Parking Toll Plaza Nearing Completion

The construction that has been taking place in Dutch Wonderland's parking lot is starting to take some shape and illustrate what their plans are.

It appears when you enter the property at the existing traffic light on Rt. 30 you will make an immediate right and proceed along this new road that will take you all the way around to an area near the campground enterance.

This road will allow traffic to stack (off the highway) while people dig in their pockets to pay for parking for the first time in 53 years. The new road leads to a toll plaza, similar to what you would find at most major amusement parks.

The individual toll boths carry out the park's castle theme and hopefully when they are finished, there will be plenty of colorful and welcoming signage to build visitor's anticipation for a day at the park. There is a separate lane for busses and campground use. It's not clear if Preferred Parking in front of the castle will continue to use the toll booth already in place near the Fudge Shop.

It looks like there is still more work to be done.

Photo Update and Orangeade Refills - 7/14

A few pics and some fun stuff from around the park Tuesday. We arrived to a near empty park around 1:45pm. Later on, we discovered most of the people were at Duke's Lagoon!

The monorail has been out of service for about three weeks. Online photos showed a section of track missing near the unused station. Rumors were flying that the track was struck by a trash truck. I'm happy to report that the monorail loop is once again complete.  When we were pulling into the parking lot there was a workman on a cherry picker doing some maintenance to the replaced section of track.

Inside the park, the monorail was parked just outside the station above the service garage. There were people working on it. It was kinda cool to see the monorail out on the line with it's doors open.

A park bench serves as a reminder that the ride is closed.

Later in the day I spotted several trains running empty except for the driver. Within in hour, the monorail was back up and running for guests.  The Dutch Wonderland website still lists the monorail as temporarily closed, but it was certainly business as usual for the ride in the later part of the day.

The name of the park has returned to the iconic pretzel, although if we want to nit-pick the fonts used are wrong.

A few weeks ago, Exploration Island added a second Gem Mining location to the park. The island is now home to another activity apparently having to do with cracking open a Geode. (Is a Geode something that I should know what it is?)  This new activity was covered up but later on I did see some employee training happening in the area. The Geode attraction is located between the Artifacts retail space and the Gondola Boat Ride. 

The cast of Decades of Dutch Wonderland, this is a really good show. We noticed several parents in the audience tapping their feet and bobbing their heads. The show features popular music from the 1960's through the 90's.

 

While some of our group sat and enjoyed their Dole Whip Junction goodies while waiting for the show to start, I ventured up to the Nathan's stand in the front of the park. I had seen the Philadelphia Cream Cheese Frosting Funnel Cake pictured on Dutch Wonderland's Instagram account and have been wanting to try one. A sign at the shuttered Funnel Cake Factory stated that all the Funnel Cake products were now available at Nathan's. I don't know if this was a temporary situation or the beginning of something new for the Factory/Turnpike building. The girl working at the adjacent barn games didn't know the answer either.

 

Anyhow, the Cream Cheese Funnel Cake was amazing...and huge! They also filled up my souvenir cup with Nathan's World Famous Orangeade for only 99 cents. That's a great deal! I will certainly take them up on that deal again. (Hopefully that wasn't just an employee who didn't know the proper policy.) 

This is the sign of a day well spent at Dutch Wonderland!