YoshiFan

1. What is the best park visit you had in 2017? Hersheypark on 10/15, almost no lines 2. Have you ever traveled to a park with a specific ride in mind only for it to be closed all day? No 3. GCI or Gravity Group? Pick one. GCI 4. How many different parks did you visit in 2017? 10 5. How many times did you visit your home park in 2017? 11 (Dorney) 6. What was the first RMC you rode? Sadly none yet 7. Best view from the top of a lift? The lake near Nitro 8. What new-for-2018 roller coaster are you most anticipating? Pick one. Steel Vengeance 9. RMC or Intamin? You can only choose one. Intamin 10. What was your favorite new-to-you ride of 2017? Disneyland Railroad (not many choices for me this year) 11. Money is no object. You can travel to any park in the world right now by snapping your fingers. Where are you going? Tokyo Disneyland 12. Have you ever made out with someone in a queue line? No 13. What is the last coaster that changed your top 10? Ghostrider 14. Disney or Universal? Disney 15. When is the last time you witnessed someone puke at a park? 2016 at Great Adventure 16. How many new credits did you pick up in 2017? If you don't count, take your best guess... Just 1, Freedom Rider at iPlay America 17. You're at Magic Mountain. You have a one hour ERT session on ONE coaster of your choice. You choose... Twisted Colossus 18. Name a coaster or ride that you passionately dislike. Stinger 19. What is the most amount of money you've spent on a Fast Pass? $125 for All Season Fast Lane 20. Skyscreamers or Windseekers? Skyscreamers 21. What is your most recent B&M credit? Silver Bullet 22. Best adult beverage at a theme park? (under 21: whats your favorite beverage you can only get at a park?) LeFou's Brew 23. Most irritating coaster nickname/abbreviation? Can't think of anything 24. Butterbeer or Dole Whip? Dole Whip 25. Favorite steel coaster *under* 100 feet? sooperdooperlooper 26. What's the best bathroom at your home park? The ones by Stinger and Cedar Creek Flyers, they are usually empty 27. Nighttime ERT on Lightning Rod or all-you-can-eat Cinnamon Bread? You can only choose one. Lightning Rod 28. If it were in your power, what coaster would you relocate to Knoebels? Laser / Teststrecke 29. What is the last thing you remember eating in a theme park? Chicken Fingers at Hersheypark 30. Your favorite coaster got equipped with on board audio x Spotify. What's your hype track? Rollin' by Limp Bizkit 31. Name the most disappointing ride you took in 2017. Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage 32. Airtime hill or Zero G Roll? Airtime Hill 33. What is your favorite coaster/ride built before 1970? Comet (Hersheypark) 34. What's worse - splashed by malaria lake flume water or dripped on by chain lift grease? Water 35. Name an Intamin coaster on your bucketlist! Superman (SFNE) 36. You just won a 3 day trip with hotel and airfare included. The catch is you have to choose between Disneyworld or Cedar Point. Which do you choose and why? Cedar Point because I have only been there once and I'd rather ride Millennium Force over anything at Disney World. 37. Floater or Ejector? Floater 38. What was your worst park experience of 2017? Hersheypark on a Saturday in September. It was really crowded. 39. Name your favorite coaster under 41 feet tall. Woodstock Express (Kings Island) 40. End your post with an aerial shot of one of your top 5 coasters.

These are the merge points I remember Comet, ramp to the station sooperdooperlooper, bottom of the stairs Skyrush, bottom of stairs? Great Bear, right outside the station Trailblazer, exit with rows blocked off Storm Runner, bottom of the stairs Sidewinder, right outside the station Fahrenheit, either the top or bottom of the steps Wild Mouse, ramp to the station Lightning Racer, in the middle of the ramp to the station, maybe 15 feet from the loading area Wildcat, end of the switchbacks before the ramp

They changed it this past season and no longer have the rows blocked off. Now you can wait for any row you want except for Trailblazer.

With how crowded the park can get even during the spring and fall, this seems like a good option for someone visiting once a year or less who wants to get a lot of rides in. As a pass holder, I wouldn't bother with it since I try to only visit on days when lines are short. The only issue is with more people probably using the system, I think they need to control the merge points better and let less people in line past the merge points. I was at the park on a Sunday in October and although I didn't see anyone using Fast Track, if someone were to use it, it still would have been around a 25 minute wait because the line was all the way to the bottom of the stairs and 1 train was running and Fast Track would have saved maybe 5 minutes and would make it difficult to marathon the coaster. It would be better to leave the stairs empty and leave most of the line in the switchbacks so it's only a 3 - 4 train wait for Fast Track. At Comet, over multiple visits I noticed it depending on the person at the bottom of the ramp if they let the ramp fill up or tried to keep the ramp so Fast Track users could walk right into the station. Most let the ramp fill up. Wildcat is another bad one, the merge point is at the "30 minute wait from here" sign.

I remember going to the Philadelphia location when I was a kid. I can still picture some of the arcade with redemption games being on the 2nd level and video games on another level in a more open area and. I don't remember much of the other attractions probably because of my age at the time, around 6 or 7 years old. I went to my cousin's birthday party there and my school also had an 8th grade fall trip there. I remember they had a small tea cups ride and bumper cars and a really good indoor playground / soft play area since it had some challenging obstacles compared to similar setups.

Dorney avoids having to rename a ride. Now are they going to bet SFNE over the Super Bowl?

I'm still hoping they are going to add some weekdays (besides Good Friday) in between opening weekend and Easter weekend. 2 years ago they opened on the Wednesday and Thursday before Easter and it empty but crowds were still low. If not, I guess I'll stick to my usual plan of trying to get there Sunday of opening weekend since some people have school and work the next day (some schools in suburban Philadelphia have spring break the week of the 26th).

