Dorney Park - June 11, 2023

The whole trip led to this. The pivotal, crucial final stop on this epic roller coaster road trip. The Crown Jewel of Pennsylvania. The GrandDaddy Of Them All...

Dorney Park. Womp womp.

I'll start with the coasters and rides, and address park quality, crowds, food, lodging, etc afterwards. Embedded photos may not be mine.

• Steel Force (2x, front and back) - Of Dorney's six non-kiddie coasters, this was the one I was most interested in riding. A very long DH Morgan hyper built in 1997, this coaster has all the looks of an old Arrow, but doesn't ride at all the same. For one, this coaster is a far smoother ride than something like Magnum. However, it does not deliver the same level of excitement or thrill. The airtime is pretty tepid on either end of the extra-long train. It crawls over the larger camelbacks and doesn't really maintain enough speed going into the bunny hill finale. I actually preferred the ride in the front, as the airtime was ever so slightly more aggressive there. The back row was loaded with unusual flojector airtime. This ride was fine, but nothing to write home about.
• Hydra the Revenge (1x, front) - B&M's 2005 floorless coaster has perhaps their most unique layout. The coaster immediately starts with slow heartline roll nicknamed the "Jojo roll" before turning and heading up the lift hill. There's a solid 105 ft drop leading into six more inversions including a dive loop, zero-G roll, cobra roll, and two corkscrews. It's a nice, long, forceful ride, but the rattle on this one is strong. I didn't bang my head too hard (better than I fared on Rougarou at CP anyway) but it was enough to detract from the overall experience.
• Talon (1x, front) - I'd consider this my favorite ride at the park overall, though this 2001 B&M inverted coaster is rather tame. There's a few good inversions like any B&M offers, with some good floaty airtime moments not often found on inverts. I like how close to the ground this invert gets at times. The orange-and-blue color scheme really pops.
• Thunderhawk (1x, middle towards rear) - The oldest operating coaster in the Cedar Fair chain will celebrate its 100th birthday next year. It's Schmeck-designed PTC woodie with a cool cream paintjob and great figure-eight layout. This one is a little bit rough, but nothing beyond expectations for century-old woodie.
• Possessed (1x, middle) - The only coaster to actually make me a bit nervous before boarding was this 2000 Intamin inverted "impulse" coaster that launches you back and forth. Forwards up a twisted spike and backwards up a straight spike. In 2008, it was moved from Geauga Lake to Dorney. It's not quite as scary when you're actually on it, and like many of these types of coasters, I can't help but feel like it misses the point of a coaster. It feels more like a flat ride in its overall experience.
• Wild Mouse (1x) - It's a Wild Mouse. It has a nice little sign up top that says Wild Mouse. Not much else to say. Oh... this ended up being my 100th credit because I wasn't keeping track.

Dorney had some decent flats to offer as well:

• Demon Drop - I don't do drop towers, but I just had to get on this 1st-generation Intamin Freefall, originally built at Cedar Point in 1983. I can confirm that I still don't like drop towers, but I couldn't resist riding it for historical purposes. It's definitely an intense drop and an interesting feeling to end up face-up after the drop is over.
• Dominator - My wife did this one and preferred it to Demon Drop. Interesting to see the S&S multi-tower with two of its towers hollow like Dorney's.
• Ferris Wheel - Have you ever ridden a Ferris Wheel while the ride op was getting trained on it for the first time? I do not recommend it.
• Scrambler - It's another Scrambler. This one runs nice.
• Whip - A 1920 Mangels whip that was closed when we tried to ride it.
• Thunder Creek Mountain - Actually a pretty solid log flume that will get you reasonably wet.

I knew going into this final stop that Dorney Park had its share of issues and that it would probably underwhelm compared to the rest of the trip. What I did not anticipate was just how neglected this park feels on the whole. It's as if Six Flags Blight is a communicable disease and this park managed to contract it. After seeing how well-run Cedar Point and Kings Island both were, it was a bit of a shock.

The attached Wildwater Kingdom looks good, but I'm not much for water parks, and we were both too exhausted to even consider looking over there. I suspect Dorney is similar to Six Flags America in that the water park attracts crowds as big, if not bigger, than the main park itself. (I'd probably rather go to SFA.)

Dorney was basically deserted on this sunny and warm Sunday afternoon. Every coaster was a walk-on except for Wild Mouse. A friendly parkgoer my wife sat next to on the drop tower mentioned that the park can get a lot more crowded during peak season.

I try not to criticize ops, as I don't work, nor have I ever worked, at an amusement park. But Dorney's ops were listliss and lethargic. Coasters that should have been quick station waits easily became 10 or 15 minute waits. Very slow dispatches. And I'm saying that after being at Hersheypark the day before.

After hitting all of the coasters, we weighed whether we really wanted to give them another round. Unfortunately the lineup of rides here wasn't quite inspiring us, so we packed it in early and headed home. Good thing, because the traffic heading back to Long Island was just horrendous.

On the way out, I wanted Dippin Dots while my wife wanted Rita's. We went to Rita's first and were greeted with the overpowering funk of sour milk. You could smell it from outside the building, but it felt like the walls themselves were made out of sour milk once we walked in. We most certainly did not buy any Rita's. At least the Dippin Dots were okay!

We had some issues finding an affordable hotel to stay at in the area, so we opted just to stay in Harrisburg for an extra night and drive to Dorney that morning. Gave us a chance to digest our Waffle House breakfasts before we had to go on any rides, at least.

So, unfortunately, Dorney offers a rather lackluster experience in a state full of amazing amusement parks. Admission costs about $40-$45 and parking is another $30. Hershey's admission is $54 right and can usually be had for a discount, with $20 parking. Knoebels offers free parking and pay-as-you-go tickets or $50 wristbands. Hershey is about an hour away, Knoebels about an hour and 45 minutes. Unless you're directly in the Allentown area and really don't want to drive farther, I'm not sure why you'd visit Dorney in the first place. And so we have our first somewhat negative review of the trip.

There's where the trip ends. Seven parks and 47 new credits. Sorry to get sappy: a wonderful 10 days spent with my beautiful wife, doing something I absolutely love, seeing new places and eating good food. It was one of the best vacations I've ever taken, and since this trip was really taken as a birthday/Christmas gift to me, it was one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. And to think she was the coaster fanatic and I was the scared one when we met.

TL;DR:

• Dorney was probably the worst park on the trip.
• There are some good, not great, coasters here.