Hershey Park and Crowds

eightdotthree said:

While not common it’s definitely possible. On a good good morning you can get multiple Millennium Force, Maverick, or Steel Vengeance rides if you’re staying on property.

They took Maverick and Steel Vengeance off Early Entry this year, limiting the hour to the front of the park rides up to Millennium Force and Magnum. I assume this means that demand for MF is higher than the others, eliminating those magical Early Entry open exit gate rerides.

That's a bummer. When I said "on a good morning" it was because they couldn't reliably get Maverick or Steel Vengeance running in the morning so I think this makes sense, I just wish they would open something other than Magnum.

They took Maverick and Steel Vengeance off Early Entry this year, limiting the hour to the front of the park rides up to Millennium Force and Magnum. I assume this means that demand for MF is higher than the others, eliminating those magical Early Entry open exit gate rerides.

You're correct. MF and Valravn are both seeing fairly big lines in the morning.

I misunderstood. Here are the early opening rides for 2022.

• Dodgem
• GateKeeper
• Iron Dragon
• Kiddy Kingdom (11 rides)
• Magnum XL-200
• Matterhorn
• Millennium Force
• maXair
• Scrambler
• Valravn

I love Hershey but their operations are a mystery. Instead of raising pay to a competitive rate (it looks like they're offering about $12-$13 an hour now) they instead cut hours across the board. I could almost see it if they wanted to funnel people to their other attractions such as Chocolate World, but that now closes before the park! People who get kicked out of the resort at 7 are now going to be looking to spend their money at other restaurants and stores instead of giving their money to Hershey.

Knoebels is in the same situation and it makes even less sense to me. They do so much business with ride tickets and food sales that they would have to make more money the longer they are open every day. However, they cut their hours to 12-8 (from 11-10). If they're wondering why no one wants to work for them, here's the reason: they're paying $11.50 (you get an extra quarter or two if you're returning) which is a joke with the current job market. Last year they thought that having a raffle for an SUV would attract employees, but big surprise, it didn't -- good luck being able to afford gas with their pay rates.

Candymonium was a big disappointment to me. BORING,! Now Skyrush is the real deal. This makes sense as I love I305 at Kings Dominium and Skyrush are close cousins.

I liked Candymonium, solid ride.

Same here. Such a great addition to Hershey and looks fantastic up at the front of the park. Not my favorite B&M hyper, but I do prefer it over Skyrush, myself.

I also thought Candymonium was quite good. Only got 1 ride on it, but in the top half of the B&M hypers I've ridden and it didn't murder my thighs.

OK, Candymonium is growing on me after a few more rides. You have to sit in the back row and if you lift your feet and hands off the rests, you can get some air time. The ride is butter smooth and I understand why Hershey Park built this type of ride. It is super family friendly, and kids who normally won't ride roller coasters, would enjoy this. I think Kings Dominion screwed up with I305 and made the ride too intense of a ride for families. That probably explains the 5-10 minutes wait lines most of the time.

Skyrush is awesome, however, yes the restraints crush down on the thighs for security to keep the rider in the car. I appreciate that, however it is intense. The pressure usually eases up once the ride is done and as you are waiting to exit the ride, however not always. My last ride, I was next to an 8-10 year old who was CRYING at the end of the ride due to it crushing his bird like legs. I felt bad for him.

UPDATE: This pressure release might just be for the two wing seats, not the two middle seats with a floor. I was in the middle and did not feel a pressure release the last time I rode the ride.

I’ve ridden Skyrush 5 or 6 times and have yet to feel any overwhelming leg discomfort.

Was just at the park on Monday. It was packed. The app was showing 15 minutes for Skyrush, and when I got in line they were adding the second train. I waited just over an hour. By the time I got off the coaster all the other coasters except Wildcat and Lightning Racer had at least an hour wait. I left the park after that ride.

Seen many complaints on Hersheypark Facebook groups complaining about paying full price for half the park experience. I would be mad too if paid $70 to get in, but they were selling tickets at the kids price of $48 on Hersheypark.com until yesterday.

I think I made a bad decision to buy a King season pass to Hershey Park in 2022. The Sweet Start is nice, however apparently every school in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Maryland is showing up EVERY day. There are no "OFF" days, this park is packed every single day now that the pandemic is "OVER".

