By Sean CW Korsgaard
CP Reporter
Roller coaster fanatics rejoice, because Kings Dominion is getting its first new roller coaster in nearly a decade next year – as well as bringing a new annual holiday event to Doswell later this year.
Last week, King’s Dominion made two announcements, the first being that a new roller coaster, called Twisted Timbers, will make its debut when the park opens in 2018.
Twisted Timbers is a wood and steel hybrid coaster, that will feature a 109-foot tall barrel roll drop, 3,351 feet of track, and reach a top speed of 54-miles-per hour. Twisted Timbers will be located in the Candy Apple Grove section of the park, and it will be the 13th roller coaster at Kings Dominion.
At a press event last Wednesday, Gary Chadwick, Kings Dominion’s vice president and general manager, had high praise and high expectations for the park’s newest attraction
“Twisted Timbers is a ride like no other,” said Chadwick. “It uses the latest technology in coaster manufacturing, combining wood and steel to give riders an incredible experience that is impossible to achieve on a traditional wooden coaster.”
The roller coaster is designed by Rocky Mountain Construction of Idaho, which has designed such rides as the Lightning Rod at the Dollywood Theme Park in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., and the Storm Chaser in Kentucky Kingdom theme park in Louisville.
The site was the former location of the Hurler, a wooden roller coaster based on Wayne’s World, which operated from 1994-2015. Earlier this year, park visitors noticed work being done on the old coaster, and amateur drone footage confirmed they were pulling out the old tracks, but this marks the first official announcement of what is being done with the old site.
For those seeking something with a little less loops and curves involved, there is the second announcement from King’s Dominion, that 2018 will also see the debut of King’s Dominion’s newest seasonal event, WinterFest which will make its debut in November of next year.
Park spokesmen went into great detail describing the planned vision for turning the theme park into a winter wonderland at the end of next year.
“A nightly tree lighting ceremony will kick off each evening of the imaginative holiday event,” Chadwick said. “The park’s fountain on International Street will be transformed into Snowflake Lake, an area where guests can enjoy ice skating in the shadow of the iconic Eiffel Tower; the tower will be converted into a 300-foot Christmas tree complete with a state-of-the-art light show as snow falls over the midway.”
In addition to ice skating, the park would make dozens of rides available to guests, as well as Christmas music and live shows, crafts and hands-on activities, including cookie decorating with “Mrs. Claus.”
“The immersive WinterFest seasonal event, will let our guests experience the park in an entirely different way, creating new family traditions,” said Chadwick.
WinterFest, along with the very popular Light Show and Santa’s Village held at the Meadow Event Park each December, has the potential to make Doswell one of the region’s premier Christmas celebration locations – and with those money and visitors, will come many new jobs.
“This is our largest investment in the history of the park,” Chadwick said. “But it’s not all in capital investment, there’s a lot of infrastructure, a lot of operating expenses, and there are going to be at least 500 new jobs just for the WinterFest project alone.”
These announcements all came the same day as several other attractions were announced for King’s Dominion’s sister parks, all owned by Cedar Fair Entertainment Co.
Be it new coasters, or the promise of Christmas magic, 2018 is shaping up to be a big year for King’s Dominion.
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