Park 6: Kings Dominion

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Day 12: Kings Dominion

Tuesday, July 13 we made our way over to Kings Dominion in Doswell, VA. Our friend Nate lives about 45 minutes south in Chester, and he was awesome enough to let us stay at his apartment while we were in town. Nate also joined us in our open-to-close visit to the park, stop number six of eight on the Coasters for a Cure roller coaster tour.

I knew that Kings Dominion was the sister park to Kings Island, but I wasn’t quite sure what sort of similarities to expect between the two. Once we got off the highway the first thing I noticed was the same 1/3 scale replica of the Eiffel Tower as a huge landmark for the park. In front of the Eiffel Tower you can even find a long line of fountains, just like Kings Island. Some of the attractions are even carbon copies of those found at KI, like the Backlot Stunt Coaster (same name, same ride), Flight of Fear (same name, same ride), and Rebel Yell (different name, same ride I think – The Racer). After five parks I was used to seeing and riding exact copies of some of the carnival rides, like a Scrambler, or a Monster, or some flying swings…we had even seen some extremely similar roller coasters, but had not seen carbon copies of any of the big roller coasters until today. Looks like Paramount was trying to save some money…!

Even with the clones, Kings Dominion did have a plentiful supply of original rides, including the all-new Intimidator 305. Intimidator is an Intamin Giga-coaster, maxing out at a whopping 305 feet and topping speeds of 90+ miles per hour. Since its launch, Intimidator has had people comparing it to my all-time favorite coaster, Millennium Force at Cedar Point. A lot of people even think that I305 is a better coaster than Millennium Force, a comparison that really caught my attention. Out of all the new potential rides that we were going to ride on this crazy coaster trip, I was most excited about checking out Intimidator 305.

I305 was the first ride that we chose to ride when we got to the park early Tuesday morning. The brand new, shiny red track with yellow supports looked amazing as we walked closer to the entrance. The first hill was steep and massive, and watching the red and black train speed around the huge, banked turns got me excited for a ride on this beast. Approaching the entrance we found that the line was much, much shorter than we expected for a brand new ride of this magnitude; it was nearly a walk on. After waiting a short ten minutes, we were seated in the middle of the train where we waited for the ascent to the top of the 305-foot hill. Intimidator uses an elevator lift system, which really zips the train up the hill, barely giving us time to look around before we reached the apex. The first drop on any ride is always my favorite, and this would be no different. The trim brakes applied about halfway down were lame, but after that we were on our way.

The ride itself was fast and intense. Modeled after a NASCAR car, there were a lot of banked turns, but not a lot of hills. The shoulder restraints mimicked those you might find in an actual racecar, and they really glued me to my seat. I felt that a lot was taken away from the potential ride experience because of this, and I barely left my seat during the ride. Intimidator was fun, but sadly I felt a little letdown after all the hype.

Right around the corner from Intimidator was Volcano, The Blast Coaster. From the outside Volcano actually looked like a big volcano (imagine that), with yellow, inverted track wrapped around the outside. We weren’t really sure what to expect from this ride, since parts of the ride is inside and out of sight, but we did see flames shoot from the top of the volcano right after the train appeared. The flames made for a pretty cool “blasting” effect when it worked. Once we made our way to the loading station we found out that Volcano was a launch coaster, which I guess we should have guessed from name of the ride. There were two separate acceleration runs, and after the second we were shot straight up out of the volcano. After a few barrel rolls in the suspended cars, the ride was basically over. It was a little short for my liking, but the effect was cool and it was one of the most unique rides that we saw. We liked it enough to ride it more than once later in the day.

Another favorite from Kings Dominion was Dominator. Dominator is the same style coaster as Hydra: The Revenge at Dorney Park. A floorless coaster, your feet dangle as you glide over the smooth track twisting and turning and flipping upside down. At the end of the night we actually rode this one three times in a row before we left…good times!

I did not have high expectations for Avalanche, but it actually turned out to be a lot more fun that I thought it would be. It’s a bobsled coaster, which means it doesn’t travel on a traditional roller coaster track but actually has free range to roam up and down and around a like a real bobsled does on a real ice track. The train will slide up on the banked turns, and honestly it was a bit disturbing to leave that much up to physics and trust that we wouldn’t flip out over the side. In the end, physics came through and we made it back to the station in one piece! The reason I was unsure about the quality of this ride is because Disaster Transport at Cedar Point is also a bobsled coaster, but completely enclosed. Disaster Transport is extremely mild, provides very little thrill, and each time I get off the ride I promise myself that I won’t ever ride it again. Avalanche was much more exciting, reached higher speeds, and actually provided a unique thrill that no other coaster on the trip could match. The single-person-wide trains were a little weird and a bit uncomfortable, but it might be a good attraction to ride with a date!

Kings Dominion was probably the second largest park we had visited so far, right behind Cedar Point. That being said, I was incredibly surprised at how short the lines were all day. It could have been the 50% chance of rain all day, or maybe the fact that it was a Tuesday, or even a combination of both. Either way, I think the longest we waited all day was about 20 minutes for Intimidator 305, and that includes ten minutes while the ride was down “due to mechanical reasons.” It never ended up raining, so we took full advantage of the minimal crowd and were able to get multiple rides on our favorite coasters like Intimidator, Dominator, and Volcano. I even rode Intimidator three times in a row while Abi and Nate waited for the front seat. Out of the six parks we have visited so far, Kings Dominion is definitely on the list of parks that I would visit again!

For all the Kings Dominion and Intimidator 305 fans out there: I’m sorry but Millennium Force is still the best coaster I have ever ridden!

Ride List (*indicates roller coaster)

• Americana
• *Anaconda
• *Avalanche
• *Backlot Stunt Coaster
• Blue Ridge Tollway
• Boo Blasters on Boo Hill
• Carousel
• Dodgem Bumper Cars
• *Dominator
• El Dorado
• *Flight of Fear
• Flying Ace
• Flying Eagles
• *Ghoster Coaster
• *Grizzly
• *Hurler
• *Intimidator 305
• *Rebel Yell
• *Ricochet
• Road Rally
• Shenandoah Lumber Company
• *Shockwave
• *Volcano, The Blast Coaster