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DORNEY PARK
& Wildwater Kingdom
Allentown, PA (Abbreviation: DP)
Cedar Fair L.P.
 Park News - (11/21/2023) Just a heads up, but the 2024 season will be a special one for Dorney Park. Not only is the park opening Iron Menace but the the park’s wooden roller coaster, Thunderhawk, will be turning 100 years old! When it first opened in 1924 the coaster, built by PTC and designed by Herbert Paul Schmeck, was simply named “Coaster”. It kept that name through to 1988. If I’m not mistaken, Thunderhawk is tied for 5th place as the oldest coaster in the USA with the Giant Dipper at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. (Note: The oldest operating roller coaster currently, anywhere in the world, would be Leap the Dips at Lakemont Park which opened in 1902.
(8/17/2023) So what’s going on at Dorney Park now? Based on a new teaser video posted by the park, another announcement is coming on Sept. 7th. Based on the creepy feel, this may be a final bit announcement about the park’s Halloween Haunt details, with the Haunt starting a week later on Sept. 15th.
 2024 - Iron Menace -
(11/22/2023) A new progress update from Dorney Park for Iron Menace has been posted this week, including an interview with Dorney Park’s GM who answers all your burning questions about the creation of the park’s latest B&M. Check it out below!
(11/17/2023) Iron Menace has gone vertical, as the first pieces of track for the new Dive Machine coaster have been installed. So far it looks like the track installation has been for the station and brake run sections, though I would expect the lift hill to begin to rise very soon.
(10/20/2023) The first track pieces for the new Iron Menace have now arrived at Dorney Park.
(9/30/2023) A fantastic look at the future site of Iron Menace has been posted to FB by Dorney Park this week. As you can see, site prep work is well under way with crews preparing and pouring the footers for this new B&M Dive coaster. As a sort of tie in, the park’s Halloween Haunt is featuring a new maze this year called Ghost in the Machine, set inside the McTavish Steel Factory for an encounter with “the tormented past of steel workers who met their tragic fates here.”
(8/21/2023) If you’re heading to Dorney Park you might want to keep an eye out for Iron Menace pieces. A reader mentioned seeing a truck with a couple of very large gray coaster supports in the Pennsylvania area.
(8/10/2023) Dorney Park has announced Iron Menace, a new B&M Dive Machine coaster featuring a beyond-vertical, 95º first drop. This will actually be the “northeast’s first dive coaster”, standing 160 feet tall, featuring four inversions and a top speed of 64 mph.
It is interesting to note that they’ve built a backstory behind this ride as well about a Scottish businessman from the early 1900’s named Hiram S. McTavish. McTavish, owner of a steel mill, built “a massive hauler” to transport workers and ore on rails at dizzying speeds that he named the Iron Menace. Soon after McTavish vansihed without a trace, leaving the mill to close and rot away.
Keeping an eye on the concept art and animation,you’ll notice that this B&M Dive Machine features 3-rows of 7-across seating, just like the one that opened at Six Flags Fiesta Texas in 2022, making this the second “D7” production model. Also, unlike just about every other B&M Dive Machine built, this one does not feature a large turn at the top… instead you will rise up and head straight for the 152 foot drop, much like the popular “Baron 1898” model built at Efteling. Pulling out of the plunge, riders climb up into a massive immelman, a zero-g-roll, an incline loop and then a final corkscrew before heading back to the brake run. You did read that right, Iron Menance features the return of B&M’s tilted or incline loop, a feature found on many of their previous generation Stand-Up coasters, but otherwise not really seen put on a newer design in many years, making this the first time it has been used on a Dive Machine.
As for “Hiram McTavish”, this is a name that fans of Knott’s Berry Farm may recognize. If you’ve visited Knott’s and come across the small boot hill cemetery, there is a grave for a Hiram McTavish that tells a legend about how McTavish’s “heart will beat again after 100 years and any varmit placin thar foot on his grave who feels that beatin will be saddled with good luck”. The trick here is that guests who stand upon the grave will actually feeling the beating of his heart coming from the ground. As you can see on the tombstone below, ole Hiram McTavish passed away in 1886.
(7/30/2023) Dorney Park has posted new teasers for their upcoming announcement on August 10th, including a blog post titled, “Forge Your Own Fate” with links to three creepy teaser videos. Based on the creepy content alone, I had first thought that this may be something for Halloween, but the blog confirms this is for the park’s upcoming 2024 coaster project announcement.
So what exactly does “Forge Your Own Fate” mean then? Will riders be given a choice of some kind to make? This brings to mind the unique Fury roller coaster that opened at Bobbejaanland in 2019. This unique creation from Gerstlauer rolls out of the station and onto a turntable, where guests are asked to push a button to “vote” if they want to experience the ride forwards or backwards. At this point the votes are tabulated and the turntable begins to spin into the right position to begin the swing-launch sequence that starts off the ride experience. (See Fury In Action Here)
So what do you think? Could we be seeing a similar concept brought to Dorney Park for 2024?
(7/22/2023) We know a new roller coaster is now the plan for Dorney Park in 2024, and the park has now set an August 10th date to make some kind of announcement, along with the message, “Forge Your Own Fate”. They’ve also posted a short creepy video clip that at first glance almost seems more like something for Halloween Haunt, except it also ends with the Aug. 10th announcement date teaser, promising that we’ll find out “What’s happening behind the fences at Dorney Park for 2024”.
(5/8/2023) Based on photos posted to Twitter, some early digging and survey markings for Dorney Park’s 2024 coaster project can now be seen. According to other posters, the BM on the stake actually stands for Benchmark, which is the placement of “a post or other permanent mark established at a know elevation that is used as the basis for measuring the elevation of other topographical points.”
So… to be clear… “BM” does not equal “B&M”.
(4/22/2023) It is full steam ahead for Dorney Park to add a new roller coaster for the 2024 season. The project was first revealed in a meeting with the South Whitehall Townshiip Planning board in February to build a 161 foot roller coaster on the former site of the Stinger roller coaster, and now the township has granted the project approval as of April 19th.
While the full details of what the new ride will be, Dorney Park officials have confirmed that this will be a steel roller coaster, and something brand new, and not a transplant of a used ride from another existing Cedar Fair park.
(2/18/2023) The meeting at South Whitehall Township went well for Dorney Park, as the intended plans to add a new roller coaster to the park for 2024 were officially presented and given in initial “ok” from the Township. There are still some necessary project approval phases that must be met before things are fully green-lit but nothing major is expected to come-up that could derail the project. Once everything is approved later this year, we can expect Dorney Park to release the full details, likely in the late summer or early fall when they start to sell 2024 season passes to the park.
Currently all we know for sure is that the roller coaster will stand 162 feet tall, and be placed on the 2.7 acre site that used to be home to the park’s Stinger roller coaster that was removed in 2018.
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