Kings Dominion (KD) Discussion Thread

Nice write up! Everything you say about i305 is true. It's so intense!

It sounds like King's Dominion did a relatively good job this year. Did the Fast lane Passes help out a lot this year? I know for some parks they are awesome, and others are just so-so.

I was at the park yesterday with a few of my friends and we had a great time. Crowds were light enough in the morning to get a few rides on i305, but got unsurprisingly packed around 6 o'clock. The lines for almost every ride that was open, was spilling out of their queues. The only maze we did was Club Blood which was alright. We also did Blue Ridge Bloodbath which I thought was pretty neat, except for the people in the cars in front of us getting scared and stopping every time there was an actor near by. We ended the night around 9:45 with i305, which IMO is the best roller coaster at night I've ever been on. Overall, it was great day and Kings Dominion did a fantastic job with Haunt this year.

BTW This was the line for i305 (A 1H20M wait)

^^FastLane did a whole of good for us last night. Though, there were no lines for most attractions until around 4:00, place was PACKED come 7:00. The only things that had a wait in the morning were Volcano, Backlot, Shockwave, Ricochet and some flats. Everything else was a walk on until the Haunt crowd started to show up.

Had a great time, what an awesome park! I have a few new favorites (missed hurler, rebel yell, and ricochet... nothing I really cared about, frankly). Will definitely return next season, seriously... I can't wait. The only thing that bummed me out, unless you did the mazes, there were almost no scare actors running about. I was there all night and I might have run into 5.

Yes, if you're going to do Haunt on a Saturday night, Fast Lane and Fright Lane are your friends.

One of the two new for 2013 mazes, Miner's Revenge, will not be returning to Kings Dominion next season due to the oversensitive America we live in today. Get a load of this bull$h!t...

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=689457507732020&set=a.129510233726753.21642.119929711351472&type=1&theater

Whether it was new calls for petitions to ban it or growing outrage from United Mine Workers, politicians and the general public, King's Dominion today announced a decision about the future of it's Miner's Revenge Halloween attraction. It's not coming back next year. We'll share the amusement park's position at 11. What do you think about the decision?

It's such a shame the park spent so much money on making this maze a good one for only one season...

EDIT: Original Article...

Miner's union: Va theme park attraction an insult

Posted: Oct 26, 2013 3:50 PM EDT

Updated: Oct 26, 2013 3:50 PM EDT

By Associated Press

RICHMOND, Va. -

The union representing America's mine workers is speaking out against a Virginia theme park's Halloween attraction that depicts an underground mine disaster.

 

The United Mine Workers of America is raising concerns about Kings Dominion's "Miner's Revenge" Halloween Haunt attraction.

 

The Doswell amusement park's website describes it as miners that were left entombed deep underground following a mine disaster searching for the men who left them to die and get revenge.

 

In an email statement, union spokesman Phil Smith said the attraction is an insult to the memories if the thousands of miners who have died in America's mines.

 

A spokesman for Kings Dominion did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Saturday. The Halloween Haunt event began Sept. 27 and runs through Sunday.

 

(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

The whole Miner's Revenge snafu has been ridiculous. Hundreds of people went through that maze this season, and nobody felt the need to speak up over how offended they are until literally the last minute (then suddenly everyone realizes they're offended too)? The media sure has felt the need to knock down Halloween theme park attractions this year.

Horror stories will always "offend" someone. That's the nature of the genre.

Despite the obvious downtime for I:305 this season, has it only had 1 train operation when it was open?

^ Out of the six times I visited the park this season, it was doing 2 train operations every time but once.

Thank you. When I went in 2010 the wait was brutal with 1 train.

It was running two trains on the last day of the season. It has been 2 years since my last ride on this bad a$$ coaster... I loved every minute of it. I was out of my seat, twisting left and right, fighting against the strong Gs. I'm so happy to have this coaster so close by now. i305 owns all! Got plenty of rides in within the first 2 hours of park open. There was no line! I returned for a night ride but passed it up because the line was making its way out the entry.

That said, I had a great time at KD on the last day of the season this past Sunday. Volcano had the last 2 rows blocked off on both trains which significantly reduced its capacity. I got to the park at opening and it up first so my wait was all but 20mins. I can't wait to see the improvements they make for next year. Hopefully some sort of continuous loading platform and maybe an dual loading platform somehow. Too bad there's nothing they can do to add a longer train. I wonder if they blocked off the last 2 rows on each train to make sure they have the weight distribution more towards the front of the train. I look forward to next season.

Dominator was great! Grizzly beat the $h!t out of me. Flight of fear was rough, I prefer Joker's Jinx. I had an awesome ride at night on Rebel Yell! Love that classic!

Club Blood and Blue Ridge Blood Bath were my favorites. They let way too many people in Slaughterhouse which was a shame because I loved the maze in the past, but its was way too crowded and you couldn't move forward. I ran out of time before I was able to hit Miner's Revenge. I had figured that since it was new it would surely be back next year but now after hearing that it won't be returning I regret not checking it out.

Had a great time on Sunday and look forward to next season.

Flight of fear was rough, I prefer Joker's Jinx

 

EDIT: Original Article...

Miner's union: Va theme park attraction an insult

I love I-305 and Dominator and KD is where I went on my first "big" coasters, a generation ago (Rebel Yell and King Kobra). But I don't understand this show.

Sorry I don't enjoy violence themed entertainment.

