Kings Dominion Trip Part 5

Okay, here is the last section of Kings Dominion to take a look at, The Congo.


Here is a nice overview of the area. As you can see, Volcano dominates this corner of the park.

A sign for the attraction. Oddly, this sign is located not at the entrance to the ride but long before it, with other attractions still between the sign and the ride. It's nice though.

The ride is visually impressive. And the ride itself is impressive as well. Intamin may not make rides that work well, but they do make fun rides. I expected the launches to be more intense - but the ride was still pretty great.

The capacity of it ride isn't too fantastic, however, I got lucky and did my riding on a Friday night with very minimal waits.

The area around the ride is nicely themed. They had a nice mountain to work with, after all.

Here's the station and 1st launch area. Also, you can see the old Smurf Mountain flume trough. It's sorta bad show that Paramount never ripped out that cement. The waterfall in the upper left of the photo should be fixed. It's really ugly in its current form.

Here is a reference shot of what was in this part of the mountain before Volcano:

© ejd1984 Via Webshots

The flume drop on the right goes into the trough mentioned above. Volcano's station reaches out into where the larger waterfall in the center was, with the Haunted Mine track above it. And in the foreground, on the left, you have the water fall that I'm asking to have turned back on.

Enough history for now though, here's a last shot of Volcano dropping back into the mountain.

Right across the midway from Volcano is Kings Dominion's big attraction for 2005, Tomb Raider: Firefall.

I didn't actually ride this, but you do not need to in order to enjoy the ride - it has so many special effects that it's practically a show. There's music, themed surroundings, steam, fountains, fire - it's really fun to watch.

The fountains do not appear to actually get the riders wet, but they do interact with the ride often.

Here are two pictures where you can see all the fire and water that's involved. To really get the pictures of how cool the ride is to watch, why don't you watch it!


© DJSkrull

As you can see, the ride is pretty fun to watch.

Flight of Fear is up next. I can't imagine riding this when it had over-the-shoulder restraints. You can get banged around with only lap bars, the former restraints must have been a killer.

The theming on Flight of Fear was impressive. The launch was good too, I almost think it was more intense than Volcano's.

Here's a selection showing off some of that theming. It's still Fort Cooper here, not Kinzel quite yet. (I think I read that Mr. Cooper was a head guy under the Paramount Parks?)

I'm glad that Cedar Fair stepped in and reopened Flight of Fear last year. It had a nice line the whole time I was there - and it's really tucked away in a corner of the park.

Here's the Tomb Raider Grill. The theming of this restaurant is pretty cool, I didn't get a photo but there's all sorts of maket-type props in front.

Bubba Gump Shrimp Shack is also located in the Congo. Perhaps the theme doesn't fit well, but the food place looks pretty cool as well.

I know I said this would be the end but this post is already too long and there's more to cover. So we'll have to do one more!