Hersheypark 4/1/2018

I was hoping to get to Great Adventure yesterday but with snow supposed to start after midnight, I thought that if the forecast was wrong and it started to snow up to a couple hours earlier and I stayed until closing, there was a chance I would be driving home in the snow and didn't want to take that chance. Seeing that Hershey's wait times weren't that bad on Saturday compared to Springtime in the Park the last few years (up to 45 minute waits this year vs up to 150 minute waits last year and in 2016) and combined with a 6:00 closing I thought crowds would be low.

I went to sooperdooperlooper first which is the also the last coaster I rode in 2017 on a Tuesday night the week before Christmas. The queue was changed where Fast Track now is at the entrance and the main lines doesn't go under and around the station anymore. The beginning of the queue has just switchbacks instead of those diagonal sections of path that used to be there. 2 trains were running with a mostly empty station. It's one of my favorite coasters in the park, not intense other than the loop but just an overall fun coaster.

Comet also had 2 trains running. It's nice how smooth the coaster is for being over 70 years old and my favorite of the 3 wooden coasters in the park.

Storm Runner had 1 train running with the 2nd train on the other side of the station but the line was only to the top of the stairs. The first few times I rode the coaster years ago, I thought it was good and would have liked to have seen more of a layout. Now years later, it's another one of my favorite coasters in the park. The new restraints added a couple of years ago are great as well.

Trailblazer was evacuating riders from the brake run. It never reopened when I was there.

Great Bear was running 2 trains with a mostly empty station. I took advantage of that and got a front row ride and re-rode in row 7. Row 7 had some vibration but nothing too bad.

All 3 Triple Towers were running, I only went to the Hershey tower. The combo of a Space Shot and Turbo Drop makes it one of the best S&S Tower I have tried.

Some flat rides like Frontier Flyers and The Claw were closed. The Whip was missing all of its cars. A lot of kiddie rides were closed as well. I was glad the coasters were open and remember around 10 years ago Midway America wasn't even open for Springtime in the Park.

Lightning Racer had 1 train on each track and Lightning had 3 rows closed off, Thunder had 4 rows closed off. They usually close off rows on days with low crowds so they don't have to constantly re-buckle the seatbelts but the station was crowded enough to have all rows open with each row being 2 - 3 train waits. Even with Thunder having an extra row closed off, it was winning most of the races.

I rode Wild Mouse since it was almost a walk on. Wildcat had 1 train running and the vinyl or plastic covers around the openings of the sides of the station that were added during Christmas Candylane were still there. I hope they are removed when it gets warmer out since it might be uncomfortable to have to wait in a hot station.

It was nice to not have rows assigned at Fahrenheit and being able to wait for whatever row you wanted. I waited 2 trains for the front row. It's fun but I'm not much of a fan of the vertical lift.

I walked back to Great Bear and found a completely empty station and also went back to sooperdooperlooper and walked on the front row. After those 2 rides I started to feel like I had enough. Whenever my first trip of the season is, I don't like to ride too many coasters since I have to get used to it again and I guess I rode more than normal and combined with not getting a lot of sleep, I was ready to leave even though the park was open for another 40 minutes. I stopped at Reese's Extreme Cup Challenge again on the way out, walking past Comet with a half empty station which was difficult to pass up and skipping SkyRush completely knowing how intense it is. I'll be back plenty of more times this year so missing SkyRush didn't bother me that much.

This was great trip to start the 2018 coaster season.

Nice trip report. We drove by on our way home from my mother in law's house for Easter(She lives in Annville.) Really low wait times showed on their app except for Laff Trakk. Since it was already almost 5pm we skipped it. We are going Friday night for Passholders night.

I seen on Facebook that Trailblazer reopened close to the end of the day. Were there problems with Skyrush? It showed operating on the App, but we didn't see it go while driving around the park. We were going to go to ride Skyrush, Sooperdooperlooper, and Comet. Since we didn't see it go we skipped it.

Thanks

Skyrush was running when I first got to the park and later in the day when I was leaving the park. It may have been broken down during that time that I went to the other sections of the park.

That passholder night will probably be empty. I was considering going knowing I could get a lot of rides in that night but since it's only a 3 hour event, I don't think it's worth the almost 4 hour round trip of driving for me.

Yeah I understand. A Four hour roundtrip isn't worth the three hour event. I seen that Skyrush, Sooperdooperlooper, and The Great Bear are the coasters running along with Triple Towers for it. I can't imagine why Comet won't be running, but I didn't see it listed. It's the Comet Hollow and Kissing Tower Hill sections of the park that are open for Passholder night.

My family always tries to go on Easter Sunday because crowds are usually like they were (extremely low). I rode SkyRush with absolutely no wait, Comet and Storm Runner with a 1-train wait, and Wild Mouse with a 2-car wait. The only thing that had any line during the day was Laff Track.