Dutch Wonderland

Visited: June 26, 2026

Attending: Brian, Dan, Sandra, Ben, Jack

Dutch Wonderland is a small family-oriented park located in Lancaster, PA, in the heart of Amish Country, also known as “Pennsylvania Dutch Country,” hence the name of the park. The park doesn’t have any Amish theming, which they’d probably consider inappropriate. Instead, it has a vaguely medieval theme, with castles, dragons, and wizards. It’s technically the closest park to my home, about 45 minutes west of me on Route 30. However, I’m not about to claim it as my home park (nor Sesame Place, about equidistant in the opposite direction). In fact, I hadn’t been there since I was a kid, and I really don’t remember anything about that trip. It’s a great park for families, though, so my brother and his wife took their two little ones out there for the day. Since I had a day off, I asked if I could tag along. The weather was mostly overcast and humid, which isn’t the best environment for a park trip, but it definitely kept the crowds down. We didn’t wait more than one cycle for anything. Which is good, because any ride for kids will necessarily have slower ops. As I mentioned, I hadn’t been there in a long time, so I’d never ridden any of the coasters that had been built since my last visit.

Joust

Joust is a Chance Big Dipper model, standing about 16 feet high. It’s certainly more than a kiddie coaster, but I’m going to choose not to count it as a credit. It’s visually striking, with purple track on white supports, and although it sits level, there’s a bit of slope to the surrounding terrain that makes it look taller. The first thing I noticed about it was the banked turns, probably more than necessary, but they add the slightest bit of thrill. It has a tire-drive hill instead of a chain, so it’s quiet. It also goes around twice, so you get your money’s worth. My nephew rode with me, and he chose the front car, which is a fun option on a small coaster. Unfortunately, the banked turns have some fairly janky transitions going into and out of them, which tossed me around a little bit. As with wild mice, though, I suspect that shorter riders don’t have as much discomfort.

Kingdom Coaster

Most of our day was occupied with kiddie rides, but when I parted ways with my brother on the way out, I took the opportunity to ride the two larger coasters, since the lines were short. “Larger” is a relative term here, but these are definitely coasters for all ages, if mild ones. Kingdom Coaster is the park’s woodie, a 1992 CCI creation. The purple track and sky-blue supports really pop against the grass and trees, and this has been the park’s signature ride for some time. You could pretty easily mistake it for one of the various Woodstock Express coasters at Cedar Fair parks. This one is a bit taller at 45 feet, and has a classic L-shaped out-and-back layout. It doesn’t, however, have much of a drop. It does have big, heavy PTC trains, though, so it gets going pretty well. I noticed some Titan Track in the pre-lift and just before the brake run. I wondered if those areas had been particularly rough before. I didn’t notice much roughness anywhere else on the ride, though, so maybe it was changed preemptively.

Merlin’s Mayhem

When you see this big blue-and-yellow suspended coaster immediately on entering the park, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s a Vekoma. However, it’s a one-of-a-kind S&S family suspended coaster. I have no idea how S&S decides when to build these one-offs, but I imagine some parks might choose this over Vekoma. Off the top of the lift, there’s a little drop that feels like a B&M pre-drop, then a turnaround that uses that speed to swing farther out than I expected. The main drop is fairly shallow, and mostly just builds speed to come back up into a fairly high helix that sends the cars to 90 degrees. Then there’s some s-bends and a second, lower helix that actually pulled some G’s I could feel in my feet. Then a surprise, very small tunnel with a fog effect, another wide turn, and it’s done. Given that it’s relatively flat, and needs to be fairly tame, big turns and helixes are about the limit, but this one takes it right up to the edge of a family coaster. I found the seat a bit uncomfortable at first, but I didn’t really notice once we left the station. It was longer than I expected, but it’s still only 1,300 feet long. I also didn’t have to wait very long; if I had, that might have modified my opinion. But within those parameters, a pretty good coaster.