Kings Dominion (KD) Discussion Thread

I'm not sure but I think they use cranes.

I've been told that track work is expected to be completed by January 1st, 2010.

It won't be long until that lift is erect with an American Flag and a Christmas tree! Well, maybe a Christmas tree.

I'm not sure but I think they use cranes.

Wow! Those birds are strong!

I was at Halloween Haunt last night. It was great as usual! The park was pretty much dead the whole night and we were able to do 8 of the 9 mazes in 2 hours. We did all the mazes except Big Top Terror and we did all the scare zones. The only show we did was Elvira's Superstition (for the first time!) and we saw the ending of Disturbia. My reviews are below, with gradings on A, B, C, D, F scale, going in a bit of a random order. (NOTE: There are MAJOR SPOILERS!)

Maze of Madness- This was actually the first and last maze we did. We waited about 5 minutes when we first got into the park. I felt it was much better the first time around than the second time. We kept merging with the group in front of us in the room with the body bags hanging and the girl that kept yelling. I kept getting freaked out by the guy that was on the fence reaching down like he was grabbing for you. But overall I didn't get a TON of scares, more or less startles in this one. B+

Elvira's Superstition- I wouldn't really consider this a show, it is more of a ride to me, but ok. This was actually the first time we've done Elvira's Superstition. I enjoyed it, and it was fairly well-done, but I wish it was a bit longer. We had to watch the pre-show 3 times though before they finally let us, plus the air-conditioning in the theater was broken. >.> B

The Harvest- I loved this scare zone! They had sliders, this huge guy who I think was on stilts wearing a creepy pumpkin costume and man he could run! Later in the night they brought out a woman with a live rat and people would just stare it and then a slider would come and scare them. It was hilarious. But I don't think I got any scares in this one, sadly. And another bad thing was that the scare-actors seemed to be confined to one area rather than all around Old Virginia. A-

Blackbeard's Revenge- This had been my second favorite maze last year but I found that it wasn't that good this year. I did get a few startles, but I was able to see most of the scareactors. I found that this maze just winded through and used up a lot of space, but they didn't fill all that space with scareactors. They should've taken some scareactors from other mazes I think to put in this one, because it really kind of ruined this maze with all the open space and a lack of scareactors. C

Blueridge Blood Bath- This was great! One of the scariest ones of the night. I'd heard that this one wasn't nearly as good as years' past, but I couldn't believe that. Many scareactors weren't afraid to come right up the car and bang on it. They had bush people as well. One girl came up and I looked out the back window to see if she followed us and she saw and came running up to the car and said "What are you looking at!?". The grand finale of this one definitely got me good, I screamed quite loudly especially since I wasn't expecting it... I was looking the other way. I won't say what it was though. A

The Slaughterhouse- This was the first time I'd done one of the mazes like The Slaughterhouse/BloodShed. But I wasn't a fan of it. I didn't get scared much (except the finale again). It was a pretty short maze but that's to be expected since it's in the Grizzly Falls Arcade. Most of it was just blood and gore really, not many scares, although the finale was pretty good. I did enjoy one part where this guy was holding a head and I said "Nice head" and he said "It's not as good as yours." B-

Toxic Plague- This maze was my favorite last year, and it remains my favorite this year for everything EXCEPT scares. I'll get to that later. Anyway, this maze waas great. The rice dropping on you, the bugs on the wall, the guy being eaten by the spiders, everything was great. It was well-themed, and I really enjoyed it. They even made the maze look like and sound like a sewer. I would DEFINITELY do this one again. A++

Club Blood- One word describes this one for me: TERRIFYING. One of the first rooms has what seemed like 10 scareactors in it but I kind of ran through it because one them was right in my face. There were people in glass boxes, banging to get out and then they WOULD run out. They had hallways with body-bags hanging from the ceiling. There was a room with a vampire thing that burst up off of a bed. This maze was one of two to feature a bungee scareactor. That, of course, was scary since it looks like they almost hit you! But anyway, finally at the end of the maze I looked behind me and saw this tall dude who was probably on stilts and I screamed "OH MY GOD!!!!" and sprinted out of the maze and he chased me out. Everybody in the line was watching. I kept walking down the exit path and another scareactor came and chased me even more. Anyway, this was BY FAR the scariest one of the night. A++

CarnEVIL- This was my favorite scare zone last year but The Harvest now has that title this year. Anyway, this zone was just creepy. They had sliders like last year, but they also had conjoined twin girls, piggy-backing guys, and this one clown who was all funky and he followed us until we left the zone pretty much and he was saying all sorts of jibberish. Of course they had of scareactors. One of those was a guy on a pogo-stick who was greeting people and bouncing up and down. Overall though this scare zone wasn't as good as last year. C

