Crazy Levi

Going to be in the area on Friday/Saturday. The weather is supposed to be perfect. Planning on going to Cedar one or both nights (would get there on Friday at 6pm, and Saturday probably around 5). In the past, how have the Halloween crowds been? My guess is not too bad on Friday and possibly a complete madhouse on Saturday based on my experiences elsewhere. Only interested in the rides, will be skipping all the Halloween stuff. Planning on probably purchasing a fast lane pass on Saturday. Any info on how it's been in the past is appreciated - again mostly curious about ride lines and such, couldn't care less about the mazes. Thanks!

Ok, thanks to a few rides on El Toro today, I can reveal the true reasons for the Skyrush safety bar woes. Gather 'round at my feet. The El Toro bar forms a fairly small U, and basically fasten you in by your lap - your lower torso.. It's fairly comfortable and you can get some good pull air. Strong ejector air forces you in by your lower torso (lap and gut), which is fairly durable. These are good bars, but an obvious trade off is that fatter riders cannot fit in, or if they do, are painfully stapled in and can't breathe. I saw 2 larger guests doing the walk of shame today, as El Toro couldn't launch with their bar raised to their needed level. I believe Skyrush was designed to accommodate larger riders. But instead of being stapled by your lap and lower stomach (your center of gravity), you are being stapled in by your thighs (lower center of gravity). As a result, you are being thrown around more by your thighs, and strong ejector air causes more force to be spread over less area on your body - your thighs only instead of your torso. This flies in the face of 80 or so years of coaster design, where the focus of security has always been the torso, and on spreading contact area around more space. In order to fit in more girth, they have created a painful security system for everyone on this new ride.

This man is correct. I don't know the trip is planned, but if it's anywhere near rush hour you'll run into an hour minimum of traffic, and it can get much worse than that. Probably better off spending the day at Busch and Kings Dominion, and heading toward PA later at night.

I share your pain. My faith in America has been shaken ever since I stumbled upon this thread and saw all the whining about my beloved Hershey Park Wildcat. It's an amazing engineering feat of a ride...a wild, out of control woodie that harkens back to classics we'll never see again like the CI Tornado or the PLayland Aeroplane...and pussy after pussy keeps saying it's "too rough" and "turns innards into mush." What would the greatest of all Americans - the greatest generation, our WWII vets - think about such unbridled girly-ism? We don't deserve them, the greatest amongst us in our history, and surely, we don't deserve the Wildcat. Ben Franklin weeps.

Sure, why not? And now you're complaining about people complaining about people complaining about the complainers? Someone else - not a complainer or a complainer complainer but a complainer defender - mentioned that this would be much better with B&M clamshells. While those restraints are the best ever made for steel rollercoasters, they wouldn't work on this ride. I really think it would be chucking back seat riders in that case. What makes those things wonderful is you can give yourself a couple inches of room, fly all over the place, and still feel safe. On ThighKrush, you have two choices: Pain, or certain death. It's a thrill ride, baby!

All I see here is a ton of people whining about the whiners. Excruciating thigh pain ain't for everybody, but clearly there's a healthy contingent here who are into it so I'm sure ThighKrush has a rosy future at Hershey. Anyhow, you really should ride the ThighKrush before you give your opinion on it. If this forum is like every other one on the internet, I'm sure that point is made about 50 times a day but doesn't stop the ignorant from stating their case. As a funny aside, *I* can't believe how much whining I see in this thread about the Wildcat. One of my favorite woodies and I don't consider it rough at all - a little wild yes, but not "rough" or "painful", but the "wimps" are out in force around here talking about how much that thing beats you up. Hey, not everybody is as tough as me I guess, but for those folks I guess the leisurely Comet is more their speed.

So if the ride OPS stop stapling, which is probably unnecessary, then it may fix the entire issue. The stapling IS needed, at least in the back. If I had the restraints as loose in the back seat as I usually do on Apollo's Chariot, I really feel like I would have been sucked out. Even stapled, it felt like I was a goner. That's pretty cool. In the front, I think you'd be fine with a little room. They'd never even want to attempt to train ops to load up in that fashion, so it's gonna be all stapled, all the time. The restraint design is to be blame. If enough people whine about it maybe they'll be forced to change it - like the alterations to 305.

On this matter we will agree to disagree. I am not the only one with this complaint, heard plenty of people saying the same thing in the Hollow. I also noticed the front to be a little rougher (vibrations and shaking). Did you notice that at all? I liked the ride and I'll ride it again, but I'll be staying in the back from now on.

