Just an hour’s drive from Busch Gardens Williamsburg lay our first Cedar Fair park of the trip: Kings Dominion. Home to my second most-feared coaster (after Kingda Ka, of course) as well as a brand-new land, I couldn’t wait to see what the park had to offer.
We arrived just in time for park opening – after a much-needed full night of sleep – and my first thought as we passed through the turnstiles was: wow, this place is green! Walking into a park and immediately being greeted by a replica of the Eiffel tower, nestled behind a long fountain lined with trees? It doesn’t get much better than that!
As we headed back toward our first ride of the day, we passed through both Planet Snoopy and Jungle X-Pedition, which from a quick fly-by looked every bit as charming as the park’s entrance, until we reached our destination: the un-named concrete plaza at the back of the park housing Flight of Fear and Intimidator 305.
According to the park map, this area is considered part of Jungle X-Pedition, but lacks all of the charm of the new land. Though, in fairness as home to both a military-base-themed and a racing-themed coaster, the concrete makes sense. But hey, this is an amusement park after all. Theming is a bonus!
Despite the park housing a few big-hitting thrill coasters, our first stop was the indoor coaster Flight of Fear. Having done a little bit of research beforehand, Flight of Fear always seemed to gain a disproportionate line so seemed the best bet for our rope-drop ride. Surprisingly (at the time) this was also one of the park’s rides where lockers were required for loose articles (I305 & Twisted Timbers being the others), but I guess that’s to try and combat those long waits! Articles safely stored, we walked into what was an insanely cool queue line! As our first attraction in the park, Flight of Fear blew me away with this line, especially the moment you walk upwards into the open hatch of a UFO! Eventually, you arrive in the station where human-sized aliens are being held in tanks on the opposite side – another potential reason they don’t have bins on this ride. It wasn’t until this point that we actually got any sort of idea as to the sort of ride we were in for. But a moment after we walked towards the air gates, the departing train launched at considerable speed out of the station – I thought this was going to be a family ride! Turns out FoF actually packs quite a punch, flying through 4 inversions at 54mph. Essentially, it’s a space-themed Rock ‘n’ Roller coaster – admittedly with a bit of the jankiness too. Here for it.
Just a quick note about the locker situation. So, I paid $2 per 2-hour rental, or there was the option for a movable locker. When you tapped this option it still came up saying 2 hours, so I took this to mean that you could move your locker, but still only for two hours which didn’t appeal to me. But, having watched other people’s vlogs, that actually meant you could hire an all-day locker, but only stay in each locker for 2 hours at a time! So for $5, that’s actually a great option – oops!
Then? Well, the time had come. It was time to ride a coaster I once had been pretty excited for. That was until I began to see some fellow enthusiasts – including people whose opinions always seem to align with mine – say how awful it was. With some saying it was simply too intense, or that they actively hated it, I was nervous. But regardless, it was time to see what Intimidator 305 had to throw at me. We left our belongings in the Flight of Fear lockers where we still had plenty of time remaining on our two-hour rental, and walked down toward the unmissable, ridiculously-sharp lift hill. Thankfully, there was no line to speak of and we literally walked straight onto a train waiting in the station. At this point, the ride had only been operating for around half an hour and I consciously chose a mid-train seat, in order to get what – theoretically – should have been the mildest ride possible on this beast. It still wasn’t enough. This ride absolutely destroyed me. This was, without doubt, the single worst ride experience I’ve had. Nothing else even comes close. For those who don’t recognise the terms, ‘greying out’ and ‘blacking out’ are relatively common experiences on very intense rollercoasters. Greying out refers to the loss of colour in your vision, whilst blacking out is the loss of vision altogether, both as a result of the blood briefly leaving your head during moments of extreme force. I’ve experienced greying out many times on coasters, usually only for the briefest moment at the most intense point in an element and it does not phase me at all. But, whatever the heck happened to me on this ride sure did. I’ve never blacked out before, so there’s a very good chance that this is what happened, but I just don’t know. After making it through the legendarily-forceful first bend after the drop, I felt a wave of relief that I’d gotten through it okay, then the next thing I knew I was regaining consciousness, gasping as if I’d just drowned, but still on the coaster. I don’t know if I actually lost consciousness, but my friend said I stopped responding to any chat (I don’t remember that at all) and I really did feel like I’d just woken up. Have you blacked out? Did it feel like this?! Am I overreacting to a normal rollercoaster experience?! Do let me know! In the meantime, I hope I305 enjoys its special place as the only ride I will never, ever ride again.
Having downed masses of Diet Coke in an attempt to recover, it was time to ride a nice family coaster to get the day back on track. Backlot Stunt Coaster is one that I’ve been excited to ride ever since watching the Expedition Theme Park video about its former life as The Italian Job ride. This wacky, effect-laden family ride looked right up my street. Sadly, nowadays this ride places the emphasis firmly on Backlot and not so much on Stunt. After being launched straight into a series of helixes (an unusual, intense choice) the coaster careens through concrete and gravel before reaching its show stop. With a helicopter in front of you and oil barrels all around, you sit and wait for something to happen. And wait. And wait some more. Nothing. The train sits motionless for what feels like forever with not even a sound effect. And that just ruins the ride for me. Sure, it finishes off with a fun indoor section and a mild final drop under the queue line, but it wasn’t enough to redeem it for me. With effects, this could be a really great ride. Right now… it’s ok I guess.