Does Hershey’s Fast Track take care of crowd issues? Does it work well?

I am going back to Hershey Park next week and I am going to give the Fast Track a try (This will be only the second time I paid for a fast track since Universal Studios.) They offer two fast track passes. The price differs depending on the day you go (prices double on weekends), however I am going next Wednesday and Thursday. On those days, you can get a regular fast track for an extra $50 per person. The regular pass gets you ONE skip the line for each of the 14-rides that accept it. Or, you can buy the fast track UNLIMITED for $65 per person/per day. I am going for the $65 unlimited, as I like to zero in on a ride or two then ride it a few times over and over. Fahrenheit has a 135-minute wait at this time. I am going to have to get that pass if I don't want to spend all day waiting in a lines.

Hershey parks Fast Track works differently than Six Flags (I've been told as I never got one at Six Flags.) But you don't need to get in a virtual queue and then come back to the particular ride at a certain time. If you get the unlimited Fast Pass, you just enter the Fast Pass entrance, then scan your card against a Hershey Kiss scanner, and if your account paid for the fast pass, the light turns green and in you go, cutting in front of 95% of the line. I'll give it a try next week and report back if I think it was worth the extra money. But it certainly seems like a must at this particular park due to the crazy crowd levels and reduced park hours.

I can't believe I am contemplating paying $65 for a ONE DAY unlimited fast track, which is more money than I paid for my entire 2022 Six Flags Gold Season pass! Oh yeah, you can also buy an unlimited, fast track season pass for a cool $940. That would require a minimum of 15 visits to break even based on the $65 daily fast pass price. I suppose this is for enthusiast who live REALLY close to the park (perhaps lives in Hershey, PA?) and can go there a few times a week? I'm going to have to pass on that add on :)

DoubleMeatTaco:

I can't believe I am contemplating paying $65 for a ONE DAY unlimited fast track

What's funny about that is that if I were doing a once or twice a year visit to Hershey, $65 seems like a steal and I wouldn't even think twice about doing it. My concern would be for only that much money, the passes would be oversold to a level where I didn't feel there was enough perceived value. Heck, I would pay (and have paid) in the $130-$150 for a single park day skip the line at a park I don't get to regularly visit and I felt I needed it to enjoy my day.

Hershey Park claims that the fast pass is limited to a certain number of passes and once sold out, you can't buy them. I am skeptical on this, but I can't confirm or deny that claim.

As much as I don't like it, I love the business model. Whiny kid (me) "I don't want to wait in this line :( !!". OK, pay me $100 and you can skip the line. DONE. Easy, easy money for the park!

If you think that $65 is asinine for Fast Track clearly you haven’t been to Cedar Point. :)

Even with the (comparatively) low price I’ve never seen it highly used. The only place it can become a problem is on Fahrenheit which has embarrassingly low capacity, and that’s only for the GP who have to watch half of every train fill up with people from the FT line.

I think some of the parks not opening during the week might have to do with many schools cutting back on Music In The Parks.

When the school year started...there was still a lot of uncertainty about long trips. I know we cut back on trips st the start of the year and we didn't go this year.

I didn't buy the Fast Pass last week as the park was not that crowded on Wednesday. The park was PACKED on Thursday, however we left around 2pm to head home after a two day stay. I finally got to ride Fahrenheit after a 20-minute wait, and that was an awesome coaster, especially for the small footprint of space they had to work with. It was very similar to Storm runner (same restraints) just the very different launch.

After "Sweet start" on Thursday I made a bee line to the back of the park and was able to ride Storm Runner SIX times (three times without getting off the train). It was awesome. I do this all the time at Six Flags America, but I was glad to see it was possible at at Hershey because this park has been PACKED all spring.

After 22-rides over two days, my body was sore! I am 51-years old and I blame it mostly on Skyrush (AKA "Thigh-Crush"). That is a real issue on that ride. I rode that ride six times and I am paying the price as an old man riding coasters.

I told the wife, "I am beat, definitely not going back to the park for a while!" Yeah, just came back from Six Flags after 12 rides in 2-hours :) I have issues