Fahrenheit review

As part of the Nantimi promotion that Coasterdom took part in, I was invited to go to Hersheypark and experience Fahrenheit. The plan was to enter the park at 9:30 with the other Nantimi winners and have 15 minutes of ERT on Fahrenheit. Unfortunately, Fahrenheit valleyed on the first test run of the day. By about 12:00 or so they had a crane on site and were beginning to do work in order to get the train down. By about 3:00 the ride was freed and testing began. The coaster opened at about 4:15 or so. Hershey is really a class act and gave us 2 free tickets to come back to the park to ride Fahrenheit again if it didn't open.

The coaster surrounds the line. You are so close to the ride that half of the line is covered by protective netting. If the line is full, it should take about two hours or so to get through.

The station for Fahrenheit is massive. Almost like a church. They do assign seating except if you are willing to wait for the front. Fahrenheit also has a single riders line that looked to be moving really fast. The trains are your typical Intamin trains, with a silver body, navy blue seats, and orange restraints. Unlike Storm Runner, there is no grab bar on the seat in front of you to assist in getting out of the train.

Out of the station you take a right hand turn and go into the pre-lift straightaway. The two “pushers” on the chain hit the back of the train and once both of them have hit, the lift will startup. When I was riding there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I’ve been on a vertical lift before with Mystery Mine, but you really have no idea when you are going to be reaching the top unless you are in the front of the train.

Once the train crests the top of the lift it gets thrown right over into the drop. Fahrenheit has to have one of the best drops out there. The beyond vertical drops add so much air. To me there seemed to be a little more than Maverick or Mystery Mine as far as drop go.
After plummeting to the ground you go skyward again into the Norwegian Loop element. This is easily one of the most confusing things I have ever been on. When the train is diving into and out of the loop, it goes the opposite way that you would expect it to turn. There are some great positive G’s at the bottom of the loop.

Coming out of the loop you go into the Cobra Roll. Fahrenheit has a really fat cobra. It isn’t very tall, but the train travels a pretty big distance. This is the slowest part of the ride and when you go inverted you do fell like you are hanging for more than a second. Without much time to recover, you head into the first corkscrew.

The track makes a slight turn and you go into the second corkscrew. The train then makes a tight U-turn over the line, dives under the brakes, and enters a small bunny hop. I must have missed this thing we looking at the video and taking construction pictures. There is a great pop air on that small bunny hop. The track then makes another tight U-turn and heads towards the brakes.

Fahrenheit is a really enjoyable coaster. I was expecting it to be good, but I really, really enjoyed it. The only thing it suffers from is being short. For waiting 2 or so hours, the ride is about a minute long. It is butter smooth through most of the ride, but on the first corkscrew I noticed a little rattling. Nothing too big of a deal. Overall, it is short, compact, fast, and never lets up. If you have a chance I would get out to ride this coaster and it really compliments the rest of the rides out at Hershey.

I took about 80 pictures of the ride which you can see here: http://www.coasterdom.com/gallery/index.php?d=%2FHersheypark%2FFahrenheit

Also as part of the Nantimi promotion we had a chance to talk with Gary Chubb, the manager of maintenance. Someone asked him if there were any ride that we should get on becasue they might be leaving soon. He told us to focus on the Pioneer area and that a wet ride and a dry ride would be a good idea. So it looks like Hershey will be losing two rides for the rumored Boardwalk expansions next year. My guess is the Canyon River Rapids (based off of rumors) and Rodeo.

There are also a few more tidbits that Gary gave us on the technical info of the ride and some captioned pictures here: http://www.coasterdom.com/2008/05/25/fahrenheits-opening-day/

sounds like a really fun ride... I am hoping I will get out to Hershey this year. I havent been to this park since I was nine so I would really like to see how different the coasters feel to me.

Glad to see you had a good ride on Fahrenheit.

Is Fahrenheit, in your opinion, a better ride than Maverick?

How does such a steep drop feel? I'm a weird kind of coaster fan: I love them, but I DEFINITELY have my limits on what I can handle, and I'm pretty darn nervous about riding such a steep coaster. I've been on coasters with higher drops, but the steepness really kind of shakes me up when I think about it. Maybe I should have given myself the name "CoasterWuss". Hee hee...

Did you at any point feel like the coaster was going to valley out again?

And do you know of any coasters in the PA/New York/New Jersey area with Norwegian loops besides this one? I'm intrigued by this type of loop...

