King's Dominion - Sept 2009

Yesterday I made my second trip to King's Dominion for this season (a third trip will be in the works) partly because I had bought a ticket to attend an after hours party there.  I also brought a friend along since he had never been to the park and he wanted to go.

We got to KD after a later start (he's an EMT and needed some extra sleep) and luckily traffic was no major issue.  Oddly enough though I had a computer snafu that involved my season pass.  When I got to the park my pass refused to scan, saying it was invalid for parking, so I had to pay to get in there.  However, when I took my pass to guest services, for some reason it was valid for admission, but not for parking, which was wrong because of the level of pass I had.  Luckily I was able to get that parking fee refunded.  Still odd though because for the entire summer I've been going into KD and other Cedar Fair parks and not had a problem at the parking gate.  However, I do know how databases can screw themselves up and such.  Thank god for good customer service.  I did also go and renew my season pass for next year, so I will be good and ready for Intimidator 305 (The pieces are already in the parking lot, waiting to be put together).

First ride was on Dominator, which was a blast as usual, then Volcano, Flight of Fear, Back Lot Stunt Coaster, Avalanche, Hurler, Rebel Yell, and Grizzly.  All of them had relatively short lines because the park wasn't as busy as it would be on a summer day, and again, the folks are smart enough to keep enough cars running to keep the lines moving.  We did watch one guy practically have to be stapled into one of the cars on flight of fear because of how tall he was, though somehow they made him fit.  Still, all the rides were fun.

At the end of the regular time at the park, we stepped out and got in the lines to get in for the party.  I called up my friends MB and JHs to let them know where we were and made arrangements to meet once inside the park.  This was their first time at the park so I basically spent the night playing tour guide.  There were probably a few hundred people there when things got started.  I don't know what the official numbers were for how many actually showed.  Hopefully it was enough to continue justifying doing this.

Along with MB and JHs were K&D as I know them.  I had met them in the past but didn't realize we had mutual friends, so they were along as well.  All together we rode Dominator, Volcano, Flight of Fear, Anaconda, and Back Lot Stunt Coaster.  For some reason it took a few minutes to get the rides going once they started letting people in, but then the lines were rather short, so that meant getting to repeat some coasters that we liked again.  Ultimately by the time the rides were over, we had gotten to finish with riding Dominator one more time.  It was a lot of fun and I was glad to be able to meet up with friends to do so.

After the rides were over there was a dance party in the center area.  I was driving so I didn't do any drinking while there, but I did hang and chat with folks I knew before heading home an hour before the party was to end (1 AM).  The reason I did that was because I knew if the parking lot was going to be anything like Carowinds, I would have been in a clusterfuck to get out of there, and I was going to be tired enough as it was.

What else can I say other than I love this park, and with a new coaster coming there and to Carowinds next year, already my season pass will be justified.