Hersheypark 6/30-7/3/20

Purchased the 2020 King Size pass, last year, not thinking a pandemic would hit. So, before everything shuts down again, and it will, I figured I would make the trek from Detroit to Hersheypark to get SOME use out of this pass.

I arrived on Tuesday night at around 6:30 to take advantage of the Candymonium preview. Upon entering the park, I gotta say the charm that made me fall in love with this park has been replaced with a LOT of blacktop. The brake run in the middle of the midway just looks completely out of place. If getting more people in faster is the goal, they need to open more gates than they used with the castle entrance. As of today, opening day, they haven't so...Hmmm? The new season pass parking lot is AWESOME. Somehow, today, I ended up in the second closest spot to the entrance.

Anyways, Candymonium is a really good ride as far as B&M hypers go. On Tuesday night, I got 1 ride in the front row and 2 rides in the back plus 1 more back row ride on Wednesday's, last train of the night. And yes, it's MUCH better than Meh-ko.

On Wednesday, the first day for all season passholders, I got 1 ride on Comet and Laff Trakk, 2 rides on Great Bear and Fahrenheit, 3 rides on Lightning Racer and 25 rides on Skyrush. Awesome day. As far as Covid-19 goes, LR and Comet have rows blocked off. You are only supposed to ride with members of your group. Capacity on Skyrush and Candymonium was definitely decreased and noticeable Thursday and today, Friday. There is a schedule they follow to spray trains down and cycle them.

I feel relatively safe since my face is covered when I am remotely close to anyone. MANY sanitizer stations throughout the park and a good majority of the people are following the rules. Just make sure you have masks that will stay on while riding.

As far as being able to get in goes, you need to go online to reserve the day you are coming to the park and you must reserve a time, online, if you wish to enter Chocolate World.

All in all, HP is still my favorite park. If I only get to go to one this year, I am happy it's this one.

So, I never reviewed Friday, the 3rd. Compared to the social distancing and mask wearing that was happening during pass holder days, Friday got to be pretty bad during the grand opening to everyone, especially later in the day when it got really hot. At some points, while sitting in the new midway, I counted between 30 and 40 people not wearing masks or not wearing them correctly vs 20 or so who were, during the same time. All I could think was this place would be getting shut down soon, especially since bars had been forced to close during that week.

Apparently, management must have noticed the difference between pass and ticket holders because they changed the admission policy to allowing up to the same number of guests in the park but they have blocked off a number of spots for each season pass holder so they don't even need to reserve a date to attend. That should, HOPEFULLY, cut down on the number of people in the park who don't care if it's shut down once they use their 1 day ticket. This will definitely encourage me to go back from Detroit, much sooner and more often.