VegasBaby Posted June 21, 2015 Share Posted June 21, 2015 Looking at making a stop at Hershey when I'm in the area next month. Do you think a half-day (5pm-close) would be enough to get all of the major credits in on a Monday night (7/20)? Definitely enough time I agree that should be enough time to get all the major credits. I just got back from 3 days at Hershey and will post a mini-TR when I get some downtime. But I did take advantage of the preview option this past Monday night and from 8:45-10pm I rode 4x on Skyrush, 3x on Storm Runner, and 4x on Fahrenheit. They were all walk-ons at that time and a few times I was able to re-ride without getting off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A.J. Posted June 21, 2015 Share Posted June 21, 2015 I wish that Hersheypark did a "general" evening admission for a reduced price. I've driven through Hershey twice now in the past few months but have decided not to stop because it wouldn't be worth the full price of admission (sorry, Skyrush). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ccron10 Posted June 21, 2015 Share Posted June 21, 2015 I wish that Hersheypark did a "general" evening admission for a reduced price. I've driven through Hershey twice now in the past few months but have decided not to stop because it wouldn't be worth the full price of admission (sorry, Skyrush). They do have the Sunset Admission, which allows you to go into the park just for the evening starting at 5PM on 10PM closing nights. It is $29.95 and might be what you're talking about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A.J. Posted June 21, 2015 Share Posted June 21, 2015 ...and I completely blew past that on the website. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TyRush Posted June 21, 2015 Share Posted June 21, 2015 Personally I think that using the sunset admission is the best option at Hershey with their higher priced ticket. I think there isn't a need to be there all day if you live close by. Unless you're doing a day trip of course Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gilly_bob Posted June 21, 2015 Share Posted June 21, 2015 Is anyone interested in meeting up at the park later tonight? I'm thinking about going around 5:30-6 and wouldn't mind meeting up with somebody from the area. I figured it would be worth a shot to post here Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TyRush Posted June 21, 2015 Share Posted June 21, 2015 ^I just left! But have fun, very small crowds today! Skyrush was a walk on...all I needed to see Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Password121 Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 Is $61.99 really the cheapest single day summer ticket Hershey offers? Is there anywhere else to find more reasonable admission? I was hoping to make a day trip at some point this summer, but I'm not sure it's worth the price at that mark, considering I'm only there for the coasters (I specidfied because I realize Hershey offers more than just coasters, which may be the cause for the price of admission). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YoshiFan Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 Giant Supermarkets usually sell discounted tickets. A few years ago I think it was around $12 off the gate price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njcoasterguy34 Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 A lot of Dunkin' Donuts have multi-use coupons you can grab. They offer $14 off visits in May, June, and September; $10 off visits in July; and $8 off visits in August. I used one of those to buy my ticket for tomorrow. They work at the gate and online. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GnastyGnoric7 Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 Giant supermarkets in the area of Hersheypark are selling discount tickets for 46.80. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Password121 Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 That's more reasonable. Thanks guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcessford69 Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 I found this one while searching for discounts: http://padutchbsa.org/discounted-hersheypark-tickets/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boldikus Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 ^ I used that for cheap tickets to HPITD last fall and its totally legit, we weren't asked to prove we were boy scouts or anything lololol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KarlyP Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 ^ 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VegasBaby Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 I found this one while searching for discounts:http://padutchbsa.org/discounted-hersheypark-tickets/ It looks like anyone can use the tickets purchased through the Boy Scout site. There is a Q&A at the bottom and somebody asks this very question. I copied the response below: Hi Nicole, You do not have to be a Scout to use the discount. Thank you for the