Kings Dominion Trip Part 4

The Grove section of Kings Dominion is full of many of the park's thrill rides. First up we have the endangered species known as HyperSonic XLC.

Most of the ride can be seen in this picture. The only part you can't see are the brakes and the station, not very exciting.

HyperSonic has the best launch of any coaster I've been on. It was so fast I barely knew what happened until I was staring back at the ground going down the drop. The rest of the ride is lame though, the car tracks roughly and the brakes are very abrupt and loud.

I can understand why Cedar Fair wants to unload this ride, it broke down often while we were there and they were running only a few trains so the line was long - and very slow moving.

Still, I'm happy I got to ride before it bites the big one.

Ricochet is a Mack extended Wild Mouse coaster. It has a 50 foot drop that most Wild Mice do not have. It was a fun ride, but this one had capacity issues as well. The cars were stacking 4 deep most of the time.

Hurler is a bad roller coaster. It hurts, a lot. It's too rough, it was a kickback to Hercules. After the first drop I saw that hard banked right hand turn and, from the Hercules years, instinctively knew to lift my back from the seat - or else. Additionally, with the removal of the Wayne's World theming from the area the ride makes no sense. Now it has an odd name and an ugly station.

If Cedar Fair is looking for a ride to remove to cut down on operating costs, this is it.

Here's the Coasters Diner, Paramount style. Happy Days Diner used to be Stan Mikita's Diner from Wayne's World. It has the expected food choices, though not at very reasonable prices. But that's just theme park food everywhere.

Here's the only picture I ended up taking of Rebel Yell. I don't remember much about this ride, other than it was pretty rough but it kept it's speed quite well. I know there was some air to be had, but it just wasn't that great for me. Sorry Rebel Yell!

This picture didn't quite capture what I intended it to, but I took it to remember to comment that the Grove section of the park has more games than any section of any park I've ever been to. And with all the employees yelling into their mics to get people to play the area felt crazy. I mean does a park really need 5+ games of the same type in their park?

Probably my most anticipated ride at the park: Drop Zone Stunt Tower. It's 305 feet tall, and drops riders from 272 feet. Kings Island's is 315 feet tall, but it drops from 264 feet so I'm thinking that Kings Dominion's is still the tallest drop in the U.S.

It was closed for 2 days due to the accident in Kentucky, but when it reopened myself and TONS of people in the park ran to it to take a ride. It's amazing fun!

After riding this it makes smaller freefalls seem less attractive! The ride sorta needs a paint job though.

Obligatory 3-Point Challenge, it was $10 here like at Dorney. Looked even more popular than at Dorney, had a big line every time I walked past it.

They have real bumper cars at Kings Dominion! And a classic Dodgem sign to match. All parks should still have real bumper cars, sadly, so many of them do not.

I did not ride Shockwave. I had no desire to go through that pain. I did take this picture of a placard that Paramount had put up that's still in front of the ride. Almost like they're already honoring a removed ride...

Here's a final shot of the Grove area. You can see Shockwave, Triple Spin, games, games, and more games, Drop Zone, and Rebel Yell.

We now have only one more section of the park to cover, the Congo. I'll get that up asap!