Kings Dominion

Time to play a little catch up.

Always on the look out for a good deal, this year we decided to go with Kings Dominion passes for next year, instead of Busch Gardens...with one bonus, we could go one time before it closed for the season in November.

This decision was met with lots of protests from the kids...."I hate Kings Domion!", "I won't be able to ride Alpinegeist!"   Ummmm....have they ever been there before? No.  Even with the promise of lots of fun, they were reluctant.

I actually worked at KD when I was a teenager....one hot summer when I literally could find nothing else and waited until July to finally buckle and say yes to a friend that I wanted a job there.  Making music videos of groups of people lip-sync-ing their favorite songs...it was my first experience using special effects and I faked my way through it.  It's not there anymore.

Anyway, all anti-Kings Dominion words were silenced as soon as we pulled up and they saw the colorful roller coasters looming over the trees.

It was decked out for Halloween.  And we knew to get out of there before dark when the zombies would come out.


It's not called the Scooby-Doo roller coaster anymore (I guess 'cause Snoopy took over the place), but Diego braved it with daddy before he knew any better.  Juan Pablo said he was wrapped around the handle bar like a boa constrictor.  That was the last coaster for him for the day.


(Can you spot JP, Diego, and Joaquin?)

After that there seemed to be a major car theme going on....95 baby!


Race cars.....the ones with the rail going down the middle so you can't go off the track....



Bumper cars....definitely a pro at this now.....



And a real driving school where you can go wherever you want....looks like he's one-arming it now.



Even the big kids got in on this one.  Wow, Isabela you really are growing!



Turns out Isabela and Joaquin can even ride some all by themselves now....there they are on the Avalanche in the Suisse car.  There were absolutely no lines for anything all day, so they got to ride things multiple times.  I remember when I was little, you had to stand in lines for at least 45 minutes every time, just for your 45 second thrill.  Times have changed.



Diego and I downed an ICEE while the others rode stuff.



Here's some unusual advice...."Always take candy from strangers."



Since it was Halloween, they had little pirate giveaways for the kids.  Love Isabela's triangle head!



But these two pirates sure are handsome!



And there's little ol' me trying to get in a picture, too.



It took some convincing to get them to go in the foam bubble pool....Diego never did give in.



But he does love those giant characters....even if he's never heard of them.



By next year, I'll definitely have to read them some Peanuts comics.



That's one tall pirate!



Joaquin was drawn to the giant stuffed animals like usual.  They look fun, but really they're not.



Diego and I stayed on the slower ones...although I'm not great with heights either.  I was ready to get off this ferris wheel after the first go-round, but it just kept going.  Diego even started contemplating ways to jump off of it so we could go on something else.



And his favorite...the merry-go-round.  His horse always wins.



So in the end, the kids loved Kings Dominion.  I think they even said it was better than Busch Gardens.  Me...I noticed it was like comparing Walmart and Target.  I'll always be a Target girl myself.