Hersheypark announces Laff Trakk, an indoor spinning roller coaster

Travis, when you play victim you come across as needy and attention seeking but that's neither here nor there. I have plenty to say that isn't the same old complaint about a fun hobby.

As far as the coaster, I like MS spinners and I like dark rides and coasters. This looks fun. And I need to go back next year for the three new credits since my last visit.

I don't get that at all. I just think he has a different opinion.

I'm gonna make you boys sit on the couch for twenty minutes and hold hands.

I don't FEEL like I am playing the victim. I don't even like the attention. I'm just defending myself. My apology still stands. I will try to do better and stop being so opinionated, for the better enjoyment of others reading my favorite website.

I really don't want to talk about it any more. I'm just glad we can get back to talking about roller coasters.

Having an opinion is fine. Like Vater said, it escalated quickly with your 14 paragraph post that came off as whining and being a victim.

You victimize yourself.

Case in point, I'm a bad person because my time is too important to deal with whiners. People who use queue cutting are bad people because they hold their nose up because they're better. Six Flags is an immoral business based on your perceived slights.

You take stuff too personally and when you have an opinion, it's often got a negative slant and it usually wreaks of accusations that someone in power is slighting someone 'weak'.

My opinion is that gets old.

What part of 'I don't want to talk about it anymore' do you not understand? Read my lips. I. am. sorry. I. will. try. to. do. better. Let's. talk. about. roller. coasters!

What part of 'you don't get to tell me to stop' don't you understand? As I recall, Jeff commented a while back that there are more important things than your opinion to discuss but you wanted to continue.

But Jeff is right. There are far more important things to discuss.

Back to Laff Trakk.

Lord Gonchar said:

3. They're adding capacity to the park. 800 people per hour x 10 hours per day is 8000 additional rides per day. 130 operating days per season x those 8000 rides = 1,040,000

This new ride would have to draw over a million new vistors to the park for the lines/waits park-wide to remain the same. Anything less than that and your overall time waiting at the park will be lowered.

I disagree. The average visitor rides more than 1 ride per visit. If we say and average of 6 rides (pulled straight out of my butt) then it will only take an additional 150,000 guests over the course of the summer to mean the average amount of rides per guest went down (i.e. lines got longer).

But perhaps more importantly, I still don't understand why Hershey in particular (SFMM, too) builds these expensive rides and then has such low capacity for them, when the incremental cost to increase capacity has to give you a better return on your initial investment. Let's just take Fahrenheit for example: They spent $12M on a ride that delivers 480pph (given a fairly generous cycle time of 1:30). By doubling up the station block (ala Dragster) I would imagine they could've spent $13M on a ride that delivers 960pph. Given some of the lines I've seen for that ride, I don't understand how you end up picking the former instead of the latter. Maybe I'm looking at this through enthusiast lenses, but I just don't get it.

But not everyone is going to want to ride this particular ride.

Besides that, while no one usually enjoys standing in line, it's an accepted practice outside if enthusiast circles.

And look at the common capacity hog type rides. They're all very similar. If a park built every B&M known to man enthusiasts would complain. Unless Disney did it, because we all know they could clone a ride 50 different times and just tether it every time and people would eat it up.

Hershey is not Disney.

ApolloAndy said:

I disagree. The average visitor rides more than 1 ride per visit. If we say and average of 6 rides (pulled straight out of my butt) then it will only take an additional 150,000 guests over the course of the summer to mean the average amount of rides per guest went down (i.e. lines got longer).

Actually, that's probably a valid point.

I guess the theory is that as long as the new attraction adds capacity at least equal to the amount of attendance increase times average rides per guest, then we're all good.

But perhaps more importantly, I still don't understand why Hershey in particular (SFMM, too) builds these expensive rides and then has such low capacity for them, when the incremental cost to increase capacity has to give you a better return on your initial investment.

Better return how? On capacity?

I'm not sure the park is measuring ROI based on how many riders the new addition moves.

Let's just take Fahrenheit for example: They spent $12M on a ride that delivers 480pph (given a fairly generous cycle time of 1:30). By doubling up the station block (ala Dragster) I would imagine they could've spent $13M on a ride that delivers 960pph. Given some of the lines I've seen for that ride, I don't understand how you end up picking the former instead of the latter. Maybe I'm looking at this through enthusiast lenses, but I just don't get it.

I think it's a prime example of how little the whole capacity thing really matters, affects business or is considered in terms of investment.

I especially think that for these mature parks where attendance growth of any significant kind is probably not happening, that any addition increases the overall capacity. And that's a good thing.

Consider Cedar Point, though. Wicked Twister is as bad as it gets capacity-wise on the upper end of their thrill spectrum, and pretty much every ride built since then moves a decent chunk of people (some more than others, but all more than some of what we're seeing being built elsewhere).

I guess the way I look at it is that instead of building low-capacity ride after low-capacity ride, that money could go into a couple of really high-end thrill machines that move some serious people. I think that some parks get to a point where if you're going to build some landmark attraction, it needs to be a people-eater.

I know Hershey is at a disadvantage space-wise, but since Six Flags Magic Mountain was brought up, let's consider it. What purpose at all does Green Lantern serve? Could that money not have been spent on a few more maneuvers and an extra block on Full Throttle, a ride that could've been the west coast's answer to Maverick?

I think it comes back to places like the Busch Gardens parks, or a lot of European parks that I've visited or seen. They only build a major landmark attraction once every few years, so instead of having a collection of fifteen rides of which only a few are particularly special (Canada's Wonderland is an example of this), why not build things more sporadically and make each installation mean something? Are some of these parks really hitting a nice ROI on some of these installations? If so, then I accept I'm wrong from a business standpoint, but it just seems hard to believe that they're recouping their investment on these things.

