CoasterEricHP

Is the waterpark that ugly in real life?? It looks like they collected millions of Playskool toys and dropped them in the middle of Midway America.. ugh. Great TR. I miss PA. Eric

Pittburgh's goin' to the Superbowllllllll... I say that praying that this was Batch's only game.. Eric

Hmmm... 90% Universal bashing. I think everyone should be happy that Universal gives the teens-30's crowd somewhere to go in Central Florida and that Universal can keep up with Disney enough that there is some competition in ticket prices so that Disney can't run wild. I like Universal mainly because they give me a paycheck Eric

If you're interested in FL at all.. check out the Rosen School of Hospitality Management in Orlando. It's part of UCF and they have a theme park management major with lots of internship opportunities at Universal/Disney where if youre good you'll secure yourself a job here in management really fast.

It's probably takes awhile for them to get a rarely needed spare part or something.. I really doubt they'd take it out.. But.. I would really like to see a Goliath'ish coaster run down the creek towards Chocolate World and back.. Hmmm.. would be better than the massive amounts of plastic/playskool looking water rides they are putting smack dab in the middle of the once nice looking Midway America.

Yeah I used to work there.. during Horror Nights the line would be into the extended queue outside (which is a mess of ropes.. so we just worked with what we could) but that's as long as Ive seen it.. 90 minutes max. And that was only until people smashed open fire extinguishers and we had to evac

I worked at the Childrens Museum of Pittsburgh when I lived there and the first thing we asked people when they came was their zipcode. I was amazed how many people came there from West Virginia. So judging completely off parents with small kids that were willing to drive from WV and Ohio to come to a Children's Museum.. I'd say people would have no problem driving to a decent park down there. (not that any new park could EVER come close to beating Kennywood) I can see this park being a junior Vekoma park like Cypress Gardens.. bleh. Eric

Great TR! Im really impressed by those Cabins... Ive been to all the resorts there except them and they look the best! Gotta love MF in the front row at night.. all you hear is BzzzzzzzzzSPLAT.

It was WAY better than I expected. I wasn't expecting to get the amount of air and it to seem that fast while you were on it. Great ride! The only bad thing is the last time I was there people on the ride thought it was funny to spit on people in the queue where the ride goes over.. but the line was never more than 30-40 minutes with both arms up and running. Eric

Great TR! I miss Cedar Point. I did go to Geauga Lake a few months ago and it was just awful. The only rides in decent shape was Dominator and X-Flight. The woodies (especially Villian) and Double Loop were worse than being in a small car wreck. And Steel Venom sounded VERY bad. Cedar Point on the other hand rocks! Eric

Well... It's uglier than I expected it would be. I guess I'm just a Hershey traditionalist.. but plopping tons of steel supports and concrete in the middle of Midway America seems more like a Cedar Fair thing to do rather than a Hersheypark thing. Hershey has always been more traditional, trying to keep the green and trees.. while the other parks just clear cut and throw down concrete. HERCO has lots of land now, especially with the Fairview Golf Course land, to go all out and build a real waterpark rather than a quasi waterpark. One word... WEAK... not that we didnt see it coming. Eric

I heard from the Dippin' Dots guy that they are adding onto Dragster. They are adding a chain lift in place of the launch and having it go over to that side of the park Or not.. it'd be less problematic though! My votes for a new inversion record holder.. but like everyone else said.. WHY RED..... I'm hoping they do some kind of extensive theming for it though.. it'd be better than massive red mess. Eric

When I was there last May.. I think it was "gangs get in for free night".. aside from that it was a nice little park! The Cyclone blew me away. Great pics Eric

Nicceee... I love parks at night.. so awesome. Great Report and pictures!

Sigh... poor Midway America..

Wait.. did you ask a stranger to take that picture for you? LOL

Its a good choice.. itd be weird to ride without spinning! But it works.. and its not like they worry about wait times I personally think the solution to this ride is easy... starts with an H.. ends with ORIZONS. Eric

The remodeled rooms at the contemporary are amazing! They make every other resort at Disney look really bad. Having worked at the Grand Floridian for a year, the rooms arent really anything to write home about. I could never sleep with that wallpaper My top 3 would be: 1. Poly 2. Wilderness Lodge 3. Caribbean Beach Flat screen TV New Contemporary Rooms

Aside from the awful operations getting people into the park, I really didn't notice too much BAD ride operations.. except for Drop Zone. Great photo's too! PKI has a really weird assortment of rides. They really need a B&M and an Intamin to round things out.. if they got them along with their two great wooden coasters (omitting SOB).. I'd be in line getting a season pass even tho Im 4 hours away!

I'll jump on the Hulk and Magnum bandwagon on this one. I think Magnum would be much better if they got new trains that didn't feel like you were sitting on bricks.