Bunky - I'd call Fahrenheit and Maverick comparable... I prefer Fahrenheit's drop and inversions, but Maverick's a bit longer and has that added launch. Too close to call I'd say, both are terrific rides.

As for Norwegian loops, there's this one on Fahrenheit, and one on Speed Monster in, you guessed it, Norway. So if you're interested in trying one out, I think it's about time you headed off to Hershey!

I'm going to give the edge to Fahrenheit. I wasn't the biggest fan of Maverick and Fahrenheit is much smoother with no whiplash. The only problem is that it is a short ride.

The drop is pretty short, so it shouldn't be that big of a problem. The beyond vertical drops give a ton of airtime, but they are over pretty fast. If you can handle a normal coaster drop over 120 ft. you can easily do Fahrenheit.

Oh, thank you for the great comparison on the drop angle to the regular coaster hill. That seals the deal; I'm SO on Fahrenheit on June 27th!!!

I got to ride Fahrenheit today and your review was pretty right on. It was just so much fun. I don't even think there is a comparison to another coaster. There is plenty of air time and I could not get over how completely smooth it was. There was no head banging at all. I loved it!

I got to ride Fahrenheit yesterday. The line was very long all day but I decided to bite the bullet and wait - I got lucky and decided to gamble with the single rider line...it only took about 25 - 30 minutes. Of course I couldn't pick my seat. I got the last row. As a semi-veteran of roller coasters I have to admit I was a little intimidated once I was facing that lift hill before we started climbing. The lift was great and drop was fantastic. The ride was very smooth and I really enjoyed it but like others have said it was a short ride - my only real complaint. Maverick was a rough ride - I enjoyed it but it's probably not one I could ride over and over again without getting some bruises. I am a sucker for launches however so I still prefer Storm Runner as Hersheypark's signature ride. Sorry to steal the thread but I have a few small complaints about Hersheypark. First, there is no method of transportation to get anywhere. In a park that has a monorail, train and sky view - it's a damn shame that none of them actually go anywhere to transport you. Most of Hersheypark's roller coasters are short rides - Great Bear, Storm Runner, Fahrenheit, Sidewinder and SDL are short rides - although all of them are fun. The attendants were very slow yesterday...I don't recall this from previous HP visits. The Boardwalk was actually very nice...there is a lot of bashing going on but it's a hit like it or not...great theming in that area.

I finally got to ride Fahrenheit tonight. When we arrived they had closed off the line for an impending storm. My son and I waited for around 30 minutes, and since the storm didn't hit they opened the ride again.

They ran about 2 or 3 more trains, and then shut it down again for another storm threat. By this time the line cleared out, and that put us right at the top of the steps just outside the station. Another 10 minutes passed, and they got the call that it was ok to reopen. Once in the station we had a 4 train wait for the front seat.

It was the first coaster that I had been on with a vertical lift, and I liked the feeling of going vertical without a launch before it.

The pacing is just right. You get a little bit of hangtime through the inversions, and like Maverick you get that airtime/hangtime through the corkscrews. It's just a fun little ride. They packed a lot of coaster in a pretty small footprint.

It's a winner for sure!

A lot of people who were watching the first few trains were saying it looked slow and were expecting the train to valley again. But while riding, I never got that feeling at all. The ride as a whole is smooth and the elements are well paced.

It's also a very photogenic ride. The siting and orientation is well done. The coaster catches a lot of attention along the midway. The midway also seems a lot more open and connected to the rest of the park with the addition of Fahrenheit and the removal of the Chute-outs and the games that were there previously.

The vertical lift unnerved me a little bit-- looking up and seeing nothing is definitely a weird feeling. One good thing about it is because of the orientation of the ride, I don't think you'll ever have to worry about facing directly into the sun while climbing. Because the trains are relatively short, there is no feeling of suspension over the crest of the lift. It's just up and over and off you go.

The Norwegian Loop is an amazing element. It's great to watch and more fun to ride. Like Coasterdom said, before each inversion, it kicks you out to one side, then rotates you in the opposite direction than you expect.

The cobra has a much deeper sag than I've seen on any boomerangs. I couldn't tell from the POV on the website what happened after the corkscrews, so the bunny hop and resulting airtime were quite the surprise.

One of the most amusing parts of the day on Saturday was hearing the comments from the GP when the saw the stuck train, and messing with a few of them. One guy said they did it just for the hype so more people would ride it. One woman came up to me and asked if there were people in the train. I told her "No, they fell out hours ago." (Sorry, JB or Gary if you're reading this.)