I know BGW is building one of those Premiers, though, which seems to fly in the face of my assessment, but everyone has an off-day. ;)

All that said, Laff Track looks kind of cool.

sirloindude said:

What purpose at all does Green Lantern serve?

It offers a different ride experience than what they had, adds an attraction to the park and pleases additional guests.

I think we've officially jumped the shark on overthinking this one. :)

LostKause said:
What part of 'I don't want to talk about it anymore' do you not understand?

Tekwardo said:
What part of 'you don't get to tell me to stop' don't you understand?

Seriously? You are relentless. I wish you would stop, but I know from experience that you'll post about it again in a few weeks once I think you are over it. It's creepy.

Back to coasters...

I mentioned Roller Soaker previously. Does anyone know if they remove that ride because of capacity, or was it something else? Moving all that water was probably pretty expensive. It always seemed popular, even with people not in line, shooting water at the riders.

I didn't know that Fahrenheit only moved 480pph. It makes sense though. The line is usually pretty long, but I thought it was because it was popular. It seems to be "featured" from the parking lot as a main attraction because of the ride's location.

Thanks for debunking the low capacity myths. Thinking of the park overall and not just singular rides is a fresh and new way to look at things.

Perhaps Laff Trakk was added to provide a lower thrill, family friendly attraction, rather than a high capacity attraction?

Maybe I'm being odd, but putting together a solid line-up of park rides and attractions is kind of like a recipe: a recipe may call for a cup of frozen peas, but just a teaspoon of cumin*. A park line-up may need rides with a through put in the thousands, and others, in the hundreds.

Put the ingredients together in the right way, and you end up with a great park, or a great meal.

*In this case, a spectacular curried pea frittata :)

Forgive me for weighing in at the 11th hour, but I think there is another consideration with this ride. Most people here know that Lightning Racer, which I would presume is the highest-capacity coaster in the park, sits at the end of a dead-end pathway. On the busy August day I was in Hershey last year, almost nobody was making it down there. The ride was a walk-on at noon and a walk-on at 10 pm. (Comet, meanwhile, had 40-minute lines at 11 am.)

This is one of the best rides in the park, a ride that ought to appeal to everyone who rides big coasters - fast and thrilling without being rough - and it appeared to be sending out half-empty trains. (Yes, this is anecdotal and not data.)

By putting Laff Trakk where it will be, it may lure folks just a little farther down that path, to the point where they can see Lightning Racer just ahead of them and maybe go and ride it, instead of looking at the infernal map and scratching their heads and giving up and riding Fahrenheit instead. Which is a win all the way around: a new ride, a second ride that people would have missed, and shorter lines elsewhere.

(If it were me - and not to dismiss the merits of Hershey's wild mouse, pointed out earlier - I would move that ride, creating some space to rearrange the existing attractions in the waterpark. Then I'd move the play structure near Lightning Racer's turnaround, opening up some room to continue the path from LR back to the rest of the park. You'd still have to get creative if you want to keep the waterpark and the dry park distinct, but it could be done. And it would help traffic flow immensely.)

I may have to venture out of my comfort zone (Cedar Point is my "home-away-from-home park") and finally make my way to Hersheypark next year. The 3 Intamins look awesome and my son would think Laff Trakk is the coolest thing going.

On to some of the "arguments" (feuds?) in this thread...

I would've never come up with that line of thought about total park capacity vs single ride capacity. But it's a very point. It makes perfect sense.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions. This style ride may not appeal to everyone. The line may not be worthwhile to everyone. 4 years ago I wouldn't have given Laff Trak a second look. But now with Mini-Me becoming a certified park enthusiast, this sort of thing is right up our alley. Some people subscribe to the "if it's not the biggest/baddest/fastest it's crap" philosophy. I've learned that big, bad, & fast is usually a lot of fun, but that doesn't exclude other coasters & rides from piquing my curiosity or putting a smile on my face.

Slithernoggin, Gonch, et al., I would like to clarify that my response was more geared toward comments about the low-capacity rides that are supposed to be at the upper end of the thrill spectrum (Fahrenheit, Green Lantern, Full Throttle, SFDK's Superman, etc.). Attractions such as Wild Mice and such, not being toward the upper end of the white knuckle scale nor stand-outish in their own right, certainly don't need to possess the capacity of a B&M. I think Laff Track is a fine addition, and if it improves the offering in the back of the park, good. There's a lot of good stuff back there, and this only makes it better.

I see where the conversation got derailed, though. ;) The capacity discussion is probably better suited in a thread about some of the rides I mentioned earlier, not a discussion about a Maurer-Sohne spinner that isn't going to need to move 1400 pph anyway. Apologies on fueling the fire. ;)

I was going to mention Lightning Racers very short to nonexistent wait time earlier. Also, Wildcat is worth mentioning... It doesn't seem to have as long of a line as it could, but that may be for other reasons than location.

Those two awesome coasters, along with the great Mouse coaster, probably do not get the ridership they deserve, therefore, this is the perfect location for a shiny, new, hyped-up ride.

I'm not a huge fan of Hersheyparks layout, but the rides are really fun. It always seems like a very long walk to get to the back of the park where Lightning Racers is. The (really fun, yet sometimes very busy) water park seems to separate those dry rides from the rest of the park in a way. I think that Laff Trakk will definitely help to get people back there to ride the other awesome rides.

Hersheypark's layout sucks.

But... Should this new ride bring everyone to the yard it's REALLY gonna suck for those of us who are used to taking advantage of low crowds to marathon Lightning Racer in the evening.

As much as I adore Hersheypark, its layout does make it seem like their master plan over the years was "uh, okay, yeah, put that ride over there".