KarlyP

I was going to ask if you marked your little one's first ride on SDL with the obligatory "I survived..." shirt But I see in your pics that she's wearing one. Those shirts were always a rite of passage for my extended family. Especially when it was someone's first looped coaster.

Mostly a laugher. But I've been known to throw out a few curse words on drops, especially if I've never been on the ride before.

As with the opening of Skyrush, I held out hope that the line would shrink a bit due to Laff Trakk opening. I know, I was fooling myself.

^ I can confirm this. <------female, and obviously not a boy scout. I used a link on a Chester County Boy Scout site a few years back. I think they just want to get people through the gates as fast as they can, especially at opening. A family friend had just turned 51 and used a senior ticket she got through the Hershey website. But I don't think it would have worked if she bought it at the park.

Sorry to hear that - I rode in the back seat (far left seat) and 2nd seat (2nd from left) and had really awesome rides on both. I think that I had Alpengeist ranked 4th or 5th of the inverts that I had ridden, but it was just running insanely smooth and fast on Monday. I think that it may have bumped up a couple of notches in my rankings - maybe even over Raptor and Banshee. I've had a mix of good and bad rides on Alpengeist, on the same day. I rode twice before noon and they both were smooth-ish rides. There was some shaking but not as much as I experienced when I rode again later on that afternoon. I couldn't believe it was the same ride I rode earlier in the day. Though I have read about that happening to people, I just didn't expect it to be so drastic.

I was there on the 8th and my longest wait was about 15-20 minutes for Verbolten and around 15 for Loch Ness Monster. Everything else I only waited a car or two. I got multiple rides on everything but we didn't go to any of the shows. Last Monday was my first time there and I was really impressed with the whole experience. I hope you guys have a really good time!

Twisted Colossus A 4D, any one will do El Toro TTD - I've been on Kingda Ka, but would love to do this one Whole park-wise is SFMM & CP A B&M dive coaster was on the list, but I crossed that one off this week.

Woodstock Express at Kings Dominion

Today they weren't using the back row on the trains. I'm guessing it was due to the magnet issue mentioned earlier in this thread. Anyway, they must have been having a couple problems today. I got to the park around 10:20 and headed straight for Volcano. An employee was standing at the entrance and telling people they didn't know when it would be running. They finally started putting people on around 11:30 and luckily I was close by when I saw feet dangling from a car on it. I only waited for less than 10 minutes to get on but there was quite a line by the time I got off. I went back a little later in the afternoon to see how long the line was and as I got closer I noticed the empty trains running and an employee at the entrance. So I rode Avalanche instead and by the time I got off that, Volcano was running again. Luck was with me again, I only waited about 15 minutes this time. My two rides on Volcano were my longest waits today. Everything else was practically a walk on. Heck, I didn't even leave the station on my last 2 rides on Dominator. I unbuckled (and asked if I could stay on) and switched to a row that nobody was waiting for. The 2 trains they were running were only about 1/4 to 1/3 full each time out of the station. Oh yeah, my mom laughed at me because I rode Woodstock Express.

...you extend company-paid travel by a day or two to visit a park.

If it's not something you're comfortable with you can just close your eyes during the first turn and on the way up the first hill. Then you'll never even know it happened. I like that idea. I'll keep that in mind. Even though I'm a bit scared of the blacking out aspect, I am determined to ride it.

That's good to hear. I think I've got myself over being scared of blacking out on it, so I'll be a little sad if it's not open. I've made the mistake of reading youtube comments for I305. I'm a little embarrassed about worried about this ride. I've never had a black-out (or grey-out), so it's freaking me out a bit. Now hopefully the weather forecast will change for June 9.

Trailblazer at Hershey

Hi everyone. I'm Karla and from SE PA. I'm dead center in between Hershey and Dorney. I've been going to Hershey for as long as I can remember and prefer it over Dorney. Comet was my first followed by the Sooper Dooper Looper the next year. I'll date myself and say those first rides happened back when Hershey had only those two and the Trailblazer for coasters and it was years before any other ones were added. Currently, I'm a sucker for floorless and Fahrenheit. I signed up here a few weeks ago, but I'm horribly shy and it takes me awhile to start posting. I actually came across these forums when I googled something like "go to theme parks alone" to see if I was the only one who does stuff like that. (I'm happy to see that I'm not.) I've traveled for work and planned weekends around parks. But Those times I had the "I'm in the area for work, I thought I'd ride some rides" excuse. I've been to my 2 local parks alone, but never traveled for the sole purpose of going to a park solo. Which is something that I'm in the process of doing right now. The plan so far is a day at Kings Dominion and I'm debating throwing in a day at Busch Gardens since I'll be relatively close. I'm going to stop right there, because I can go on and on. No one I know is that excited about amusement parks as I am, so it's really nice to find people that I can talk to about stuff like this.