Are We Amused Yet?

The buzzword for the summer would have to be 'staycation' - the act of staying at or near your home due to high gas prices or having a general lack of funds to begin with. My summers usually involve one or two flights somewhere for 7s and a week at the Outer Banks with my best friend, but that wasn't going to be in the cards this time around. Since I already went on a mega-vacation earlier this year, I opted to go exploring some of the best stuff the grand state of PA has to offer.

First up was Dorney Park. Man, I love this place! I remember going here maybe once a summer or every other when I was a kid and you couldn't convince me there was a cooler place than this. I was never interested in Six Flags or Disneyworld (we couldn't afford it anyway), but Dorney Park was the shit when I was 10 years old. I get all excited just typing about it!!! Mancini, Ginger and I decided to head up on Sunday afternoon, which made us a bit nervous - school just let out for the summer, it was going to be hot and it was a weekend so the chances it would be crowded were pretty good. We get there around 11am and there weren't many cars in the parking lot. "Maybe people are getting a late start today, I'm sure it will be packed come afternoon." More people showed up, but it never really became crowded, which caused for much speculation and even then we couldn't come up with a discernible reason. The one time I went to Six Flags, I had to wait for 2 hours to get on the Batman ride - I wanted to kill someone! Not here - we were able to ride everything without waiting for hours - sometimes we even walked right up and got on the ride, even all the big coasters. Woot!

There were some major changes to the park and I wasn't too surprised since it's been 12 or so years since I was there. Almost everything north of Thunder Creek Mountain was new and one of the best coasters, Hydra, was there. It looked a bit sterile since it lacked the lush landscaping of the older section of the park, but in time it will be cool. All the rides were just as I remember them, but there were a few rides missing. Journey to the Center of the Earth and Polar Express were replaced by other rides. While the former was pretty cheesy, the latter was AWESOME. It was like the tea cups ride, except it went really fast, was almost pitch dark, freezing cold and had loud music. Ugh, they kept the lame-o Tilt-O-Whirl and pitched this ride? Progress is a bitch.

Wildwater Kingdom was virtually the same, except for a few additions of the water slide variety. With the expansion above Thunder Creek Mountain, the two parks are now seamlessly merged together so you don't need to leave one, get a stamp, and walk over to the other. Well planned Dorney Park! We go to the car, change into our swimmers and head over for some H2O action cuz it was getting quite steamy outside. It was at this point that I got a text from one of my teammates who was spending her entire day at a ball handling camp and she was asking me if it was pouring where we were too. Nope, HAHAHAHAHA! I know, not mannerly, but I was so glad to not be doing that! We enter the water park and I again expected a huge crowd and luck was on our side again. Now, there were a lot of people there, but nowhere near capacity, meaning we only had to wait 5-0 minutes for the water slides! After some atomic wedgies courtesy of some speed slides, we headed on over to the my favorite water attraction, the Lazy Mile or Wildwater Rapids (whatever they call it). You just lay in a tube and float along the river, getting splashed along the way. It's so relaxing - the only thing that would make it more relaxing would be a drink in my hand. Oh, and if all the annoying teenagers would just go away.

After riding all the rides, we went to get something to eat. Dorney Park has an all you can eat buffet for $13, but if you buy your admission ticket online, you get a $3 discount on admission and $5 off the buffet so it's a good deal. We stuffed our faces and rode one more coaster, Steel Force, before calling it a day. Steel Force is wicked tall and even I was a bit apprehensive as we were climbing up to the top. I though Mancini was going to have an anxiety attack or something. Then we dropped and I thought I was going to have an anxiety attack, holy freakin massive drop!!! We made it out alive, Mancini 'gripped her fears' and we sauntered through the park toward the exit. We were outta there by 6pm. So fast, but if you take into consideration we hardly had to wait in line for the rides, it didn't surprise me.

I was kinda afraid to go to Dorney Park, mainly because I had such good memories from being a kid that I didn't want to taint them somehow. It's like when you watch an old cartoon you loved (Voltron anyone?) as a kid and then you realize it sucks and now you are only going to remember that it sucks. Not this time! Dorney Park still rocks and is it possible that I love it even more? Yes, I think so.