As Kings Dominion celebrates its 50th birthday, superfans say the park’s value helps set it apart

Norman Shumake has been going to Kings Dominion since 1976, the year after it opened.

Raised in Louisa and currently living in Powhatan, Shumake said he remembers visiting goats and sheep at the petting zoo, watching a fireworks show during America’s 200th birthday, and walking to the front of the line of the Scooby-Doo roller coaster before thinking twice and making a quick exit before his mother realized what was going on.

“I remember getting passes when I was five or six years old. I remember going to JCPenney at Regency Square and getting our pictures taken for the passes, probably in the early 1980s,” he said.

Since then, Shumake has been a dedicated Kings Dominion fan. He holds a Prestige Pass–the highest level of season pass available–and raised his two boys, now 20 and 16, at the park. In 2015, he started a Facebook page, Kings Dominion Fanatics, where he shares park news and updates to his 40,000 followers.

As of early April he had already ridden the park’s newest roller coaster, Rapterra, 25 times.

Shumake is one of many Kings Dominion regulars who’s made several trips to the Doswell amusement park already in 2025, the year of its 50th birthday.

The park’s year-long anniversary celebration comes about one year after its former parent company, Ohio-based Cedar Fair, merged with Six Flags Entertainment Corporation of North Carolina. Now, the company in charge of Kings Dominion is more than double the size it was before: Cedar Fair had 13 properties, and after the merger, Six Flags has 50, including nine resorts.

Six Flags said last year that it would invest a cumulative $1 billion into its 42 parks over two years. At Kings Dominion, that means fresh coats of paint, facility upgrades, technological improvements, new dining experiences, and more, said Bridgette Bywater, the park’s vice president and general manager.

“Some of it is upgraded equipment, some of it is upgraded efficiency, some of it’s just modernization, some of it’s theming in other locations, but it’s touching all of those different components in a number of different places,” Bywater said. 

A competitive climate for theme parks

The 50th anniversary is happening on the heels of a lucrative period for Virginia tourism. In 2023, visitor spending in Virginia reached $33.3 billion, an all-time record. Spending in the Richmond area reached $3.7 billion that same year.

Economic conditions are a bit more fluid in early 2025, as the Trump administration irons out the details of future U.S. trade policy. In times when consumers cautiously monitor their bank accounts, many are looking for value when it comes to entertainment experiences, said Sam Gennawey, author of theme park books like “The Disneyland Story.”

“Disney is really expensive, and Universal is really expensive. You need to take out a household loan to go to those places, whereas Cedar Fair knew their customers weren’t the richest people,” Gennaway said. “I thought their parks were always really well-run, offered a really good value, and the parks were well-maintained, which is really important.”

Visitors to Richmond typically come from a four-hour radius, by car, plane, or train, said Katherine O’Donnell, executive vice president at Richmond Region Tourism. Kings Dominion is a tourism driver for the region, she said, partly because of its location along Interstate 95, which runs from Maine to Miami. Richmond Region Tourism typically includes the park as a part of marketing materials highlighting the entire area. 

“It’s highly trafficked, and easy to get to for half of the U.S. population,” O’Donnell said. “You go there anytime, and you’ll see out-of-state plates peppered throughout the parking lot.”

Kings Dominion does not share attendance figures, but prior to the Six Flags merger, Cedar Fair reported that about 26.7 million guests visited its 13 parks in 2023, compared to 26.9 million in 2022. 

Nearby competitor Busch Gardens, in Williamsburg, is owned by United Parks & Resorts, Inc., the parent company of SeaWorld. In 2023, the company owned 13 parks across the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates. The Williamsburg park spans 422 acres, slightly larger than Kings Dominion, and about 21.6 million guests visited United parks in 2023, according to the company’s annual report. 

Years ago, Shumake said going to Busch Gardens was like a treat, because it was further away. Busch Gardens was known for dining and theming in the late 1990s and early 2000s, whereas Kings Dominion felt more like an amusement park, he said. But things started to change in 2006 once Cedar Fair acquired Kings Dominion–the food quality and theming have both improved since then, he said.

“Since Cedar Fair has taken over, Kings Dominion was a test for theming. They started that with Jungle X-Pedition in 2022, when they built Tumbili, and Outpost Cafe has prime rib. Where else do you get prime rib at a theme park?” he said. “Busch Gardens used to have really good food, but as time went on they relaxed on their food quality. They rested on their laurels, and Kings Dominion blew them out of the water.”

Kings Dominion can get busy, especially on Saturdays, Shumake said. But visitors can usually get to everything they came to do, especially if they have a plan.

“If it’s in the summer, during the week, obviously it’s a great time to go. You can go anywhere and there are minimal waits on rides,” he said. “Saturdays are the busiest days, but even then you can have a great time.”

One notable missing piece from the park’s 50th anniversary announcement was WinterFest, Kings Dominion’s popular winter celebration held throughout the month of December. But one park pastime that isn’t going away is Halloween Haunt, where spooky creatures lurk around corners of the park, scaring guests. Shumake said his wife does makeup for the Halloween Haunt creatures, and his oldest son worked the event during the past two years. The family is such a consistent presence that the monsters go out of their way to try and scare him.

“Even though a lot of the associates don’t know who I am, a lot of the Haunt monsters do,” he said. “I literally have a target on my back for people to scare me. I have a t-shirt that says, ‘official monster target.’ Only two monsters have successfully scared me.”  

Besides Rapterra, what else is new?

Past the turnstiles at the entryway of the park, in the shadow of the one-third replica of the Eiffel Tower, there are some tweaks and upgrades underway at Kings Dominion.

The funnel cake stand in the German-themed building on International Street has been converted into a biergarten with outdoor seating. The burrito shop has vacated its International Street restaurant space and took over an empty building in Candy Apple Grove. A sit-down funnel cake eatery, selling everything from warm apple-topped pastries to fried Oreos, took over the former Border Burrito space on International Street. And behind an innocuous door in the back corner of Victoria Gardens Pizza, construction is underway on a full-service bar that will open up to outdoor seating with a partial view of SoakCity Water Park.

In the theme park world, things have come a long way since the amusement parks of the early 20th century, the founding of the country’s first “theme park”--Disneyland–in 1955, and afterwards, when parks like Six Flags Magic Mountain were built to breathe life into nearby communities, said Gennawey. It’s now the age of the giant corporate theme park, dominated by players like Disney, Universal Studios, and Six Flags.

Consumers are looking for immersive theme park experiences, but not everyone can afford to go to Disney or Universal, Gennawey said. That’s why offering customers value goes a long way. 

“They’re really well positioned as long as they know who their real audience is,” he said. “If they do that, they will get a lot of customers and repeat business and season passholders will swell.” 

Brian Sterowski, a YouTuber who covers Kings Dominion and has almost 32,000 subscribers, said he thinks getting a pass and adding the dining plan is a great value (for $110, ticket holders can eat without paying when they visit the park). The dining plan costs less every time it gets used, he said.

Sterowski has been going to the park since he was about six months old. He loved Smurf Mountain and the Haunted River when he was a kid, and he now takes his son, Beau, to the park regularly. He worked there in high school, and in the marketing department as an adult. 

“I think it’s just the nostalgic feeling of growing up there–if I didn’t grow up going there, it probably wouldn’t mean as much,” Sterowski said. “But it has a nice assortment of rides, it’s safe, it’s clean, and it’s a good place to go. With a season pass, you can go there as much as you want. It doesn’t cost you anything once you’re there.”