support and enjoy the park. Duane Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njcoasterguy34 Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 I just got back from my first ever visit to Hersheypark. I rode all of the coasters except the kiddie coaster. The longest line I had was on Laff Trak. It was at least an hour wait. Comet was very smooth for an old wooden coaster. Hershey needs to teach Dorney how to take care of old wooden coasters. Wildcat was rough, but not painfully so. Both sides of Lightning Racer were awesome. I found SooperDooperLooper to be fun, but not all that forceful. Great Bear was amazing in the back row on the left side. Trailblazer was actually quite fun and nowhere near as rough as Runaway Mine Train at SFGAdv. Skyrush was just amazing. Sidewinder was your typical Vekoma Shuttle which always scare the crap out of me during the second half. Fahrenheit was forceful and fun. Stormrunner was fun, but the restraints hurt my shoulders. I actually like Hershey's Wild Mouse better than Dorney's because the cars are bigger and I don't feel so cramped. In my opinion, Laff Trak doesn't spin as much as it should. A spinning coaster should be like Pandemonium at SFNE. All in all I had a good day. I just wish the park was closer so I could go more often. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jodon Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Do any of the rides at Hershey have a single rider line? Also, what kind of lines can I expect on a Saturday in late July? Is it possible to ride all the coasters and get a few re-rides in? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TyRush Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Do any of the rides at Hershey have a single rider line? Also, what kind of lines can I expect on a Saturday in late July? Is it possible to ride all the coasters and get a few re-rides in? None of the coasters have single rider lines that I am aware of. With that being said it is possible to get all coasters and re-rides in on normal days. However, on a Saturday late in July you may be looking at some larger crowds. Just check to make sure there are no concerts and youll have to use your best luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A.J. Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 (edited) Do any of the rides at Hershey have a single rider line? Also, what kind of lines can I expect on a Saturday in late July? Is it possible to ride all the coasters and get a few re-rides in? With that being said it is possible to get all coasters and re-rides in on normal days. Except for Fahrenheit. Because Fahrenheit. Edited June 25, 2015 by A.J. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blk_mamba Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 I don't remember seeing a single rides line on Fahrenheit. When I went about a month ago I did notice that when the seats reserved for the people with the special passes were not filled they would fill them with people from the line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A.J. Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Sorry, that was in regards to being able to get re-rides, because Fahrenheit's queue is always so long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KarlyP Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TyRush Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Stopped by the park last night again and got a fabulous artsy Skyrush picture. It really is beginning to grow into the creek! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VegasBaby Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 (edited) Here’s my trip report on the 3 days we spent at Hersheypark last week. Now that our kids are at a decent age (11, 8, and 5), my wife and I have decided to take at least one trip a year to a new theme park. (We live in Vegas and go to the CA parks a lot.) We looked at a lot of different options in the Midwest and East Coast and decided that Hershey would be the best fit for our kids’ ages. Plus, the kids had seen the POV of Laff Trakk and really wanted to check it out. Personally, I have been dying to ride the famous Intamin trio, so Hersheypark was the choice—and we loved every minute of it! We booked a room at the Hershey Lodge for the early entry and free shuttle to the park. It was somewhat of a tight fit in a double queen room, but luckily all three kids can still fit in a queen size bed. I thought the Lodge was nice, but we really didn’t do much besides sleep and shower there. They gave us a handout with a bunch of kids’ activities they had going on, but we didn’t do any of them. We had some flight delays getting out to Philly on Monday, so everyone was tired by the time we finally checked in. With the kiddos in bed, I headed to the park by myself to take advantage of the preview feature. If you go the park, definitely take advantage of the preview. It was about 8:40pm by the time the shuttle dropped me off, so I headed straight for Skyrush and got 4 rides on it. Skyrush was a complete walk on and I was actually able to