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Three people can stand in the regular line for Fahrenheit together. When you get to the station, they'll take someone from the single rider line to fill in the other spot to make it even. No big deal. Is Fahrenheit worth it? Only you can answer that. How far are you traveling? How easy would it be for you to come back at another time? Are you a credit ho? I was just at the park this past Sunday. Here's how the lines were: LR and Wildcat-- one or two train waits late morning. Wild Mouse-- short wait. Line was two queue lengths. Sidewinder, Trailblazer, and Soaker-- didn't bother checking. SR- 15-20 minute wait midafternoon. Much of the queue wasn't even used. GB- around a 45 minute wait mid afternoon. Shorter than that later on. SDL- line was a few steps down from the station. Comet- 3 queue lines at the bottom. Mostly due to terribly slow loading. (trains routinely sat in the break run till the next one was loaded.) F-heit- longest line. Took maybe an hour or so. But trains are dispatched regularly.

Not a ride ON the moon, but a trip TO the moon from Luna Park at Coney Island.

Great bear's loading used to be much quicker. It's only in the past few years that it's gotten so slow. They started double and even triple checking restraints. I don't know if that's a directive from the park, B&M or who. But whatever it is, it has slowed the dispatch times considerably.

I overheard this conversation while waiting in line for Phoenix this past Saturday night. Guy 1: So is this ride fast? Guy 2: Well, there's no magnetics involved, it runs totally on momentum. Me thinking: I guess we're backward here in PA. We don't have any of them launched woodies. LOL

DBru, if you already have your reservations made @ the Hershey Lodge, why don't you contact them directly and find out what they charge for tickets, how often the shuttles run, etc? The Hershey website claims the people staying in the resorts get the best deals on tickets.

DBru, go to the Hershey website. http://www.hersheypa.com/ then click on the tab that says "Hershey Resorts Advantage." That should give you answers to some of your questions about staying at the Lodge.

According to the PCN website, all the shows about amusement parks were produced in 2002, so they aren't the most current.

DBru, I attended at seminar once at the Hershey Lodge. It's a pretty nice looking place. That's cool that you're able to get transportation included too. Any ideas what non-park things you're going to do?

Aqua top and green shoes--- sounds a lot like Hydra.

No matter which park you go to, DBru, you better thank your grandmother for what's going to be an excellent trip. She sounds like a great lady!

DBru, you're so full of questions! LOL. Find out for yourself whether you like Lightning or Thunder better. You'll be able to ride both sides without much of a wait for either train. If you want a shortcut from Storm Runner to Roller Soaker, try this. When you exit SR, go straight ahead as if you're going under the lift of Sidewinder (not along the launch for SR). You'll cross the train tracks and come to a T. If you go to the right, that will take you behind the Rapids ride and bring you right out to Roller Soaker. If you go left at the T, that isn't a bad way either. You'll pass part of the Rapids and come out right in front of Fahrenheit. Make a right onto the main part of the midway and soon you'll come to the entrance of the Boardwalk. Walk through the Boardwalk and soon you'll come to the Soaker.

http://www.hersheypa.com/ The website is always a good reference. There's an antique auto museum nearby, but I don't know if they'll be open Sunday evening. There's the Hollywood Casino and Penn National Racetrack, but that's probably more for your parents than you.

^ Riders first noticed something was amiss when they realized their heads weren't banging off the restraints.

Great TR, frissbeking. That's pretty cool to be able to decide on the spur of the moment to head toward another park like you did with Hershey. Once you figure out how to get good night shots, I'd welcome any tips. BTW, there is a single rider line for F-heit. Its entrance is just to the left of the regular entrance.

That's probably part of the deal though. We'll (Pepsico) give you a great price on the product if you give us some blah blah throughout the park. Don't forget they mention Pepsi on every recycling bin as well. Now how many noticed the ashtray on the fascination table? LOL-- or is that just a change holder? Uh-huh.

