C.O.

It was down for the entire 2020 season and hasn't opened yet this season - I've only visited once but my understanding was that they had a safety incident that caused the ride to shutdown, but I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong. They had trains on the tracks with water dummies so hopefully it opens again soon, it was a huge bummer to miss it!

It's clearly going to Six Flags St. Louis, I don't know what's "crackpot" about that prediction /s

Not only could SFSTL boast having 3 wooden coasters, but they could have 2 Boomerangs too! In all seriousness, it doesn't seem to really fill a lot of holes in the lineup given that the park already has an invert and a boomerang, and all I've heard about it is that it's a fairly rough experience. I don't think it makes a ton of sense to move it to STL, especially since the smaller parks in the chain could probably benefit from it more.

Hi all! My friend and I made our first ever visit to Hersheypark this Saturday and had a blast. Thanks so much to everyone that gave us advice on how to make the most of our day - we rope dropped Fahrenheit and got in 2 walk-on rides and managed to get the Laff Track credit before the lines got longer than 15 min. The park was definitely very busy, and most of the major rides got up to a 1-2 hour wait during the day per the app, although it seemed like the app was most overestimating wait times. A couple bits of news for folks: - Lightning Racer (Left) was open and ran pretty well for a 20+ y/o GCI! The right side had its train on the track but it was covered in tarp. - Storm Runner didn't open or test at all on Saturday, but trains are on the tracks with water dummies. Super bummed we missed this, but definitely gives us reason to come back!

Thanks so much for the help, everyone! We've got everything booked for Saturday (and I need Sunday to do school work) so we won't be able to take advantage of the preview days, but it sounds like we'll be rushing back to Fahrenheit and Laff Trak first before hitting everything else. If we see Skyrush/Candymonium with really short lines we'll head there early too. Looking forward to my first visit and I'll report back on how crowds are!

Hi folks! A friend and I are looking to drive up from DC this Saturday to make our first ever trip to Hersheypark! We're trying to take advantage of the April operating hours while the weather isn't blisteringly hot and the crowds aren't too bad, but I know the park is always busy all year so I was hoping to get some advice for a first-time visitor. 1) Should we get the Fast Track? It's $100 for the unlimited this Saturday, and while that's pretty steep to me, it might be worth it if I should expect every line to be at least an hour long all day. 2) Does the park tend to empty out around dinnertime? My friend and I have a hotel room booked for Saturday night so we plan to stay until park close - it would make the Fast Track decision a lot easier if we knew we could take our time making a lap around the park during the day and lap our favorites at night. 3) What's the best plan of attack for park opening? I saw some people recommend starting with Fahrenheit and/or Candymonium above, but would love a first 3-4 coaster plan of attack from people who know the park really well. 4) Other than the coasters, are there any must-do experiences/flats/desserts around the park a first-time visitor should definitely do? Thanks in advance for the advice, y'all!

Quick TR from my first visit to the park: A friend and I made the drive up from DC to visit Great Adventure for the first time this Friday! It was overcast and in the 50s for most of the day, and some light rain in the early afternoon seemed to keep most of the crowds away. There were no lines for most of the day except from 1-4pm, but after the rain the park pretty much emptied out. The park was definitely understaffed, with all of the coasters operating with 3-4 ride ops - even then, Superman didn't open until around 5pm and the park never opened Bizarro due to staffing (per some of the park staff we talked to throughout the day). Definitely a bummer that we missed the Bizarro credit, but we had a great time otherwise! El Toro absolutely blew my mind - I was really concerned that there was no way it could possibly live up to the hype, but it was running well and I was surprised how smooth it was. The ejector airtime was insane on a cold April day, and I cannot imagine how insane it is at the end of a hot summer day. Overall, we had a great time and got super lucky to get a nearly empty park. Thanks to everyone who gave us advice on when to visit, and we'll be back this fall to ride Jersey Devil Coaster!

This is great news, thanks for sharing! Looks like I'll be making my first trip to the park on Friday.

Thanks! Was looking at visiting this Friday - we'll play it by ear but I've never been and it's a bit of a hike for me, so I might wait until it's confirmed to be open for the year.

I just checked the website and they have El Toro listed as temporarily closed. Is it normally closed earlier in the season because of colder weather or do we think it's a maintenance/staffing issue?

Thanks all for your help! We're going to avoid this group and head up to the park on Friday.

Hey all! Was planning to swing up to the park from DC this week (either Tuesday or Friday) for the first time. Does anyone have a sense of how busy the park will be or how good early season ride operations are at the park?

Hi all! I'm working in Kentucky through the end of the month and I'm looking at going to Kentucky Kingdom on opening day. I've never been to the park before, so I was curious if anyone had thoughts on how bad the crowds might be and how well their operations will be (especially on the coasters) with social distancing restrictions cutting down ride capacity.

Thank you!

I'm a DC college student looking to take a trip down to KD soon, maybe tomorrow. I've never been before and I don't have a season pass - that combined with a ZipCar rental can make the trip there a little pricey for me. I'd like to be able to ride all the coasters in a day when I go, will it be possible to do that on a Sunday?

