RicketyCricket
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Taron
Salem MA has always been on our radar, mine as a casual history keeno and my girlfriend as a PSL slurping, Autumn enjoying, spooky-stuff fan. We've both had some time off booked during October for a potential beach holiday. Then we went to Valencia for a long weekend in August and remembered being roasted in the sun all day is actually a bit shit.
Flights to Boston were reasonable when doing early research but soon crept up by the time we were ready to commit. NYC was looking a better option and we booked the flights and hire car. Flights mostly paid for by a full Ryanair refund from said Valencia trip where we had a 10 hour delay on the way home.
Obviously I'd need a few theme park days and the sensible thing to do would have been Lake Compounce, SF New England and SF Great Adventure. But the concrete jungles of Six Flags would have ruined the vibe of the trip. I don't mind long drives so we decided to start the trip by heading south to two new to me parks in Kings Dominion and Busch Gardens Williamsburg. It's tough to plan parks during this time of year with weekend only openings but fortunately Busch Gardens was scheduled to be open on the Columbus Day Monday.
Despite the waffling introduction I'll be keeping this trip report very brief but full of photos!
Day 1: Landed at JFK at 5pm and encountered what turned out to be the longest queue of the trip. 3 hours to get through security. Picked up the car and set off for a 2.5 hour drive to our first cockroachfest of motel of the trip in Aberdeen, just outside Baltimore. My USA trips are always done on a very tight budget, maximum £60/night accomodation but with a minimum booking.com rating of 6/10. Have stayed in some real dumps over the years but these trips wouldn't be possible if we stayed in the Ritz every night.
Day 2: We hit the road to Kings Dominion via Wendy's for a Baconator. The park was open til 11pm for their Haunt event so there was no real rush and we got there just after 1.30pm. Got straight in line for Intimidator 305. It's not a ride that's been very high up my bucket list because I find OTSRs too restrictive but was good to get on it nonetheless.
I305 is an absolutely ridiculous piece of machinery. I'm a huge fan of how unpleasant this thing is. The greyout moment on the back of the train is like a science experiment. And then while you're still recovering you get some good airtime and ragdolled through the turns. I completely get the hype and a front row ride really blew me away, but the bruising on my shoulders stop it from being a top coaster for me. Would easily be top 10 with lap bars. Had several rides throughout the evening all over the train.
Next up was Twisted Timbers, my 9th RMC. As an airtime chaser I had high hopes for this and it didn't quite live up to them. Of the small-mid scale RMCs it ranks somewhere in the bottom half of my list and I much prefer the likes of Untamed or Twisted Colossus. It's a great ride obviously but just a bit repetitive and the airtime wasn't as strong as expected. It's basically a lighter version of the second half of Steel Vengeance. Had a brilliant front row night ride on it but the ops were terrible, with one of the slowest moving queues I've ever seen.
View attachment 7441
And that was it for the creds! Tried queueing for Grizzly but soon realised it was on one train and the station was rammed. Nothing else there is unique and I wanted to re ride i305 and Twisted Timbers. We also wanted to get through as many of the haunted houses/mazes as possible. The Haunt event was top notch, a great atmosphere around the park and the scare zones were packed full of actors. We managed 4 of the mazes and whilst nothing was outstanding, they were all solid 7/10s.
Kings Dominion felt more Six Flags than Cedar Fair, but we had a great evening there.
Flights to Boston were reasonable when doing early research but soon crept up by the time we were ready to commit. NYC was looking a better option and we booked the flights and hire car. Flights mostly paid for by a full Ryanair refund from said Valencia trip where we had a 10 hour delay on the way home.
Obviously I'd need a few theme park days and the sensible thing to do would have been Lake Compounce, SF New England and SF Great Adventure. But the concrete jungles of Six Flags would have ruined the vibe of the trip. I don't mind long drives so we decided to start the trip by heading south to two new to me parks in Kings Dominion and Busch Gardens Williamsburg. It's tough to plan parks during this time of year with weekend only openings but fortunately Busch Gardens was scheduled to be open on the Columbus Day Monday.
Despite the waffling introduction I'll be keeping this trip report very brief but full of photos!
Day 1: Landed at JFK at 5pm and encountered what turned out to be the longest queue of the trip. 3 hours to get through security. Picked up the car and set off for a 2.5 hour drive to our first cockroachfest of motel of the trip in Aberdeen, just outside Baltimore. My USA trips are always done on a very tight budget, maximum £60/night accomodation but with a minimum booking.com rating of 6/10. Have stayed in some real dumps over the years but these trips wouldn't be possible if we stayed in the Ritz every night.
Day 2: We hit the road to Kings Dominion via Wendy's for a Baconator. The park was open til 11pm for their Haunt event so there was no real rush and we got there just after 1.30pm. Got straight in line for Intimidator 305. It's not a ride that's been very high up my bucket list because I find OTSRs too restrictive but was good to get on it nonetheless.
I305 is an absolutely ridiculous piece of machinery. I'm a huge fan of how unpleasant this thing is. The greyout moment on the back of the train is like a science experiment. And then while you're still recovering you get some good airtime and ragdolled through the turns. I completely get the hype and a front row ride really blew me away, but the bruising on my shoulders stop it from being a top coaster for me. Would easily be top 10 with lap bars. Had several rides throughout the evening all over the train.
Next up was Twisted Timbers, my 9th RMC. As an airtime chaser I had high hopes for this and it didn't quite live up to them. Of the small-mid scale RMCs it ranks somewhere in the bottom half of my list and I much prefer the likes of Untamed or Twisted Colossus. It's a great ride obviously but just a bit repetitive and the airtime wasn't as strong as expected. It's basically a lighter version of the second half of Steel Vengeance. Had a brilliant front row night ride on it but the ops were terrible, with one of the slowest moving queues I've ever seen.
View attachment 7441
And that was it for the creds! Tried queueing for Grizzly but soon realised it was on one train and the station was rammed. Nothing else there is unique and I wanted to re ride i305 and Twisted Timbers. We also wanted to get through as many of the haunted houses/mazes as possible. The Haunt event was top notch, a great atmosphere around the park and the scare zones were packed full of actors. We managed 4 of the mazes and whilst nothing was outstanding, they were all solid 7/10s.
Kings Dominion felt more Six Flags than Cedar Fair, but we had a great evening there.
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They were absolutely adorable and were happy to mooch about right up close to us. 