Finally feeling fully recovered from my I305 trauma, it was time for something I’d been extremely excited about for a while: my second-ever Rocky Mountain Construction coaster! After riding Zadra at Energylandia in 2021, the ride shot straight to the top of my rankings and left me desperate for more. Twisted Timbers is an RMC conversion of the park’s former Hurler wooden coaster, and boy is it a thigh bruiser! This is an ejector airtime machine, bouncing you repeatedly between the restraint and your seat like a paddle ball. But before you reach those airtime hills, you fly through the 109ft tall barrel roll downdrop (thanks RCDB, I had no idea what it was called). Essentially, the first drop is a barrel roll. How ridiculous is that? I absolutely loved it! Though Timbers may not have the height of some of it’s more lauded counterparts, it’s still a completely wild ride that you come off laughing and desperate to ride again. The theming too is some of the best in the park, with that beautiful twisted tree out front and the ride itself taking place in the fictional Hanover Hill Orchard, an orchard you can even find lots of merchandise for in the shop!
With I305 decidedly Not For Me, the largest remaining thrill coaster in the park was Dominator, the world’s longest B&M floorless coaster. With a focus on speed and inversions, this too was an intense experience – but thankfully an enjoyable one! Although my first loves are hangtime and airtime, I can still get behind a bloody massive vertical loop and cobra roll! The only downside to this ride for me was the exposed concrete queue line. Thankfully, it was only about a ten-minute wait but I can imagine that line being mighty unpleasant should it get much longer!
One of my favourite rides in the park was, of course, its only dark ride. The wonderful Boo Blasters on Boo Hill. There’s something so delightful about a classic blacklight paint dark ride, but this one took it to the next level with its interactivity. Each and every target was connected to a moving part in the ride, making the whole thing feel like I was inside a lift-the-flap book. Screw trying to get the highest score, I just wanted to know what happened when I shot things! Luckily, the blasters shone a red dot on the wall so it was very easy to aim correctly and I didn’t shoot a single target that wasn’t responsive. This was without a doubt, one of my favourite shooting attractions. It was just so much fun.
To get to Boo Blasters, we had to pass through the adorable Planet Snoopy which was impressively shaded, with plenty of attractions tucked between lots and lots of trees. Most notably, this was home to my first (but certainly not last) Woodstock Express of the trip. A small, but smooth and fun wooden coaster just a little larger than Blue Streak at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. There was also The Great Pumpkin Coaster, which adults, tragically, are not allowed to ride without a child – booooooo!
The park only had one truly themed land, the newest area Jungle X-Pedition. On paper, I thought this area would most likely be pretty lacklustre. A few re-themed rides and an S&S free spin. Great. But this was honestly a charming, incredibly themed delight of a land. It was filled with large theming set pieces, including a plane and a research vehicle, as well as little artistic touches such as these gorgeous attraction posters.
Not only was the land a beautiful place to be, but it even has a backstory! The only ride I actually rode here was Reptillian, so I’m not sure if the other attractions all have signage like this that ties them into the land’s story, but this one sure made me very happy whilst waiting for the bobsled coaster.
The coaster itself was everything you could want from a bobsled coaster, smooth, speedy and with plenty of twists. However, this quickly became a favourite based on the shed the train sits in prior to pulling back into the station. This is filled with artefacts from the research being carried out at the ‘Reptilian Temple Project’, there was so much to see that I wished we would have been left on the brake run longer – a rare feeling!
Also on Reptilian, as well as every other ride within the land, you get to listen to the brilliant Alicia Stella (check out theme park stop if you haven’t already!) make all the station announcements, it sure feels like you’re in safe hands!
When arriving at the park, I did fully intend to ride Tumbili too but after watching, decided that I’d await the review from my friends to get an idea of whether this would be for me. In the end, hearing how it slammed your head back into the headrest as the ride flipped was enough to put me off sadly. Had this been at a home park, I may have ridden, but knowing I still had many, many park days and drives ahead, I didn’t want to trigger my migraines. I did really love listening to the ride make its monkey noises as the train ascended the lift hill though.
We also grabbed lunch within the land at Jungle Market Eatery, the area’s main restaurant. After sticking our heads in a few places, this was the first we found that offered a veggie option and the restaurant itself happened to be well-themed – win! Alas, it was not to be. On reaching the counter and asking for the veggie burger, the response I got was a straight-up ‘no’. Just no. Okay then. Instead, I just picked up a basket of fries. I’d expected a day or two on the trip where I’d be running on fries alone, but as our first Cedar Fair park this did leave me a little nervy about just how many days I would be eating fries. At least in the USA, toppings bars are a thing! It’s tragic, but I ended up using lettuce leaves as taco shells and stuffing with fries, onions, pickles and mayo and it was actually… really nice? Meat-free travel, eh?
Without a doubt, my absolute favourite thing in the whole park was the animatronic barbershop mushroom quartet with their toad pianist. Every 15 minutes, the mushrooms came to life to sing a song and I got lucky enough to walk past several times in the day whilst they were performing. It’s little weird touches like this that always make a park for me. Check out Coaster Studios’ footage of every song!
Kings Dominion was a fabulous introduction to Cedar Fair’s regional parks, straddling the line between amusement and theme park with style. With the effort put into creating a genuinely outstanding new land, this is also an extremely exciting park! If Jungle X-Pedition is representative of the level of theming in this park going forward, I cannot wait to see what the future holds for Kings Dominion.
Speak again soon,
Claire
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