As I indicated earlier, the con is a blur, so I'm going to combine the trip reports by park, rather than by day. This simplifies things for me, since we spent multiple days at some of the parks.
Hershey gave us evening ERTs on Sunday and Tuesday, and morning ERTs Monday, Tuesday, AND Wednesday. We hit all the ERTs, as well as spending some time in the park on Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday during GP hours.
This was my first time at Hershey, and overall I was very impressed. The park was very clean, the employees were friendly (especially during the ERTs). Food was Ok. The stuff in the park didn't stick out as GREAT, but the sitdown place just outside the park (blanking on the name right now, sorry) was pretty good, and the diner-esque place inside Chocolate World was VERY good.
The park has an interesting and cool layout. I love how well certain coasters interweave. I wasn't quite as impressed with the Midway America section (where Wildcat, Lightning Racers, and the Wild Mouse live), but it wasn't too bad.
The coasters (lap counts are cumulative for the trip)
Comet (7 laps) -- Not a bad woodie. You can ALMOST feel the air this ride WANTS to give, but for the overbraking. Still, this wasn't a bad coaster.
Great Bear (15 laps) -- This may not be the most intense B&M inverted, and it has a pretty lame (IMHO) ending, but it's still a damn good ride. The swoop turn into the first drop is cool, and there's just enough forces in the coaster (try 2nd or 3rd row, left seat) to keep things interesting. The sheer number of times I was willing to ride it should say something ;)
Lightning Racer (8 laps on Thunder, 7 on Lightning) -- My favorite coaster at Hershey, by far. The two sides are slightly different, but similar enough that I decided to only count it in my track record once. I preferred Thunder to Lightning by a bit, but they're both excellent. FUN is the best word to describr them. The trains are incredible, as well, although I would like it if the lap bar springs were a bit stiffer to keep them up a bit better. The pacing on this ride is excellent, and the timing in the race/duel aspect is incredibly well done.
Sidewinder (1 lap) -- I hate Vekoma. Or rather, I hate certain stock Vekoma designs. Boomerangs are one of them. That doesn't stop me from riding each one once for my track record, but it DOES stop me from making the same mistake too often. Enough said.
Sooperdooperlooper (7 laps) -- I don't care what some critics may think, I liked this ride. It certainly wasn't my favorite new-to-me coaster of the trip (which, as it turned out, wasn't an official con stop, but I'll get to that in another report), but it wasn't bad either.
Trailblazer (2 laps) -- This isn't a bad Arrow Mine Train, but it isn't good enough to keep me coming back over and over.
Wildcat (5 laps) -- my 2nd GCI (Roar at SFA was the first), and my 100th coaster for my track record! I like this ride. Some Con attendees commented that it was running better this year than it had in the past. The layout was good, giving a fairly intense ride, but not overwhelming. Not a bad coaster to call #100 (the plan had been to make Lightning Racer 100, but it was closed when we walked over due to the same inane laser show that many parks insist on putting on nowadays)
Wild Mouse (5 laps) -- Best summary I can say is, it's a mouse. Fun, short ride that takes up a small footprint. Hershey braked it a bit, but I've seen worse.
Souviners: 1 Lightning Racer magnet, some food from the Chocolate World shop.
I'll have to go to Hershey again at some point when there ISN'T an event going on, to see how the experience compares, but I came away very happy.
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--Greg
http://www.pobox.com/~gregleg/
*** This post was edited by GregLeg on 6/26/2001. ***