Damnit. I love Canyon River Rapids.

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RatherGoodBear said:
One woman came up to me and asked if there were people in the train. I told her "No, they fell out hours ago." (Sorry, JB or Gary if you're reading this.)

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Hahahahaha... wow. Well played sir, well played. That's hilarious.

I rode Fahrenheit this past weekend on Saturday. I was not impressed by the ride. I did like the negative G I got while riding in the back car. Other than that, it's simply just a typical looper. I didn't see anything special about the coaster. I think it is a very ugly ride, along with Storm Runner. I think it takes away the look of the area. Overall I feel its just a gimmick coaster and the gimmick isn't very good, I think the B&M dive coasters give a much better ride, more so with the "hold" at the top of the drop.

Honestly I don't know why Hersheypark built this ride, its very low capacity, I saw a third train sitting on the transfer track on Saturday, can this coaster even run three?

Hershey has done some wonderful things over the years, Wildcat and L. Racer to name a couple, but this one was not one of them.

Danny

I rode it on Saturday as well. It was ok, but nothing spectacular. I'd say it's a mid-tier steelie. I rode it just once and in the back row. There were some nice airtime spots, but just like on Maverick, the frickin' shoulder harness jabbed me in the neck every time there was a turn so that pretty much negates any positives.

I found the Norwegian loop to be rather lame, but the drop out of it toward the Cobra Roll had a great pop of air. The first drop is neat in concept, but the airtime isn't sustained because of the rapid directional change (just like Maverick and Mystery Mind), so I'd prefer the ride just had a traditional steep parabolic drop without those stupid OTSR's. The ride would be much more enjoyable then.

My friends and I waited about 45 minutes for our credit lap between 6 and 7pm. I don't foresee any of us willing to wait much for it from here on out. Storm Runner is MUCH more enjoyable and I've never been a huge fan of it either. *** Edited 6/2/2008 11:09:11 PM UTC by Acoustic Viscosity***

Interesting.

I'll have to take the reviews of the ride itself at face value and wait-and-see for myself.

However, I never had a problem with neck-banging on Maverick, so I suspect it won't be a problem for me on Fahrenheit either.

I have to admit the mixed reviews pique my interest. :)

I haven't had a problem with neck banging on the Intamins, it's the bottom lap bar part of the restraint I have a problem with. The thing is right on top of my legs with no room to breath, negating most of the wicked awesome airtime.

Im not reading any of this, I ride in three weeks!

Hehehe...I'm riding in three weeks as well and will definitely be making up my own mind on the ride. I'm a huge fan of Storm Runner, and I love how expansive it is, but my other Intamin experience has been very limited, so we'll see how it compares to other Intamin rides, as well as to other coasters.

Perhaps I am a crappy coaster enthusiast, but I don't get the big deal about airtime. I like a little hop out of my seat, but when I'm hanging by my harness and my shoulders slam the top of the restraint, I don't care for it. Although it IS a lot of fun to hit those bunny hops at the end of Steel Force, like a fun little second ride after that fun first drop...guess it depends on how much airtime there is, where it is situated, and just the general quality of the ride.

I also just rode it and agree with most of the it's-good-just-not-mind-blowing comments that have been made.

I have no problems with Maverick but got one neck bang in Fahrenheit's cobra roll. That probably has more to do with me not being ready for how the trains track then with Fahrenheit's roughness (I got a little banged up until I got more familiar with Maverick). I have been on four Intamin's with the new restraints and across the board I have found that when I just hold on instead of put my hands up there is no neck banging at all.

As far as the ride is concerned just don't go into it expecting a ride like Maverick. Fahrenheit is a fast and fun looper whereas Maverick is a little more psychotic in all of its elements. That's not a strike against Fahrenheit, it is a different ride than Maverick after all. For me Fahrenheit rode a lot more like a Beemer than anything.

Oh, and the pop of air out of the Norwegian in the back seat is pretty money...the bunny hops give a great pop anywhere in the train.

^^Yeah, for me without question the only time I have my hands/arms up on Maverick is the first drop...after that, I hold on to the upper part of the OTSR's with my forearms and elbows facing out.

That method, for me, results in virtually no headbanging at all, expect for one or two minor times on the two Maverick trains with the worst vibrations in the very back (where I always ride), I think one of the worst trains is Brett?? It's so minor I'm not train-picky like I am with either The Voyage, El Toro, or Kingda Ka.