measured before they would let me board a ride! I’m 6’3” so this is certainly something that shouldn’t be a problem, and something I definitely wasn’t expecting! However, Possessed actually has a height maximum of 76” and one of the ride ops actually made me stand up next to the measuring stick! After a bit of slouching, the dude let me on the ride. I have no idea why the height limit is 76” since I fit with plenty of free space in my seat and around my shoulder restraints. After dealing with that slight issue, we rode Possessed, which appeared to be an exact copy of Steel Venom at Valleyfair. A very fun ride, and the “brake check” on the second backwards run still freaks me out a little!

Lines in the amusement park had nominal waits all day, but Wildwater Adventure was a completely different story. That place was packed! We stopped over there for a little bit after lunch, and after our float around the lazy river we decided not to wait in the incredibly long lines for any other rides. Back in Dorney Park we rode White Water Landing and Thunder Canyon to get our fix of water rides to help us cool down from the scorching sun.

One interesting difference that I noticed at Dorney was the lack of automatic gates on all of the station platforms. In their place were magnetic gates that were locked and unlocked by a ride op, but forced open by the guests boarding the train. It’s nothing major, but when I’m used to gates opening for me it took a couple rides to get used to Another item that deserves a quick mention is that some rides had storage bins for each individual seat on each train, rather than one bin for the whole train. While I didn’t take advantage of the storage, I think it definitely helps with people “accidentally” walking off with your stuff.

We had a great day at Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom, and it is definitely a park that I would recommend and revisit if ever given the chance. I was disappointed with their two trains; both were simple loops that offered more of a tour of the park rather than transportation to different areas, and trains were rather small and a bit cramped. It’s a small complaint, and other than that, I really thought it was a great park. They have some excellent coasters and a slew of other rides and attractions worth checking out. If you have time while in the area of Allentown, PA, stop at Dorney!

Ride List (* indicates roller coaster)

• Apollo
• Cedar Creek Canonball
• Dominator
• *Dragon Coaster
• *Hydra: The Revenge
• Lazy River
• *Mad Mouse
• Meteor
• *Possessed
• Sea Dragon
• *Steel Force
• *Talon
• *Thunderhawk
• *Woodstock Express
• Zephyr