Photo TR:Hershey Park

[rcji]

This was my first trip to Hershey Park in 12 years sadly. I went with my parents and brother. I did all the coasters with my brother. Last time I went was in 1996 a few weeks after the wildcat opened and most of the rides there were not even built. (Great Bear, Storm Runner, Lightning Racer etc) Even though at age 7 (Now 19) I wouldn't/couldn't do any big roller coasters I was really excited to go. The one roller coaster and was probably my first one I ever did was the trail blazer. I remember how scared I was going to ride it and I ended up loving it during my last visit. Sad to say, the ride was CLOSED both days I was there this week so I was unable to re-ride it but I still had a great time at the park.

 

 

Day 1

We got to the park for 7:30pm we did the "preview" which lets you in for free from that time to close when you give them your full day admission ticket. As soon as we got in I went for Storm Runner. It was about a 15 min wait. Storm Runner was really good but as soon as I got the feeling this is a cool ride it was over. I liked it but I thought it was a tad too short. After Storm Runner I went right over to the Sidewinder. I always remember the last time I went to the park and I sat down looking at that ride and was like "No way i'm ever going to do that" Also at that time there was over a 2 hour wait for the ride in 1996. I go to the ride and it was a walk on basically. It was a nice ride. It was cool going backwards up the lift not knowing when you are going to be released and then doing the track again going backwards. It gave me a feeling of riding batman and robin the chiller. After that we headed for the Great Bear. It was about a 15 min wait and then we get on. This ride is 10000x better than Batman:The Ride. It was really intense and alot of fun riding over the lake and woods. That was it for the roller coasters for the day. After that we did a few family rides like the kissing tower, cars (etc). I wanted to do Fahrenheit but the line was huge and I planned to do it the next day.

 

Day 2

 

We get to the park right when it opened up. This time we rushed to Fahrenheit to try and beat the crowd. We ended up waiting about 30 min for the ride. We get to the station and requested front row (they have an attendent that stops you at the top and directs you where to sit. So we told him we are taking the front and it was a 3 train wait. We are off to the lift hill. Going 90 degrees up was awesome. My whole body felt like I was going to shift backwards and fall out of my seat. I couldn't touch the floor with my feet either once we went up. It was awesome going up. Going down the first drop was even better. Going down 97 degrees felt awesome and was the best drop on any ride I've done. The loops and cobra rolls were awesome and the whole ride from start to finish was flawless I thought. I felt it was the best ride in the park and a top 10 for me. Next was wildcat. Ride was a walk on. It was an enjoyable ride little rough around the turns but it was cool. The first drop was pretty intense. Next was lightning racer. We did both sides first lightning (red). We ended up losing the race. Then we did green (thunder) and we lost again. The ride was really fun especially racing. The track layout was really cool and enjoyable the whole time. Lines were only in the station only about 3 train wait for each. Next was the Ferris wheel. I thought it moved too fast and it wasn't as big/good as GADV's. Next stop was Wild Mouse. I swear, the track layout is a mirror image of TDK's.(See photo of it). Next we headed over to the other side of the park for the SooperDooperLooper. For its age it was really good ride. Wasn't too rough and I was shocked to see it had single lap bars with no seat belts considering it was one of the first looping coasters. But it really wasn't necessary. Then we hit comet after that and waited about 20 min. Wasn't worth the wait. Reminded me of rolling thunder a little bit w/o a track next to it. Ok ride. Shortly after that ever ride started to shut down for some reason then I noticed dark clouds coming in. They shut down every ride bascially and then thunder and rain came in. During this time we just ate inside. It rained for about 15-20 min then it cleared up. After it cleared we ran over to Fahrenheit to beat the crowd and there was a line already waiting to go in. So in about 20 min they open all the rides up again and we got in the real line. During the time we waited online it broke down twice. One train got stuck at the bottom of the lift hill, and the other was stuck coming back into the station the brake fins didn't drop.(It also made me wonder what happens if the trian got stuck on the lift hill what would happen and I didn't notice any rollback brakes on the lift hill.) It only lasted about 10 min each the breakdowns. Shortly after the second breakdown we were in and got front row again. Amazing ride. We then finished the day with another ride on Storm Runner and then The Great Bear.

 

 

Closing Note

 

It was a great 2 days at hershey. We didn't do any water rides. It seemed that everyone was at the boardwalk and the lines there were huge. As far as the roller coasters everyone was at Fahrenheit and a small chunk at storm runner and great bear. The longest wait was Fahrenheit and 15-20 min for Storm runner and Great Bear. We did all the roller coasters except roller soaker and trailblazer (trailblazer was closed both days no idea why). But it was a great trip. 10/10 I took a lot of photos but the ones posted are the best ones.

 

 

Photos

 

 

Questions, comments are welcomed!

[Josh Davidson]

You got some great photos from Hershey there. And yeah, I've been reading Trailblazer has been closed for a week or so now... and just tossing a idea but it may be closed due something getting ready for Hershey in the Dark?

 

Great report!