 Recently, I got the chance to visit Doswell Virginia's Kings Dominion for the very first time. I visited the park for about two and a half hours on June 2nd, 2019 and then for the full day on June 3rd, 2019. So in this video, I'm going to talk about my thoughts on several different aspects of the park and also give my thoughts on what I think could use some improvement. Right off the bat, as you approach Kings Dominion coming from the parking lot, you're greeted with a skyline of the Eiffel Tower, you got Dominator right at the front of the park. It looks pretty nice. I think this front entrance could definitely use a nice update like Cedar Fair has given some of their parks like Cedar Point and Kerowins. I think that would be great at this park. This entrance is kind of outdated looking, but it's not bad. It does its job. And then you walk through the front gate after you do your security check and everything. And while we're on that, they seem really strict about security here more so than they seem at Cedar Point, which really surprised me. But you get through the security check. They were having me open my small camera case that I have with my camera and batteries and stuff in it. They had me open it up and show them inside and in some cases they were having me show them my belt, asking if I wore a belt and then wanted me to show it to them and all that kind of stuff, which at Cedar Point, you just kind of put your things in the bins, walk through, and then you get it. They were very efficient and polite and they did a great job, but it's just something I wanted to note. You do the security check and you enter the park and you're immediately greeted by this beautiful view of International Street. You have the King's Dominion sign and the water fountains behind it. Then you have the Eiffel Tower just looming over everything and it is absolutely beautiful. I was really surprised when I got here, to be honest, at just how beautiful this park is. I knew this would be a pretty nice park and I expected to have a good time here, but King's Dominion definitely really exceeded my expectations when it came to just how well this park is presented and the greenery and the gardens, everything looks beautiful here. This park has lots of history and you can definitely tell that. I'm not really going to be talking about the food at all because I did not get any food at King's Dominion. I don't have the meal plan, so I try to stay away from buying food at amusement parks because it's so ridiculously expensive. I also did not visit the water park at all, so I won't be talking about the water park. Upon entering the park, I went and rode Dominator First, which is right near the front entrance. I was really excited to get on this ride because I actually got the chance to ride this when it was still at Giago Lake, so it had been about 12 years since I last rode it and it did not disappoint. It was better than I remember it being and also a lot more intense than I remember too. It's a really intense Florida's coaster. I was even graying out on some of my later rides on it that I got during the second day because it's so intense. From then I moved on and I went down this path that they have to sort of get to the other section of the park with twisted timbers and Racer 75 and Apple's Apple to get into Candy Apple Grove. They have this beautiful path that is just full of all these really tall trees and you're just walking down this path and they just have a few benches there and there's nothing but trees and just beautiful scenery and I love it. That's one thing that absolutely blew me away once again about this park is how beautiful everything looked. When you get on the other side of this path you go off to the left and you have a little collection of flat rides. You have like Delirium which is their really thrilling like spinning disco type ride similar to Max Air. Then you have a Scrambler and some other basic flat rides that you find at a lot of parks. You go straight ahead you have Windseeker which is the 300 foot swing ride and I actually ended up riding this on my trip. The first Windseeker I've ridden, it took a lot. I've always been really nervous to ride these but actually wasn't too bad. It's a pretty relaxing ride once you get up there you get a great view of everything. Then of course you have Twisted Timbers as well around here. Absolutely phenomenal RMC conversion of the old Hurl or Wooden Coaster. I love this ride. I'm going to be doing separate reviews on all the coasters after I do this park review so I'm not going to go into too much detail about the coasters but obviously they have I-305 here which is absolutely incredible. One of my favorite coasters I've ever ridden to this point. Probably the most intense coaster you can find out there and I was graying out so hard on it. Twisted Timbers is great like I said an awesome RMC and then you have Dominator which I think is an absolutely phenomenal floorless coaster. I love Dominator. Racer 75 is pretty good. It's been very well maintained. Pretty smooth ride for the most part. A few rough patches. The airtime wasn't great but it's just a really fun ride. There's Grizzly which kind of has some mixed views on it. I personally am a fan of Grizzly however it is such a rough ride but I just love