Kings Dominion — Attraction in Ashland

Rides were fun, especially the roller coasters! Soak City is a sub-par waterpark. The water had a funny smell to it, not chlorine, not chemical, it was like sewer smell or something organic. The fast lane passes were worth the money, we skipped lines all day! The dining passes were ok. They are not very clear about which eateries take which level of pass. Like, All Day Dining covers meals but not snacks and only meals at certain eateries. Whereas, Supreme All Day dining covers snacks and meals and drinks, but only certain snacks at certain places. We tried to get ice cream at Rita's, but were told that since they were a 3rd party eatery, they didn't accept the snack pass. Then we tried to get funnel cake, but the snack pass was only good for ice cream and they only had this weird blue ice cream. Very confusing. And a lot of snack places and some eateries were closed all day for no apparent reason. I'm not sure if I would spend the money on the dining pass again. For $47.99 a person, it really wasn't worth it. For that amount of money we should have had access to any eatery every 90 minutes. Even using the Kings Dominion app and website, we still weren't able to tell which places took our meal plan. We did rent a locker for the day for $25, that helped so we didn't have to cart our swim stuff around all day. Parking is ridiculous. It's $35 all day or $45 for premium parking. We were already spending over $260 just for tickets, fast lane passes and all day dining for 2 people. So, we had my wife drop off me and our 12 year old in the morning and pick us up at closing to avoid parking fees. Lastly, my 12 year old's phone dropped out of his pocket on Rapterra at about 8:15 pm. We found the phone, but couldn't get to it as it was in a Restricted Area behind a fence. The ride operator told us we'd have to wait until closing before we could get it. Then, a separate person told us we had to go to Lost and Found first to report it and then someone would escort us into the Restricted Area after the park closed. Went to Lost and Found and the guy called a Security Guard. I thought, 'Great, we'll get the phone.' NO! Security said that the only people allowed in the Restricted Areas are Maintenance workers and that he couldn't go in there or take me in there. He said Maintenance will go in there around 1 or 2 am and if I filed a report explaining where the phone was, they would retrieve it overnight and we could pick it up the next day. So, I filled out the report and gave very specific instructions and directions about where the phone was. We could literally see it sitting in the grass about 20 feet from the fence. Within 48 hours I got an email from Kings Dominion saying they couldn't find the item. Luckily we have a warranty on all our phones at T-Mobile. So, we had to pay our Lost Phone Co-pay of $109 to get a replacement phone. It's now been 8 days, I received another email from Kings Dominion yesterday saying that they still have not located the phone. I used the 'Where's My Phone' feature and it's still sitting in the grass underneath Rapterra. It's not even a huge area to cover, you could walk the entire Restricted Area in 20 minutes. So, add $109 to the $260 we spent and add $62 for a Charicature of the 2 of us and $15 for a silly Squid Hat and you've got almost $475 total for 2 people to spend 8.5 hours at a theme park. My brother works for Universal Studios in Orlando and can get us all (family of 4) into all 3 Universal Parks for free. Next time, it'll probably be cheaper to spend the gas money, drive to Florida get in for free and buy lunch and some pretzels and hang in Orlando for a few days. I don't think we'll be going back to Kings Dominion. It was over priced, over hyped and ultimately, yeah, we had fun on some of the rides. But the hassles with dining and snacks and the smelly water and how they handled the lost phone wasn't worth it. Maybe next year go to Busch Gardens or...