stay on and re-ride my last two rides. I ran over and got 3 rides on Storm Runner and then finished off the night with 4 rides on Fahrenheit, which I was also able to ride without getting off. The park was completely dead that time of night and I was amazed that I was able to get in so many rides in such a short time. (I’ll wait and give my reviews of the rides at the end.) Each morning, we got to the shuttle stop around 8:30 so we would be on the first shuttle over to the park. At 9am they let in the early entry folks and we headed for the Hollow since it was the only area open. Thanks to whoever posted the shortcut advice, we took the little path next to the stroller rental and it saved us some time. Our morning ritual was to get 3-4 rides on Sooper Dooper Looper, 3-4 rides on Comet, and then I would get 3-4 rides on Skyrush while the kids did the swings. My wife, who usually likes coasters, rode Skyrush once with me the first day and that was enough for her (more on that later). One of the things that I loved about Hershey was that there were five coasters that my 42 inch tall 5 year old could ride. She was very excited to ride her first “Big” coasters, especially one with a loop. She was a little scared her first ride on SDL, but as soon as it was done, she said “Again Daddy, again.” Most of the time there was nobody in line waiting, so we just stayed in our same seats for a re-ride. If there was somebody waiting, we just moved to an open seat. The ride ops were great and didn’t make us get off and go around if there were empty seats. Just before 10am, we would get our position at the rope and then head to Laff Trakk as soon as the rope dropped (along with everyone else in the park). Judging by the lines, Laff Trakk is a huge success for the park. We found that we could get 3 rides on it before the lines got too bad. The trains only hold 4 people each, but they were constantly moving and it looked like they were running 6 at a time. The ride ops again were great, Hershey had some of the best and friendliest ops I’ve ever encountered. To avoid loading delays, they would get people’s backpacks and other items to store while you were still in line. Laff Trakk was really the only ride that had a consistent wait the 3 days we were there and it was usually around 30-45 minutes once the park filled up. I think the longest we waited was about 25 minutes on our 3rd ride each morning. The rest of each day we would just wander around the park from ride to ride and almost everything was a walk on or a 1-2 train wait. We did check out the water park on our second day as it was the hottest of the 3 days we spent at the park. The water park has some great play structures for younger kids and even has a Flowrider surf machine. My older two kids tried out the Flowrider and were able to stay on the board for most of their turn. However, they both wiped out at the end and got knocked back by the water, so neither of them wanted to ride it again. The slides were your standard water park tube slides, there wasn’t anything really new or noteworthy. The slides were very popular though as most of them had 20-30 minutes waits, longer than everything but Laff Trakk. Overall, it was a nice water park and a good place to cool off on a hot day. I was glad that it wasn’t a separate admission charge though and I hope it stays that way. The food at Hershey was pretty good and I felt that it was reasonably priced for a theme park. I liked that they had East Coast eateries like Nathan’s and Chickie & Pete’s that we don’t have out West. We fell in love with the Crab Fries at Chickie & Pete’s and got a bucket every day we were there. Hershey also had a great selection of treats and we tried almost everything. The kids loved the make-your-own Whoopie Pies (none of us had ever heard of Whoopie Pies before), while my favorite was the S’mores Cobbler at the Smokehouse. We usually ended up at Chocolate World at the end of each day for dinner and even more treats. The food court at Chocolate World had a nice selection and was never very busy. We also did the Chocolate Tour and the make-your-own chocolate bar. I liked that Chocolate World was right next door as it gave us a nice place to unwind and relax after each day at the park. Well hopefully I haven’t bored anyone with my trip report. We really did have a great time at Hershey and I would highly recommend the park to anyone. There’s so much to do and they have a wide range of rides that appeal to all ages. I’ve put my review of the main rides below as well as a few pictures. We bought the Unlimited 3 day ride photo pass for $70, which wasn’t too bad considering a single 5x7 will set you back $15. We ended up with over 50 on-ride photos, so we definitely got our money’s worth! Ride Reviews: SkyRush – This ride is insane and worth a trip to Hershey all by itself! This coaster is the very definition of extreme, intense ejector air! It’s the only coaster I’ve ridden that I was actually afraid to put my hands up. Riding in a rear wing seat literally felt like I was going to get thrown off the ride. The ride is just non-stop action from the moment the cable lift sucks you out of the station and hurls you over the top of the 200ft drop. Skyrush is definitely a Top 5 coaster for me as the only drawbacks are it’s a little short and the restraints are uncomfortable. 