Hershey Park TR August 22nd Sunday

This was my first ever trip to Hershey Park. My friend Akif and I left my Cousin Colton’s house in Maryland around 8AM Sunday morning and went straight for the park. We were a little concerned on the way because it rained much of the time, but once we got to the park the rain stopped for the most part.

Fahrenheit 8.5/10
We had about a 35 minute wait for the front seat. I knew that this ride was going to be good, but not quite this good! The 90 degree lift hill felt really cool as did the steep first drop, but I was particularly impressed with the bunny hop towards the end that gave the best air time of the entire trip. (Kings Dominion and Hershey) This was the best ride of the entire day, and it was also milestone #75 for me.

Storm Runner 8/10
I knew that the two best rides in the park were this and Fahrenheit so we hit these two first. We had about a 20 minute wait for the front that ended up being another 5 minutes because they shut the ride down for a minute due to rain. Fortunately this was the only time that rain would be a factor all day. In fact by the end of the day the sky was perfectly blue. We ended up being the first train out after the rain delay. Also during the wait, I noticed a young girl going on with of all things a neck Brace! Ouch! I don’t know if even I would do that. More on this ride later.

Wild Cat 6/10
We had probably a 25 minute wait or so for the back seat. This ride reminded me very much of the Grizzly the day before. That was because it was extremely rough, and I could imagine it being a top rated roller coaster in the past.

Lightning Racer 8/10
We rode this twice, once as lightning (front seat) and the other as thunder (back seat). Both rides were near walk-ons. I was extremely impressed by this roller coaster. It was very smooth and the racing/ dueling element was blended perfectly. Unfortunaly Akif and I lost both times. I think this is my third favorite wooden roller coaster behind the Yankee Cannonball and of course El Toro.

The Sidewinder 4/10
There was a good reason that it was a short wait…..Ouch! (Although not as bad as some other Boomerangs that I’ve been on)

The Great Bear 7/10
Just like the day before with Dominator, Akif really wanted the front seat. It added a lot of time to the wait that probably totaled 30 minutes. I was particularly excited because this was my first traditional inverted roller coaster that I had ridden since 2003 not named Batman the Ride. The ride was fun. I particularly enjoyed the foot choppers towards the end of the ride. The one draw back for this ride would be the short length.

The SuperDooperLooper 6/10
This wait was about the same as the wait for the Great Bear thanks to one train operations. On the plus side this was the friendliest staff I had seen all day. The women on the Microphone kept trying to keep everyone entertained. She commented about people who have their friends lie to them that this roller coaster doesn’t go upside down only to find out later that it does. She was also commenting how the operators were doing the best they could considering they only have one train unlike Fahrenheit which was operating three trains at the time. In addition to the women, the other employees were all high fiving people’s hands as they were entering the station. Thumbs up to the crew here for sure.
As for the ride, it too was more than I expected. The one loop was intense and the ride was longer than I thought it would.

The Comet 6/10
The Comet may have been the longest wait of the day. I think it was close to 40 minutes. The ride was rough, but I have seen worse.

The Roller Soaker different really
Akif went to get some clothes that he could get wet. I just kept my cargo pants on. This was the most unique roller coaster of the trip for sure. The wait was probably 35 minutes, but it would have been a lot longer had it not been for this huge group in front of us that allowed us to cut them probably so they could all ride together.

We had one problem. Things such as my cell phone and our credit cards, we didn’t want to get wet. So Akif and I designed something in line that would keep things dry we hoped. The first line of defense was Akif’s shirt that hung outside of my pants. Our next line of defense was my shirt followed by my outside pocket in my pants that contained two park maps. Then underneath that pocket the water would finally get to the pocket with our stuff. Only our final and best line of defense was my glasses case. When we fit everything inside the case it wouldn’t fully close so we actually tied the car keys around the glasses case.

Once in the train I was a bit nervous about all of our stuff. You could probably drop my cell phone in water and it would be fine, but it would still be nice for those things to be dry. I also did not want to risk leaving the things off to the side. I am afraid that they might be stolen. I wanted to make a deal with everyone in line below! Not like that was going to happen. To make things even more interesting we were facing forwards on the first train out in the cycle. The ride was fun and was indeed very wet! After the ride we noticed our awesome engineering capabilities. The glasses case wasn’t even damp! And if you saw just how wet we were, you would be impressed!

Coal Cracker
Akif really wanted to try this after watching it in line for the Great Bear. Once we got in our flume the ride shut down and they told us to come out. It was down for about five minutes. Once we got back in we were the first flume out. This marked the second time all day that we were basically the test run (the other being Storm Runner earlier). The flume was a little disappointing to be honest. I was expecting better.

