Kings Dominion brief trip review
I was able to make a brief stop at Kings Dominion for my first visit! I was overall impressed, but did get caught off-guard by their article policy. The attendants didn't seem to like my drawstring backpack, but oddly enough had no problem with a phone in my pocket for most rides. (No, I did not take it out on any rides, and don't want to. I adhere to park policies.)
I have a Diamond legacy membership badge, but the attendant didn't give anything for preferred parking. (I did have to ask for it at Dorney, so I guess legacy Cedar Fair parks aren't as familiar yet.) I got to the park early, so I was able to get a pretty nice parking spot anyways.
The first ride I hopped on was Rapterra, back row. This was when they told me my drawstring bag was not allowed… Interesting. There was on-platform storage where I feel I could've stashed my drawstring bag, but I was at least able to store my drink bottle there. That LSM launch caught me off-guard, mainly because I didn't pay attention to the layout and didn't realize it was gonna be a launch until we crawled to the launch track lol. Noticed a bit of a rattle (sat on an inner seat), but nothing terrible and had a lot of fun with it. (I thought Hydra at Dorney was more rattle-y, though of course that's much older.) I ended up getting another ride in the middle of the train before I left.
While I was in the area, I went on Reptilian. The first part seemed okay, but after the block zone I was caught wildly off-guard. A little bumpy, but still pretty fun! I skipped Tumbili since I've been on Great Adventure's Joker before and figured S&S Free Spins are gonna have similar experience. Feel free to tell me if that was a huge mistake or not.
I went to Flight of Fear, but was told my drink bottle was not allowed. I wasn't aware it had a separate unload platform, but it made sense once I learned that. I've never been on a Premier LIM launch, but damn. That spaghetti bowl packed a punch. While going through the queue for this and Rapterra, I was appreciating the level of theming compared to Great Adventure.
I wanted to go on Pantherian next, but it was down at the time. It looked like they were pulling the orange train off the track in the morning, but it was either still down or went down again when I looped back around to it.
After that, I hopped on Grizzly and then Twister Timbers, my first RMC hybrid. Holy crap, I thought Jersey Devil's restraints could be brutal on the thighs if you were just a little off.
I got the sirloin barbecue with baked beans from Firehouse BBQ. It wasn't quite ready when the park opened, but I returned to try it. For theme park food, it's pretty good; much better than what I got at Dorney anyways. (I'd say it's on par with Great Adventure before their executive chef came on board… I mean that in the best, least negative way possible!)
I left early since the heat was beating down, but overall I had a lot of fun. It would be nice if the loose article policy allowed us to bring drawstring bags to either the platform storage or in-queue lockers.