10/10 Storm Runner – My second favorite coaster at Hershey and my wife’s favorite. (She was done with Skyrush after one ride, lol.) I’ve only been on one other Intamin accelerator coaster, Xcelerator, and Storm Runner doesn’t have the speed or height that Xcelerator does. However, the inversions were great and made it feel like a more complete coaster. I still prefer Xcelerator slightly due to the initial launch and the airtime going over the top hat, but SR definitely delivered a great ride. 9/10 Fahrenheit – The last of the Intamin trio, I really enjoyed Fahrenheit but ranked it behind SkyRush and Storm Runner. The vertical lift was a unique feature and the first drop packs a great punch. The inversions were fun and keep coming at you one after another. And just before the ride is over, there’s a great airtime hill that launches you out of your seat. For having so many inversions, the ride was very smooth and I didn’t experience any head banging. 9/10 Lightning Racer – A racing coaster that fun, fast, and really smooth. After our first ride, my 11 yr old said it was her favorite woodie ever. I love how the two tracks were intertwined throughout the ride as the racing aspect really enhanced the ride experience. There are some small pops of airtime and some great banked turns, but it’s really the racing aspect that sets LR apart from other woodies. 8/10 Laff Trakk – A great concept that falls a little short in the execution. I was impressed with the theming of the queue area and the ride, although it would’ve been better if the ride was darker like Space Mountain. The trains didn’t spin as much and it didn’t seem as forceful as the Mack spinner at Knott’s . However, it was my 5 yr old’s favorite ride and had the longest wait times in the pack, so it’s definitely a hit with the GP. 7/10 Wildcat – Really rough and not very fun, we rode it once the first day and that was it. 3/10 Wild Mouse – Pretty much your standard Mack wild mouse, but the top wasn’t trimmed at all, so you just flew through the turns. There was never a line, so it was good for one ride a day. 5/10 Great Bear – It was probably the smoothest B&M Invert that I’ve ridden but it was just a little too short. The initial drop has some nice forces and speed since it’s not straight off the lift hill. I liked the combinations of inversions that followed and how it interacts with SDL, but then the ride just kind of ends. However, it was my 11 yr old’s first B&M Invert though and she absolutely loved it. So that bumps it up from a 7/10 to a 8/10. Sidewinder – The smoothest Vekoma Boomerang I’ve ridden and absolutely the best OTSR’s I’ve ever seen. The restraints hug your shoulders tightly, but they are cushy and have some give to them. And the best part is there was no head banging at all! 6/10 because it’s still a Vekoma Boomerang. Comet – A great old school out and back woodie that’s pretty smooth for a 70 yr old ride. We enjoyed it much more than Wildcat and rode it multiple times each day. 7/10 Sooper Dooper Looper – Wow, what a great ride for an old Schwarzkopf looper. The new Gerstlauer trains are super smooth and they have lap bars, no stupid OTSR’s! The whole family loved SDL and we rode it multiple times each morning and then a few times each night as we were leaving the park. Revolution at SFMM really needs these new trains as it’s so rough and painful that I don’t ride it anymore. Kudos to Hershey for keeping Mr. Schwarzkopf’s creation in such good condition. 8/10 Coal Cracker – Just your ordinary log flume, except that it has major airtime at the end! There is a bunny hill at the end of the drop that bounces you up out of your seat. It was completely unexpected and a nice surprise the first time we rode it. The ride was never busy, so we would usually go around 2 or 3 times without having to get off. We were able to get some fun photos too. 7/10 Trailblazer – Short and slow old Arrow mine train, didn’t enjoy it as much as Goldrusher at SFMM. It does however have a 36 inch min height requirement, so it’s a good first coaster for younger kids. 4/10 Don't let her face fool you, she loved riding her first looping coaster! The queue for Laff Trakk was a lot of fun with the funhouse mirrors and black lights. The kids loved making their own Whoopie Pies. They reminded me of the Hostess cupcakes I used to eat as a kid. The kids wanted to get photos with all the Hershey characters. On our last day, we finally found these guys. We got a ton of photos on Coal Cracker with our photo pass, I think this one is my favorite. SDL was so much fun, we probably rode it more than any other ride. My favorite spot on Skyrush, the most insane coaster I've ever ridden! Edited July 17, 2015 by VegasBaby Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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