Wildmouse 6/10
This was probably no more than a ten minute wait. It really just felt like your typical wild mouse. It was nothing special, but worth going on once.

Tidal Force
Apparently Akif is far more of a water ride person than I am! Had it not been for him I wouldn’t even had considered going on this. We did the same trick to keep things dry this time as we did with the Roller Soaker. The ride was fun, and we got just as wet as we did with the Roller Soaker, but this time it was all in one giant splash. When it was all over the glasses case actually managed to get wet this time, but everything inside was still dry. Win!

Fahrenheit 8/10
It was now 7 and the park was closing at 8pm (or so we thought) so we wanted to get at least one more ride on Fahrenheit and Storm Runner. Fahrenheit was a good 30 minute wait. We tried the back seat this time. It’s rare for me to say this, but the front was better.

Storm Runner 8/10
2x
Storm Runner was just about a complete walk on for two back seat rides. I found the back to be better and more intense than the front.

Fahrenheit 8/10
2x
Due to the short waits on Storm Runner we had time for one more ride back seat ride on Fahrenheit. Going up the 90 degree lift hill in the daytime was nice, but at night it was just fantastic! The rest of the ride was as smooth as ever.

After that ride, I noticed that people were still getting in line even though it was a little after 8. I told Akif why not one more ride. He told me that to save time he would rather go to the chocolate factory (we had a long car ride back to his place) and we could meet up in 30 minutes. So I took that ride by myself. I was probably in the line until 830 or so before I asked someone when the park closed. It was at 10 not 8! Somehow some way we spent the entire day believing that the park was going to close at 8 and not 10. I felt retarded, and I’m still trying to figure out exactly how that happened. So after my solo ride on Fahrenheit (which was great) I called up Akif, and we decided to stay at the park until 10. He would meet up with me in the park later.

Trailblazer 2/10
With the extra time I decided to go for the one roller coaster left. While the ride may have been boring, I atleast got to overhear the people sitting behind me try to calm down this little boy who was on his first ever roller coaster. It was the best part. He did fine by the way.

Storm Runner 8/10
4x first 2 in back next 2 in front
After my first of 4 rides my cell phone was about to die due to low battery life. Because of this I had to give Akif a quick text message telling him to meet me at Storm Runner. He didn’t show up until I was in line for my final ride before the park closed for good.

All four of these rides were near walk-ons. I really learned a lot about the ride at this time, and that’s why I have delayed my analysis of Storm Runner until now. The launch felt almost completely identical to KK except shorter. The Top Hat was extremely intense and the drop off of it was more intense than the first drop on Intimidator 305! I have never felt the blood rush to my head more than on this roller coaster. The following inversion was also pretty cool. It would have been better if the ride just ended after that inversion because afterwards it was just pure head banging! I had to learn how to brace myself for the final few turns and inversions. I got good at it after a while! This was definitely the most intense ride in the park and second best in my opinion.

Overall
I was concerned that this park may be a let down after Kings Dominion the previous day. It wasn’t! The park was better kept and friendlier than I thought it would be. We also got in more rides here than in Kings Dominion. It cost my about $53 to get in here and $27 to get into Kings Dominion, but on the other hand the prices were not as outrageous here. There were actually things that you could buy here for a dollar or two. I think I like Hershey’s way of doing it more.

My one regret would be not actually looking at the park map to see that they closed at 10 and not 8. I would have enjoyed one more ride on Lightning Racer and the Great Bear for sure. It also would have made things more relaxing throughout the day as well.

Hershey is a great park. I like KD, but I much prefer Hershey. Nice TR.

Eric, if we had known ahead of time that you were going to Hershey, we could have directed to some discount tickets. It sounds like you lucked out with all the rides you got though. I was there the previous Tuesday, and it was like a Saturday crowd, especially when the Boardwalk closed.

Thanks anyways Rathergoodbear if only I had known:

We got into Kings Dominion for a cheap price because my cousin was able to get the tickets at a discounted price from his church. Hershey was more last minute and felt like the "other park" when we were planning this. It will not be remembered that way, but it felt that way when planning this.

I suppose I should start putting my name up on the calendar for reasons such as this. It did feel strange just walking up to the gate and getting the ticket without any discount.

SDL seems to run 1 train way too often. The difference seems to be more than on a lot of other rides. There have been times I have seen it with a 5 - 10 minute wait with 2 trains and on other trips to the park where the crowds were similar with 1 train running, the line is down the stairs and well into the first part of the line after the stairs and it is 25+ minutes.