Kings Dominion, while offering a day of thrills and entertainment, often presents a financial experience that feels less like a fun outing and more like a calculated extraction of funds. The issue isn't just the price of admission—which can fluctuate but is generally already a substantial cost for a single-day visit—but the relentless, compounding expenses once you're inside the gates. The food is where the feeling of being gouged really sets in. Your specific example of a slice of pizza and two breadsticks hovering near the $20 mark, without a drink, is a stark reality check for many visitors. When a basic, non-gourmet theme park staple commands a price that rivals a meal at a casual sit-down restaurant, it forces guests to confront the park's strategy: high prices for high volume, often mediocre quality food. For a family, budgeting for lunch alone becomes a significant financial burden that can easily outstrip the cost of the tickets themselves. The park offers various dining plans, but even the priciest "Premium All Day Dining" option, listed at approximately $47.99 (plus fees), falls short of providing a truly comprehensive solution. While it includes meals and a drink wristband, the fact that it doesn't cover all food options in the park means guests are still cornered into spending extra if they want a specific item or find themselves at a non-participating vendor. Adding insult to injury, these All Day Dining plans enforce a 90-minute waiting period between redeeming each meal. This rule means you cannot simply grab food for a family of four all at once; you must wait an hour and a half between one person's meal and the next, turning a simple lunch into a logistical nightmare that significantly hinders the flow of your day. It's a system designed to look like a deal but is ultimately restrictive, highly inconvenient, and still very expensive, especially when you factor in the all-day nature of a park visit that necessitates multiple meals and snacks. The extra costs don't stop there. When the park hosts special events, like Halloween Haunt, the pattern of nickel-and-diming continues. Previously, elements like the haunted mazes were often included in the park entry, but now, a separate "Haunted Attractions Pass" is required, an extra fee on top of the already paid admission, season pass, parking, and dining. This practice of charging separately for core event attractions feels like a bait-and-switch, particularly for season pass holders who feel their year-long investment should cover the park's main offerings. It signifies a shift away from an all-inclusive entertainment experience toward an a la carte model where almost every aspect of the visit has a premium upcharge. In summary, the Kings Dominion experience, as I see it, is often a complete disgrace from a cost perspective. It forces visitors into a cycle of spending that feels predatory. While operating a large amusement park and paying employees is undoubtedly expensive, the sheer cost of basic necessities like food, coupled with the inconvenient limitations of the dining plans, and the introduction of new, mandatory add-ons for core attractions, creates a sense that the park prioritizes maximizing profit over delivering fair value to its patrons. The experience, while offering a few standout rides, simply does not justify the cumulative financial outlay, leading many to feel that the "thrill" is less about the rollercoasters and more about the anxiety of the ever-growing...

For 2 months, I scheduled a trip to visit on Friday, 9/27 because Kings Dominion said they would be open and I knew it would be a light crowd on this date. I drove 14 hours round trip. Then 90 minutes before they were set to open Friday evening, they decided not to open the park that day.

They blamed it on the weather. There was a storm in the area previously that afternoon. But nothing crazy. Certainly nothing they would close for on a Saturday. And the weather forecast for the entire evening was no significant wind and minimal rain. And that's exactly what Friday evening's weather was. A slight breeze, no rain for the entire time they were set to be open (6-12).

I would understand if they actually needed to cancel due to weather concerns. But they very clearly cancelled opening on 9/27 because they didn't sell enough tickets to warrant paying their employees to open the park that night. When I went on Saturday, 2 park employees even admitted to me that they closed Friday due to lack of ticket sales, but they blamed the weather so they could keep the ticket sales and save the operating costs. And they told me this is actually common on low attendance days. Because they don't care if they piss off just a few guests. The costs they save are worth it.

Of course they don't refund tickets if they say it's for weather, so I couldn't get a refund. So they successfully forced me to use my ticket on a Saturday, which was exactly what I carefully tried to avoid. Not only was Saturday miserably crowded, I also had to pay another 80 dollars for a Fast Lane Pass just to try to make the day the least bit enjoyable. So congrats to Kings Dominion on that. They successfully squeezed more money out of me for a far worse experience than I would have had Friday night.

Saturday was too crowded to be enjoyable. The ride operators were painfully slow on most coasters. They were running only one train on Racer 75. And for much of the day, only one train worked on Project 305. I had to go to 3 Fast Lane selling locations before one actually was selling Fast Lane. There were no groupers in any of the stations. The whole place was just so disorganized.

I go to a lot of parks because I like to ride the roller coasters. It's a hobby. I travel all over. I carefully plan and have backup plans. But this was the worst park experience I've had anywhere.

In contrast, I had a great time at Busch Gardens Williamsburg on the night before, Thursday, 9/26. They had 2 coasters closed for a staff shortage. But at least they were open on a day they said they would be and didn't cancel last minute to save a few dollars like Kings Dominion. Also worth mentioning, Busch Gardens Williamsburg had the exact same weather as Kings Dominion on Friday, but they were open as scheduled, all night. Cedar Point was getting 20 MPH winds Friday evening, yet they were open all day.

They cancelled on me at the last minute, after I had already driven 7 hours, all to save some money and they won't even be honest with me about it. I won't do business with them again. I was excited about the new launched wing coaster opening next year, but I'll just go to Holiday World instead and ride theirs. At least they'll actually be open when they say they will.

Very disappointed. I've been to over a dozen other parks and they were never this dishonest and disrespectful and unorganized. Save yourself the headache, pay a few dollars more and go down the road to Busch Gardens...