I find it interesting they made it a point to mention it had half the riders other coasters had. Even if the trains were going out full (of course this being Dorney, that rarely happens), 1 Stinger train holds less riders than Talon or Steel Force and both of those usually ran multiple trains plus Stinger seemed like it took longer to dispatch than other coasters. Not to mention all the down time Stinger had. And this is why I keep my Patriots gear tucked safely away once I leave New England. I made the mistake wearing it once out in public at an Oakland train station on the way to Great America. I wrongly thought it wouldn't matter much at Great Adventure since even though it's in the NY sports market area, they have some connections to Philadelphia sports like Iron Pigs (Phillies AAA affiliate) ads in the park in past years and with the Philadelphia area being one of the main markets for the park. I had an answer ready if anyone said anything about my Eagles sweatshirt on my final trip this season "11 and 1."

It's nice to see one of the teams I root for involved in one of these bets. Usually as a Philadelphia sports fan, I'm used to seeing other teams involved. One thing that surprised me was how many Steelers fans there are in the Allentown area and in the Scranton area. The Sears near me has no Eagles items and all Steelers even though Pittsburgh is close to 5 hours away compared to 2 hours to Philadelphia from Scranton and just over an hour from Allentown. One good thing about going to Dorney is at least I avoid negative comments when I wear Phillies and Eagles shirts, compared to Great Adventure where I have had some comments I can't repeat here said when I wear those same shirts.

It looks like March operating days might be added slowly. Now the calendar shows March 30th and 31st as 10:30 to 9.

I just think the March hours haven't been posted yet unless they changed opening day. From the newsletter sent on December 26th: "Holiday in the Park is Open Daily Through January 1 The holidays aren't over yet -- the lights are still twinkling, the cocoa is still piping hot, and the coasters are still racing! Holiday in the Park is open every day through January​ 1, including New Year's Eve until 9 p.​m. and New Year's Day. Celebrate the last week of 2017 with a funnel cake and kick off 2018 with a plunge down Nitro. We'll then temporarily close until March​ 24 to prepare for an amazing 2018 season. " The earliest opening day has been is around March 20th to 23rd. It depends when Easter is, in 2014 the park didn't open until April 12th.

It reminds me of the Frequent Faller coaster that was supposed to be added to Hersheypark in 2005.

The good thing is that there are a lot of slides and with some of the slide complexes, they platforms are built over each other and they fit a lot of slides in a small space. Only counting Speed Slides as 1 slide and Aqua Racer as 1 slide and no kids slides, there are 22 different slides. With 2 wave pools, 2 lazy rivers, 1 family play area and 4 kids areas (2 regular and 2 really small areas), they have more than some stand alone water parks.

Aren't those slides similar to the drop box slides at Snake Pit? Although that didn't stop them from adding the 2 Boa Blaster slides that are almost identical to the red and white slides at Patriot's Plunge. I won't miss the Speed Slides if they leave and usually only went to those slides once or twice a season. If pathways are changed, I wonder if they will fix the entrance to Wildwater Rapids. It seems like a lot of people can't find the entrance to it since it is kind of hidden away and they are my go to slides when the water park is crowded since they rarely have more than a 10 minute wait.

Saturday March 24th (from Great Adventure History http://www.greatadventurehistory.com/Forums/index.php?/topic/5422-2018-season-begins-march-24th/ )

Not in order Nitro El Toro Bizarro Batman The Ride Talon Lightning Racer Storm Runner Fahrenheit Great Bear Comet

Same answer again for me although I guess technically it was yesterday. It was also my final coaster ride for the season unless the forecast changes for next week.

I hope they open them next year and don't leave them SBNO. Even with Stinger open most times I went to the flyers, the ride operator was just waiting around for any riders to show up. Even though they run very slow and have a short cycle, I rarely skip them when I am at the park.

10 years ago when Renegade was added, there was a rumor that Cedar Fair bought or had a deal for 3 GCI coasters and Dorney was going to get the 2nd one in 2008 until Cedar Fair decided to send Possessed to the park instead and then all the used rides started being added and that Dorney's planned GCI went to Worlds of Fun. I don't know how true any of that is though.

I'm really glad to see Stinger removed. I was really disappointed to see it added to the park in the first place and with problem after problem, especially the incident on opening day in 2014, I had no interest in riding the coaster ever again (except once last year to see if I still disliked the coaster).

I think you are right. I was there almost every week in 2015 and other than 1 Saturday in December when it was 70 degrees, crowds did seem lower on those trips to the park compared to last year and from watching wait times, this year seems to have hardly any empty days. As much as I would have liked to have been able to stay at Nitro and re-ride multiple times, I'll take the still reasonable wait times and see Holiday in the Park successful and can't imagine having to go back to a 5 month offseason.

I was at the park for around 5 hours yesterday and there was a good amount of people there for a Sunday. The Skyway had over a half full queue only a couple of hours after park opening. Nitro got up to around a 30 minute wait around 5:00 although that was probably because it had reopened after a breakdown. I walked onto the front row after it reopened and by the time I walked around for a 2nd ride, it became a 20 minute wait that fast and more and more people kept getting in line. For the crowds, the wait time for food wasn't that bad. I waited around 5 minutes for dinner at the Main Street Pub.

Agreed, those weak ride lineups might work at a park like Kings Island where that is the only park in the area open but not in this part of the country where there are so many parks open. Having no indoor rides probably doesn't help either.

sooperdooperlooper at Hersheypark today.

Skull Mountain at Great Adventure last week.