Post invalidated, better luck next time. This is a matter of opinion. I don't understand how you can call it airtime when you are completely stapled in and enduring stinging pain on your quads. Prefer the B&Ms where you are actually allowed to leave your seat.

I'd like to offer up my review of ThighKrush, the new coaster at HP. Rode this one twice, once in the front (second row), once in the back (last row). It's a good ride that's really intense, especially for something at Hershey. Sadly, the restraints are terrible. The ride doesn't really have "airtime," as at the the crest of every hill (in the front), you are greeted with torturous thigh-killing. The back is better, especially the first drop where you really feel like you'll fly out. I mean, it REALLY felt like I was going to fly out, so people will love that. Far less painful ride in the back as well. This ride would be far better if it had Intimidator 305-style restraints and you could just enjoy the intensity of it without the sharp pain your quads. Shame really as it's a pretty neat ride otherwise. Leaving the ride, you could overhear plenty of people making comments of this nature. The "ride the wing" stuff is pretty much a gimmick - it's more or less the same style of seating that B&M hypers have offered for well over a decade, where the outside seats hang over the track. The ride is so fast and so short that the view of any sort is kind of an afterthought anyway. Some more notes about my visit Monday- Apparently, the coaster was out of commission early Sunday night due to thunderstorms. On Monday, it was out from about 11am till the early afternoon. This is info from some park guests. One park guest. So believe it, or not. When I got there, at 5pm, the Skyrush - and the entire Comet Hollow plus Great Bear - was closed due to inclement packyderm. Seems Ringling Bros., who were in town at the nearby Giant Center, were closing up shop and getting out of dodge. This, naturally, brought on a march of the elephants through the hollow. Or the whole park, I have no idea. So, long story short, we got in line outside of the hollow, and about 10 minutes later the elephants and I can only imagine some large piles of shit were announced to be gone. They opened the gates, and about 15 minutes later, I was on the Skyrush, last row. For a reride, there was a 25 minute wait. It was all very tolerable. At the end of the night -8pm. - there was a 15 minute wait in the now closed off queue, but the ride was down. They were testing trains and then stopped. I have no idea if the people in line at closing time ever got their rides on the Skyrush, or how long the ride had been down at that point. By the way, a full queue on the SKyrush I'll estimate at 60 minutes max. Every full wraparound line in the queue takes about 5 minutes to traverse. The line moves quickly and the Queue isn't huge. If it ever overflows the queue and goes down to the fountains, you'll be looking at a really long line. The front row line spends very little time in the station, so I think you can get a good guess on the amount of cycles you'll have to wait by counting people on the stairs in the front row line and adding a cycle or two. I would not recommend waiting as the front ride is PAINFUL with the thigh-crunchers, and if you really need to be that miserable you can get a 2nd row ride for maybe an extra cycle over a middle row. Sooper Dooper Looper was running it's new ugly-ass orange trains. Only one, which contributed to a small line for the Looper, which I've never seen. It was down to the bottom of the stairs. Maybe 10 or 15 minutes for the Looper but that ride has never been more than a walk-on or one- cycle for the front for me. I suppose the new trains and paint job on the station, along with more people being brought down there for the Skyrush contributed to it. I didn't notice any significant difference in the ride itself, which remains an enjoyable vintage curio. The new trains remain roomy and the lap bar remains surprisingly unobtrusive on an inverting coaster. Would be great if you could have something like this on the LochNess monster. Any arrow coaster would benefit from it actually, as the headbanging would be eliminated. Wouldn't want to be stuck upside down like that though, like what happened on the demon 15 years ago. The line at the comet at 6:30pm after our second ride on the Skyrush was very short - one cycle. I wonder if the days or ridiculously long rides on the Comet are over - will the Skyrush and new-looking Looper draw some of the mob away from the Comet? We shall see. Rides were pretty much walk-ons everywhere else, but I was pretty sure Monday night Memorial Day wouldn't be too crowded and I suppose I was right. Lighting Racer was running great, and so was the Wildcat - a little rough yeah but I don't understand why people think this thing is so brutal. One more note - I guess in preparation for HP's new "fast lane" option - which I did not see advertised anywhere in the park - the center two loading gates for every ride I saw besides ThighKrush (Looper and the three woodies) were chained off with a "closed" sign. If no fast laners or disabled people showed up - which was the case the entire night - the ride ops would try to fill in the empty rows by having guests enter through a different gate. Seems like a pretty stupid and clumsy way to do the Fast Lane to me, if that is indeed what was going on here. Will slow down the loading process for everybody, and will also funnel people towards the back and front rows I think. HP is not a park where I've EVER felt a Fast Lane is needed anyway.