Taste of the Season
- Thread starter Dombot
- Start date
What was knocked down was even talking about coasters for the event.
Went to the park's season pass reservation page a few minutes ago to see availability. The first weekend 12/5-6 is full as well as the following Sat. 12/12. The next available date is Sunday, 12/13. I would suggest that if you have not reserved a date to do so now. Once that first weekend is over, I can imagine folks flooding back into the system to get a 2nd reservation. I would not be surprised if all dates hit the max for season pass holders.
With the park opening in a little over a week's time; I am curious to know what your expectations might be. I've gotten over the disappointment of their being no Twisted Timbers. I'll just have to settle for Dominator. One thing that has been very noticeable are the cold temperatures. There have been a few days where it is warm; but lately by 5 or 6 in the evening it is very chilly and windy if I may add. This winter season is definitely a lot colder than last season's. Last season I visited the park on December 14th. The temperature that night was very moderate, which permitted safe operation for TT and Dominator clean up until closing hours. There have been a few days this month that have completely baffled me on how chilly it got during the early evening hours. These cool temperatures were similar to the cool temperatures that called for the early shut down of TT and Dominator on January 1, 2020. This was in the greater Washington Metropolitan area. Not sure how the weather was 2 hours south where Doswell, VA is.
In conclusion, it seems to be getting colder and colder by the week. There seems to be strong wind accompanied with it. Not sure how KD would deal with this. 2pm-8pm is only six hours. Maybe the rides could push through this during the early evening hours?
In conclusion, it seems to be getting colder and colder by the week. There seems to be strong wind accompanied with it. Not sure how KD would deal with this. 2pm-8pm is only six hours. Maybe the rides could push through this during the early evening hours?
I can't speak for Doswell but I can tell you that in Williamsburg it has been unseasonably warm compared to what the weather normally is
Yeah, Busch absolutely lucked out—although it seems like the daytime sessions have been pretty sparsely attended (hence the expansion of offerings to try to drum up sales/interest), the weather was really perfect for the past couple of weeks, and my guess is they performed slightly better in the pre-Thanksgiving window than they expected even if they sold less hot chocolate than they might have otherwise.
Saturday looks a bit dicey for both parks, but the temperatures seem like the kind that would put people in the holiday spirit without being too frigid, so we'll see. I'm stopping into Busch for a bit of shopping on Sunday before heading up to KD, curious to see what they pulled together on short notice.
2pm-8pm:
www.kingsdominion.com
Park Hours & Calendar | Kings Dominion & Soak City
Planning a visit to Kings Dominion? View our up-to-date calendar of operating hours on our website and begin planning your next visit to the park today!
Oh damn. Thanks Nicole.2pm-8pm:
Park Hours & Calendar | Kings Dominion & Soak City
Planning a visit to Kings Dominion? View our up-to-date calendar of operating hours on our website and begin planning your next visit to the park today!
I found the answer on the park site finally. I filled out the form for guest services but I’m gonna call them too this morning. Has anyone been able to cancel and have them reschedule your reservation for you?
So far we haven't experienced any bottlenecks. In fact, the COVID safety restrictions have been better enforced than elsewhere. The queues seem to be well laid out, as well.
I'm not saying it can't deteriorate, but it feels very well manged and safe this far.
I'm not saying it can't deteriorate, but it feels very well manged and safe this far.
We completed the scavenger hunt and won these buttons:
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I really want to see if there are any guests who attend Taste of the Season and then later visit Christmas Celebration, because I want to get their reactions to the COVID procedures from that point-of-view.
It’s so interesting to get a glimpse of how different parks are approaching this (this is the first other park I’ve visited, I know many of y’all have done others). KD is being very aggressive about distancing on coasters: beyond the six-feet markers in the queue and blocking off rows, they have someone observing the Dominator queue from the grass to enforce distancing, and they’re even having each row of the coaster do staggered exits to avoid crowding while disembarking. Meanwhile, BGW only skipped rows on Apollo’s Chariot for a couple of hours on night one of Halloween Harvest and even extended the same principle to Verbolten more recently (much as they tried with Loch Ness on opening day), and there’s never been much of an effort to enforce distancing in queues or after then ride has finished.
My instinct says that if someone goes to KD first, and then goes to BGW, they’ll perceive their policies as being incredibly lax, even though those of us who’ve been to BGW consistently are inoculated a bit to the state of things. This extends to other things as well, like the fact they’re having guests check out their own items instead of handling them directly, or the fact they prepackaged their fudge and other confections instead of operating as usual. And yet there‘s LESS hand sanitizer than at BGW, perhaps because they finalized those installs after the data on surface-transfer became clear.
I am not going to judge KD for erring on the side of caution, obviously, but I will say it does mean that the coaster lines were long today, and so our previous discussion of how this wasn’t really an enthusiast event is likely doubly true under those circumstances. But they did a really admirable job of providing enough live entertainment to tap into the “festival” spirit of WinterFest and the lights were pretty, so definitely worth a trip up.
It’s so interesting to get a glimpse of how different parks are approaching this (this is the first other park I’ve visited, I know many of y’all have done others). KD is being very aggressive about distancing on coasters: beyond the six-feet markers in the queue and blocking off rows, they have someone observing the Dominator queue from the grass to enforce distancing, and they’re even having each row of the coaster do staggered exits to avoid crowding while disembarking. Meanwhile, BGW only skipped rows on Apollo’s Chariot for a couple of hours on night one of Halloween Harvest and even extended the same principle to Verbolten more recently (much as they tried with Loch Ness on opening day), and there’s never been much of an effort to enforce distancing in queues or after then ride has finished.
My instinct says that if someone goes to KD first, and then goes to BGW, they’ll perceive their policies as being incredibly lax, even though those of us who’ve been to BGW consistently are inoculated a bit to the state of things. This extends to other things as well, like the fact they’re having guests check out their own items instead of handling them directly, or the fact they prepackaged their fudge and other confections instead of operating as usual. And yet there‘s LESS hand sanitizer than at BGW, perhaps because they finalized those installs after the data on surface-transfer became clear.
I am not going to judge KD for erring on the side of caution, obviously, but I will say it does mean that the coaster lines were long today, and so our previous discussion of how this wasn’t really an enthusiast event is likely doubly true under those circumstances. But they did a really admirable job of providing enough live entertainment to tap into the “festival” spirit of WinterFest and the lights were pretty, so definitely worth a trip up.
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