IMO, it's because of the redundant restraints-- seat divider, seat belt and buzz bar. On at least 90% of the rides, someone gets in and pulls down the bar without fastening the belt, so the ops have to release the bars. Plus it's a major pain trying to find the seat belt that's usually tucked under the seat divider. Most people end up sitting on them so they have to reach underneath themselves to pull the belts up. All this takes time. They should realize that by the time most of us fat-ass Americans get wedged into those seats, we ain't falling out. Heck, we have enough problems trying to get out of the seats once we get back to the station.

Well, Maverick is a much longer coaster (4400 to 2700 feet I believe), plus it has the launch and tunnel, which add bucks to the cost. knowit, 3 rides? that's no fair! Got a kick out of the Ice Breakers line too. Nice product tie-in. They could hand out Peppermint Patties too-- oh wait, wrong attraction!

I bought my first overcoat from their outlet in Reading close to 20 years ago. I think it was even American made. Now that's what we need on this site-- factory outlet credit whores.

I counted 1 defunct T-- a Shockwave from KD, (2) SBNO T's-- a Great Bear and 1 Knoebels that are probably too worn to wear anymore. I also have 9 active T's and 2 sweatshirts. Dorney-- (1) featuring the 4 thrill rides from a few years back (SF, TH, Dominator and Hercules) I keep it for the history only. Hershey-- (1) 100th anniversary featuring a sepia photo of LR Knoebels-- (4) a plain navy with a raised outline of the letters, an aerial photo of the Twister layout, a generic one in a cool grey-tan color, and a red Flying Turns one. Also a PPP sweatshirt from a few years back and a maroon "Knoebels Lumber Co." sweatshirt showing Phoenix and Twister. Idlewild-- (1) generic name and founding date T in a nice rust color. I use it a lot under other shirts. Kennywood-- (1) a red T with an old poster featuring Thunderbolt as a "record breaking" coaster. Disney-- (1) a black T featuring "Disney Villains." I guess I was sick and tired of seeing all the princesses in the parks when I bought that one. I figure shirts are one park souvenir I could actually get some use out of, unlike snowglobes or other knick knacks. And let's save Christmas ornaments for another thread. Aaaaargh! How could I forget my "I survived the Cyclone" T-shirt I bought at Williams Grove for all of $6?

Enter... walk, walk, walk... turn right... walk, walk,walk... turn 180 to the left... walk, walk, walk... turn 180 to the right... repeat 112 times. Actually... you enter the queue just downhill of the station, there are a few lines there we got to bypass, then you turn right like you're heading toward Wildcat catering into a series of queues. Here, it's like you're in the "infield" of the ride. Much of it is covered by netting, but there are some great views of the ride. Unfortunately, because of the netting the photo ops probably aren't so great. In some locations you could literally look up at trains coming down the first drop. Also great views in several places of the second corkscrew and first overbank turn. Once you get out of there, there are a whole series of queues behind the station running perpendicular to the midway. The one good thing there is because the station and lift aren't parallel, each row gets progressively shorter. After the last queue, you make a left and go up the stairs to the platform. The station is as BB described it, plus there are storage cubbies on the exit side just like at Storm Runner. Exit is via a stairway at the front of the station, and the ride pic screen is just beyond where the exit dumps you back on the midway (below the station). I didn't notice, but I suppose there's an elevator leading to the platform as well. The single rider line enters just to the left of the regular line. It basically runs along the outside of the station to an L-shaped stairway that leads to the platform. Much shorter than the regular queue obviously.

^ Hah! I'm the jealous one here seeing your great pics and the ones Nate and Bill posted. Mine are still in the camera-- along with a bunch from hockey games and Christmas. (you think that's bad? I still have an inoperable 35mm with a half used film in it from 19-something or other) I hope they look good on something other than the viewfinder. I suppose I could say, "excuse the blurriness but I was going through withdrawal that day."

For individual rides, I'll go with Phoenix and add Twister. Those are the only two coasters I've been on where you're ready to dispatch and are only waiting for the train ahead of you to clear the block. Another thing I'll give Knoebels credit for is long cycles on flats. None of this three times around and the ride's over like you get at so many other parks.