the setting and how it's hidden in the woods and it's so hard to find but once you find it and you walk back there it's just great. It's just set back in the woods. It's kind of like the beast. It's just engulfed in the woods and it's just a really classic, really intense wooden coaster and I love it. This park has a classic log flume still actually. I ended up not getting on this because I just really didn't want to get wet and I wasn't sure how wet I would get on it but they still have a classic log flume which is nice to see because those are becoming pretty rare these days. They have a river raft ride. Those water rides are way back in the section of the park like behind Grizzly and all that so they're kind of in their own area. There's not a whole lot back there. It's just really nicely landscaped and everything looks great and it's just all back in the trees. That's a really nice place to go and relax. If you're a family coming to Kings Dominion they have an absolutely awesome looking planet Snoopy area and it is just, it looks incredible. A lot of stuff for the kids to do and you could probably spend a good portion of your day in this section. They have the Woodstock Express which is a nice, fun, classic wooden coaster, really small wooden coaster. I find these Woodstock Express coasters to be really fun myself. They have the Great Pumpkin Coaster which is just a really small classic kitty coaster. They denied me. They wouldn't let me ride it so I couldn't get the credit on that. Talking about the operations here, the operations at Kings Dominion are pretty good for the most part. I didn't really have any major issues with operations. I'm so used to going to Cedar Point to be honest since Cedar Point is my home park and Cedar Point's operations are absolutely phenomenal. So when I go to a park like Kings Dominion it is a little frustrating for me at sometimes but they don't really have to be as on their toes as much at a park like Kings Dominion because the crowds aren't nearly as large and there's not really lines on much of anything. Now I went during a weekday and I'm sure it does get really crowded on weekends a lot but that being said compared to a huge mega park like Cedar Point, Kings Dominion is just overall much more relaxed and less congested and they don't have to worry about getting those trains out quite as quickly as a park like Cedar Point. That leads me into another thing. They were running one train on the racer. They were only running one side and one train on the second day I went to Kings Dominion and I'm not sure why because it just made wait times unnecessarily long. For the most part they were running two coasters on the rides especially on the more popular ones your I-305s and Dominator and Twisted Timbers. So overall the operations were pretty good. I think they could use some improvement. Some of the staff seemed really like they didn't care a whole lot which is a little off-putting sometimes but overall Kings Dominion does a great job with their operations. The park layout at Kings Dominion I found to be pretty confusing. Even after being there for a whole day I was still having trouble like remembering how to get to like certain rides. They have like all these little paths that lead into these different areas and nothing really seems to flow that well. So I think the park layout is one thing that could really use some improvement at Kings Dominion. So overall I really enjoyed my time at Kings Dominion. I was absolutely impressed with the park overall and it left a great impression on me. I really wasn't expecting this much. I was expecting Kings Dominion to be a pretty decent park with a couple really good coasters but I wasn't expecting a whole lot and I was really impressed. Flight of Fear was closed the whole time I was there. I didn't get to ride that so that's fine. I should be able to get on the one at Kings Island when I go this year. Good operations, great atmosphere. Cedar Fair has done an absolutely wonderful job in preserving the history of this park and sort of unparamounting it. You know removing a lot of that paramount feel. It definitely feels like a Cedar Fair park and I love it. It's a great atmosphere. So I would definitely recommend coming to Kings Dominion making the trip out here if you're thinking about it. You really only need one day here. It's not a park that you need two days and I would not waste money on a fast lane at a park like Kings Dominion unless maybe it's a weekend and for some reason it's like super super busy. Otherwise don't waste your money on a fast lane. It's just not necessary. And one thing I want to point out quick to the full day I was at Kings Dominion the first ride I got on was Backlot Stunt Coaster and we actually got stuck on the final break run for 25 minutes. And the staff were great about checking on us to make sure we were okay. And when we got off they had water ready for everybody so they gave us some water and they gave us a free quick key pass so that was really good how they handled that. Great job Kings Dominion. So let me know what you think about Kings Dominion in the comments below. Be sure to like, comment, subscribe and follow me on social media. I'm on Facebook as CoasterDaddy, Instagram as CoasterDaddyOfficial. Thanks for watching. Bye.