Tomb Raider plus PKD goodies

TOMB RAIDER FIREFALL

Okay, so we have Firefall theming and Firefall ride.

 

The theming is outrageous and what I would consider "on par" with

anything at Disney or Universal. It's a gorgeous attraction. Fire

everywhere, mist, water fountains shooting up, and a *custom-written*

musical score (which sounds somewhat Cirque Du Soleil-ish). There

were hundreds of people gathered in front watching all day; in fact,

I'd say there were more people (families) watching than riding. It

really is a fantastic attraction. That is until....

 

You ride it. I didn't particularly care for it. Well, it wasn't

*bad* by any means, but I wasn't planning on going around for another

ride. My beef: I think a floorless Top Spin is the first "floorless

concept" that went wrong (in my opinion, of course). Without a floor,

you can't use your feet to stabilize your body and as you flip, you're

left to sort of bounce back and forth and all this weird stuff.

Honestly, it hurts my balls. I couldn't figure out why some people

were complaining about Knotts' floorless Top Spin, but now I know.

 

The cycle is actually quite long and there is a wide variety of

gymnastics performed. Some swinging, lots of rapid flipping.

However, PKD (or HUSS) hasn't quite got the hang of how to operate the

ride yet. Today, I would say the ride temporarily broke down every

third cycle or so. It broke down while we were in line, they gave us

Exit Passes (awesome!), and then when I finally got on, about halfway

through the ride, it just...stopped, and they told us to exit and wait

while they fix the problem. They "fix it", let us back on, and again,

about halfway through, it stops. Only this time, they were just like

"Hope you enjoyed Tomb Raider Firefall!" So, I guess I got two "half

rides".

 

 

VOLCANO THE BLAST COASTER

Still an all-time favorite of mine. Definitely in my Top Tier.

Volcano is beautiful once again, it got repainted. Well, at least the

parts visible to the midway. Haha. We noticed that the chunks of

track hidden behind the mountain didn't get painted. Haha, again.

 

 

REBEL YELL

Forwards, front seat. It was actually sort of violent - in a great

way! They need to work on the top of the hills because every time the

train goes over the top of each one, it bounces about three times.

 

 

HURLER

I'll admit, Hurler is in desperate need of refurbishing. But, I

always ride in the front car and I enjoy it. Some pretty good air

too.

 

What's with all the crap, er... theming in the station? It looks like

a junkyard now.

 

 

GRIZZLY

Closed for what appears to be a retracking of the entire coaster?!

Boo to not riding it today! Yay to riding it in May!

 

 

RICOCHET

Yeah, it's braked; but, so what? It's so fun the way it is. Not as

good as, say, Myrtle Beach Pavilion's Mouse or Hershey's, but PKD's is

just so effing fun.

 

 

ANACONDA

Front seat! Awesome view. Brutal. Loved it. Fabu.

 

 

DROP ZONE STUNT TOWER

Meh. It's a great ride, but it looses some appeal after tons of

rides.

 

 

Okay, I think that covers the rides. The weather was gorgeous, my

friends made it a blast, a great time was had by all. Paramount's

Kings Dominion is such a wonderful park. I wish I lived a little

closer, but 2hrs isn't that bad of a drive.

 

 

-kip-

Dammit! I completely made a typo in the post header. Can I fix it?

^ Yeah, you should be able to click on "EDIT" and the topic title will be the first thing you see....

 

--Robb "...but I fixed it for you!" Alvey

VOLCANO THE BLAST COASTER

Still an all-time favorite of mine. Definitely in my Top Tier.

Volcano is beautiful once again, it got repainted. Well, at least the

parts visible to the midway. Haha. We noticed that the chunks of

track hidden behind the mountain didn't get painted. Haha, again.

 

But, you still have that beautiful arrangement of scaffolding all the way around the mountain. I have always thought that this ride looks like it is always under construction. Still. A great ride.

 

REBEL YELL

Forwards, front seat. It was actually sort of violent - in a great

way! They need to work on the top of the hills because every time the

train goes over the top of each one, it bounces about three times.

 

Since the Racer, Beast, Son of Beast, Minebuster, Wilde Beast, and nearly every other Paramount Woodie also do this, we shall now refer to this action as the "Paramount Bounce" (ala Dinn Shuffle).

Edited March 20, 2005 by CoasterFanatic

I didn't see any mention of Hypersonic...was it open? How many trains? Wait Times?

 

Elissa "hasn't been on it with the new trains!" Alvey

Hypersonic was open, we just didn't ride it. We saw it rollback (which I see at least once per visit), so we knew it wasn't running 100% under control. I guess we all telepathically agreed to skip it because no one mentioned it all day, which was weird. I am normally very pressed to ride it - I think it's an outstanding piece of crap. I love it and think it's so intense; but, it is a really sh*tty coaster. One more thing I forgot to mention:

 

Our huge group was riding the antique cars. We hear a commotion and look back at the car behind us. My friend somehow managed to derail the car and drive it into the bushes. He eventually got it back on the rail. We were almost in tears.

 

P.S. Robb, thanks for the edit info. Don't blame me, I'm blonde!

 

 

-kip-

I walked over to Hypersonic but the line was down the steps and back further, lol can't explain that very well, but it was longer than I've ever waited for it and I had to wait a while then so yeah I didn't get on it. While I was going up the hill on Rebel Yell (Backwards) I saw it roll back and Shockwave get "stuck" at the same time which was entertaining. Shockwave seemed to get "stuck" a lot yesterday.