Dorney Park 2014

[jscll]

The person who wrote the news article does not understand how a shuttle coaster works. Although slipping from the lift chain is not normal, it is usually not a dangerous event. After all, the ride always rolls back down the lift hill. There are two brake runs on the ride at the bottom of the two lift hills (one is also the station loading brakes.) Once the train is on either of the lift hills, the brakes close until the train reaches the top. This way, if the train slips, it stops in the brakes rather than valleying. From what I can gather from the article, the safety devices worked as designed. I have to call the news station out on their deceptive headline, it states two people were injured. Though this is a catchy headline, the article only states that the two people requested to go to the hospital for "precautionary reasons." Going to the hospital for precautionary reasons can mean anything from someone who thinks they sprained their ankle to make sure they did not break it, a person who is on blood thinners who did not fall hard but still need to make sure they are not internally bleeding, someone having abnormal heartburn to make sure it is not cardiac, or it could be someone who just wants to sue the park for "whiplash." Although no one on the ride expected what happened, I do not see how what happened is any worse than Thunderhawks final breaks (Dorney park management - when you read this, please budget for next year a new set of skid brakes for Thunderhawk, sorry I am of subject.)

[Hauntguy]

News just broke today that Snake Pit will not open this weekend when WWK opens, but will debut the friday of next weekend.

[Yoshi]

Screamscape posted Stinger could be closed most of the season or possibly the entire season.

[dptalon135]

I really wonder what happened. Is it really worth spending the money to fix at this point? Do many people even care about this ride? Just cut the losses and move on.

[coasterluver]

Well, nothing has been confirmed, but the rumor is that this is a similar situation to what happened with Two Face-the Flip Side at Six Flags America. Like I said nothing has been confirmed, but that is what I've heard.

[LPFan93]

Well, nothing has been confirmed, but the rumor is that this is a similar situation to what happened with Two Face-the Flip Side at Six Flags America. Like I said nothing has been confirmed, but that is what I've heard.

According to my sources (who work at the park), that's exactly what happened.

[dptalon135]

Here's some background on the model roller coaster that Stinger is, including the Six Flags America incident(s), for those who aren't familiar: Wikipedia

[Hooky965]

CF has rolled the dice with the ride relocations to DP and for the most part it has worked out. They have been able to take these rides out of their first tier parks and put them into ours, which is clearly viewed as a second-tier park. In the case of Possessed and Demon Drop, it was growing pains. In this case, it has grown into a full-fledged PR nightmare. Stinger has been snake eyes from the jump, and it has given the park a bad reputation. It's a shame that this has happened, but perhaps the silver lining is that Corporate CF may think twice about doing it again.

In this case, I really don't know what they were thinking....this isn't a matter of poor ridership at the original location leading to an opportunity to add by subtraction and provide a new experience for another location. This ride had a bad history going in, and a change of venue wasn't going to help it. It's a bad design no matter where it's running, and that has been proven.

[jscll]

Hopefully the park will get Snake Pit open for Friday, the park has installed the last piece of Constrictor today.
A couple of minor, but interesting changes that the park did this year. Jumping Jack Splash, with its new run outs, has had its height limit was lowered to 42 inches. Lighting Falls and Cascade's height limit was raised up to 54 inches. Island Water Works looks great with its new paint -- no rust visible anywhere. There is a few problems though. One of the big buckets was not dumping, most of the water shooters were not operational, many of the water shooter activated elements (targets on the center tower) never stopped running, and several other interactive features were not in operational order. Hopefully when maintenance is done with the Snake Pit, they can finish getting the Island into a like new state.
On the ride side, White Water Landing was running with only three employees and two boats. (WWL needs four people minimal to run efficiently. The loading attendant was doubling as turnstile attendant.) The ride experience is not as good as previous years because the park put on speed control devices (the black mats on the chute.) Anyone know why the park added them? The ride went 20 years without them.