Medieval Macabre- I actually did this one last weekend at the ACE event. I personally found it to be much scarier last weekend, but it was also pitch black last weekend. They brightened it up just a touch last night so you could see where you were going. But it wasn't as scary, but that might be because there also didn't seem to be as many scareactors as last weekend. There wasn't really a finale or anything in this one, sadly. B-

Feary Tales- Meh, this scare zone didn't impress me too much. We went through it twice, and between both times, I only got one startle. They need to expand this zone a bit more though, because the scareactors don't really have much room to work with. But they still did an alright job I guess for the space they had. B

VooDoo Swamp- This scare zone was great the past 2 years but I was rather disappointed last night. Although there was a huge creepy bird-like creature who could almost GLIDE at you and spread out wings, nothing else really got me here. In fact, I saw a couple scareactors here standing off to the side just talking then coming out to try and scare us. >.> Well, there was a guy on stilts chasing people. That was funny I suppose. [/b]C-[/b]

Alien Outpost- One problem with this maze was that they simply let too many people in at once. We had about 5 or 6 girls in front of us who were screaming at about every corner and it ruined the maze for us. However, this was the other maze with a bungee scareactor. But still, not many scareactors here (unsurprisingly due to the lack of space), but they should either scrap this maze or find something else to help improve it. C

Central Stalkway- This was a boring scare zone. There was plenty of space, and if they used more fog, they easily could have had more scares. I think there were only 4 or 5 scareactors in there when we went through. Definitely need to improve this one. D

Alright, spoilers over, here are my overall grades for each maze and my current favorite mazes/scare zones:

Maze of Madness: B+

Elvira's Superstition: B

The Harvest: A-

Blackbeard's Revenge: C

Blueridge Blood Bath: A

The Slaughterhouse: B-

Toxic Plague: A++

Club Blood: A++

CarnEVIL: C

Medieval Macabre: B-

Feary Tales: B

VooDoo Swamp: C-

Alien Outpost: C

Central Stalkway: D

Favorite Maze (overall): Toxic Plague

Favorite Maze (for scariness [is that a word?]): Club Blood

Favorite Scare Zone: The Harvest

Wow I know that was long but I figured I might as well post my review of it.

Intimidator update tomorrow from me.

Went to KD for a little bit today (Going to the haunt on Friday night). Here is some pictures I took of the construction. Nothing new really, they were some workers doing something on the support for the drop. And there was more track sitting back there for the turn around.

That second pic just made me pee my pants a little.

Looks great, soon we will see Intimidator become part of the beautiful skyline of Kings Dominion.

If we count the horizontal beams on the lift they are now on the fifth or the sixth beam. In total there is going to be 11! This thing is huge! And on top of that will be the track and the top. Really looking forward to seeing more of this construction!

Nice photos! From the webcam I couldn't really tell how tall this thing is getting!

New construction pics are up on the intimidator site as well as a new blog update.....according to Pagel each segment of lift track weighs 3200 LBS. so they're being extra careful when planning out the rigging for these sections of track,which are now on site & will hopefully be put up real soon.

Work is also beginning on the 2nd tower which suprises me because I'd find it difficult to install the supports for the 150ft. hill with both towers being in the way.

^With vertical construction being at almost two months in at this point, you'd think they'd have this figured out by now.

Clint Novak's latest video showing off construction can be found here:

^Awesome! I can't wait till the next TPR trip to try out this thing.

I just checked out the webcam a second ago, the structure is really starting to climb now.

Anyone know if the CoasterDynamix model is still running in the gift shop?

I cannot wait until April 2010. Intimidator 305 is going to be one of the most superior coasters in the world.

^I concur, it's a combination of so many great coasters that I love. It's got the Millennium Force first drop, megalite first turn, megalite/SROS airtime hills, Maverick turns.

I think Intamin has taken many of the wasted opportunities of Millennium Force with this giga. Hopefully they get it right and I305 doesn't crawl over the airtime hills with little ejector air like MF does.

Will this storm into the number spot on all the coaster polls, time will tell...

That would be quite shocking if it does...atleast to me...

Went out to the park for a few hours after work, here are some pics of I305 before the park opened.

JEFF

Should be a nice scene in a few months

Steep as a Mo Fo

Looking good

held up by guy wires for now

^ That sky line is looking mighty good. Getting me all excited for next summer.

That's looking freaking great already, but the track still have go like 100feet op in the air before it reaches the top.

That's steep...Looking forward to riding next year.

Great photos!!!

That first drop is looking very impressive. Thanks for the pics Jeff, nicely done.