Very nice TR. It was almost like I was there. Oh wait, I was, at least for the first part of it. (So how was the shopping anyway?-- Thank heavens for PA and its no sales tax on clothing, eh?) It was nice meeting you and your mom on Saturday. Folks, not only does Nat write well, she's witty in person too. Although I kept ending up on separate trains from the rest of our small group. Those teenage girls absolutely refused to go ahead of me in line on Wildcat. What was up with that? Even though your dream spoiled our chance for ERT, it was nice meeting everyone and chatting with Jason, Martin, and Gary. Of course, it wasn't till later in the day I thought I could have asked whether HP would ever build, or consider building a hyper. I also chuckled when Jason said he liked my elongated screen name (that I use on another site). To think it may have won me brownie points with the Nantimi org. So it looks like 4 of the N-11 got to ride Fahrenheit on Saturday, of the 7 who were there. With one person unaccounted for-- I mean I haven't seen a report from.

One interesting thing about watching them retrieve the valleyed train on Fahrenheit on Saturday was hearing all the comments from the GP passing by seeing the stalled train and the crew on the crane. The best comments came when the train was fully inverted in the cobra. GP guy: "They just did that for hype to get more people to ride it." (yeah, they could just make a train stop anywhere at anytime.) GP gal: "Omigod! They just built that ride and now nobody's going to want to ride it. (Check back around 4:00 and see all the people who DON'T want to ride it.) A woman came over to me asking whether there were people in the train. I replied "No, they fell out hours ago." In all fairness, people say stupid things about all different sorts of things. I manage an engineering/surveying office. A few weeks ago, I received the following phone call: Man: "If I read you my deed, could you tell me whether my neighbor is encroaching on my property?"

Couple of things responding to various posts... First, who knows when the decision was made to actually open the ride? What if they put a thousand people in the queue only to have the ride valley again-- or decide they weren't going to open it? I don't know what guarantee there would be that a line formed outside the normal queue would stay orderly and not interfere with traffic on the midway or any other attraction. When people were stacked up the way they were in front of the ride, there was no way they were going to get into the cattle chutes in an orderly manner. Besides, if some people decided to push and shove people out of the way, it's because they're inconsiderate idiots. That's not Hershey's problem. Give HP a break! Do you think they wanted the ride opening to be delayed? They could have just as easily said, go home and come back tomorrow; we're not even going to try to open this today. And they're under no obligation to give anybody any freebies. There's 10 other coasters there for you to ride, plus a ton of other attractions. As far as rides being removed-- it's well known that the Conestoga Wagon and Giant Wheel were maintenance headaches. In the case of the wheel, many replacement parts weren't even being manufactured anymore. So how can you expect those rides to stay open? I definitely prefer Howler to the 3-D theatre. Yes, Hershey has gotten more crowded in the past few years. As long as they are exceeding whatever legal capacity they're allowed, I wouldn't expect them to start turning people away. I'd like to see them continue to expand out into the parking lot/golf course areas, but I have no idea what their plans are. If attendance hadn't increased the way it did over the past 10 years, do you think they would have even considered installing rides like Stormrunner and Fahrenheit? Now there are a number of things that can be improved. A lot of people left the regular line to get in the single rider line when they noticed it was short. I didn't even notice it existed when we first got into line. The on-ride pic is totally off. The stairway to the platform is clogged with people waiting for the first seat (think Talon). I think that led to some delays in dispatch because people who didn't care where they sat were held back on the stairs-- so it took time to get them onto the platform. There aren't individual seat queues on the platform other than first row. I'm sure given time, Hershey will work all these kinks out. To summarize-- s*** happens! We don't live in a perfect world, and when stuff doesn't go according to plan, don't take it personally. No, I didn't get the 15 minutes of ERT before the park opened as was originally planned (I won't even say promised). I did get to ride the coaster 9 hours later than scheduled and after waiting in line for 2 hours. So what? In the big scheme of things, there are a lot of people who have a lot worse things to deal with than what happened Saturday.