Visited the park with my family for the first time since 2007. This is mostly a positive report. Our only real complaint was restaurants/drink stations being out of ice and many flavors running with no syrup even early in the day.
Ride ops and food ops. Kings Dominion management should be ashamed at how poorly they operate compared to Kings Island. To be fair, there are definitely some good teams at KD, but I'd say operations were maybe better here than even at Cedar point during my last years visit.
A lot of rides were new to me of course and everything with the exception of the clones was new to my kids.
We had fast lanes and it really paid off. We got to ride everything we wanted to ride. We certainly could not have done that otherwise. My son is 52" and still likes the kids stuff. Thankfully there were some unique things there for him to do and the fast lane made that possible.
Banshee is pretty solid. I don't think it's my number one invert that I have ridden, but I really liked it. My son being just barely 52" was happy he got 2 spins on this with his first being front row.
Diamond Back was fantastic. Kings Dominion needs this. It may have bumped Mako for me.
Orion is missing something, still good, but doesn't feel complete
The Beast is great, but I expected the newly rebuilt helix to feel better than it did.
Mystic timbers was the ride I didn't expect to like as much as I did, we ended up getting 3 rides on this because a night ride on the beast would have had us in the park too late.
Stunt Coaster is obviously a clone, but I wish the parks would do something at the show scene. It is really lame that the train stops and you are staring at nothing but static displays.
Flight of fear. My god, tear this thing down. I haven't ridden the KD one in many years, but this was not a fun ride for us. Since we had fast lanes we figured we'd do it. It was also our longest wait in the park.
The Bat. This is still a great ride but the writing is on the wall. I'd say this plot is where the next major coaster(s) will go. Could easily fit 2 rides. A family coaster or 2 would work well. Adventure express could be removed too. Would be nice to see a family invert and a sit down.
Phantom Theater. I really really really wanted to like this more than I did. I know it's a kids attraction, but the game portion is just too easy, and I feel like some scenes just didn't have enough going on in them. Usually, I want rides to be long, but this one felt a bit too long to me, maybe because there was just too much repetition with the note game.
Food is another area that seemed better than KD.
Chicken Shack chicken was pretty good. Fries were overly salted
Enrique's Cantina was close enough to an out of the park chain for my wife and daughter
Skyline chili dogs were good, fries were also over salted
Miami river brewhouse was an unexpected good dinner. I had a burger and my wife got the blt.
Finished the night at the sweet spot. My wife and daughter each got a dipped banana and my son got some mini sugar cookies. The cookies were surprisingly fresh. The hand dipped bananas was a nice touch (does KD do this?) I know they used to sell the ones packaged.
My son loves trains and while the train ride at KI isn't anything super exciting or long, I really wish KD kept theirs.
Even getting into and out of KI was better.
We want to go back next year as we have a family wedding in Cincinnati, but we may choose to start our trip at Dollywood instead. I'm not sure my son will grow to 54" by then so we'll go where he can ride more things.
Ride ops and food ops. Kings Dominion management should be ashamed at how poorly they operate compared to Kings Island. To be fair, there are definitely some good teams at KD, but I'd say operations were maybe better here than even at Cedar point during my last years visit.
A lot of rides were new to me of course and everything with the exception of the clones was new to my kids.
We had fast lanes and it really paid off. We got to ride everything we wanted to ride. We certainly could not have done that otherwise. My son is 52" and still likes the kids stuff. Thankfully there were some unique things there for him to do and the fast lane made that possible.
Banshee is pretty solid. I don't think it's my number one invert that I have ridden, but I really liked it. My son being just barely 52" was happy he got 2 spins on this with his first being front row.
Diamond Back was fantastic. Kings Dominion needs this. It may have bumped Mako for me.
Orion is missing something, still good, but doesn't feel complete
The Beast is great, but I expected the newly rebuilt helix to feel better than it did.
Mystic timbers was the ride I didn't expect to like as much as I did, we ended up getting 3 rides on this because a night ride on the beast would have had us in the park too late.
Stunt Coaster is obviously a clone, but I wish the parks would do something at the show scene. It is really lame that the train stops and you are staring at nothing but static displays.
Flight of fear. My god, tear this thing down. I haven't ridden the KD one in many years, but this was not a fun ride for us. Since we had fast lanes we figured we'd do it. It was also our longest wait in the park.
The Bat. This is still a great ride but the writing is on the wall. I'd say this plot is where the next major coaster(s) will go. Could easily fit 2 rides. A family coaster or 2 would work well. Adventure express could be removed too. Would be nice to see a family invert and a sit down.
Phantom Theater. I really really really wanted to like this more than I did. I know it's a kids attraction, but the game portion is just too easy, and I feel like some scenes just didn't have enough going on in them. Usually, I want rides to be long, but this one felt a bit too long to me, maybe because there was just too much repetition with the note game.
Food is another area that seemed better than KD.
Chicken Shack chicken was pretty good. Fries were overly salted
Enrique's Cantina was close enough to an out of the park chain for my wife and daughter
Skyline chili dogs were good, fries were also over salted
Miami river brewhouse was an unexpected good dinner. I had a burger and my wife got the blt.
Finished the night at the sweet spot. My wife and daughter each got a dipped banana and my son got some mini sugar cookies. The cookies were surprisingly fresh. The hand dipped bananas was a nice touch (does KD do this?) I know they used to sell the ones packaged.
My son loves trains and while the train ride at KI isn't anything super exciting or long, I really wish KD kept theirs.
Even getting into and out of KI was better.
We want to go back next year as we have a family wedding in Cincinnati, but we may choose to start our trip at Dollywood instead. I'm not sure my son will grow to 54" by then so we'll go where he can ride more things.