Perhaps a more appropriate theatrical production would be re-enacting the Buffalo Creek Flood (where tailings from coal mining drowned a community) or the Marsh Creek elementary school (where tailings from mountaintop removal currently threatens to drown a community). It could be an interesting theme for the water park.

KD could do a haunt about the North Anna nuclear power station (not far from the park), which is a lot scarier to me than fictional monsters.

Just my opinion.

One of the two new for 2013 mazes, Miner's Revenge, will not be returning to Kings Dominion next season due to the oversensitive America we live in today. Get a load of this bull$h!t...

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=689457507732020&set=a.129510233726753.21642.119929711351472&type=1&theater

 

Whether it was new calls for petitions to ban it or growing outrage from United Mine Workers, politicians and the general public, King's Dominion today announced a decision about the future of it's Miner's Revenge Halloween attraction. It's not coming back next year. We'll share the amusement park's position at 11. What do you think about the decision?

 

Miner's union: Va theme park attraction an insult[/size]

Posted: Oct 26, 2013 3:50 PM EDT

Updated: Oct 26, 2013 3:50 PM EDT

By Associated Press

RICHMOND, Va. -

The union representing America's mine workers is speaking out against a Virginia theme park's Halloween attraction that depicts an underground mine disaster.

 

The United Mine Workers of America is raising concerns about Kings Dominion's "Miner's Revenge" Halloween Haunt attraction.

 

The Doswell amusement park's website describes it as miners that were left entombed deep underground following a mine disaster searching for the men who left them to die and get revenge.

 

In an email statement, union spokesman Phil Smith said the attraction is an insult to the memories if the thousands of miners who have died in America's mines.

 

A spokesman for Kings Dominion did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Saturday. The Halloween Haunt event began Sept. 27 and runs through Sunday.

 

(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

I bet you it's Harry Warden approved...

I wrote the following on another site and thought I would share it here:

The whole story on "Miner's Revenge" came out when an op-ed person from the Washington Post came to the park and saw the description of "Miner's Revenge" on the park's Haunt map. This person had spent nearly 2 years investigating the coal mining industry and the dangers for miners that work there and interviewed the families that suffered the loss of loved ones in mining accidents. Kings Dominion offered to have the person tour the attraction and show what was in it. The person refused the offer.

I can see where someone is more sensitive to this sort of thing; especially, after being immersed in the coal mining industry safety issues for that long.

BUT, he was reading an overblown description of a Haunt attraction; one of many over-exaggerated descriptions for all of the Haunt attractions at Kings Dominion. It was part of the park's marketing hype for Halloween Haunt. I find it quite ironic, as I went through the “Miner's Revenge” Haunt attraction 2-3 times during the Haunt season, that there is NO SIMULATION OR RECREATION OF A MINE EXPLOSION, NOR A MINE COLLAPSE, NOR ANY OTHER SERIOUS INCIDENT IN THIS ATTRACTION. Nothing. Nada.

The attraction, to me, looked like a mining operation from the late 1800's. It reminded me more of an old-time mine from the American West than a coal mine from Virginia/West-Virginia. The mine itself was mainly dark and there were a handful of Scare-actors who popped out to scare/startle folks. There were a few illuminated scenes that look like the creatures took it out on each other with picks/shovels, and one creature that looked like an ogre. And that was it.

Maybe Kings Dominion should just modify the attraction storyline to simply be something about the miner’s digging and breaking through into a cavern with creatures such as goblin’s, orc’s, and/or ogre’s. They are attacked and those same creatures are waiting for you inside.

With all due respect to those in the mining industry who have lost loved one's, it is a sad sign of the times when a park gets beat up over a Halloween attraction, whose idea/theme came down from the corporate Cedar Fair Haunt creative team to Kings Dominion AND, I believe, Canada's Wonderland, to put on for the 2013 Haunt season. Today's news media gets these poor folks riled up over this. I guess Cedar Fair is going to have to scrutinize new Haunt themes going forward. Maybe they should stick with fantasy creature and themes that are not based on realistic situations.

I dug out my old park maps for this... Miner's Revenge opened at Wonderland in 2007 (pictured) and ran until last year, where I'm guessing they just shipped everything off to Kings Dominion to recycle it. The description sounds about the same as it was at Kings Dominion this year.

It's just another ghost story that's unfortunately easy to line up with a somewhat recent event. It's obviously not meant as a reference to what happened there though. I don't think it will have much of an impact on next year's Haunts... I wouldn't be surprised if the miners showed up at another park.

All I have to say is I hope the guy who complained and caused all this commotion never goes to Dollywood.

I'm sure that many parks are located in areas where tragic accidents or other events happened. But have you ever come across a ghost story that was based on something "pleasant," outside of Casper the Friendly Ghost? This current bit of outrage is meant to generate publicity. That's it.

I feel like this Halloween season has been really bad both inside and outside the amusement park industry in regards to people getting offended by LITERALLY EVERYTHING!

Good thing for Kennywood that they took out the Gold Rusher a few years back...

Kings Dominion offered to have the person tour the attraction and show what was in it. The person refused the offer.

Really! REALLY?!?

Kings Dominion has "dug up" a little something from the park's past. Another 40th anniversary morsel to chew on (Well, figuratively anyway).

Something original from the 1970's.

KD Twitter

Looks like a GCI layout to me on this KD 40th Anniversary teaser photo but there has been zero rumors of a new coaster coming down the pipe. Thoughts?

No way it's a new coaster. They wouldn't be announcing that at this stage of the game. It's probably something for their 40th anniversary celebration.