7 parks in 7 days #1 Hershey. 5/31

Let me just start out by saying what an absolutely great park Hershey Park is. This was a first time visit for me and I was very impressed with its cleanliness and it’s beauty. It was a first, but won’t be my last. I ran back to Storm Runner when the park opened but they told us that it would be down all day. What? An Intamin broke down? I never heard of such a thing. ;)

I walked over to Great Bear and got several great rides on it. Light rain was mixing with oil and grease on the track and raining down on everyone. Some people got it really bad and all over some nice clothes. HINT: don’t wear nice clothes to a park!

Sooperdooperlooper was next and not too bad. Trailblazer has a good helix at the end, that’s about it. Save it for the kiddies.

Comet is a great old wooden coaster that has been well maintained.

Lightning Racer is an incredible wooden coaster. It gives you a great ride on both Thunder and Lightning. I think I like the ride on the Thunder side a little better, but the Lightning side always wins. I rode both sides several times.

Wildcat is also a great wooden coaster that is well maintained and runs very well. I also rode this one several times and didn’t get all beat up.

It started to rain harder so I went over to Chocolate World. !!WARNING!! Do not enter here if you are trying to diet like I am. :) What a great place. They have a ride that takes you through an imaginary factory to show you how chocolate is made and the history of Milton Hershey. There are also food outlets inside and a chocolate store and you can make your own Hershey’s Kiss. Don’t miss it!

The rain let up, so I went back it for some reriding. I also hit the Wildmouse and the Roller Soaker. I was walking back to ride Sidewinder because it was also closed earlier and I noticed Storm Runner testing. I grabbed a couple of quick rides on Sidewinder and jumped in line for Storm Runner.

They made a few more test runs and then opened the ride. They are going to need more queues for this ride as they only have one little section behind the station. Two trains running, but only using one side of the station. I waited for the front seat for my first ride. It looks slow testing after having watched TTD, but it still gives an incredible ride. Some nice hang time through the inversions. I was able to get in four rides before the park closed. One line-jumping incident quickly brought in security and it was dealt with appropriately, unlike some other parks that I visited. They have a big thing on not putting your arms in the air with signs posted everywhere in the station “Keep your arms down at all times” “AT ALL TIMES.” No one said anything to me for riding with my arms in the air though.

All in all, Hershey is a wonderful park. Great food, great rides and great people. Just a great park. The only thing is that they were running only one train on everything except for SR. There were not waits, but people who were at the park Sunday said that there were waits and they were still running only one train on the rides. *** Edited 6/7/2004 1:17:33 PM UTC by CP ismyhome***

CPismyhome,

I was at the park on 6/1. I agree about the one train operaton on several of their coasters. Wildcat could have used more than one train and Lightning Racer was debateable if a second train was needed. They were running two trains on Great Bear on Tuesday. I found the best way to deal with the school groups at the park was hit the coasters on the American Midway section first and then as the kids start coming over for the water rides, then hit the rest of the park.