Trip Report for Hershey
5/27/04
Crowds/Weather: Medium/Sunny

Mike: We entered Hershey fairly grumpy. We had camped at Knoebels for 2 nights in first heavy rain and then a hail storm, so our day hardly started off smoothly and we arrived late to the park after packing and cleaning a lot of wet, dirty stuff.

Hershey changed our mood; it’s such a fun park, with such great coasters and rides, that by the end of the day we had wide smiles on our faces.

Mike: Hershey park was our first medium to large park that was noticeably well run. All rules for every attraction were prominently displayed at the front of every ride, something that surprisingly had been lacking at every other park we had visited, including Cedar Fair parks.

Hershey is the first place where we felt we did not have enough time. Though we had a lot of fun, 10AM-6PM was too little time to experience all the park (and surrounding area) had to offer.

This is a really well run park with a great collection of coasters. We’re already talking about coming back for a multi-day trip next year.

My complaints are small. The park is poorly laid out, with incoherent and forced theming and confusing signs leading to a “miles of concrete” feeling. Also, the park lacks a coaster I’d rate with a 5. It has many better then average coasters, but none at the top of the pack.

The park is, however, laid out like a coaster lovers dream, with coasters constantly intersecting each other and other rides. All of the coasters at Hershey are clearly meant to be visually stunning, and they succeed.

What a great park.

4.5 out of 5

Clarisse: 4 out of 5
Hershey is a difficult place for a vegan to be. Even though dark chocolate is vegan, Hershey puts milk in it…thanks, thanks a lot.

Comet

Mike: 4.25 out of 5
Comments: A fun, older wood coasters that’s short on airtime but long on length and scenery. I still owe this one a backseat ride.

Clarisse: 3.4 out of 5
Comments: Big Busted Woman Alert! This ride requires a sports bra for comfort. This coaster is rough, yet it has no airtime, even in the ejector seat (second car, third seat). It is relatively long. Its pretty good for a coaster I have nothing to say about.

Great Bear

Mike: 4.75 out of 5
Comments: This is neither better or worse then your average B&M floorless or suspended, though it is unique. While not being the most forceful or the longest or having the most elements, it does have an excellent use of space, creating a near constant feeling of fast movement and the always great “Oh shit we’re gonna hit that!” feeling.

Clarisse: 4.2 out of 5
Comments: This ride is a very nice, very smooth suspended coaster with over the shoulder restraints that are surprisingly no bother. We rode in the back and the front. The front has nice views (as it should) but my head pinballed a little in the restraints. I like it in the front, but I think seeing the track is a bit of a spoiler. I enjoyed the back better because of the element of surprise.

Lightning Racer

Clarisse: 4.87 out of 5
Comments: This is a phenomenal ride that is extremely impressive looking both off and on the coaster. The ride consist of 2 dueling coasters that ride parallel at times, and at other times the track leads the coasters by each other in the opposite direction! We rode it twice, experiencing both the red train and the green train (thunder and lighting). Our train lost both times. Just because your train is ahead on the parallel runs, don’t expect it to win! I wonder whether the total weight of the train helps it speed along or slows it down through friction…I’m guessing in this instance heavy people help.

Mike: 4.7 out of 5
Comments: This coaster is jaw dropping in the same way the latest summer movie is jaw dropping. Beautiful coaster, great visuals, and the coasters duel with each other in a surprising and fun way. Unfortunately, for the ride itself lacks “oomph!”

Rollersoaker

Clarisse: 4.7 out of 5
Comments: This ride is great. As a coaster, it’s not that great. But with the addition of the soaking…it’s a fun experience. There are jets that shoot water up at you from the ground, there are also jets of water that people on the ground can aim and shoot at people on the coaster. The people on the coaster have a secret weapon… each person has a lever they can pull to dump water on people below. You WILL get soaked on this ride. Unless you have exhibitionist tendencies, don’t wear white on this ride. I had a lot of fun on this ride and wanted to go on again, I would have insisted if temperature was in the 90s instead of the 70s.

Mike: 3.75 out of 5
Comments: Despite my hatred of getting wet, this ridiculous water coaster was too much fun to not get off with a giant smile.