Must've gotten deleted! I had this problem when posting - every time I saved a draft and left the page a part of my draft was deleted. I normally like spinning coasters but I ended up riding alone in my car, so I was violently thrown from one end of the seat to the other! Also the seatbelt that goes under the lapbar was jammed, so I very sketchily was told just to slip underneath it...

Hi all! I used to have an account on TPR way back in middle school, but I hadn't touched it in years and decided to make a new account. I'm originally from St. Louis, but now I'm a college student in DC. I had the chance to visit Six Flags America for the first time today and had a really enjoyable afternoon. The park was nearly empty (one of the ride attendants mentioned having only ~3,000 guests in the park today) except for the handful of middle schools taking end of the year trips, so nearly everything was a walk-on aside from Superman and Joker's Jinx. The biggest downside of the day was multiple coasters running one train operations, which created lines for Superman and Joker's Junx. I also missed out on Batwing, which the website lists as temporarily closed. Anyone know if this is a maintenance issue or if they're just waiting until the summer to open it? I started the day at a morning job training that wrapped up earlier than expected. Since we finished around 12:30, I decided to finally get out to Six Flags America for the first time. I just bought my Season Pass for Six Flags St. Louis while I was home for less than the price of a day ticket at Six Flags America, so my only cost was to take the Metro out to Largo Town Center and then get an Uber to and from the park. All in, the whole trip cost me just $30! I arrived at the park just before 2pm and decided to take a lap of the whole park, leaving Superman: RoS for last so it could be my 70th credit. Mind Eraser (4/10): This was my first SLC; maybe I expected worse because of the model's reputation, but I actually didn't think it was too bad. Definitely not worth riding again, but I didn't think the head banging was too painful. Walked right onto the train, which dispatched with only 6 people. Roar (2/10): Owwwww. I didn't have high expectations for a 20-something year old GCI at a Six Flags, but this hurt. Sat near the front and still left in pain. Got the credit though! Firebird (7/10): This was fun! Firebird was my first B&M floorless ride and I thought it was pretty enjoyable. It sounds like it's much, much better than Apocalypse was. Trains were comfortable and the course was fairly smooth given the actual age of the ride. There's a bit of headbanging on the transitions to watch out for but it's not bad. I rode in the 1st, 3rd, and 4th rows - naturally, I enjoyed the first row the most. There's really nothing like seeing the track directly below your feet, it's a really odd experience! Joker's Jinx (7/10): I've wanted to ride one of these Premier "Spaghetti Bowl" coasters for a while and I'm glad I finally got the chance. The launch is fun but nothing too intense, the real fun is up in the jungle of track. Lots of really fun, forceful manuevers with lots of headchoppers, and the last 1/3rd that travels close to the ground provides a lot of fun, positive forces (especially the last corkscrew). Overall the ride is fairly smooth for its age, I just wish the ride could get a new coat of paint since the current coat is very faded and chipped everywhere. Wild One (5/10): I had no idea how old this coaster was until I saw the signage in the station. Despite its age, it rode fairly well in the 2nd row. The transitions and unbanked turns were a bit painful, but there was some nice airtime and the ride was fairly smooth when it wasn't turning. Superman: Ride of Steel (8/10): I had high expectations for the park's Intamin hyper, and my expectations were mostly met! Lots of fun airtime throughout the ride, but not quite as strong as I expected, even in the back. Helixes gave some strong positive forces, but I really wish they did something more fun with all of that track. Despite my complaints, this ride was great and made a visit to the park worth it all on its own! Overall, I thought Six Flags America was a decent small-to-medium sized park. It was clean for a Six Flags, had a decent selection of coasters, and the staff were generally nice and got trains moving at a decent speed. With it being a slow day on a Friday before schools are out for the summer, I managed to get through the entire park with re-rides on Joker's Jinx, Firebird, and Superman in just 3 hours. I probably won't revisit over the summer while it's hot and crowded, but it will definitely warrant another trip in the fall once the weather cools down and kids go back to school so I can get the Batwing credit! "New" Hotness 2019! A very fun, mostly smooth addition to the lineup. The new coat of paint really looks great! Happy riders! Loop-de-loop! View from the station. I will say, I rode multiple times throughout the day and experienced hit-or-miss ride ops. My first ride I sat on the train in the station for 5 minutes - not entirely sure why. Joker's Jinx! I just love how cool the "spaghetti bowl" of track looks. This is the only photo I have of Wild One, it's sprawled out over various sections of the park and I didn't see any good photo ops near its station. The New Orleans themed area was surprisingly nice. My first flyer! It was pretty fun, although I couldn't figure out how to get it to snap. Ragin' Cajun was my 69th credit. I have no further comment. The drop tower was fun (although much, much too short for my liking), but I passed on the Fireball model - they normally make me feel a bit motion sick. Wonder Woman: Lasso of Truth looked like fun, but I passed on it since I was trying to wrap up in time to avoid Uber's surge pricing on the ride back to the Metro. My selfie in front of Superman doesn't agree with TPR's website - I get an error message when I try to upload it! I guess it's trying to tell me something... Happy riders returning from their ride!