Riding the Beast at night would be amazing! I wish it was dark by 8 PM on Friday or we would have stayed to do that! Do they light it up at all? We were going to pay the extra $5 for the second day admission but I talked myself out of it. I want to hit up parks I havent been to yet this summer and a ticket for PKI would make me HAVE to go back there instead of somewhere else. I'm kind of bummed out about that now thinking about the Beast at night... weak. Is Vortex actually smooth? I remember wanting to die a few years ago after it... or maybe that was FOF with OTSR.. We were in the park from 10:30 to about 6:30.. so we probably walked right past each other a few times and didn't know it. If you saw someone wearing a Phoenix shirt from Knoebels that'd be me. That was Liz's camera in that pic.. she has a Sony.. so you're probably right. I have a Panasonic Lumix... both are great! But its more fun to use her camera on rides so she'll freak out. Eric

Great TR! I saw a video of the new Chocolate World ride.. looks awesome! I'm glad they finally changed it around a little. Cool ending too. Probably worth looking into moreso than shooting at cardboard mobiles.. I'm amazed about how ripped up Midway America is! It's going to be an interesting summer.. traffic flow over there will be awful. I wonder if they will be working on things during the day?! I'm still interested in seeing the plans for this thing.. until then.. I'm saying its a bad, boring, idea for a 100th anniversary... the glorified Duke's Lagoon from Dutch Wonderland. I'm just anti water rides though so it's good I'm not making decisions at Hershey. Now.. if they made Milk Chocolate Peppermint Patties.. I'd be in love. Eric "really critical of Hersheypark these days for some reason" Geiple

Well after many longs months of suffering through withdrawal, my friend and I decided to take the ever exciting drive from Pittsburgh to Cincinatti late Thursday night to hit up the park for its Opening Day on Friday. I've only been to PKI once, 6 years ago.. so I was looking forward to it. Anyways, we stayed at the Best Western right across from PKI, I def. recommend it if anyone is ever looking for a convenient and decently cheap place to crash before a PKI visit. We got to the park (after waiting for at least 20 minutes in a hugeeee line of cars) around 10:30. All I can say is.. THANK GOD we didn't have to get a season pass processed.. the line was HUGE.. ALL DAY. After waiting in line for about 20 minutes (thanks to this stupid B) we got our one day passes and happily proceeded to wait in a 15 minute line to go thru the metal detectors, and then we happily waited another 10 minutes in the line to actually get into the parks. Now.. I'm used to parks that check your bags, buy your tickets, and let you enter all in the same place.. not in three different steps.. it wouldn't have been THAT bad if it wasn't for dumb guests, but I will say the guy scanning tickets acted as if each ticket was an entirely new concept to him... Ok.. on to the rides! We were going to hit up Italian Job first but we ended up on the wrong side of it so we headed back and walked on FOF instead. Here's my short review of the day. FLIGHT OF FEAR- walk on Two thumbs up for the Lapbars.. and the ride was overall good. However, the lights were on! The ride sucks that way! ITALIAN JOB- 30 minutes My first IJ:ST ride.. It wasn't very impressive.. fun.. but not worth a long wait. The helix at the beginning was cool, and so was the direct hit from the water at the one scene.. but the pitch black tunnel was great. Overall I liked it, short.. but sweet. THE BEAST- 15 minutes (2nd row) Now.. 6 years ago I was BLOWN away by the Beast. This morning I was borderlined depressed when I found out how they neutered the poor guy. The trim on the first drop, after the first drop, and also in the shed thing all grabbed the train HARD... It was still a decent ride.. but read on.. ADVENTURE EXPRESS - walk on A great mine ride! And who can not love that anticlimatic ending! SON OF BEAST - closed Well, on Adventure Express we saw some cranes working on SOB.. so once again, I missed the credit. To be quite honest though.. I wasnt too sad. TOP GUN - 15 minutes A nice suspended.. but not a Big Bad Wolf.. desperately needs some attention. DROP ZONE - 30 minutes WOW.. I love Intamin drop towers.. Why doesnt Hersheypark have one of these yet?? Pure greatness. DELIRIUM - closed After riding MAXAIR last summer, I was sad to see Delirium testing, but never loading. I think I read on here that it did open up later on though. RACER BACKWARDS - 10 minutes Awesome!! And strangely smooth as a baby's bottom. RACER FORWARDS - 10 minutes Awful!! And strangely rougher than Mean Streak.. TOMB RAIDER - 30 minutes I heard mixed reviews about this ride.. I thought the effects would be better, but overall the theming was really great and the ride was pretty fun! Two thumbs up. Now.. I'm not sure if I missed anything, but we went back to ride the Beast and DAMN.. give this thing a few hours to warm up, ride in the front and the back a couple times and all of that worrying I had earlier about it being neutered was taken away! The trims still slowed it down, but there were some points that I thought we were going wayy too fast for the wood to handle! The ending helix is easily a Top 3 "coaster moment".. insanity! Great Great wooden coaster. We did a few other things but I'll shut up and get to the pictures! Pure terror and insanity! I love the Beast. At the top of the second lift, you look down a huge ramp.. not a drop.. a RAMP.. and you see this tiny hole.. and you know there is probably no way this is going to work.. and finally, a tribute to the Beast.. Here's the first drop.. Delirium, we just got to watch it swing.. Boooo Pollock, Warhol, and all strange artists have nothing on this deep and meaningful image. PKI is a Coke park. We stopped for ice cream and got creative.. here's our reflection. Racer! Backwards = smooth, Forwards = blood in urine We didnt ride Vortex, I rode it six years ago... paint job looks great though. Drop Zone.. people under me on the ground probably thought it was raining.. Once again I miss the SOB credit.. but I also dont have health insurance. This is one of those exclusive pictures. Finally we're in! After awful lines for parking, tickets, security, and admissions!

During Sopranos?! Come on!! I cant make that kind of decision.. Eric

At my college I used it for my Directed Field Experience (AKA Internship) and got 16 credits for going to FL and working at Disney! Of course that's rare. Worse comes to worse you can take some of the classes they have there (which are actually accredited classes.. there's like Speech Communication, some business ones.. etc). Aside from that, apparently Disney is having a hard time recruiting enough people lately.. so even if you're worried about not making it for some reason.. they'll hire anyone that shows interest, has the Disney look, and isn't an ass. Eric