Hersheypark announces Laff Trakk, an indoor spinning roller coaster

Additional comments here:
http://coasterbuzz.com/Forums/Topic/hershey-announces-new-coaster

I think this looks pretty fun.

But I'm wondering if this will get as much hate as Six Flags' mouse-in-a-box Batman rides did?

Same idea, essentially.

(for the record, I don't dislike the Batman rides)

I rode the Bat-in-a-box coaster up at Great America. Once. It was nice enough, but it just seemed to me it was two things that didn't quite fit together: a fun, whimsical ride experience and a theme derived from a fairly dark movie. Neither the ride nor the Bat-theming have enticed me to take a second ride.

Kennywood's Exterminator, to me, has a tongue-in-cheek appeal in its theming.

Laff Trakk, I like the looks of it. A spinning ride through a fun house seems like a great pairing of ride and theme.

I didn't hate the Bat boxes either. The blow back seemed to result from SF marketing the ride as a major thrill on par with the B&Ms and not a family ride. Wrong expectations.

This looks fun. I'm always a fan of Hershey doing wacky stuff with their foods. Flying through a giant glowing Reese's butter cup would have been cool but this works too. Simple and cute.

Not sure what the max. speeds on the Dark Knight rides are, but I'd guess it's considerably less than 40mph. Also, Laff Track has about a couple hundred feet of extra trackage, whereas SCBB's new-ish "Undertow" pretty nearly matches the stats for this new Hershey ride...

I liked BatBox the first 2 times I rode it at Great Adventure (in 2010), but on subsequent visits it seemed like most of the effects that made it fun were no longer working, so it really was just a mouse-in-a-subway-car. The same was true at Great America.

I tend to like the Maurer-Sohne style spinners, especially the one at Waldameer, so adding the neon colors and black light is a neat variation. Having a close frame of reference should make it even more apparent how you get a different ride each time.

I agree about The Dark Knight and the effects not working. At Great Adventure, both hologram billboards have been broken for years, the barrels on fire that were added a few years ago no longer work, the Bat Signal at the end of the ride rarely works anymore and now this year the lighting sometimes doesn't work with the tunnel with writing sometimes completely dark. Even the pre-show screen had a large purple spot in it earlier this season (I haven't been back since mid June so maybe they fixed it by now).

I'm glad to hear the coaster will be part of Christmas Candylane in future years. I only go to the park for that event maybe once every 10 years since although it is fun with the few flats they have open, I really miss not having any coasters running and this would probably get me to visit at least every other year in December just to get a small coaster fix in during the offseason.

I like the look of this. If they can have the silly soundtrack in the POV playing it'll be a winner in my book :)

Now I'm glad I didn't try to get to Cocoa Cruiser a few weeks ago...

birdhombre said:

I liked BatBox the first 2 times I rode it at Great Adventure (in 2010), but on subsequent visits it seemed like most of the effects that made it fun were no longer working, so it really was just a mouse-in-a-subway-car.

Hmmm. That could be it. My only experience with these is opening year.

I'll go ahead and ask...someone might be at liberty. JMM Studios?

Does it surprise you that many of The effects on dark Knight do not work consider us in the overall condition of those parks?

And how many SF
parks have you been to lately?

This thing looks like it could be a real winner, except for the low capacity at such a busy park. You would think they learned their lesson with Roller Soaker.

But I love the theme, and the blacklight glow effects, and they mentioned there will be some illusions too. Looks awesome.

Is the Mad Mouse going away any anytime soon? This new ride pretty much fills the same needs as the Mad Mouse (or is it Wild Mouse?) That mouse is really great, but adding another family-friendly sized ride so close could mean that it is going away to be replaced with more water slides.

LostKause said:

Is the Mad Mouse going away any anytime soon? This new ride pretty much fills the same needs as the Mad Mouse (or is it Wild Mouse?) That mouse is really great, but adding another family-friendly sized ride so close could mean that it is going away to be replaced with more water slides.

Mad Mouse is an Arrow product with banked turns, the only "standard mouse" that has banking. "Crazy Mouse" in Arrow terminology is their spinner, but others (e.g., Reverchon) alos use that label. Wild Mouse is the prototypical non-spinning unbaked mouse. Hershey's is a Mack product, but is basically the same...(although Hershey, like BGT, leaves the braking on the top level on the low/non-existent setting).

If you look at one of these M-S spinners, like Steel Dragon at Waldameer or Spider at Lagoon, the layout really is nothing like those mice. There are drops, helices, flat turns, banked turns...it's an actual full coaster inside a small footprint. Nothing at all like the Herschells or Arrows. I see virtually no overlap, and in no way to my thinking does this new ride (*terrible name*) make the pre-existing mouse duplicative or unnecessary. My $.02.

rollergator said:
unbaked mouse.

Obviously not the kind of mouse you'd want to associate with... ;)

Damned Freudian typos...leaving it as is... ;~P

LostKause said:

Is the Mad Mouse going away any anytime soon?

I was wondering the same thing. If this were a spinning mouse / crazy mouse, I would say yes, the days of the Wild Mouse are numbered. However, since this is a spinning coaster similar to Waldameer's Steel Dragon, I am not so sure. It's not an identical ride.

However, who would have thought they would rip out Canyon River Rapids for an expansion of their ill planned and cramped Boardwalk.

Is there still talk of expansion into the old golf course area with re-routing of Park Blvd? If so, since Wild Mouse is technically a "portable" ride, could it stay at its current location until an expansion is done and then used as an "anchor" for a new area beyond the current entrance of the park?

rollergator said:

SCBB's new-ish "Undertow" pretty nearly matches the stats for this new Hershey ride...

I heard somewhere that Laff Trakk is going to be a clone of Undertow. My one concern is that being an indoor coaster, will a big blocky building be an eyesore on the midway? Otherwise, sounds like a great new addition to a park that appeals to everyone.