We stayed at the Days Inn, Ruther Glen, Va. (Exit 104 on I-95) It was o.k. as far as motels go, but nothing to write home about. You get free breakfast, which tasted good, but the atmosphere of it left something to be desired. It was kinda like being in the mess line in a prison. The reason we stayed there was because they had a good price and included 2-2 day tickets to Kings Dominion with the package. There are plenty of other hotels in the Kings Dominion area, however, including a Best Western right on park property. It's convenient, but the reason we didn't stay there is because it's overpriced.
Restaurants Outside the Park
Since there's not much to choose from in the park itself (see below), you may want to eat dinner elsewhere. There are a couple of fast food restaurants across from the park, including Wendy's and Burger King. The only sit down restaurant is the Denny's, reviewed below. If you want something different (and you will, once you read our Denny's review), you'll have to get back on I-95 and go either north or south to another exit.
Denny's Located in the Best Western Hotel on the Kings Dominion property. DO NOT EAT HERE. The service absolutely sucked. They were so shorthanded they shouldn't have even been open, especially since the few they did have working weren't doing very well. First, we waited almost an hour just to get a table. There were plenty of empty tables, just nobody to clean them. When we finally got a table, it took our order another 45 minutes to appear (in fact a couple of tables that came after us were served BEFORE us), and then it was wrong. The steak one of us ordered "medium" was a charcoal briquette, one person's stuffing side order had brown gravy on it, but the other person's had some kind of white gravy on it. The waitress took 15 minutes to get back to us to ask if everything was alright, which it wasn't. While we were eating, we observed the person assigned to clean tables. If she went any slower, she'd have been going backwards. She spent 15 minutes clearing and cleaning ONE table, meanwhile we saw 10 other booths that needed to be cleared and cleaned, also. Denny's is off our list.
The Park Itself
Roller Coasters
Rebel Yell A dueling wooden roller coaster. Two cars go at one time, on tracks that mirror each other-one faces forwards, the other, backwards. Naturally, the backwards is much more fun-it's better to not know where you're going.
Grizzly Another wooden roller coaster. It's got some big hills and it's pretty fast. Fun.
Shockwave A roller coaster where you stand up to ride. It's short, but still worth it. There's a loop and a couple of good hills. It's a different feeling standing up while riding.
Avalanche A bobsled roller coaster. Instead of attached to a single track, the cars freely move around a big track shaped like a bobsled run. Pretty cool.
Anaconda A steel roller coaster with some good loops and rolls and an underwater tunnel. It's kinda rough at times, but still pretty good.
Volcano, The Blast Coaster The best ride in the park. It's a new type of coaster called magnetic induction. No more clicketyclackety as you slowly move up the first hill-these have an instant burst of speed that rockets you through the whole ride. It's great-the cars are hanging from an overhead track which makes the loops and barrel rolls even better.
Hurler Yet another wooden roller coaster. (They seem to have alot of them here, but they're still fun.) Pretty good-it's fast and very hilly. Outer Limits Flight of Fear Yuk. If you want a headache, whiplash, or a concussion, this is the one for you. It's way too rough. It's an indoor coaster, where you mostly ride in the dark, but nothing like Space Mountain at Disney World. Another of the magnetic induction coasters, you start out instantly with a burst of speed and continue that way through the ride. There is extra padding on the shoulder harnesses, which tells you just how bad it will be, but the padding wasn't enough to make the ride enjoyable. Your head bangs side to side through the whole ride and you end up with a headache at the end. Not fun.
Other Rides
White Water Canyon A white water rapids ride. Get in a round boat with 5 other people and ride the rapids. You will get wet. This isn't the wettest one we've been on (that award goes to Popeye and Bluto's Bilge Rat Barges in Universal Studios, Florida-we were soaked through), but it's still good.
Diamond Falls One of the log flume rides with the wide boat. It's o.k., but not great-you can get wet depending on where you sit, but the "haunted house" part of the ride needs work-it's not exciting at all. You'd have more fun and get wetter if you stand on the observation deck and watch as the cars come down the hill.
Shenandoah Log Flume The regular kind of log flume ride. A car that only holds 4 people. This one is more fun than Diamond Falls-the hill is bigger and the ride is longer.
Eiffel Tower A 1/3 scale replica of the one in France. It's got a great view of the whole park.
Dodgem The ol' bumper cars. Tip: The cars that have headlights that DON'T work are faster.
The Water Park
We have two major complaints about the water park. The first is that the sidewalks are so rough, our feet started to get sore and hurt so much we couldn't walk after a couple of hours. Since you're going on lots of slides and stuff where you're getting wet and swimming, it's a given that most people won't be wearing shoes. Why is the concrete graded so roughly? Probably to prevent people from falling, but there must be a better way-we could have stayed in the water park and enjoyed it longer had our feet not been killing us.
The second complaint is directed towards some of the people entering the water park area. These people are either illiterate, stupid, or just plain ignorant. There is a HUGE sign clearly posted as you enter that says it is a NON SMOKING park, except for designated areas near some (NOT ALL) of the food concessions. This is because there are many people going around in bare feet and they shouldn't have to step on your smelly, disgusting cigarette butts as they walk from place to place. (Not to mention the fact that we came out to get FRESH air, not smell your stinky cigarette.) Either these people are deliberately choosing to ignore the sign, or they're just plain stupid. They sure ran out fast enough when we went around telling them there was a $15 fine for smoking in the water park.
Pipeline Peak 4 water slides that are dark-they are totally enclosed. 2 of the slides you can ride with inner tubes and the other 2 you don't need a tube. Fun.
Big Wave Bay A wave pool.
Surf City Splash House A fun house, water park style-lots of gadgets that turn on and off water pumps, places to climb, and stuff like that. Look out for the huge bucket on the top. When it's filled, it dumps it's load on YOU.
Lazy Rider The lazy river ride-grab an inner tube and float around the park leisurely. We didn't like that they make you get out and get back in line to get in again after you've been around once. Most parks we've been to don't get that picky.
Baja Bends Twisty water slides that dump you into a pool. Most of the other slides just have extensions at the end to slow you down.
There are some other slides we didn't get on due to crowds, and some others we would have liked to get on, but were closed because they didn't have enough people to man them.
Food
We chose not to call this section "restaurants" because there aren't any. There are lots of places that serve food, but not much variety. 75% of the restaurants all serve the same food, and there are no sit down and be served restaurants. (There aren't any at Busch Gardens, either, but at least there was lots of variety.) Most of the places serve the same tired hot dogs, pizza, french fries, and pre made salads. There are a few places that are o.k., which are listed here.
Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. One of the few interesting places to eat. The only place in the park to get an honest-to-goodness Po' Boy, which is the southern version of a hoagie, with your choice of deep fried shrimp or fish. We've had the real thing, and this comes pretty close. It's a good deal-for $6 you get a huge Po'Boy, french fries, and cole slaw.
Country Kitchen Ribs, chicken, and those monster smoked turkey legs-yummy!
Email / knighton@cablespeed.com
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