For close to 20 years, I have planned annual amusement park trips for my workplace in mid-June. They started off as a few friends hanging out in early June for my birthday. As time went on, more people asked if they could come, but college schedules always stood in the way. Wanting more people to be able to come, I pushed things back a couple of weeks and it’s been that way ever since. We usually rotate between Hersheypark, Kings Dominion, Six Flags Great Adventure (SFGAdv), Knoebels, Busch Gardens Williamsburg (BGW), Kennywood, and Dorney Park – which is where this year’s trip would be for some rides on Iron Menace.
These trips are always a good time and we’ve had anywhere from 15 to 77 people attend. For this trip we had about 20. It had been a while since we visited Dorney for one of these group trips and we had quite a few first-time visitors along this go around. Everyone enjoyed their time at Dorney and in Wildwater Kingdom. A few people even bought tickets to go back to the park the next week. They wanted to go back and do some rides they missed and ride the ones they loved. That’s awesome!
A Few Crew Members Present
Although this trip is one for the workplace, that doesn’t mean some Flight Crew members weren’t present. With both Eric and Jason being friends from work and Sam being a former coworker, that meant some of the crew was present. Jen, who you’ve seen in quite a few of my trip reports over recent months also came along. I’m about to ask her to join the crew since she’s visited Hersheypark, BGW, and now Dorney Park with me – some of them a few times too. She’s also set to come along for trip to Kings Dominion and Carowinds in a few weeks.
All that being said, with so many people at the park, we broke into different groups, which changed several times throughout the day. Some people ran right over to the coasters, while others went to the waterpark. My group focused on coasters, surprise, surprise! We tossed in a couple of water and flat rides too, though. Check out the Final Rides Counts box below and hopefully I got things right. It was hard to keep track of everyone and I wasn’t about to list every single person who went. I focused on the crew and Jen since that was who I traversed the park with for the most part.
Iron Menace
I was looking forward to riding Iron Menace. I knew it would be short and figured if there was going to be a knock on the ride, it would be the short length. What I didn’t expect was to have a constant rattle (back row) or shimmy (front and middle rows) throughout the entire ride. That surprised me for a brand new Bolliger & Mabillard Dive Coaster. But what really shocked me was the pothole/janky transition into the brake run. What happened there?
My feelings weren’t just my own, either. While Jason enjoyed his ride on Iron Menace, as did some of my coworkers, Sam, Eric, and Jen all experienced the same negative sensations/traits during their rides. None of us came off the ride a fan and rank it behind most of the other coasters at the park.
Since We Were Inverted opened in 2020, I’ve been lucky enough to ride a handful of rides during their debut seasons including: Candymonium and Wildcat’s Revenge at Hersheypark, Tumbili at Kings Dominion, and Pantheon and DarKoaster at BGW. As excited as I was to see something new at Dorney Park, I feel like this addition looks much better than it rides, sadly. They did a tremendous job on the theming, but the ride experience is not good. It also loads slow, which might just be the operations learning the ropes this early into the ride’s existence. Hopefully that is the case because with the smaller, seven per row trains, it certainly doesn’t move as many people as Griffon at BGW.
Possessed
For years I’d hop on Possessed and think it was a neat ride and move on to things like Hydra, Talon, and Steel Force. In recent years, however, I’ve found a greater appreciation for this simple, yet forceful ride. Even though it doesn’t make use of the holding brake on the rear spike anymore, the drop in the back of the train more than makes up for it. The weightless feeling is similar to that of Pantheon at BGW, which I also love.
Possessed has certainly moved up in my coaster rankings and is currently my third favorite coaster at the park. My one and two are Talon and Steel Force, but after my rides on Steel Force this visit, those two might be changing positions as well.
Steel Force
I’ve heard people claiming this year that Steel Force is running faster. I’ve heard people say the speed over the first drop is faster than years past and the mid-course doesn’t slow you down as much for the final airtime hills. Well, I cannot confirm those things are true, but they sure do feel like they are. I couldn’t tell you the last time before this visit that I had such forceful airtime on Steel Force. My butt was slamming down into the seat numerous times throughout the ride. My second ride also had a brief standing airtime moment too.
Steel Force is definitely riding better. Has anyone else found this to be true? If this persists, it might just overtake Talon as my favorite ride in the park. These two are clearly neck and neck over the rest for me. How about you?
Final Ride Counts
Antique Carousel (1: Sam, Eric)
Demon Drop (1: Patrick, Eric, Jen)
Hydra: The Revenge (2: Patrick, 1: Jen, Jason)
Iron Menace (3: Patrick, Sam, Jen, 2: Eric, 1: Jason)
Possessed (2: Patrick, Sam, Eric, Jen, 1: Jason)
Steel Force (2: Patrick, Jen, 1: Sam, Eric, Jason)
Talon (5: Sam, Jen, 4: Patrick, 3: Eric, 1: Jason)
Thunder Canyon (1)
Thunder Creek Mountain (1: Patrick, Sam, Eric, Jen)
Thunderhawk (1)
Wave Swinger (1)
Wild Mouse (1: Sam, Jen)
A Good Time Even with the Disappointment of Iron Menace
Regardless of how we all felt about Iron Menace, we had an amazing time at the park. We rode so many rides and had a blast hanging out with friends and coworkers. These workplace trips are something I’ve always loved doing for everyone I work with. A big part of it is introducing people to parks they’ve never been to and in some cases, never even heard of.
So many people in this area tend to stick with Six Flags America (SFA), Hersheypark, and Kings Dominion. Getting them out to a place like Dorney is awesome, especially when they want to go back and tell their friends about it. Whatever I can do to help spread the word of these parks to others, I’ll do. Dorney Park surely picked up a few new fans with this visit.
Dorney Park Photo Gallery - June 17, 2024
If you would like to use any of the images in the gallery above for your commercial and/or non-commercial projects, feel free to do so. I ask that you credit We Were Inverted whenever they’re used. I also ask that you do not alter the image or remove the watermarks. If you need any images/video resized or without the watermarks, please contact me directly.
CREW MANIFEST
The following flight crew members attended this park, & earned the respective credits below:
Patrick
CAG
New Credit(s): Iron Menace
Sam
Admiral
New Credit(s): Iron Menace
Eric
Lieutenant
New Credit(s): Iron Menace, Possessed
Jason
Lieutenant
New Credit(s): Iron Menace
Jen
Ensign
New Credit(s): Demon Drop, Hydra, Iron Menace, Possessed, Steel Force, Talon, Thunderhawk, Wild Mouse
1 thought on “Dorney Park – First Rides on Iron Menance”
The trip was a blast sadly iron menace wasn’t as wonderful as we expected it to be lol I can def see steel force moving up on ur list bc u love those air pops thanks for the invite!!
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