Sidewinder

Clarisse: N/A out of 5
Comments: Vekoma Boomerang yay (insert heavy sarcasm here). We didn’t go on this ride for a few reasons. It’s a clone, and it’s in almost every park so we weren’t missing anything. There were other rides that we wanted ride, and reride. Most importantly, this coaster sucks. Ok, it doesn’t really suck, but its evil and painful because my head bangs on the over the shoulder restraints.

Trailblazer

Mike: 3.25 out of 5
Comments: This ride is a mine train with a little more oomph then the others that is actually halfway decent. Ok theming, ok speed and some ok elements lead to an ok ride.

Clarisse: 2.75 out of 5
Comments: This mine train ride is actually kinda good, for a mine train. It’s a little rough, so rough that I had to hold on. It also has wicked crazy banking angles that make you think you can reach down and touch the grass. At the end, the helix made me smile!

Whip

Mike: 1.5 out of 5
Comments: It’s kinda weird to be on a new whip. This one lacked the speed or Rye’s, the history of Knoebels, and our car smelled like pee.

Clarisse: 1.4 out of 5
Comments: No ride should smell like piss, but this one did. The unloading process on this ride is particularly frustrating. The ride ops have to step on a pedal on the outside of each car to let riders out. This stupid stupid process, completely kills the queue. I can only imagine what the line will be like on a full park day, and I’m happy I wont be there. Whips are supposed to be old rides. They’re fun (sort of) but the character of an old ride really really helps the experience. What made this ride suck even more is that they ran it really slow.

Wild Mouse

Mike: 3.5 out of 5
Comments: A decent mouse coaster, as good as Quassy’s, now if it were only completely unbraked… I know I’m insane. Still, this is a lot of fun.

Clarisse: 3.4 out of 5
Comments: This ride goes at a nice speed. With the whips around the turns, it’s impossible to sit up straight in the seat no matter how tight you make your stomach muscles.

Wildcat

Mike: 4.33 out of 5
Comments: This wooden twister would be fantastic if it was only a little more forceful. As it is it’s a great ride, filled with lots of partner slamming and, like every coaster at Hershey, simply looking fantastic.

Clarisse: 2.5 out of 5
Comments: I found this coaster very unpleasant. It was way too rough (whip out your sport bras ladies). Mike had his arms raised (of course) and the roughness of the coaster made his arms hit my head repeatedly (unintentionally).

Sooperdooperlooper

Mike: 3.75 out of 5
Comments: What should be a boring, old looper is made good by a reasonably smooth ride, high Gs, a tunnel and tree leaves you can grab.

Clarisse: 2.9 out of 5
Comments: This looping coaster has no over the shoulder restraints, and the coaster didn’t scare me at all! Which is a bad thing for the coaster. It only has one loop but for its age it’s spectacular. There are long stretches of gentle smoothness, its nice to speed along with the wind in your hair.

Coal Cracker

Mike: 2.75 out of 5
Comments: A flume is a flume is a flume. But this one is better then average.

Clarisse: 2.65 out of 5
Comments: Its pretty fast for a log flume. This attraction is obviously old by its clankyness.

Storm Runner

Mike: 4.9 out of 5
Comments: Simply a massive amount of fun. The OTSRs are a problem, especially during the second half, and prevent it from being a top 10 coaster.

Clarisse: 4.95 out of 5
Comments: RADICAL DUDE! The acelleration on this mo’fo’ is SICK! This is a launched beast with inversions. The over the shoulder restraints caused slight pinballing of my head between them, which does not bode well for a new coaster. Of course the over the shoulder restraint system is totally unnecessary, and their design shows that they can easily be removed. Hey Hershey, take those stupid things off!

Carousel
Clarisse 2 out of 5
The horses dont have hair tails, they have molded tails. The carousel doesdnt got hat fast but its decorated very nicely, for the most part. Among the cutesy scenes painted on the center piece of the carousel is a fucking bull fighting scene. Its sanitized with no blood which makes it worse. I really don’t understand the artists’ conception, like bullfighting is pretty and nice and belongs next to paintings of dutch children! Do the dutch even bull fight? I was totally disgusting. I imagine thies conversation occurring ‘mommy whats that? Oh the man and the bull are playing.’ NO! the man is torturing the bull slowly until he dies, and then they eat him. How wrong!!!