The Sweetest Place On Earth 6/29/04

My mom, my friend and his parents all piled in my friend's van for a trip to Hersheypark. We live in Lutherville, Maryland so it took us about an hour and a half to get to Hershey, Pennsylvania. We left at 8:30 and arrived approximately at 10:00. It was a beautiful day, sunny and 85 degrees F. But we had to organize stuff, wait for a tram, ride the tram, walk to the entrance, have the moms go to the bathroom (took 10 minutes), buy the *discounted* tickets, decide what we're gonna do, decide to go to SR first, walk halfway across the park to SR, and by the time we get in line for SR it is 10:45, and the ride it being fixed because of a cracked wheel during inspection. Nobody is in the main queue and the hill has a HUGE box queue which is all filled up, plus the path has become the queue all the way toward Roller Soaker, and back. We get in line anyway. The time rolls by, people are leaving the line, getting busted for smoking and such so before the ride opens, we are almost halfway through the big box queue. The line only stretches from the Dry Gulch Railroad crossing on the path toward Roller Soaker at this point. Finally, we see an empty train go by and we cheer at about 11:30. We wonder if it is going to open soon. It opens at about 11:50, and we are let into the main queue. We actually are pretty close to getting on the trains in the unique dual loading station. We are on the bridge above the trains. Capacity for this ride is incredible because if it had not broken down, we would only have waited 10-15 minutes. So we borded the ride on the right side of the station. These restaints are very unique, and are impossible to wiggle out of. Then we are let out onto the launching pad. We wait there, heart pounding for about 20-30 seconds and we hear a voice, "GET RRRRRRRRRRREADYYYYYYY" and suddenly we feel the 72mph in 2 sec. It feels like freefalling, but in reality, we are just accelerating very fast. We go vertically up the 180 ft tall top hat, where there is actually enourmous airtime, roll vertically down, roll up through an immelman, down, up, through an inline twist, through an amazing new snake dive, end with a little twist in the track, and suddenly the Intamin goodness is over in 35 seconds. I go to look at my photo, and my hair is standing on end. I bought it. I also bought a SR shirt.

It is about 12:30 now so we go and eat lunch in Pioneer Frontier at some barbeque place. I bought a Texas sandwich or something like that. It was good.

Next we waste a lot of time renting a locker and change to ride some water rides. We get in line for Canyon River Rapids whose line is not too long. We get on the ride at about 1:30. It is not a very wet ride, only getting my mom very wet. She screams for about 10 seconds. It was one of the highlights. It was really funny. Then we head up to Tidal Force for some more wet fun. We board the ride already wet and climb the lift to the tallest water ride in the world. It felt like it was raining really hard and it kept raining for 10 seconds at the splash.

We waste more time buying cloths to change into because we left extra cloths in the van. I was wearing my sandals an old shirt and a bathing suit on the water rides, so Ijust changed into my regular shoes, and put on my SR shirt and I was fine. My friend had to buy a whole new wardrobe. He bought new boxers, shorts, shirt, and flip, flops. My mom did the same.

We wasted so much time there, it was almost 3:00 when my mom and my friend's mom decides to go of to Chocolate World and my friend, his dad and I would stay at the Park. My friend and I ride the Chaos, It was fun, and I read somewhere that it was based off the zipper. I like the zipper a whole lot better. And there was little to no line for it.

We decide to go to LR now. Midway America was very crowded. But there was no line for LR whatsoever. We got on LR in about 30 seconds and we board the Thunder side. This is a very cool coaster. I have ridden dueling coasters before, but they have never dueled, (Chiller, RT)
The racing part was very cool part, with almost head on collissions, and head to head racing. We get back to the station and THUNDER WON! We decide to ride the Lightning side to see which side we like better. We both liked Thunder better. Oh and Lightning won when we rode it too! And did I mention the smoothness of both coasters. I was not banged around at all.

Now we head up to the Wildcat, the thing is, the brakes were making the sound that a wild goose or turkey would make. They're gonna have to change the name ! There was no line for Wildcat either, so we board it in no time. I found Wildcat very rough, I was definately tossed around a lot. It did not have the padding that were in the MF trains.

Now we head over to the WIld Mouse, but the line was huge and capacity is low, so we skip it. As we head over to Sidewinder, we buy some Dippin Dots, which is a great park food. There was no line for Sidewinder either, so in no time we were on. We headed up the steep incline, and we're off, this coaster was very rough, especially on the return trip backwards.

Then as we head over to Minetown, we feed the ducks in the stream. I love birds. So we get in line for Great Bear, a wonderful inverted coaster. The line looks short, but we wait about 15 minutes for this ride. As we got in line for our row, we had 7 people in front of us. Firat 2 people get in. Then 3, then 2, then us. We waited 4 trains for seven people to go when we coould have waited a min of 2. I was pretty dissapointed with the ride ops, although they ar better than any SF employee. Anyway, Great Bear starts off with a unique twist first, and then the drop. This is a great inverted coaster, my second favorite up to to Talon.

It is about 5 and we need to go home soon (i wanted to stay 5 more hours but no...) But on the way, we ride the Claw, a great new revolution type ride. I was dissapointed with the ride though because I was always facing up toward the sky, not down toward the ground.

We go to Tudor Grill at the entrance and I had a Grilled Chicken Breast which wasn't very good, but I ate something.

I bought a lot of stuff after that on the way out. and We left at about 7:30 and got home at about 9. Overall I had never been to HP and I had a good time, and I would go back anytime to my favorite roller coaster, SR, and my favorite park, HP, the sweetest place on Earth.

It is a good park. Glad to see that you had a great time. There isn't too much to make you upset at Hershey. They are in the top as far as customer service, and trying to please their patrons.

I visit at least once a week to ride Storm Runner, and Lightning Racer. It just depends on the lines how long I stay. Thats the nice part about being 10 minutes from the "Sweetest Place On Earth." Its a good park to have as your home park.

I was just at Hershey as well, and man, what a park. I was totally impressed. I agree with your comments about the breaking noise on Wildcat, and the smoothness of Lightning Racer. Look for a TR soon.

Tidal Force is the tallest water ride in the world?

Yeah I think so.

per Hersheypark's website on tidal force

Description

One of the tallest splash-down rides in the world. Guaranteed to get you soaked!

A hypercoaster and HersheyPark could become the Cedar Point of the east! We are 30 miles from SFA and about 90 from Hershey, but I consider it my home park. Great rides, great atmosphere (the chocolate aroma helps), good employees...who could ask for more?

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SFGAdv lover said:
Tidal Force is the tallest water ride in the world?

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Nope.

http://www.sfgamworld.com/albums/KBF/PerilousPlunge3.jpg

Knott's Berry Farm's Intamin built Perilous Plunge is. It is then followed by Oakwook's Hydro's-Water's Revenge, THEN HersheyPark's Tidal Force.

However...

At the time it was built, wasn't Tidal Force the tallest?

(That's the trouble with "Record Breakers"... only good until someone builds something bigger)

Yes, Tidal Force was the tallest at the time it was built.

I remember reading somewhere that Tidal Force still has the highest *splash* on any water ride in the world. Not sure if that is true though.

Great TR though! The Wildcat is really tempermental.. It's one of the only coasters that is better in the front and won't cause as much kidney damage there.

Eric